Levinas

Colin Davis

Description

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, widely recognized as one of the most important yet difficult philosophers of the twentieth century.

In this much-needed introduction, Davis unpacks the concepts at the center of Levinas's thought-alterity, the Other, the face, infinity-concepts which have previously presented readers with major problems of interpretation.

Davis traces the development of Levinas's thought over six decades, describing the context in which he worked, and the impact of his writings. He argues that Levinas' work remains tied to the ontological tradition with which he wants to break, and demonstrates how his later writing tries to overcome this dependency by its increasingly disruptive, sometimes opaque, textual practice. He discusses Levinas’s theological writings and his relationship to Judaism, as well as the reception of his work by contemporary thinkers, arguing that the influence of his work has led to a growing interest in ethical issues among poststructuralist and postmodernist thinkers in recent years.

Comprehensive and clearly written, this book is essential reading for students and teachers in Continental philosophy, French studies, literary theory, and theology.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Other
• Continental philosophy
• General officer
• Judaism
• Ethics
• General
• French

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 1997
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780268161071
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

LEVINAS
LEVINAS

An Introduction
Colin Davis
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Published in the United States of America in 1996 by University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
All Rights Reserved
First published in the United Kingdom in 1996 by Polity Press, Cambridge
1996 Colin Davis
ISBN 0-268-01314-4 (pb.)
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 9780268161071
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI 239.48-1984. Copyright Colin Davis 1996
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Phenomenology
2 Same and Other : Totality and Infinity
3 Ethical Language : Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence
4 Religion
5 Levinas and his Readers
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those who have helped me in innumerable ways with this book, in particular Sarah Kay, Peter Hainsworth, Edward Harcourt, Christina Howells, Gary Mole, Wes Williams, Emma Wilson, Michael Worton and Maike Bohn. I am grateful to the British Academy for granting me extended leave during which the book was completed.
Abbreviations
References to Levinas s works are given in the text. Where a page reference is followed by slash and a second reference, the first refers to the French edition and the second to the English translation. In these cases, translations are taken from the English edition, sometimes slightly modified for consistency or clarity; titles of Levinas s works appear in English in cases where references are given to both French and English editions. Where only one reference is given, and for French texts other than those of Levinas, translations are my own. The following abbreviations have been used:
AHN
A l heure des nations
BV
L Au-del du verset / Beyond the Verse
DE
De l vasion
DF
Difficile libert /Difficult Freedom
DVI
De Dieu qui vient l id e
EDE
En d couvrant l existence avec Husserl et Heidegger
EE
De l existence l existant/Existence and Existents
EI
Ethique et infini / Ethics and Infinity
EN
Entre nous
HAH
Humanisme de l autre homme
MT
La Mort et le temps
NP
Noms propres
OB
Autrement qu tre ou au-del de l essence/Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence
OS
Hors sujet/Outside the Subject
PH
Th orie de l intuition dans la ph nom nologie de Husserl
QLT
Quatre lectures talmudiques/Nine Talmudic Readings
SS
Du sacr au saint/Nine Talmudic Readings
TI
Totalit et infini/Totality and Infinity
TO
Le Temps et l autre/Time and the Other
Introduction
The thought of Emmanuel Levinas is governed by one simple yet far-reaching idea: Western philosophy has consistently practised a suppression of the Other. Levinas has explored this idea in a publishing career which spanned over six decades. He was born in Lithuania in 1906; he moved to France in 1923, studied under Husserl and Heidegger in Germany between 1928 and 1929, and in 1930 published the first book on Husserl in French, Th orie de l intuition dans la ph nom nologie de Husserl . His status as one of the leading philosophers in France was confirmed with the publication of Totality and Infinity ( Totalit et infini ) in 1961. His considerable body of publications sought, from a variety of angles, to elaborate the ethical nature of the relation with the Other. Levinas died in 1995.
In the early part of his career, Levinas made his name as one of the earliest and most important exponents of German phenomenology in France. He began writing on Husserl and Heidegger at a time when they were largely unknown in France; and Levinas s early work played an instrumental role in making phenomenology one of the key influences on the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in particular and post-war French philosophy in general. However, the most important phase of Levinas s philosophical career began as his dissatisfaction with the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger became more explicit. As early as in 1934, Levinas s essay Quelques r flexions sur la philosophie de l hitl risme (reprinted in Les Impr vus de l histoire ) illustrated his concern for the ethical dimension of philosophy. After the Second World War this concern came to dominate his work; and his distinctive contribution to ethics justifies the unique place that he has come to occupy in twentieth-century French thought.
