Autonomy And Dependency Essay

The distinction between autonomy and dependency is one of great importance in the field of philosophy and in answering the question of what it means to be human. Autonomy is the state of functioning independently, and it is known that the idea of autonomy is central to how human beings are understood. The rules of autonomy state that we can influence our own life and that we are shaped by our own decisions— by who we are and how we live. Therefore, it is difficult to think without any notions of autonomy—individualism and this kind of autonomy are interrelated. Dependency, on the other hand, is the state of being controlled by or relying on someone or something else.
The perspective of connectedness cannot think of autonomy as not being influenced by the other because we are always influenced by the other. Autonomy is not being independent from the other, but about having the right relations with the other. The challenge in this perspective is how we rethink what it …show more content…
He went against most contemporary philosophy by arguing for heteronomy over autonomy. Heteronomy is the revelation of self through other people’s appearances; the visualization of self by another. In his writings, Totality and Infinity, Levinas describes the rise of subjectivity from the notion of infinity, and in what way the relationship of the self with the other creates infinity. It states that the reduction of the other by philosophy to the comprehensible third term has been sought out for some time. In order for the self to be free and undisturbed, the nature of other is subdued and brought within the region of the same. “The neutralization of the other who becomes a theme or an object—appearing, that is, taking its place in the light—is precisely his reduction to the same” (Levinas 43). Levinas compares this freedom of the self with autonomy: attempting to bring the other into the realm of the