本篇文章透過具體化的觀點詮釋列維那斯的毗鄰觀念。《存有之外》一書中使用許多具像化的肉身動作，如呼吸、呼吸困難、呼氣、吸氣、皮膚以及氣動，這些身體動作說明了倫理如何產生，以及倫理發生之所。倫理被銘刻烙印於具體化的主體上，透過撤回、收縮、皮膚緊縮、呼吸困難等肉身運動，形塑一個受苦的、被動的、情感受影響與受啟發的主體。撤回與收縮創造了一個獨特的毗鄰狀態，在其中主體非我也非他，並不與自身同一，亦非與他者融合。透過肉身與具體化，列維那斯呈現倫理的轉向，將抽象的毗鄰導往呼吸、皮膚與感性。對肉身物質性的再形塑訴說著銘刻於肉體的倫理啟發，帶來「心」與「靈性」，與意識或再現不一致，亦不相容。以具體化觀點重新檢視毗鄰，毗鄰創造「新的」，產生新的連結與新的關係，毗鄰向未來開展，肉身也因此具有未來的時間性。

This article proposes to read Levinas’ notion of proximity through the lens of embodiment and “flesh out” more concretely the material effects of proximity manifesting in the figure of skin and breath/breathlessness. Otherwise than Being is replete with terms of corporal movements, terms like breath, breathless, skin, inspiration, respiration, and pneuma (to breathe, to blow); they illustrate where and how the ethical registers. The ethical is imprinted on the embodied subject through the work of “ipseity,” “contraction,” and “tight in one’s skin” to specify an anguished, affected
subject (sensibility). Withdrawal and constriction create an interval called “proximity” where the subject is neither in accord with oneself, nor completely merged with the other. Levinas enacts an inflection of ethics through corporeality and refigures the notion of proximity into breath, skin, and sensibility, a reconfiguration that brings ethical afflictions to the fore and assigns its incompatibility and non-coincidence with
consciousness and representation. The reconfiguration through embodiment reshapes proximity as a new mode of relating that is not only anarchically past but also intrinsically future-oriented and transformative.