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Existence and Existents
As Emmanuel Levinas states in the preface to Existence and Existents, “this study is a preparatory one. It examines . . . the problem of the Good, time, and the relationship with the other [person] as a movement toward the Good." First published in 1947, and written mostly during Levinas's imprisonment during World War II, this work provides the first sketch of his mature thought later developed fully in Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence.
Levinas’s project in Existence and Existents is to move from anonymous existence to the emergence of subjectivity; to subjectivity's practice, theory and morality; to its encounter with the alterity of the other person. He is concerned here primarily with the time of the solitary subject; time is the inner structure of subjectivity, of the movement of existing. "Levinas's work," says Alphonso Lingis, "contains not only wholly new analyses of the forms of time of the present, the past, the future but also a new conception of the work of time." Beginning with Existence and Existents, then, it is possible to begin tracing the progressive "alterization" of time as it unfolds across the development of Levinas's entire philosophy.
As a "preparatory" study, Existence and Existents introduces the major themes and concerns that occupied Levinas throughout his career. This is essential reading for understanding both Levinas's own philosophy and the developments in philosophical thought in the twentieth century.
Levinas’s project in Existence and Existents is to move from anonymous existence to the emergence of subjectivity; to subjectivity's practice, theory and morality; to its encounter with the alterity of the other person. He is concerned here primarily with the time of the solitary subject; time is the inner structure of subjectivity, of the movement of existing. "Levinas's work," says Alphonso Lingis, "contains not only wholly new analyses of the forms of time of the present, the past, the future but also a new conception of the work of time." Beginning with Existence and Existents, then, it is possible to begin tracing the progressive "alterization" of time as it unfolds across the development of Levinas's entire philosophy.
As a "preparatory" study, Existence and Existents introduces the major themes and concerns that occupied Levinas throughout his career. This is essential reading for understanding both Levinas's own philosophy and the developments in philosophical thought in the twentieth century.
116 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
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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 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 25, 2021
2021 Review
I am struck by now closely Levinas follows Heidegger... essentially he picks up on Heidegger's structure of moods, attunement... but then introduces different moods in order to say something very different about existents... he parallels the contingency/universality split for existence and existents... and that's okay, but kind of boring, even if it's clear that Levinas is a very smart cookie.
Then Levinas does something really interesting. He introduces a judgement about Heidegger's work that is very similar to Derrida's. You see, Derrida and Levinas both were students of Heidegger's... but instead of Derrida's rejection of presence, Levinas pounces on it deeply, finding this metaphysics of presence within Heidegger's work and then going along with it, valorizing it and seeing it for the ground of metaphysics that it is.
Levinas thinks this finding is great!
So on the one hand, we have an acceptance of this insight whereas for Derrida we have a rejection. Levinas's acceptance of this leads him to make the very move that Derrida rejected in Husserl. Also interesting. So in this sense, we get a kind of antinomy (Kant's term) forming, and in that sense, Derrida is spot on, to reject the entire thing as metaphysics.
So 5 stars! Because this is an interesting twist, something that I did not recognize before, when reading this book.
---
2014 Review
I'm not well versed in Heidigger's work. And as for Levinas, I've avoided him for as long as I have heard of him.
This work however, is one of his first, and well worth the read. Much of it stems from his working closely with Heidigger. Heidigger restarted after the mess Hegel and Kant left, understanding that one cannot think through Being, he instead started to think around Being. This book works in much the same way, as Levinas begins with a critique of Heidigger and ends where it seems, he will work through on his own issues separate from Heidigger.
What was surprising for me, is that Levinas develops the same dialectical twists to talk around being as do other masterful dialecticians, such as Lacan, Zizek and the like. Although Levinas first starts with moods, explains the originary ground of such feelings like fatigue in order to highlight where one ends and the world begins, as a relationship to the world, Levinas quickly establishes being as independent of the world, as the ground of the self that is not incorporatable by the self or the world... ending with the there is, the limit of what can be thought... the same limit that Kant reached poised at the limit of the phenomenological.
