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Intro; Table of contents; Preface; INTRODUCTION; Chapter 1. Doing justice to responsibility: The primordial political nature of Levinas' philosophy; 1 Orientation: Levinas as political philosopher; 2 "There are always at least three ... ": Urgency and primacy of the political relation; 2.1 The constitution of political meaning; 2.2 Politics: the indispensable translation of the Saying to the Said; 3 Clarifications on the title; PART 1. ETHICS AFTER THE COLONIES: THE GLOBAL SCOPE OF LEVINAS' POLITICAL THOUGHT; Chapter 2. Ethnography, atheism, decolonisation

1 Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, or the use of ethnography for ontology and politics1.1 "To be is to participate"; 1.2 Heidegger, nostalgia, cruelty and the eclipse of monotheism; 1.3 Ethnography, ontology and socio-political criticism; 2 Claude Lévi-Strauss, decolonisation and indifference; 3 Conclusion: the politics of Levinas' philosophy of alterity; Chapter 3. The range of the political: Decolonisation as a case in point; 1 From situated thought to global consequences; 2 Decolonisation, colonisation: figures of the global; 3 For a globalised world

PART 2. LEVINAS' POST-ANTI-HUMANIST HUMANISM AND AFTERChapter 4. Humanism and anti-humanism in Levinas' reflection on Jewish education; 1 "For a Hebraic humanism"; 2 "Anti-humanism and education"; 3 Universalism and authority: an uncertain conclusion; 4 Changing of the guards: Talmudic humanism and a philosophical post-anti-humanist humanism; Chapter 5. Levinas' post-anti-humanist humanism: Humanism of the other; 1 First attempts at a political and ontological formulation of the problem; 2 The crisis of humanism; 2.1 End of the subject; 2.2 Questioning the rationality of the animal rationale

2.3 Cultural relativity or the death of God3 Humanism and ethicity; 4 "Ethical culture" and the "cultural and aesthetic notion of meaning"; 5 "Real humanism": an un-likely family portrait; 5.1 Sartre: humanism as existentialism; 5.2 Heidegger: "humanism" in the extreme sense; 5.3 Althusser: humanism as ideology; Chapter 6. After Levinas: The risk of irresponsible responsibility; 1 Universalism and particularism: Marion and Bernasconi; 2 Responsibility and irresponsibility; 2.1 Can a Levinasian kill? From the original contradiction to the participation of practice in the meaning of the ethical

2.2 Infinite responsibility and the polysemy of transgression2.3 Mediation: the irreducible political condition of responsibility; 3 After Levinas; PART 3. POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A GLOBALISED WORLD; Chapter 7. Levinas and Max Weber on being called for politics; 1 An inhospitable world: disenchantment and polytheism in Weber and Levinas; 2 Levinas: a Gesinnungsethiker or a Verantwortungsethiker?; 2.1 The prima facie case for Levinas as "ethicist of principle"; 2.2 Levinas as political "ethicist of responsibility."

The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalised world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement with the issues of postcoloniality and humanism. Yet, Levinas fails to realise the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel and Ricoeur, Ernst Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice.-- Provided by publisher.

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