What is the central idea of infinite flow?

Emmanuel Levinas, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Emmanuel Levinas answers

The question of infinite responsibility — what I would rather call the infinitely more contained in the less — is perhaps the most precise way to approach what you are asking. The face of the other is not a phenomenon that can be grasped, contained, or made adequate to a knowing consciousness. It overflows the sphere of the same, and this overflowing is not like liquid exceeding a vessel; it is effectuated as a position face to face, as a moral summons that proceeds from the other toward me.¹

The idea of infinity is not a projection of my own rational exigencies onto a beyond — that was Kant's move, and it leaves the finite as the measure of the infinite rather than being confronted by an experience of infinity that calls the finite into question.² What the face produces is not a reasoning but an epiphany: the exteriority of the other inscribed in the very structure of the encounter, exceeding my powers not quantitatively but by putting them in question altogether.³

This is why the ethical relation escapes thematization. To reduce it to a principle, an arché, a being that can be held in place — that was the mistake of onto-theo-logy, which wanted to contain what by its very nature cannot be contained.⁴ The other is always on the verge of presence but never comes to full presence, never reducible to the phenomenality of the face as noema of my consciousness; goodness emerges as the responsibility of a subject who has always already been responsible, before any act of choosing.⁵

And the saying — le Dire — is the movement in which this overflow becomes ethical life. Before the face I do not simply contemplate; I respond. To greet the other is already to answer for him, to be already in the accusative before any nominative self has been established.⁶ The said can always be unsaid or revised; what cannot be recovered or neutralized is the saying itself, the intrusion and interruption it effects, the passivity it calls forth beneath identity.⁷

It is in this sense that the responsibility is infinite: not a quantity that grows without limit, but a structure in which the other always exceeds what I can give, commands more than I can discharge, and in doing so constitutes me as a subject at all.

Sources

1. The presence of a being not entering into, but overflowing, the sphere of the same determines its 'status' as infinite. This overflowing is to be distinguished from the image of liquid overflowing a vessel, because this overflowing presence is effectuated as a position in face of the same. The facing position, opposition par excellence, can be only as a moral summons.

   Totality and Infinity - An Essay on Exteriority, p. 196

2. The Kantian notion of infinity figures as an ideal of reason, the projection of its exigencies in a beyond, the ideal completion of what is given incomplete—but without the incomplete being confronted with a privileged experience of infinity, without it drawing the limits of its finitude from such a confrontation.

   Totality and Infinity - An Essay on Exteriority, p. 196

3. The idea of infinity exceeds my powers (not quantitatively, but, we will see later, by calling them into question); it does not come from our a priori depths—it is consequently experience par excellence.

   Totality and Infinity - An Essay on Exteriority, p. 196

4. To reduce it to a theme, a principle, a being, an arché, was the mistake of onto-theo-logy.

   Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo, pp. 20–21

5. the Other is better than the ego, and thus exerts moral demands on the ego... in the face of the Other, goodness emerges as the responsibility of the subject which has always already been responsible.

   Time and the Other, p. 30

6. the saying is the fact that before the face I do not simply remain there contemplating it, I respond to it. The saying is a way of greeting the Other, but to greet the Other is already to answer for him.

   Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo, pp. 95–96

7. What is said [le dit] can always be unsaid, re-said or revised — it is the saying [le dire] of it, the intrusion it effects, the interruption it inserts into continuities, as well as the passivity it calls forth, beneath identity, that accomplishes the priority and anteriority of ethics.

   Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo, pp. 20–21