The Problem of the Other and the Ethics of Resistance: Confronting the Ethical Deadlock of Phenomenology with Jacques Lacan

Abstract

A problem lurks at the heart of the phenomenological account of the Other. The problem is how to reconcile phenomenology’s ability to describe the ethical power of the Other with its inability to prescribe an appropriate response to it. In this chapter, Drew M. Dalton shows how this problem can be solved only by first excavating the hard core of this problem by tracing its development through the work of Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas, respectively. Dalton concludes by showing how this problem might be surmounted through a reappraisal of the work of Jacques Lacan as a kind of phenomenological ethics. Thusly, he makes a case for the enduring power of phenomenology to address a few of the most pressing social and political issues of the day.