This brief excursion (brief in page numbers) then takes a sharper turn as Levinas expands on how the self relates to the world in the last chapter. I'm not certain if hypostasis is a concept he turns towards later on in his career, but this last chapter is again, the respelling of the limits of existent in various axial dimensions, such as space, time and of course, language. His rhetorical device is dialectics without being obviously enamored with negation but he spells out a particular parallel between the I, and the present moment vs the existent and existence as a field. This thought remains the limit of the rest of the book, where the irruption in anonymous being of locationalization itself is best expressed temporally as the engagement in being on the basis of the present, which breaks and then ties back to the thread of infinity, contain a tension and a contracting. It is an event. The evanescence of an instant which makes it able to be a pure present, not to receive its being from a past is not the gratuitous evanescence of a game or a dream. A subject is not free like the wind, but already has a destiny which it does not get from a past or a future, but from its present. If commitment in being thereby escape the weight of the past (the weight that was seen in existence), it involves a weight of its own which its evanescence does not lighten, and against which a solitary subject, who is constituted by the instant is powerless. Time and the other are necessary for the liberation from it.
In other words, not only is each being anonymous, but it is also a unique and indistinct instant, a brief encounter in infinity like all other encounters, only this one is mine. You see that Levinas is suspended between questions of one and infinity, unable, at least in this book, to resolve the very question he succinctly ends with: The event which we have been inquiring after is antecedent to that placing. It concerns the meaning of the very fact that in Being there are beings.
Very nice place to end. But one curious thing he brought up at the very beginning regarding how existence and existents were separated: that the existent and existence are understood as separate because life needs to be struggled for; that existence needs to be earned, be it at the level of 19th century biology or immanent within the economic order. While he set this as the stage for outlining fatigue, I think this young Levinas could have been better served to understand how the order of a priori necessarily arises as a special case of the a posteriori... but that is a different approach, a different school, one of the domain of semiotics and dialecticians of the negative (such as Zizek). It will be interesting to read more Levinas and see how this book fits into his work about transcendence and the encounter with the Other.
I am struck by now closely Levinas follows Heidegger... essentially he picks up on Heidegger's structure of moods, attunement... but then introduces different moods in order to say something very different about existents... he parallels the contingency/universality split for existence and existents... and that's okay, but kind of boring, even if it's clear that Levinas is a very smart cookie.
Then Levinas does something really interesting. He introduces a judgement about Heidegger's work that is very similar to Derrida's. You see, Derrida and Levinas both were students of Heidegger's... but instead of Derrida's rejection of presence, Levinas pounces on it deeply, finding this metaphysics of presence within Heidegger's work and then going along with it, valorizing it and seeing it for the ground of metaphysics that it is.
Levinas thinks this finding is great!
So on the one hand, we have an acceptance of this insight whereas for Derrida we have a rejection. Levinas's acceptance of this leads him to make the very move that Derrida rejected in Husserl. Also interesting. So in this sense, we get a kind of antinomy (Kant's term) forming, and in that sense, Derrida is spot on, to reject the entire thing as metaphysics.
So 5 stars! Because this is an interesting twist, something that I did not recognize before, when reading this book.
---
2014 Review
I'm not well versed in Heidigger's work. And as for Levinas, I've avoided him for as long as I have heard of him.
This work however, is one of his first, and well worth the read. Much of it stems from his working closely with Heidigger. Heidigger restarted after the mess Hegel and Kant left, understanding that one cannot think through Being, he instead started to think around Being. This book works in much the same way, as Levinas begins with a critique of Heidigger and ends where it seems, he will work through on his own issues separate from Heidigger.
What was surprising for me, is that Levinas develops the same dialectical twists to talk around being as do other masterful dialecticians, such as Lacan, Zizek and the like. Although Levinas first starts with moods, explains the originary ground of such feelings like fatigue in order to highlight where one ends and the world begins, as a relationship to the world, Levinas quickly establishes being as independent of the world, as the ground of the self that is not incorporatable by the self or the world... ending with the there is, the limit of what can be thought... the same limit that Kant reached poised at the limit of the phenomenological.
This brief excursion (brief in page numbers) then takes a sharper turn as Levinas expands on how the self relates to the world in the last chapter. I'm not certain if hypostasis is a concept he turns towards later on in his career, but this last chapter is again, the respelling of the limits of existent in various axial dimensions, such as space, time and of course, language. His rhetorical device is dialectics without being obviously enamored with negation but he spells out a particular parallel between the I, and the present moment vs the existent and existence as a field. This thought remains the limit of the rest of the book, where the irruption in anonymous being of locationalization itself is best expressed temporally as the engagement in being on the basis of the present, which breaks and then ties back to the thread of infinity, contain a tension and a contracting. It is an event. The evanescence of an instant which makes it able to be a pure present, not to receive its being from a past is not the gratuitous evanescence of a game or a dream. A subject is not free like the wind, but already has a destiny which it does not get from a past or a future, but from its present. If commitment in being thereby escape the weight of the past (the weight that was seen in existence), it involves a weight of its own which its evanescence does not lighten, and against which a solitary subject, who is constituted by the instant is powerless. Time and the other are necessary for the liberation from it.
