Ethics in a Future Technological World: A Levinasian Reading of Part One of Goethe’s Faust

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

PhD Candidate of Philosophy, University of Tabriz , Tabriz, Iran.

Abstract

The subject of this article is an inquiry into the possibility of ethics in the future technological world. This investigation proceeds through a Levinasian reading of the first part of Goethe’s drama Faust. According to Levinas, the "Other" constitutes the very condition for the possibility of ethics. For Levinas, the "Other" is absolutely foreign and infinite; hence, the subject bears an infinite responsibility toward the "Other". The face of the "Other", Levinas argues, is that which calls the subject to responsibility even unto death, thereby transforming the subject, in effect, into an object. Yet, in the world to come, the encounter between subject and "Other" will be profoundly mediated by technology. This article suggests that the three elements, subject, "Other", and technology, can be corresponded to the three figures of Faust, Margarete (Gretchen), and Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust, thus enabling a renewed interpretation. Furthermore, by analyzing technology as that which claims to reduce the "Other" to the "Same", this article proposes that in order to safeguard ethics in the future world, we must move beyond the prevailing, dominating technology and establish a new technology - one whose essence is non-dominating and which honors things in their inherent-being.

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References

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 20, Issue 56 - Serial Number 56
Articles
October 2026
Pages 443-458

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