Ivan Illich vs. Emmanuel Levinas
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Ivan Illich
1926 – 2002
Ivan Dominic Illich was an Austrian Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book Deschooling Society criticises modern society's institutional approach to education, an approach that he argued demotivates and alienates individuals from the process of learning. His 1975 book Medical Nemesis, importing to the sociology of medicine the concept of medical harm, in which he argues that industrialised society impairs quality of life through processes such as overmedicalisation, the pathologisation of normal conditions, and increased dependency on medical institutions.
"I cannot come to be fully human unless I have received myself as a gift and accepted myself as a gift of somebody who has, as we say today, distorted me the way…"
Emmanuel Levinas
1906 – 1995
Emmanuel Levinas was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to metaphysics and ontology.
"By asserting the objectivity of the physical world, natuaralism identifies the existence and the conditions of existence of the physical world with existence an…"
Connections
Both wrote about: