• Home
  •  >
  • Palliative & Supportive Care
  •  >
  • Volume 8
  •  >
  • Issue 02
  •  >
  • How might Levinas' concept of the other's priority and Derrida's unconditional hospitality contribute to the philosophy of the modern hospice movement?

Palliative and Supportive Care

Table of Contents - 2010 - Volume 8, Issue 02  

Review Article

How might Levinas' concept of the other's priority and Derrida's unconditional hospitality contribute to the philosophy of the modern hospice movement?

Ciro Augusto Floriania1 c1 and Fermin Roland Schramma2

a1 Bioethics Council, Brazilian National Cancer Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

a2 National School of Public Health Sérgio Arouca, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

Hospitality is commonly referred as one of the meanings of hospes, the Latin word which is also the root of hospice. This article explores the semantics of the word hospice - the seal of identity of modern hospice movement - and attempts to integrate the meaning of hospitality into the modern hospice movement, understood as unconditional reception. Therefore, the article analyzes the concept of unconditional hospitality, developed by Jacques Derrida and that of ethical responsibility proposed by Emmanuel Levinas based on the phenomenological experience of the other. From this point of view, these two concepts tie in with the meaning of hospice, bringing substantial grounding elements to the hospice movement for the construction of a protective ethos.

(Received September 18 2009)

(Accepted October 17 2009)

Keywords

Correspondence:

c1 Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Ciro Augusto Floriani, Rua Dr Nilo Peçanha, 01/1506, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, 24210-480, Brazil. E-mail: ciroafloriani@gmail.com