Abstract
What is the origin of violence? And how can violence be overcome? Hegel’s view is that violence stems from the willful misrecognition of the other and is thus overcome through mutual recognition. Levinas, in contrast, suggests that it emerges out of the experience of the other’s vulnerability, and thus is overcome through ethics. In this paper, I consider these two theories of violence in an attempt to answer the question of the origin of violence. In the first chapter, I consider the notion of violence, defining and clarifying violence in terms of the views of Arendt, Hegel, and Benjamin. Here, I expand Arendt and Hegel’s idea that violence is a rational phenomenon. In the second chapter I spell out Hegel’s conception of the relation between the self and the other, and subsequently, the violence that arises out of this relation. In the third and final section I discuss Levinas’ account in contrast to Hegel and show that the two views are markedly different from one another which makes a synthesis impossible.
M.A. (Philosophy)