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JOURNAL

AMERICAN

OPEN ACCESS OF SOCIAL ISSUES AND HUMANITIES

Alterities Required for Living Together


Wellington Amancio da Silva
Universidade do Estado Da Bahia - UNEB
Research Group Human Ecology CNPq
welliamancio@hotmail.com

Abstract
This article outlines some existential concepts and socio-affective self, of others and nature on
the altered perspective of Hannah Arendt (2010a, 2010b, 1997) and Leonardo Boff (1991, 1999,
2000) in their usual representations in everyday life. From the point of view of the analysis of the
Cartesian world view, the self that is considering in the foreground in the face of the other and
the world, representations and set up all show that there is always from the perspective of the
self, the ego cogitans, egocentrism. This article urges readers to invite everyone to rethink this
rather artificial logic governing human relations from Western, especially the Middle Ages, and
it has shown injustices from that imbalance of meanings and judgments in the face of otherness,
which bring in ourselves.
Keywords: Otherness, Living, Caring, Philosophy.

INTRODUCTION historical relationships between individuals


The three otherness can be seen here: a) the seen before. In this regard:
representations that the individual makes of
Identity is not a simple thing. Indeed,
himself, as narratives of self-history, so on,
the word identity is ambiguous in
subjective processes - these narratives would
ways that are theoretically
be the first test for an identity emancipation;
b) relations with the other - in the face of the consequential. Perhaps the most
same degree of importance given to himself important ambiguity is that between
(according to Lvinas (1961,1969,1992), the practical and categorial identity [....] It
other is never an analysis object for the is defined by a set of categories,
prominently including gender, race,
individual's knowledge); c) a major issue for
ethnicity, religion, and so on. Categorial
discussion on otherness assumes that the
identity produces in-group/out-group
relationship with nature, a long time have
divisions, with all that they entail. In
not been of empathy, but of distinction as
estrangement and topophobia. Thus, it is contrast, practical identity is ones set of
noteworthy that all three of these relations as habits, skills, and propensities. To use a
well as plurals, are given in fields of Heideggerian phrase, it is ones way of
being in the world (Hogan, 2012, p. 8).
influence and understanding in constant loss
of hegemonic control, and also that their Our assumption is that the identity of the
complexity determine the social individual basis, in all its possibilities, is
representations by which give the modes of woven through conflicting processes with
the individual being and being in the world distinction (as antonym and even identity
is how to represent them and represent and identification), however these processes
themselves are demanding the discussion of guide, so to speak, the individual (Ego)
otherness. against its objective acquisitions and, above
all, subjective notion of what will be other
ASSOCIATION AND CARE
Otherness to the representations that the (Alter), so in the field of possibilities of his
individual makes of himself has its function live in the world and to educate and be
as another worldview field and redefinition educated builds himself in the face of the
of reality itself in the world. Alterity not other and Furthermore, the representations
of the other does not dispense with self-
only happens through the processes of
projection.
individualization, that is, building socially
stable behaviors such as introjections, The face of a neighbor that I meet in
inculcation, ideology, assimilation, etc. proximity signifies for me an
However, to the extent that opens many unexceptionable responsibility,
possibilities for criticizing the internalization preceding every free consent, every
processes of individual, that is, Subjectivity, pact, every contract. It escapes
the new meaning of otherness can be a representation; it is the very collapse
program that escapes the logic of social and

AJSIH | ISSN: 2276 6928 Vol. 5 | Issue 1 | March 2015 | 348


JOURNAL
AMERICAN

OPEN ACCESS OF SOCIAL ISSUES AND HUMANITIES

of phenomenality [...] (Lvinas, pp. relationships, but recovery in diversity and


157). difference implied in these relations.

Autonomy of being in the world will depend Je suis responsable dautrui sans
on the autonomy of the other to be different attendre la rciproque, dt-il mecoter
in the face of our otherness. la vie. La rciproque, cest son affaire.
Cest prcismentdans la mesure o
As beings that are perfect humanizing entre autrui et moi la relation nest pas
ourselves, we have a responsibility to be rciproque,que je suis sujtion autrui;
ethical, and, above all, we go to the ethics of et je suis sujet essentiellement en
the other, and this means going beyond my cesens. (Lvinas, 1992, p. 94).
being and be of the other as we conceive it,
and walk into the unknown of an otherness I am responsible for others without
absolute in addition to a large extent waiting for the reciprocal me even if it
unseen, through actions that promote life cost lives. The converse, that's his
and prerequisite to live with another infinite business. It is precisely insofar among
otherness. (Levinas, 1961). others and myself the relationship is not
reciprocal, I subjection to others; and I
Still, their subjective processes are what they 'subject' mainly insense. (Translate,
are, because of the constant shock you with 1992, p. 94)
the Alter of all that is outside and inside
you, and even if the individual is convinced So, welcome, that is, to value each other
of his personhood and subjectivity - that is and give access to the exchange between
the goal and function this ideological culturally diverse and subjectively different
grafting - what comes to yourself, your individuals, is what gives sense of being and
personal brand alienated from each other; the human person: the man, the otherness, he
Indeed, there is at the core aspects of has with all that exists and the distinction he
identity, what is not yours, but thinking as shares with all who live (Arendt, p.189,
his personal construction, (a taste, a 1997).
temperament, a way of being and living, a
unique way of thinking and arguing in the Alterity is strongly related to the themes of
world) that come from outside, as that part diversity and its concepts (in the field of
of human culture that was ideology. foreign relations to the individual); is, in
turn, refers to the individual's relationship
The representations of self, identity by issues with each other, that is, it appears you
subjectivity, is a field of struggle where and phenomena, and leaving the world's
would the possibilities of deeper identity objectivity in its multifaceted way to
emancipation condition in being and being introduce yourself to the individual, and that
of individuals. But we must try to gives his subjective representations in
understand these representations of support of thinking and living that which is
themselves acquired by subjectivity, that is, different - even if only in a foreign context,
than being outer to the individual passes to especially the size of the cultural. Being
believe it as his, we may be looking at more different amounts is not another necessarily.
complex processes of expropriation of For example:
being.
Today, however, otherness is, in a sense,
Otherness concerns here - the most dynamic no longer an absolute otherness, for its
forms of its concept - individual's relations otherness is bound up with the condition
with others and with ethnic, cultural, of also being part of the same. Today,
religious, scientific groups. Otherness of with the transformation of the markers of
meaning and relationship in which the I- difference into the category of ethnicity,
individual only captures and inferred the equation has been decisively
meanings from yourself to the other rewritten: with ethnicity, one is allowed
distinguished: what comes to be the one for to be different, but it goes along with
the individual? The reconstruction of group recognition that at a fundamental level,
identities as emancipation is embraced by both in terms of intellectual and cultural
the identity of the other, not according to the capacity and in terms of political rights,
parameters of tolerance in the field where one is essentially the same. (Mudimbe-
they give the socio-cultural and emotional Boyi, 2012, p. 158).

