Vol. 48 No. 1 (2000)
Research Article

“We Embraced Each Other by Our Names”: Levinas, Derrida, and the Ethics of Naming

PDF
  • Christian Moraru
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/nam.2000.48.1.49

Published 2000-03-01

Copyright (c) 2000 Maney

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Abstract

Emmanuel Levinas’ and Jacques Derrida’ s theories of names and naming are discussed in a context that casts light upon the complex relationships among names and the named on the one hand, and onomastics and other fields and discourses on the other. Such other fields are anthropology, (cultural) history, politics, and ethics. Levinas’ phenomenological view of naming and Derrida's use of Levinas in a markedly “poststructuralist” analysis both stress the moral dimension of onomastic acts, how much is at stake in the way we deal with other people's names.

PDF

References

  1. Baudrillard, Jean. 1996. America. Trans. Chris Turner (Material Word). 1st ed. 1988. London. New York: Verso.
  2. Derrida, Jacques. 1967. L'écriture et la différence. 1979 ed. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
  3. Derrida, Jacques. 1976. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins U P.
  4. Derrida, Jacques. 1985. The Teaching of Nietzsche and the Politics of the Proper Name. Trans. Avital Ronell. The Ear of the Other. Otobiography, Transference, Translation. Texts and Discussions with Jacques Derrida. English edition ed. by Christie McDonald. Trans. Peggy Kamuf, ed. by Claude Levesque and Christie McDonald. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P.
  5. Derrida, Jacques. 1995. On the Name. Trans, and ed. Thomas Dutoit. Stanford, CA: Stanford U P.
  6. Derrida, Jacques. 1997 Politics of Friendship. Trans. George Collins. London. New York: Verso.
  7. Lévinas, Emmanuel. 1996. Proper Names. Trans. Michael B. Smith. Stanford, CA: Stanford U P.
  8. Moraru, Christian. 1997. Rev. of On the Name, by Jacques Derrida. Names 45:67–72.