Emmanuel Levinas
Ethics comes before everything else: the face of another person makes a demand on me that I can never fully meet.
Placement
Ethics as first philosophy: the face of the Other makes an infinite demand on us.
Key ideas
- The face
- Alterity
- Infinite responsibility
Teachers: Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger
Influence
Influenced by 3
René Descartes
influenced by
Levinas took Descartes’s idea of the infinite, which exceeds the mind that thinks it, as the structure of the relation to the Other (Totality and Infinity, 1961). E. Levinas, Totalité et infini (1961); R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641), third meditation; SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
René Descartes › 1596–1650
Henri Bergson
influenced by
Levinas counted Bergson’s Essai (1889) among the books that formed him and credited Bergsonian duration with breaking with the time of clocks (Ethics and Infinity, 1982). E. Levinas, Éthique et infini (1982); Le temps et l’autre (1948); SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: AI draft
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
Edmund Husserl studied with
studied with
Levinas spent 1928–29 in Freiburg to study with Husserl, wrote the first French book on his phenomenology (La théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl, 1930) and co-translated the Cartesian Meditations (1931). SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Influenced 3
Paul Ricœur
influenced
Ricœur took up Levinas’s injunction from the other (Oneself as Another, 1990) but objected that a self must be capable of receiving it, against pure asymmetry. P. Ricœur, Soi-même comme un autre (1990); Autrement. Lecture d’Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence d’Emmanuel Levinas (1997); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Paul Ricœur › 1913–2005
Zygmunt Bauman
influenced
Bauman founded his Postmodern Ethics (1993) on Levinas’s responsibility for the Other, a moral impulse that precedes rules, which no institution can take over from the individual. Z. Bauman, Postmodern Ethics (1993); Modernity and the Holocaust (1989); SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: AI draft
Zygmunt Bauman › 1925–2017
Enrique Dussel
influenced
Dussel took Levinas’s exteriority of the Other, who breaks the totality, and identified the Other with the poor and colonised of the periphery (Filosofía de la liberación, 1977). E. Dussel, Filosofía de la liberación (1977); E. Levinas, Totalité et infini (1961); SEP “Philosophy of Liberation”
Evidence: AI draft
Enrique Dussel › 1934–2023
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Jacques Derrida influenced
influenced ✓
Derrida took up Levinas’s ethics of welcome for his thinking of hospitality (Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas, 1997) and read his writing closely (‘En ce moment même’, 1980). J. Derrida, “En ce moment même dans cet ouvrage me voici” (1980), in Psyché (1987); Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas (1997); SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
criticised by
In ‘Violence and Metaphysics’ (1964) Derrida argued that Levinas’s ethics must still speak the Greek language of Being it seeks to leave behind, and so cannot escape ontology. J. Derrida, “Violence et métaphysique”, Revue de métaphysique et de morale 69 (1964), repr. in L’écriture et la différence (1967); SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: AI draft
Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004
Luce Irigaray
criticised by
Irigaray objected that Levinas’s ‘feminine’ remains the other of a male subject, reduced to the caress and to fecundity in the son (‘The Fecundity of the Caress’, 1984). L. Irigaray, “La fécondité de la caresse”, in Éthique de la différence sexuelle (1984); “Questions to Emmanuel Levinas” (1991)
Evidence: AI draft
Luce Irigaray › b. 1930
Criticizes 2
Martin Buber influenced by
influenced by
Levinas acknowledged Buber’s I–Thou as a pioneering account of a relation to the other prior to the knowledge of objects (‘Martin Buber und die Erkenntnistheorie’, 1963). E. Levinas, “Martin Buber und die Erkenntnistheorie”, in P. A. Schilpp and M. Friedman (eds.), Martin Buber (Philosophen des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1963); M. Buber, Ich und Du (1923); SEP “Martin Buber”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised
Levinas objected that Buber’s I–Thou relation is reciprocal and formal, whereas the ethical relation to the Other is asymmetrical (Totality and Infinity, 1961). E. Levinas, Totalité et infini (1961); “Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge”, in P. A. Schilpp & M. Friedman (eds.), The Philosophy of Martin Buber (1967); SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Buber › 1878–1965
Martin Heidegger studied with
studied with ✓
During his year in Freiburg (1928–29), spent mainly with Husserl, Levinas attended Heidegger’s seminar and witnessed his Davos disputation with Cassirer (1929). A short period of study, followed by lifelong engagement and criticism. SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised
Levinas objected that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology subordinates the relation with the Other to the understanding of Being, making it a philosophy of power (Totality and Infinity, 1961). E. Levinas, Totalité et infini (1961), section I; SEP “Emmanuel Levinas”
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Works
The face of the Other breaks open totality – with Descartes' idea of the infinite.
Position
Levinas made ethics “first philosophy”. Western thought, he argued, has tended to reduce everything other to the same – to grasp, comprehend and dominate it within a totality. But in the face of the other person I meet something that cannot be contained: the face appeals to me, naked and vulnerable, and says “you shall not kill”. This encounter precedes all knowledge and places me under an infinite responsibility that I never chose and can never fully discharge. Levinas drew on the Jewish tradition and wrote Talmudic readings alongside his philosophy. His thought deeply influenced Derrida, theology, and ethics in medicine and care.
Life & context
Levinas grew up in a Jewish family in Kaunas, Lithuania, studied in Strasbourg and with Husserl and Heidegger in Freiburg, and helped introduce phenomenology to France. During the Second World War he was a prisoner of war in Germany, while most of his family in Lithuania was murdered. He later directed a Jewish teacher-training school in Paris and taught at Poitiers, Nanterre and the Sorbonne.
Further main works
- Time and the Other (1948)
- Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974)
Appears in
- Journey ‘Thinking after Auschwitz’ · Stop 6 of 10
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