Can evil create?

Lévinas in conversation with tikkun olam and Kierkegaard

Authors

  • Anna Westin London School of Theology

Keywords:

Levinas; Kierkegaard; existential phenomenology; evil; creativity; ethics

Abstract

In this article, I look at the phenomenological expression of creativity through language as a way of relating to the self and others. Employing the Jewish concepts of the yetzerim, or impulses, philosophically, I suggest that these instances of existential engagement further develop the ethical act of tikkun olam, or the mending of the relational world. Moving beyond theodicies of good and evil, I will develop this account of relation by drawing on Emmanuel Lévinas’s and Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy of subjectivity. I argue, therefore, that language can express particular accounts of relationality that can serve to clarify the ambiguous relationship between good and evil.

How to Cite

Westin, A. (2018). Can evil create? Lévinas in conversation with tikkun olam and Kierkegaard. Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 29(1), 39–48. https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.68861