Book Review: Paying Attention

Abstract

Introduction:  This is an enormously difficult book. It will - probably require more than one reading. That, at least, is the view of the author. Don’t let him scare you away. The effort will be rewarded. Robert Gibbs explains that his book offers an ethics at whose heart is responsibility rather than principles of autonomy or rational deliberation or optimal benefits. The offering takes the form of a combination of philosophical and religious ideas in which writings from major representatives of continental philosophy, American pragmatism, and Jewish thought are brought through Gibbs’s judicious selectivity into a kind of attentive encounter with each other. Gibbs achieves this by drawing into dialogue primary texts from, among others, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Jiirgen Habermas, William James, the Bible and the Talmud and connecting them with his own commentary. The attentive encounter is important because it is an approach that in itself reflects the ethic of responsibility that Gibbs is explicating. It is an ethic that, in various ways, involves attending to and cooperating with others. Although the book investigates many manifestations of responsibility, the central notions of attentiveness and co-operation will be the focus of this review.