In other words, not only is each being anonymous, but it is also a unique and indistinct instant, a brief encounter in infinity like all other encounters, only this one is mine. You see that Levinas is suspended between questions of one and infinity, unable, at least in this book, to resolve the very question he succinctly ends with: The event which we have been inquiring after is antecedent to that placing. It concerns the meaning of the very fact that in Being there are beings.
Very nice place to end. But one curious thing he brought up at the very beginning regarding how existence and existents were separated: that the existent and existence are understood as separate because life needs to be struggled for; that existence needs to be earned, be it at the level of 19th century biology or immanent within the economic order. While he set this as the stage for outlining fatigue, I think this young Levinas could have been better served to understand how the order of a priori necessarily arises as a special case of the a posteriori... but that is a different approach, a different school, one of the domain of semiotics and dialecticians of the negative (such as Zizek). It will be interesting to read more Levinas and see how this book fits into his work about transcendence and the encounter with the Other.
June 13, 2025
Having more familiarity with Heidegger's work probably would've enhanced this reading, but the central problem of imagining Being sans beings is exhilarating philosophy on its own terms. Though he's not cited explicitly anywhere (unlike Heidegger), I also sensed the specter of Schopenhauer, especially in Levinas's affirmational framing of desire, which reads to me like a challenge to the pessimistic charge of Schopenhauer's will to live.
Most rewarding is the "Existence Without a World" chapter, essential reading for anyone interested in Horror as philosophy (or vice versa: this portion of the book is inscribed all over Eugene Thacker's work, especially in his notion of thinking "the world without us"). This chapter grapples with the aporia of there is (or il y a)—Being without beings, existence without existents: a present absence that cannot be cognized. Levinas engages brilliantly with artistic representation—not only literature, but also poetry, painting, sculpture, and theatre—to articulate his premise:
Poe and Lovecraft would be proud.
Most rewarding is the "Existence Without a World" chapter, essential reading for anyone interested in Horror as philosophy (or vice versa: this portion of the book is inscribed all over Eugene Thacker's work, especially in his notion of thinking "the world without us"). This chapter grapples with the aporia of there is (or il y a)—Being without beings, existence without existents: a present absence that cannot be cognized. Levinas engages brilliantly with artistic representation—not only literature, but also poetry, painting, sculpture, and theatre—to articulate his premise:
Certain passages of Huysmans or Zola, the calm and smiling horror of de Maupassant's tales do not only give, as is sometimes thought, a representation 'faithful to' or exceeding reality, but penetrates behind the form which light reveals into that materiality which, far from corresponding to the philosophical materialism of the authors, constitutes the dark background of existence. It makes things appear to us in a night, like the monotonous presence that bears down on is in insomnia.
The rustling of the there is ... is horror.
Poe and Lovecraft would be proud.
December 17, 2023
la métaphysique au programme de l’ENS on va tous finir sous antidépresseurs
April 12, 2018
Here Levinas presented in the most clear way how he relates to but is other than Heidegger. Some things are more like philosophical sketches (sketches to be continued later) whilst there are some mind-bending sections analysing phenomena like horror, insomnia, fatigue, indolence, boredom... with respect to cognition and the unconscious and the beyond the very certainty of an I thinking...
There is also a beginning of Levinas' analysis of time, especially the present and the immemorial past.
Levinas presents a complicated argument that tries to explain why the present pushes the I to continue to try to be the same I, but fails to "catch up", which has got its similarity with Blanchot's concept of the Eternal Return.
Basically, the books tries to make sense of why it makes sense to say "Please save me from my self".
There is also a beginning of Levinas' analysis of time, especially the present and the immemorial past.
Levinas presents a complicated argument that tries to explain why the present pushes the I to continue to try to be the same I, but fails to "catch up", which has got its similarity with Blanchot's concept of the Eternal Return.
