ABSTRACT

In this chapter, Ann Margaret Sharp and Megan Jane Laverty draw on the work of J. M. Coetzee and Emmanuel Levinas to explore a conception of ethics as given by a singular, first-person and sympathetically-imaginative response to the authoritative address of a vulnerable and transcendent other. They argue that learning how to read facial and bodily expressions of others is a necessary aspect of interpersonal ethical responsibility, while also underscoring that this is not equivalent to knowing them. Having reflected upon Pedro Ortega Ruiz’s pedagogy of alterity, Sharp and Laverty conclude that the community of inquiry should balance rigorous philosophical inquiry with a commitment to human relationality and responsiveness. Participants who learn to attend to others challenge their own assumptions about what is needed in a particular situation and open themselves to the mystery of the everyday. Thus, the ethical and educational lesson of the community of inquiry is that we become ourselves in relationship with different others.