Emmanuel Levinas

1906-1995 · Lithuanian-born French · Ethics, Phenomenology, Jewish Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion

The first word of the face is the 'Thou shalt not kill.'

Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, Levinas arrived in France in 1923 and studied with Husserl and Heidegger in Freiburg — the two thinkers he would spend his life indebted to and against. A French citizen from 1930, he was captured as a soldier in 1940 and spent the war as a Jewish prisoner of war while his Lithuanian family was murdered. Biography and philosophy are inseparable.

Topics Emmanuel Levinas addresses

• ethics as first philosophy
• the face of the Other
• asymmetry of responsibility
• substitution and the subject as hostage
• the saying and the said
• totality and infinity
• the idea of the infinite
• the third and justice
• the il y a
• hypostasis
• dwelling and enjoyment
• the feminine and eros
• fecundity and paternity
• diachrony and the immemorial past
• illeity and the trace
• à-Dieu and transcendence
• responsibility older than freedom
• persecution and obsession
• me voici
• proximity and sensibility
• critique of Heidegger on ontology
• critique of Husserl on intentionality
• the philosophy of Hitlerism
• useless suffering

Questions to put to Emmanuel Levinas

The Face and the Ethical Relation

• What do you mean by the face of the Other?
• How does the face command me before I choose anything?
• Why is my responsibility for the Other not reciprocal?
• What's the difference between the face-to-face and ordinary perception?
• How does the face interrupt my freedom?

Substitution and the Subject as Hostage

• What do you mean when you say the subject is a hostage?
• How can I be responsible for the Other before I'm free?
• What does 'here I am' in the accusative mean?
• Why do you describe responsibility as persecution?
• How is substitution different from empathy or compassion?

The Third Party and Justice

• Who is the third party and why does it matter?
• How does justice emerge from the face-to-face relation?
• Why do we need institutions if the face already obligates me?
• What's the difference between ethics and justice in your view?
• How do you move from asymmetric responsibility to equal rights?

The Saying and the Said

• What's the difference between the Saying and the Said?
• How does language both address the Other and betray that address?
• Why can't philosophy fully capture the ethical relation?
• What do you mean by the trace and illeity?
• How does the immemorial past structure my responsibility?

Totality, Infinity, and the Critique of Ontology

• What do you mean by totality and why do you oppose it?
• How is your critique of Heidegger different from other postwar responses?
• Why do you say ethics is first philosophy instead of ontology?
• What's wrong with making Being the fundamental question?
• How does the idea of the infinite in Descartes help your argument?

Judaism, the Talmud, and Philosophy

• How do you see the relation between Jewish thought and Greek philosophy?
• Why do you publish Talmudic readings alongside your philosophical work?
• What does the Talmud teach that philosophy by itself misses?
• How do you respond to the charge that your ethics is just Jewish particularism?
• What's at stake for you in keeping the two registers separate but parallel?

Converse with Emmanuel Levinas on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Emmanuel Levinas's own writing, cited to the page.