Recent years have seen a remarkable growth of interest in Levinas s work in the French-and English-speaking worlds. Although Levinas s concerns have changed little over the last four decades, developments in French philosophy and their repercussions in British and American universities have served to make his work an almost obligatory reference point in fields as diverse as theology, sociology, anthropology, literary criticism and theory, as well as in philosophy itself. The reason for this lies in his long-standing enquiry into ethical questions. Of the major strands in post-war French thought - existentialism, Marxism, structuralism, post-structuralism - only the first two are widely seen as having a direct bearing on ethical issues; and both have long since lost much of their influence on French and international intellectual stages. Structuralism and post-structuralism seemed at least in their initial phases to have little to say on ethical matters. Structuralism characterized the subject as the intersection of linguistic, mythological or ideological forces which leave little space for individual agency and responsibility. Post-structuralist thinkers moved away from the rigid schemes and scientific claims of the structuralists, but maintained the view of the subject as an outdated humanist illusion to be demystified. Rather than the self-conscious, self-possessed source of insight and values, the subject was to be regarded as decentred and elusive, possibly no more than an effect of language or the residue of still-unliquidated and pernicious metaphysical thinking. However, the post-structuralists themselves vigorously resisted the charge that their writing was incompatible with ethical concerns. Jacques Derrida, whose work played an important role in spreading post-structuralist thought in the English-speaking world, had in fact published the first extended discussion of Levinas s philosophy in 1964; and, through the seventies and eighties, post-structuralist thinkers turned increasingly to a direct confrontation with political and ethical issues. It remains disputed whether this should be regarded as a new direction for post-structuralism or as a development of interests which were always implicit in its investigations. Whatever the case, the ethical turn of post-structuralism contributed to a climate in which contemporary philosophical debate has to a large part become dominated by Levinas s abiding concerns: what does it mean to talk of justice or responsibility when the belief systems which sustained such terms are in a state of collapse, is it possible to have an ethics without foundation, without imperatives or claim to universality?
Before all else, the contemporary importance of Levinas s ethics derives from the crucial role it accords to the problem of otherness; this ensures that Levinas s reflection has resonance in areas beyond his own circles of interest, for example in feminism, anthropology, post-colonial studies or gay and lesbian theory. Levinas pursues his investigation in the vocabulary of modern French philosophy, particularly in his use of terms such as Same and Other . These terms, introduced into philosophical debate by Plato, have occupied such a central position in recent French thought that Vincent Descombes uses them for the title of his study of French philosophy since 1933, Le M me et l autre . Levinas s account of the relationship between Same and Other has proved to be highly influential. In Levinas s reading of the history of Western thought, the Other has generally been regarded as something provisionally separate from the Same (or the self), but ultimately reconcilable with it; otherness, or alterity, appears as a temporary interruption to be eliminated as it is incorporated into or reduced to sameness. For Levinas, on the contrary, the Other lies absolutely beyond my comprehension and should be preserved in all its irreducible strangeness; it may be revealed by other people in so far as they are not merely mirror images of myself, or (as shall be discussed in chapter 4 ) by religious experience or certain privileged texts. Levinas s endeavour is to protect the Other from the aggressions of the Same, to analyse the possibilities and conditions of its appearance in our lives, and to formulate the ethical significance of the encounter with it.
Levinas s conception of ethics may cause some initial confusion amongst English-speaking readers. Levinas is not interested in establishing norms or standards for moral behaviour, nor in examining the nature of ethical language or the conditions of how to live well. In most contexts, the French word used by Levinas, l thique , might just as well be translated by the ethical as by ethics ; and the ethical, like the political (as distinct from politics in the more restricted sense), refers to a domain from which nothing human may be excluded. Levinas s ethics, as an enquiry into the nature of the ethical, analyses and attempts to maintain the possibility of a respectful, rewarding encounter with the Other; and it endeavours to discern the sources of a humane and just society in this encounter. In this book I explore some of the causes, difficu