Experiencing the Otherness

One of the most prominent figures of ethical literary criticism, Martha Nussbaum, claims, that literature allows us to enter other, alien worlds, and by encouraging empathetic re-experiencing with otherness, it can make us ethically richer. On the other hand, literature is also an example of an encounter with otherness in terms of deconstructionist philosophy, that is, an encounter with unappropriable, inaccessible absolute Other, to which we do force, if we "understand" and "relive" it-that is, if we reduce it to our own experience. From the perspective of deconstruction, the ethical attitude toward the Other is to respectfully leave it in its otherness. For the theoretical mind, this duality undoubtedly holds an uncomfortable conundrum. The article tries to elucidate this conundrum with the help of Borges' literature.