Conserving the dignity of teaching through ethics as ‘mise en question’

Abstract

In this article, we examine Emmanuel Levinas’ understanding of ethics through a conceptual analysis of ethics as ‘mise en question’. We contribute our perspective to the conversation on the Levinasian approach to education provoked by Alistair Miller, Soyoung Lee and Paul Standish. Through a systematic reading of Levinas’ texts as well as his unedited notes, we formulate a stance to support Levinasian ethics in the context of education. We argue that Levinasian ethics understood through mise en question helps reformulate the pedagogical relationship as a dynamic relationship where both the teacher and the student are called into question by the other. The otherness of the teacher challenges the student towards responsibility, to be a student-in-question, and the otherness of the student summons the teacher to respond, to be a teacher-in-question. In this way, the dignity of teaching can be conserved. By analysing Levinas’ unedited notes, we trace his commitment to teaching as a dialectic process where the subjectivity of the subject shifts away from being to a being-in-question.