Stoic ethics and totality in light of levinasian alterity

ENBringing together Stoicism and Levinas seems, at first, a peculiar task. A brief survey of their philosophical commitments reveals undeniable disparities. Stoicism introduces a sweeping metaphysical framework that views each individual from the perspective of an ordered kosmos. Levinas provides a departure from traditional Western thought by opposing the privileging of ontology and Being over individual human beings. Stoic virtue is achieved through constructing a self able to accomplish moral indifference, apatheia, toward everything external. Levinasian responsibility is infinitely felt before the other. Epistemologically, Stoic knowledge centers on the notion of the "grasp," a kind of direct mental apprehension wherein the object of the mind corresponds precisely with that external object being grasped. Levinas moves beyond epistemology and attends to what is ungraspable, overflowing, and in surplus. Said simply, Levinas' emphasis on infinity and alterity runs counter to the Stoic avowal of a rational totality.