Open AccessCan evil create?
Author(s) -
Anna Westin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
nordisk judaistik
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 2343-4929
pISSN - 0348-1646
DOI - 10.30752/nj.68861
Subject(s) - relation (database) , existentialism , subjectivity , epistemology , creativity , philosophy , expression (computer science) , psychology , social psychology , computer science , database , programming language
In this article, I look at the phenomenological expression of creativity through language as a way of relating to the self and others. Employing the Jewish concepts of the yetzerim, or impulses, philosophically, I suggest that these instances of existential engagement further develop the ethical act of tikkun olam, or the mending of the relational world. Moving beyond theodicies of good and evil, I will develop this account of relation by drawing on Emmanuel Lévinas’s and Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy of subjectivity. I argue, therefore, that language can express particular accounts of relationality that can serve to clarify the ambiguous relationship between good and evil.