Ethics is the calling into question of the same. Rethinking ethics of teaching with Emmanuel Levinas

Katja Castillo’s doctoral research aimed to rethink the ethics of teaching with Emmanuel Levinas. The main findings of the dissertation suggest that ethics approached as a calling into question of the same lead to a reconfigured view of the goals of education, of the pedagogical relationship and of teaching. In the pedagogical relationship both the teacher and the student are called to a state of being open to be questioned. Calling into question opens up to responsibility and to a non-violent tension between the other and the same. In the order and structure of teaching, questions from the students challenge the teacher and the society and thus teaching calls for reformulated view of future societies. In its open-ended conclusions Castillo’s research invites to think with emerging questions of teaching as a constant ethical challenge.

The core of the research consisted of three sub-studies which focused on ethical subjectification, pedagogical relationship, and the phenomenon of teaching. Article I deconstructed the challenges of coloniality in the context of global education through the perspectives of postcolonial thought, decolonial thought and critical educational theory. Article I argued together with Levinas that processes of ethical subjectification emerge when otherness is approached firstly as an ethical challenge, as a calling into question of the same. Article II analysed the teacher-student relationship through a reading of Levinas’ main works Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being considering Levinas’ previously unpublished notes in Carnets de captivité et autres inédits. Article III discussed the phenomenon of teaching and its societal significance through studying Levinas’ unedited conference notes published posthumously in Parole et Silence.