The Face of Things

Silvia Benso explores the provocative issue of an ethics concerning things, drawing on the works of Levinas and Heidegger. She argues that Levinas offers an ethics without things, while Heidegger presents things without ethics. Benso develops an ethical attitude toward things that celebrates their alterity, a concept made urgent by the contemporary environmental crisis. This innovative work centers on a philosophical hermeneutics of tenderness, proposing festivity as a dimension to recognize and preserve the alterity of things.