The face-to-face relation () is a concept in the French

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Emmanuel Lévinas' thought on human sociality. It means that, ethically, people are responsible to one-another in the face-to-face encounter. Specifically, Lévinas says that the human

face The face is the front of the head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affect th ...

"orders and ordains" us. It calls the subject into "giving and serving" the Other.Paul Marcus
''In Search of the Good Life: Emmanuel Levinas, Psychoanalysis and the Art of Living''
Karnac Books, 2010, p. 16.

Overview

Lévinas' phenomenological account of the "face-to-face" encounter serves as the basis for his

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

and the rest of his philosophy. For Lévinas, "Ethics is the first philosophy." Lévinas argues that the encounter of the Other through the

reveals a certain poverty which forbids a reduction to Sameness and, simultaneously, installs a responsibility for the Other in the

Self In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...

. Lévinas' account of the face-to-face encounter bears many similarities to

Martin Buber Martin Buber (; , ; ; 8 February 1878 – 13 June 1965) was an Austrian-Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I and Thou, I–Thou relationship and the I� ...

's " I and Thou" relation. Its influence is also particularly pronounced in

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...

's ethical writings. (However, some post-structuralist thinkers maintain that Derrida does not agree with Lévinas. See, perhaps most significantly, Martin Hägglund.) The major difference between Buber's account of the I and Thou relation and the ethics of the face-to-face encounter is the application of Lévinas' asymmetry towards the other. For Buber, ethical relation meant a "symmetrical co-presence," while Lévinas, on the other hand, considers the relation with the other as something inherently asymmetrical: the other as they appear, the face, gives itself priority to the self, its first demand even before I react to it, love it or kill it, is: "thou shalt not kill me". Such a demand for Lévinas is prior to any reaction or any assertion of freedom by a subject. The face of the other in this sense looms above the other person and traces "where God passes." God (the infinite Other) here refers to the God of which one cannot refuse belief in Its history, that is the God who appears in traditional belief and of scripture and not some conceptual God of philosophy or ontotheology. Bettina Bergo understands Levinas' understanding of face: In the face-to-face encounter we also see how Lévinas splits ethics from morality. Ethics marks the primary situation of the face-to-face whereas morality comes later, as some kind of, agreed upon or otherwise, set of rules that emerge from the social situation, wherein there are more than just the two people of the face-to-face encounter. This ethical relation for Lévinas is prior to an

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

of nature, instead he refers to it as a meontology, which affirms a meaning beyond

Being Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one do ...

, a mode of non-Being (Greek: ''μή, me'' "non" and ''ὄν, on'' "being").

Related notions

Face-to-face is similar to

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian people, Russian philosopher and literary critic who worked on the phi ...

's ethical concept in art and answerability and

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

's concept of the authentic guilt (present/face-to-face) as opposed to an inauthentic other.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Face-To-Face Accountability Concepts in epistemology Concepts in ethics Emmanuel Levinas Face Ontology Phenomenology Social concepts Social philosophy