St. Ignatius Loyola Chair Lecture: The Invisibility of the Visible Other—Rethinking Our Intersubjectivity

This event will feature Willy Moka-Mubelo, S.J. (Université Loyola du Congo).

The invisibility of the visible other is the expression of a deep anthropological crisis that manifests itself in various ways: the loss of the meaning of life, the search for identification groups for personal security, and the notorious disregard for the protection of our common humanity, leading to disrespect for the laws that govern communities of rational and reasonable beings, the fierce refusal to encounter another subjectivity that enables us to awaken to ourselves as subjects and moral agents, and the voluntary destruction of the community in which each human being takes his existential anchorage, etc.

The establishment of a moral community of mutual recognition requires a radical shift from the invisibility of the visible other to the visibility of the socially constructed invisible other. We are always already related to other people. No one exists as an isolated entity (a monad). The “I” is always understood in connection with the “we.” Therefore, the responsibility of the-one-for-the-other requires us to rediscover the true meaning of the question: Who is my neighbor? Far from being merely a spiritual question, this question is, first and foremost, an ethical one. It means: What is expected of me as a moral individuality open to the light of reason?