Abstract

Drawing on Levinas, the author seeks to explore the question of being and responsibility, as a relation between ontology and ethics, from the perspective of a meta-position that would enable a critique of the classical West European ontological tradition with its strongly cosmocentric, anthropocentric, and egocentric character. The main purpose of the paper is to examine whether there is in West European thought a possibility to found the ethics of responsibility on overcoming the ontology of being. More precisely, the author seeks to show that in contemporary Western philosophy the significance and validity of the classical ontological principle are declining when it gets separated from the ethos of philosophy itself. Moreover, a gradual shift from the impersonal being to the ontology of the personality takes place. This ontology of the personality is grounded in the Other. It withdraws from the game of consciousness which represents being. The personality thus understood, in Levinas' words, carries within itself vested responsibility, because in the personality there lie the infinite and transcendence. Oslanjajuci se na Levinasa, autor pokusava da pitanje bivstvovanja i odgovornosti, kao odnosa ontologije i etike, razmotri iz perspektive jednog meta stava koji bi omogucio kritiku klasicne zapadnoevropske ontoloske tradicije koja ima naglasen kosmocentricki, antropocentricki i egocentricki karakter. Glavni cilj ovog rada jeste da ispita postoji li u zapadnoevropskom misljenju mogucnost otvaranja za etiku odgovornosti preko savladjivanja ontologije bivstvovanja. Tacnije, pokazivanje kako u savremenoj zapadnoj filozofiji opada znacenje i vazenje klasicnog ontoloskog nacela kada se odvoji od ethosa same filosofije, i kako dolazi do jednog postepenog okreta od bezlicnog bivstvovanja prema ontologiji licnosti. Ta ontologija licnosti se temelji u Drugom. Ona se povlaci iz igre svesti koja odigrava i predstavlja bivstvo. Tako shvacena licnost, kako bi rekao Levinas, u sebi nosi polozenu odgovornost, jer je u licnosti prisutno ono beskonacno i transcendencija..