Abstract

In this thesis I examine the notion of ethical subjectivity as characterized by an original relationship to alterity. Drawing upon Derrida, Levinas and psychoanalytic theory, I give a picture of a subject who is fundamentally responsive and inexorably bound to others, and I discuss the ethical and political implications of this condition. I extend the discussion of 'others' to include technology, suggesting that our ethical responsibility to alterity has been radicalized through deconstruction.