Defining 'Poethics'

'Poethics' is a term I have coined to illustrate the necessary intersection between aesthetics and ethics. I am currently working on a research paper integrating the aesthetic theories of Kant, Levinas, Derrida. For example, in the Levinasian distinction between the saying and said, the said is what has been culturally determined and through which language and cultural symbols are derived; the saying is what becomes subjected to the rules of cultural discourse but which resists this subjection at the same time. Thus, the saying has signification beyond totalizing systems. It is in this sense that the aesthetic constantly refers to a transcendental otherness that pushes us to respond to the other. The ethical is necessarily tied to the poetic and hence, the term ‘poethic’ describes the process in which the saying interrupts the said by evoking and placing the suffering face of the other continually before us. In this sense, one may also argue that the role of aesthetics is to rupture all symbolic forms or cultural expression by the face of the other that is both beyond phenomenology and more originary than culture. Yet, this is not compelled by an unconditional love for the other; instead, it is grounded on an unconditional obligation