Imaginaire de(s) l’altérité(s). Sous le signe d’Hermès et de l’initiation

Abstract

In this article, we try to understand the kind of imagery underlying representations of alterity. In the first part of article, following Emanuel Levinas, we describe the philosophical meaning of alterity, whilst in the second part we propose an intuition based on the idea that alterity (alterities) has its mythological foundation in the god Hermes and, therefore, that its imaginary manifests itself through it. The third part of the article expands the theme and links it to education understood as initiation: the Other is no longer a socius, a stranger who is expelled, whom one hates, or to whom one is indifferent, but a neighbor, a good illustration being the parable of the “Good Samaritan”.