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Liberté et commandement
Ce volume rassemble deux textes fondamentaux d'Emmanuel Levinas. Le premier, "Liberté et Commandement", date de 1953 et s'inscrit dans une période de grande fécondité philosophique située entre la publication de Totalité et Infini et celle de De l'existence à l'existant. Le second texte de ce volume est "Transcendance et Hauteur", et il date de 1962. Emmanuel Levinas s'efforce d'y montrer à quelles conditions le rapport éthique est possible et dans quelle mesure il est "l'ultime signification" du rapport à l'autre.
123 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1953
21 people want to read
About the author
Emmanuel Levinas
148 books402 followersEmanuelis Levinas (later adapted to French orthography as Emmanuel Levinas) received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania. After WWII, he studied the Talmud under the enigmatic "Monsieur Chouchani", whose influence he acknowledged only late in his life.
Levinas began his philosophical studies at Strasbourg University in 1924, where he began his lifelong friendship with the French philosopher Maurice Blanchot. In 1928, he went to Freiburg University to study phenomenology under Edmund Husserl. At Freiburg he also met Martin Heidegger. Levinas became one of the very first French intellectuals to draw attention to Heidegger and Husserl, by translating Husserl's Cartesian Meditations and by drawing on their ideas in his own philosophy, in works such as his The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology, De l'Existence à l'Existant, and En Découvrant l’Existence avec Husserl et Heidegger.
According to his obituary in New York Times,[1] Levinas came to regret his enthusiasm for Heidegger, because of the latter's affinity for the Nazis. During a lecture on forgiveness, Levinas stated "One can forgive many Germans, but there are some Germans it is difficult to forgive. It is difficult to forgive Heidegger."[2]
After earning his doctorate Levinas taught at a private Jewish High School in Paris, the École Normale Israélite Orientale, eventually becoming its director. He began teaching at the University of Poitiers in 1961, at the Nanterre campus of the University of Paris in 1967, and at the Sorbonne in 1973, from which he retired in 1979. He was also a Professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. In 1989 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Philosophy.
Among his most famous students is Rabbi Baruch Garzon from Tetouan (Morocco), who learnt Philosophy with Levinas at the Sorbonne and later went on to become one of the most important Rabbis of the Spanish-speaking world.
In the 1950s, Levinas emerged from the circle of intellectuals surrounding Jean Wahl as a leading French thinker. His work is based on the ethics of the Other or, in Levinas' terms, on "ethics as first philosophy". For Levinas, the Other is not knowable and cannot be made into an object of the self, as is done by traditional metaphysics (which Lévinas called "ontology"). Lévinas prefers to think of philosophy as the "wisdom of love" rather than the love of wisdom (the literal Greek meaning of the word "philosophy"). By his lights, ethics becomes an entity independent of subjectivity to the point where ethical responsibility is integral to the subject; hence an ethics of responsibility precedes any "objective searching after truth".
Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the encounter with the Other. For Levinas, the irreducible relation, the epiphany, of the face-to-face, the encounter with another, is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. "The Other precisely reveals himself in his alterity not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness."[3]. At the same time, the revelation of the face makes a demand, this demand is before one can express, or know one's freedom, to affirm or deny.[4] One instantly recognizes the transcendence and heteronomy of the Other. Even murder fails as an attempt to take hold of this otherness.
In Levinas's later thought following "Totality and Infinity", he argued that our responsibility for the other was already rooted within our subjective constitution. It should be noted that the first line of the preface of this book is "everyone will readily agree that it is of the highest importance to know whether we are not duped by morality."[5] This can be seen most clearly in his later account of recurrence (chapter 4 in "Otherwise Than Being"), where Levinas maintai
Levinas began his philosophical studies at Strasbourg University in 1924, where he began his lifelong friendship with the French philosopher Maurice Blanchot. In 1928, he went to Freiburg University to study phenomenology under Edmund Husserl. At Freiburg he also met Martin Heidegger. Levinas became one of the very first French intellectuals to draw attention to Heidegger and Husserl, by translating Husserl's Cartesian Meditations and by drawing on their ideas in his own philosophy, in works such as his The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology, De l'Existence à l'Existant, and En Découvrant l’Existence avec Husserl et Heidegger.