Basically, the books tries to make sense of why it makes sense to say "Please save me from my self".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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June 14, 2025J’ai vaincu (c’est faux 2-0)
September 2, 2020
One of the strongest parts of this essay is Levinas' analysis of the independent life of the instant (the present) which borrows from Husserl's phenomenological analysis of time consciouss while at the same time rejecting the latter's tendency to reinscribe the weight the past and the future in the instant in question.
But the conclusion leads me to believe that Levinas' subsequent development of the themes introduced in this propaedeutic study have shied away, for better or worse, from what he here takes to be THE million dollar metaphysical question--namely, the "meaning of the very fact that in Being there are beings" (101). Of course this is a variant of the classic metaphysical question--Why does anything exist within the plenum of Being itself? In both Time and Other and T and I Levinas simply seems to take the event of hypotasis or the rupture in the anonymous "there is" as a given into which we can inquire no further. For me at least this was a disappointing development. The fact that time, sociality and the Other have liberated the existent from its enchainment to itself in the present thereby obligating the latter to a life of ethical responsibility does not, I don't think, rule out the aforementioned metaphysical question as no longer relevant. Otherwise one risks invoking the concrete ethical responsibility for other as an excuse to stifle metaphysical concerns (what Levinas calls the "ontological adventure").
The moment we know ourselves we would instantly shrivel up into an atom of insomnia. There are dreams more brilliant than the sun that vision is turned inside out. One of these fever dreams, as we all know, is what goes by the elusive name of self knowledge. Black sun, inner experience; It is the knowledge of what itself does not know--the vigilance of the void...
But the conclusion leads me to believe that Levinas' subsequent development of the themes introduced in this propaedeutic study have shied away, for better or worse, from what he here takes to be THE million dollar metaphysical question--namely, the "meaning of the very fact that in Being there are beings" (101). Of course this is a variant of the classic metaphysical question--Why does anything exist within the plenum of Being itself? In both Time and Other and T and I Levinas simply seems to take the event of hypotasis or the rupture in the anonymous "there is" as a given into which we can inquire no further. For me at least this was a disappointing development. The fact that time, sociality and the Other have liberated the existent from its enchainment to itself in the present thereby obligating the latter to a life of ethical responsibility does not, I don't think, rule out the aforementioned metaphysical question as no longer relevant. Otherwise one risks invoking the concrete ethical responsibility for other as an excuse to stifle metaphysical concerns (what Levinas calls the "ontological adventure").
The moment we know ourselves we would instantly shrivel up into an atom of insomnia. There are dreams more brilliant than the sun that vision is turned inside out. One of these fever dreams, as we all know, is what goes by the elusive name of self knowledge. Black sun, inner experience; It is the knowledge of what itself does not know--the vigilance of the void...
December 11, 2018
I feel a bit foolish for having come to this work of Levinas’ after having read most of his latter works. This is a poetically profound work that is a necessity for comprehending his ethico-ontological superstructure. I could not help but imagine his reflections being composed within the confines of barbed wire and gas chambers- the inverse situation of Heidegger’s which beautifully reflects everything lacking in Heidegger’s system. I had long been an acolyte of fundamental ontology. But despite it being a cogent system it is without blood and veins or any other anatomical figure of speech that would provide it with heart. This work bridges the much needed humanity of totalizing systems that too often close us off from each other with an ethical edifice with which it is possible to breathe again without hyperventilating. Levinas is the sigh of relieve expressed once the gates have been torn down by the irascible will which tolerates no barriers. Truly wonderful.
January 6, 2020
Prachtig werk van een invloedrijk denker. Het maakt een goede inleiding tot zijn latere, uitgebreidere werken, maar blijft lastig. Hier vind je echter wel een paar van de mooiste beschrijvingen uit de fenomenologie, over de luiheid, vermoeidheid en slapeloosheid. Het werk is sterk in dialoog met denkers als Husserl, Heidegger en Hegel, maar het uitgebreide notenapparaat maakt het lezen een stuk makkelijker.
January 3, 2023
Being is essentially alien and strikes against us. We undergo its suffocating embrace like the night, but it does not respond to us. There is a pain in Being. If philosophy is the questioning of Being, it is already a taking on of Being. And if it is more than this question, this is because it permits going beyond the question, and not because it answers it.
November 12, 2008
Do not think because it is only 107 and seven pages long it will be a quick and easy read. Intense doesn't quite say enough. But Beautiful nonetheless.