AJSIH | ISSN: 2276 6928 Vol. 5 | Issue 1 | March 2015 | 349


JOURNAL
AMERICAN

OPEN ACCESS OF SOCIAL ISSUES AND HUMANITIES

Alterity is the condition of possibility of The individual's relationship with the


emptheia (empathy) in a dialogical cosmos have been punctuated by two major
inter-subjective process in the field of interpretations of Nature (otherness) as: the
interactions, in decision-awareness of Other as opposed to the individual (hear,
being and being of individuals as a way for example: You have to discover the laws
of intellection with everything of nature so we can survive she, nature is
phainomenon- and evaluative meaning of cruel, his strength and weather do not
exchanges on the other and you happen to forgive anyone), so distant; and also and
inter-retributive form. So, Maturana also it is interpreted as: the Other as an
(2001) gives us a password to say that inexhaustible source for the operation. The
every individual life - the life of each of set of almost everything that had been
you, my life - is derived from a structural thought of and respected, from Antiquity to
change contingent with our interactions Modernity, about her has been the
(p.82). theoretical, practical and spiritual framework
that enabled the individual more than the
From another point of view, the otherness distance to be identified, equitable
(not within the range) from the perspectives relationship, and finally, emptheia with
of Different - here is more a judgment than Nature; the individual while being and
the possibilities of external distinctions of concept, distanced itself from the other,
diversity - sought to discuss the features of losing the sense of it as the same; relations
the other as different from the individual, and representations of nature, this is always
and their recovery possibilities of the other outside, intangible, unfathomable,
while being and being different, as another threatening, however controllable and
means of expanding empathy conditions (to exotic. It is evident that this strangeness of
identify with the other, as the same, the the environment in relation to man in human
match up, and also to identify with each culture allowed all theoretical confusion and
other for the distinction it as recognition of poor significance in the representations of
the individual's own distinction to be nature; its consequent degradation is linked
recognized to the point of view of the other). to the way in which the man understood,
Indeed, the judgment of distinction taken by represented, and henceforth was related with
the individual is a way to represent the nature. The identity of Nature is still
other, one of the greatest problems of undervalued part of the individual, while
modernity lies here: the unilateral judgment!
historical significance to you: being is
It is fundamentally pacific[...] the Other contingent, not static, answers and co-
is not another freedom as arbitrary as responds with and for the world.
my own in which case it would traverse Otherness of the individual's relationship
the infinity that separates me from him with nature is currently being built
and enter under the same concept. His according to a new paradigm now more
alterity is manifested in a mastery that positive about the issues addressed here. A
does not conquer, but teaches (Lvinas, rescue would return to the intuitive
1969, p. 171). principle to read it. We recommend the
Understanding the other as different (not study of the myth of the old Mother
different) can only equalize, i.e. legitimize Nature, the issues of relationship that
the judgment of the individual on the other, prehistoric man had with nature - excluded
when the judgment of Distinction is is obviously the fear of concepts of nature
constructed, discussed, accessed and present therein - as myth would become
dialogued in the inter-relationships and valid for up add the proposed valuation of
interactions through individual-other of a nature as the possibility of peaceful
share of influence between the individual, coexistence and empathetic!
these concepts. Distinctions in otherness of The representations of what the other (I, the
recovery cant be set unilaterally, because Other and Nature) are completed as the
the individual is culturally front of others individual identities and sine qua non of the
claiming referentiality condition before the possibility of being in the world, in respect
world and to the world. Although, any to what is the world, it is in the world, and to
opposition can occur, even with the be in and the world; there is no absolute to
possibility of sharing meanings about it.
be another face of social relations,
relationships with oneself and with nature. It

AJSIH | ISSN: 2276 6928 Vol. 5 | Issue 1 | March 2015 | 350


JOURNAL
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OPEN ACCESS OF SOCIAL ISSUES AND HUMANITIES

is impossible to understand the issues and other individuals claiming referentiality


concepts of otherness excluding Unlike in condition before the world and to the world.
turn, the experience of different as a whole
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