According to his obituary in New York Times,[1] Levinas came to regret his enthusiasm for Heidegger, because of the latter's affinity for the Nazis. During a lecture on forgiveness, Levinas stated "One can forgive many Germans, but there are some Germans it is difficult to forgive. It is difficult to forgive Heidegger."[2]
After earning his doctorate Levinas taught at a private Jewish High School in Paris, the École Normale Israélite Orientale, eventually becoming its director. He began teaching at the University of Poitiers in 1961, at the Nanterre campus of the University of Paris in 1967, and at the Sorbonne in 1973, from which he retired in 1979. He was also a Professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. In 1989 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Philosophy.
Among his most famous students is Rabbi Baruch Garzon from Tetouan (Morocco), who learnt Philosophy with Levinas at the Sorbonne and later went on to become one of the most important Rabbis of the Spanish-speaking world.
In the 1950s, Levinas emerged from the circle of intellectuals surrounding Jean Wahl as a leading French thinker. His work is based on the ethics of the Other or, in Levinas' terms, on "ethics as first philosophy". For Levinas, the Other is not knowable and cannot be made into an object of the self, as is done by traditional metaphysics (which Lévinas called "ontology"). Lévinas prefers to think of philosophy as the "wisdom of love" rather than the love of wisdom (the literal Greek meaning of the word "philosophy"). By his lights, ethics becomes an entity independent of subjectivity to the point where ethical responsibility is integral to the subject; hence an ethics of responsibility precedes any "objective searching after truth".
Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the encounter with the Other. For Levinas, the irreducible relation, the epiphany, of the face-to-face, the encounter with another, is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. "The Other precisely reveals himself in his alterity not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness."[3]. At the same time, the revelation of the face makes a demand, this demand is before one can express, or know one's freedom, to affirm or deny.[4] One instantly recognizes the transcendence and heteronomy of the Other. Even murder fails as an attempt to take hold of this otherness.
In Levinas's later thought following "Totality and Infinity", he argued that our responsibility for the other was already rooted within our subjective constitution. It should be noted that the first line of the preface of this book is "everyone will readily agree that it is of the highest importance to know whether we are not duped by morality."[5] This can be seen most clearly in his later account of recurrence (chapter 4 in "Otherwise Than Being"), where Levinas maintai
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 22, 2018
Dans ce livre, on trouve le modèle fondamentale de Levinas. Selon Levinas il y a trois catégories dans la vie humaine:
-1- Le même ou le moi qui n'est pas autosuffisant
-2- L'autre dans le visage duquel on peut voir Dieu
-3- L'infini qui est le rapport entre le même (ou le moi). L'infini est aussi Dieu.
Selon Levinas le même est responsable du bien-être de l'autre. Alors le rapport entre les deux est éthique. L'éthique devient alors l'ultime signifiant de l'homme. La société qui soutient ce rapport éthique sera libre et la violence n'y existera pas.
À l'avis de Jean Paul II, Emmanuel Levinas a été le plus grand philosophe de notre époque. Pour tout catholique la lecture de ce livre est essentiel.
-1- Le même ou le moi qui n'est pas autosuffisant
-2- L'autre dans le visage duquel on peut voir Dieu
-3- L'infini qui est le rapport entre le même (ou le moi). L'infini est aussi Dieu.
Selon Levinas le même est responsable du bien-être de l'autre. Alors le rapport entre les deux est éthique. L'éthique devient alors l'ultime signifiant de l'homme. La société qui soutient ce rapport éthique sera libre et la violence n'y existera pas.
À l'avis de Jean Paul II, Emmanuel Levinas a été le plus grand philosophe de notre époque. Pour tout catholique la lecture de ce livre est essentiel.
July 12, 2021
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 16, 2018
Composé de deux courts exposés de Lévinas qui reprennent certains concepts fondamentaux à sa pensée, plutôt accessible comparativement à certaines autres de ses oeuvres en plus d'offrir une perspective intéressante de la pensée lévinassienne sur l'État.
April 13, 2025
J’annonce déjà meilleure lecture 2025 merci Emmanuel merci
July 30, 2011
Dans ce livre, deux textes : Liberté et commandement, ainsi que Transcendance et hauteur. Deux très courts textes (mais toujours très denses avec Levinas) sur le thème essentiel de l'altérité insurmontable, sur la remise en valeur de l'hétéronomie. On peut y voir aussi un côté politique puisque l'Etat, c'est la loi du Même, une loi aliénante qui tire tout à soi, absorbe, et est incapable de voir les larmes d'autrui.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews