55. Self and other

 With this item I start a series on the theme of self and other. There, I will use bits and pieces from my book Beyond humanism: The flourishing of life, self and other (2012, Palgrave-Macmillan). In the preceding series, on morality and ethics, I gave a prelude to this theme, in the history of the self, a discussion of individual and collective egotism, and narcissism. If those are rejected, how, then, could the relationship between self and other be? In the present item I outline the subjects to come.

In the series I will deviate from the focus on the autonomous, rational self that can shape its own future, which is characteristic of humanism, with its roots in the (radical) Enlightenment, to arrive at what I call otherhumanism, a transformed humanism that focuses more on the other. I will start with a characterization of humanism.

Next, I will proceed with a few practical considerations. First, I will consider the intellectual and economic value of the other for the self, and of variety of insights and opinions, in contrast with universalistic notions of equality and universality of ideas. Second, I will consider the need for stability versus flexibility of relationships, arguing for an optimal, not maximum flexibility. That is part of the overall theme of stability and change that appears and re-appears in this blog.

Next, I will delve into philosophy, with a discussion, first, of Friedrich Nietzsche as an outspoken philosopher of the self that strives to manifest and develop itself, in its will to power. The appeal of Nietzsche lies in his call for the flourishing of life. But for him concern for the other human being, benevolence forms an obstruction. By contrast, I will then consider Emmanuel Levinas, an outspoken philosopher of the other. His appeal lies in a call, not for a vertical transcendence to God, but for a horizontal transcendence of the self, liberation from the prison of the self, by opening to the other. I will then try to find a path between those two extremes of Nietzsche and Levinas, in my proposal of otherhumanism.

How can one have a flourishing life and be a good person for others, without help from God and the threat of hell and the promise of heaven? The answer is simply that in order to have a flourishing life one needs others and one needs to have empathy for hem. I already gave an indication of that in a previous item, on freedom (nr. 47).

While this claim does not sit easily in Western philosophy, in Indian and Chinese philosophy, from ancient times (some 600 years BC) onwards, it was a mainstream view, in particular in Buddhism and Confucianism. When the present blog ends, after some 80 items, in a sequel I will take up Eastern philosophy. 

In the present series I will next look more in detail into opportunities and problems of relationships and into how they may work and develop, in give and take, also under pressures of competition in the economy.

That leads on to an analysis of trust: what is it, on what is it based, what are its limits, and how does it develop. But that constitutes a theme in itself.  .