January 19, 2024
Existence and Existents is to Totality and Infinity as History of the Concept of Time is to Being and Time, which is to say that this early work of Levinas anticipates his later works, developing the notions of the solitary ego, the irruption of the other, economy, the enjoyment of the world, etc.
I quite liked his analyses of fatigue and indolence, and to extent, of insomnia—I could relate especially to the latter a few nights ago when, fittingly, being unable to sleep, I read a bit of this book! He shows how the very act of existing is burdensome, to the point that we reject the future as such; we would rather not act than act, we would rather put off the day—in a word, we say with Bartleby, "I would prefer not to." One of my problems with Levinas is that he puts so much emphasis on the unbearableness of life—indeed, he deems the "horror of Being" to be "primal" (5)—because he takes existence itself to be ontologically oppressing. But of course, because he's "doing phenomenology," this should "not be taken negatively." I'm a little confused how life, being innocent desire, is essentially enjoyment, when at the same time its very essence is to oppress itself. He's certainly not making some psychoanalytic remark about how human reality is somehow innately sadomasochistic...
Another complaint about Levinas I have, and which I found a lot in Totality, is his penchant for cryptic, poetic lines that seem to make essential statements about reality. Typically, Heidegger is the one who's bullied for making vague, mystical remarks; however, Levinas, in my opinion, perfected this technique.
For example, when discussing art, he declares, “Reality remains foreign to the world inasmuch as it is given” (46); thus, “the intention to present reality as it is in itself, after the world has come to an end” (50), is the project of the artist. I don't feel he has sufficiently distinguished reality from the world, nor does he explain the end of the world at all.
Here's what he says about emotion: “All emotion is fundamentally vertigo, that vertigo one feels insinuating itself, that finding oneself over a void. The world of forms opens like a bottomless abyss. The cosmos breaks up and chaos gapes open” (68). Perhaps I'm simply built different, but my emotions are certainly not this melodramatic. ALL emotion is vertigo? Every emotion I feel, from sadness to happiness to anger, ushers in a chaos, a gaping abyss, the destruction of the cosmos? I can't even take Levinas seriously here. Is this really phenomenology at all? He himself admits that he must by necessity break with phenomenology: “Our affirmation of an anonymous vigilance goes beyond the phenomena, which already presupposes an ego, and thus eludes descriptive phenomenology. […] A method is called for such that thought is invited to go beyond intuition” (63). He never spells out what this new method is, nor do I find it ever really applied with any believability.
Or when he talks about time, he says, “[A]n instant contains an act by which existence is acquired” and “An instant qua beginning and birth is a relationship with and initiation into Being” (75). To some degree, this is intuitive, but I'm not sure what it really establishes.
Or, as he will say in Totality, “eros allows us to see that the other par excellence is the feminine” (86). Now, why would this be? Is it because he's a man writing this? Why should women—no, not even women, but their essence, "the feminine"—why should "the feminine" be the ultimate other, the otherest other? And how should women feel about this—proud or misunderstood or what?
Or what does this mean, beyond its lyricism: "The world is the possibility of wages. […] Time, in the world, dries all tears; it is the forgetting of the unforgiven instant and the pain for which nothing can compensate” (92)?
I quite liked his analyses of fatigue and indolence, and to extent, of insomnia—I could relate especially to the latter a few nights ago when, fittingly, being unable to sleep, I read a bit of this book! He shows how the very act of existing is burdensome, to the point that we reject the future as such; we would rather not act than act, we would rather put off the day—in a word, we say with Bartleby, "I would prefer not to." One of my problems with Levinas is that he puts so much emphasis on the unbearableness of life—indeed, he deems the "horror of Being" to be "primal" (5)—because he takes existence itself to be ontologically oppressing. But of course, because he's "doing phenomenology," this should "not be taken negatively." I'm a little confused how life, being innocent desire, is essentially enjoyment, when at the same time its very essence is to oppress itself. He's certainly not making some psychoanalytic remark about how human reality is somehow innately sadomasochistic...
Another complaint about Levinas I have, and which I found a lot in Totality, is his penchant for cryptic, poetic lines that seem to make essential statements about reality. Typically, Heidegger is the one who's bullied for making vague, mystical remarks; however, Levinas, in my opinion, perfected this technique.
