Conscience as the Other within the Same. Ricoeur and Levinas: Two Different Non-epistemological Perspectives

The essay compares Ricoeur's and Levinas's conceptions of the constitution of conscience in the sense of German Gewissen. Beginning with Ricoeur's basic distinction between "identity-idem" and "identity-ipse" it shows the proper place of conscience in his conception. For Ricoeur conscience is a finite category of otherness as related to the self i.e. its most interior, intrinsic otherness. For Levinas, on the other hand, conscience the other in the same is an initiatory category, which is described in terms of absolute passivity, persecution and substitution. In conclusion Ricoeur's critique of Levinas' category of "the Other" is examined on the background of Levinas' conception of subjectivity as a vocation for Good.