Trajectories of Responsivity: Alterity, Responsibility, and Democracy in Waldenfels, Levinas, and Derrida
This article synthesizes the works of Waldenfels, Levinas, and Derrida to argue that subjectivity is constituted through responsivity to an inescapable prior appeal, thereby extending the ethical asymmetry between the self and the singular Other into a political framework of justice that navigates the conflicting claims of the "Other-in-the-plural" without relying on presupposed identity or sovereignty.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
We often think of ourselves as the author of our own lives, the captains of our ships who decide when to speak, when to act, and when to take responsibility. In this familiar view, a person exists first as a complete, independent self, and only afterward reaches out to the world to make choices. But a growing line of thought in philosophy challenges this idea, suggesting that we are not the ones who start the conversation. Instead, it proposes that we are always already being spoken to. Before we can even decide to think or move, something outside of us—a sound, a look, a demand, or a need—strikes us and calls for a reply. This idea, known as responsivity, suggests that our very identity is formed in the act of answering a call we did not choose to hear. It raises a profound question for how we live together: if we are defined by our responses to others, how do we handle the messy reality of many different people making conflicting demands on us at the same time? This is not just a matter of personal etiquette; it is the foundation of how we understand justice, ethics, and the very nature of democracy.
A recent article by Matthias Flatscher, a researcher at the University of Würzburg, traces this idea through the work of three major thinkers: Bernhard Waldenfels, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. Flatscher does not simply list their theories; he reconstructs a single, evolving argument that moves from the individual body to the political community. He begins with Waldenfels, who argues that our experience of the world is not a calm observation but a reaction to something that arrives before we are ready. Imagine a sudden, sharp noise that startles you; you did not plan for it, and you cannot ignore it. Waldenfels suggests that all human experience works this way. We are always "struck" by something that comes from outside our control. This means that the "I" who responds is not a pre-existing master of its own domain. Instead, the self is created in the very moment of responding. We are always a little bit late to the scene of our own lives, always catching up to a demand that has already been made. Our bodies are the instruments of this response, and because we are embodied, we are vulnerable. We cannot simply choose to be unaffected; we are always already entangled in a world that asks something of us.
This leads to the second part of the argument, which deals with responsibility. If we are always being called upon, then we are always responsible, whether we like it or not. Flatscher explains that this is not the kind of responsibility we usually talk about, where a person freely decides to take on a task and can be praised or blamed for the outcome. Here, responsibility is something that happens to us before we have a chance to agree to it. It is an inescapable burden. However, this creates a new problem. If I am responsible only to one person, the path is clear, even if difficult. But in the real world, there is never just one person. There is always a "third" person, and a fourth, and a fifth. When multiple people make demands that contradict each other, the simple duty to one person becomes a complex political problem. How do I respond to my neighbor's need for quiet when my child needs to play? How do I balance the rights of one person against the rights of another? Flatscher shows that the thinkers he follows do not see this conflict as a failure of ethics. Instead, they see it as the birthplace of politics and justice. We are forced to compare the incomparable, to make difficult judgments, and to invent solutions that can never be perfect.
The article concludes by bringing in Jacques Derrida to show how this philosophy applies to democracy. Flatscher argues that a true democracy cannot be a system where everyone agrees perfectly or where a single rule solves every problem. If a society tries to force everyone into the same box, it ignores the unique, singular demands of the individuals within it. But if it focuses only on the individual, it loses the ability to make laws that apply to everyone. Democracy, in this view, is the constant, difficult work of holding these two opposing forces together. It is a system that admits it is never finished. It is always "to come," meaning it is always open to being challenged and improved by new voices that the current system did not anticipate. A democratic society is one that accepts its own incompleteness and keeps the door open for the unexpected. It understands that the only way to be just is to remain responsive to the new and the different, even when doing so makes the system unstable.
Flatscher's work suggests that the health of a society depends on its ability to stay open to these interruptions. A system that tries to close itself off, to calculate every outcome in advance, or to silence the demands of the outsider is, by definition, undemocratic. True political life is not about finding a final answer that ends the debate. It is about maintaining the tension between the need for order and the need to listen to the singular, unique voice of the other. By tracing this path from the individual body to the political institution, the article offers a new way to see our daily interactions. It reminds us that we are not isolated islands making choices in a vacuum. We are always in the middle of a conversation we did not start, and our humanity lies in how we answer the call, especially when that call comes from many different directions at once.
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