For example, when discussing art, he declares, “Reality remains foreign to the world inasmuch as it is given” (46); thus, “the intention to present reality as it is in itself, after the world has come to an end” (50), is the project of the artist. I don't feel he has sufficiently distinguished reality from the world, nor does he explain the end of the world at all.
Here's what he says about emotion: “All emotion is fundamentally vertigo, that vertigo one feels insinuating itself, that finding oneself over a void. The world of forms opens like a bottomless abyss. The cosmos breaks up and chaos gapes open” (68). Perhaps I'm simply built different, but my emotions are certainly not this melodramatic. ALL emotion is vertigo? Every emotion I feel, from sadness to happiness to anger, ushers in a chaos, a gaping abyss, the destruction of the cosmos? I can't even take Levinas seriously here. Is this really phenomenology at all? He himself admits that he must by necessity break with phenomenology: “Our affirmation of an anonymous vigilance goes beyond the phenomena, which already presupposes an ego, and thus eludes descriptive phenomenology. […] A method is called for such that thought is invited to go beyond intuition” (63). He never spells out what this new method is, nor do I find it ever really applied with any believability.
Or when he talks about time, he says, “[A]n instant contains an act by which existence is acquired” and “An instant qua beginning and birth is a relationship with and initiation into Being” (75). To some degree, this is intuitive, but I'm not sure what it really establishes.
Or, as he will say in Totality, “eros allows us to see that the other par excellence is the feminine” (86). Now, why would this be? Is it because he's a man writing this? Why should women—no, not even women, but their essence, "the feminine"—why should "the feminine" be the ultimate other, the otherest other? And how should women feel about this—proud or misunderstood or what?
Or what does this mean, beyond its lyricism: "The world is the possibility of wages. […] Time, in the world, dries all tears; it is the forgetting of the unforgiven instant and the pain for which nothing can compensate” (92)?
May 31, 2024
Jag kommer att behöva läsa om denna. Levinas argumentation är mycket utmanande, men mycket logisk. Utgåvan jag läste var en annan, tillhandahållen av något universitet, så sidnumren avser detta.
Det som är temat, om man kan tala om ett sådant i ett verk som utforskar väldigt många aspekter och följdtankar, är hur vi som väsen uppfattar vår frihet och vårt ögonblick, men detta gör inte texten rättvisa. Mycket intressant bok.
Det som är temat, om man kan tala om ett sådant i ett verk som utforskar väldigt många aspekter och följdtankar, är hur vi som väsen uppfattar vår frihet och vårt ögonblick, men detta gör inte texten rättvisa. Mycket intressant bok.
November 9, 2018
Interesting book, but 60% of the time I can't tell what these phenomenologists are saying
September 9, 2024
Emmanuel Levinas sounds like a 20th century Spinoza
February 12, 2025
Absolutely incredible. Required reading for any fan of Heidegger. This was the first work of Levinas that I read (six years ago!!!) and re-reading it now makes the experience far more harrowing.
August 1, 2012
Existence and Existents (EE) adalah kitab penciptaan subjek versi Emmanuel Levinas. Tesis utama EE adalah separasi antara eksisten (subjek eksistensi) dari eksistensi-tanpa-dunia (there is/il y a) melalui kedipan kesadaran itulah yang memungkinkan kelahiran subjek. Melalui EE, Levinas memperlihatkan bahwa subjek tidak semata-mata substansi, melainkan juga aktivitas, kerja. Jika Descartes menyatakan bahwa subjek sebagai substansi yang berpikir, Levinas, melalui EE, memperlihatkan bahwa subtansi yang berpikir Cartesian, secara fenomenologis, melalui fase substansi yang (mau) berpikir. Dengan demikian, subjek sebagai subtansi yang berpikir ditentukan oleh upaya subjek untuk berpikir di mana upaya untuk berpikir itu adalah upaya untuk mengada (effort to be/conatus essendi). Melalui upaya untuk mengada inilah eksisten, yang sebelumnya tidak dapat membedakan antara dirinya dan yang-bukan-dirinya, karena tenggelam atau larut dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia (there is/il y a) menjadi dapat membedakan dirinya dan yang-bukan-dirinya. Levinas mengistilahkan momen separasi antara eksisten dan eksistensi melalui kedipan kesadaran sebagai hipostasis.
