The Ethical Phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas: Drawing on Phenomenology to Explore the Central Features of Family Life

Keywords

ethical relationality, family life, Levinas, phenomenology, qualitative research

Abstract

Phenomenology is introduced as a source of new insights into how family relations are lived and experienced today. The ethical phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas holds particular promise in this endeavor, as his work highlights the ways in which family life emerges out of an ethical relationality that is operative in virtually all family relations. Through learning to see how ethical relationality informs the active, ongoing responsiveness of the ways of being of family members, forms of violence in family life, and the relation between family and other social organizations, interests, and institutions, ethical phenomenology can assist interpretive family research in making manifest dimensions of family life that were previously overlooked and unappreciated, and it can contribute to the development of theoretical innovations in understanding family.

Original Publication Citation

Knapp, Stan J. 2015. “The Ethical Phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas: Drawing upon Phenomenology to Explore the Central Features of Family Life.” Journal of Family Theory and Review 7: 225-241

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2015-09-01

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/5409

Publisher

Journal of Family Theory and Review

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Family Life

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

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