Setelah subjek eksis sebagai eksisten, subjek menjadi relasi dengan eksistensi-dunia. Interaksi subjek dengan objek-objek yang ada di dunia itulah yang memungkinkan lahirnya waktu. Kelahiran subjek atau momen hipostasis bukanlah momen yang sudah mengandung waktu, melainkan momen yang memungkinkan pe-mulai-an waktu. Momen hipostasis adalah momen ex-cendence, momen kelahiran subjek, di mana melalui momen itu eksisten dapat bebas dari jeratan horor eksistensi-tanpa-dunia, eksistensi-tanpa-cahaya (there is/il y a). Eksisten yang hidup dalam eksistensi-tanap-dunia adalah eksisten yang tidak memiliki orientasi. Momen hipostasis sebagai momen kelahiran subjek juga merupakan momen eksisten hadir sebagai eksisten yang memiliki orientasi karena memiliki kesadaran. Meski demikian, subjek hasil hipostasis masih dapat terjerumus kembali ke dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia, karena eksistensi-tanpa-dunia masih membayangi subjek, ibarat lubang hitam yang menghisap segala hal. Agar subjek tidak kembali terjerumus ke dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia adalah dengan cara melakukan transendensi. Peralihan dari momen eksidensi ke transendensi inilah yang memungkinkan subjek bebasa dari keterancaman kembali ke eksistensi-tanpa-dunia. Jika eksidensi dimungkinkan oleh upaya eksisten, maka transendensi dimungkinkan oleh Yang-Lain. Eksidensi adalah momen di mana eksisten masih berorientasi pada dirinya sendiri (dan hal inilah yang memungkinkan subjek kembali ke terjerumus ke dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia). Momen transendensi adalah momen di mana eksisten tidak lagi berorientasi pada dirinya, melainkan pada Yang-Lain.
Setelah subjek eksis sebagai eksisten, subjek menjadi relasi dengan eksistensi-dunia. Interaksi subjek dengan objek-objek yang ada di dunia itulah yang memungkinkan lahirnya waktu. Kelahiran subjek atau momen hipostasis bukanlah momen yang sudah mengandung waktu, melainkan momen yang memungkinkan pe-mulai-an waktu. Momen hipostasis adalah momen ex-cendence, momen kelahiran subjek, di mana melalui momen itu eksisten dapat bebas dari jeratan horor eksistensi-tanpa-dunia, eksistensi-tanpa-cahaya (there is/il y a). Eksisten yang hidup dalam eksistensi-tanap-dunia adalah eksisten yang tidak memiliki orientasi. Momen hipostasis sebagai momen kelahiran subjek juga merupakan momen eksisten hadir sebagai eksisten yang memiliki orientasi karena memiliki kesadaran. Meski demikian, subjek hasil hipostasis masih dapat terjerumus kembali ke dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia, karena eksistensi-tanpa-dunia masih membayangi subjek, ibarat lubang hitam yang menghisap segala hal. Agar subjek tidak kembali terjerumus ke dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia adalah dengan cara melakukan transendensi. Peralihan dari momen eksidensi ke transendensi inilah yang memungkinkan subjek bebasa dari keterancaman kembali ke eksistensi-tanpa-dunia. Jika eksidensi dimungkinkan oleh upaya eksisten, maka transendensi dimungkinkan oleh Yang-Lain. Eksidensi adalah momen di mana eksisten masih berorientasi pada dirinya sendiri (dan hal inilah yang memungkinkan subjek kembali ke terjerumus ke dalam eksistensi-tanpa-dunia). Momen transendensi adalah momen di mana eksisten tidak lagi berorientasi pada dirinya, melainkan pada Yang-Lain.
March 17, 2016
Levinas contra Heidegger - a phenomenological examination of human existence as the flight from Being rather than a seeking towards it. Levinas thinks through Heidegger's ontological difference in his own way.
This work is fundamental for Levinas' thinking - of the step beyond being, before being; the ethical step evoked through the question that the other brings forth.
This work opens the space for Levinas' "mature" works.
This work is fundamental for Levinas' thinking - of the step beyond being, before being; the ethical step evoked through the question that the other brings forth.
This work opens the space for Levinas' "mature" works.
August 19, 2015
some fool left this behind at the Wendy's on N Vermont last week. blew my fucking lid, man.
Hugs,
Kobester
Hugs,
Kobester
December 10, 2016
I struggled to understand the language but the concepts are very thought provoking :0)
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