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Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo
Ethics and Infinity shows Levinas' modesty and reserve and, above all, his rigor. Levinas is commenting here on the totality of his work. It is 'the best introduction' to his work.
Levinas brings together the phenomenology of Husserl, the fundamental ontology of Heidegger, and the Bible. In Heidegger, the fundamental relation is with Being, not with others. One dies alone, and so one lives alone. From the Bible, Levinas has learned that only the ethical relation allows us to go beyond the solitude of Being.
Levinas' philosophy is relevant today even if it does not seem to be concerned with so-called contemporary issues, for it deals with the essential in man. It is an invitation for each person to do what no one else can do for him.
Levinas brings together the phenomenology of Husserl, the fundamental ontology of Heidegger, and the Bible. In Heidegger, the fundamental relation is with Being, not with others. One dies alone, and so one lives alone. From the Bible, Levinas has learned that only the ethical relation allows us to go beyond the solitude of Being.
Levinas' philosophy is relevant today even if it does not seem to be concerned with so-called contemporary issues, for it deals with the essential in man. It is an invitation for each person to do what no one else can do for him.
126 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Emmanuel Levinas
148 books403 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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November 24, 2017
Interviewer: "You go that far!" 😲
Levinas: "Since I am responsible even for the Other's responsibility." 😇😎🐛
Levinas: "Since I am responsible even for the Other's responsibility." 😇😎🐛
May 31, 2024
Contains conversations with the French philosopher Levinas by Philippe Nemo. The conversations more or less follow the chronology in the development of thought of Levinas. No easy reading, but a quick introduction.
January 7, 2017
Ethics and Infinity is perhaps the best introduction to the complicated ideas of French existentialist thinker Emmanuel Levinas. For those unprepared to dive into the dense philosophical text of Totality and Infinity or Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Ethics and Infinity is far more accessible and, thankfully, shorter. The book consists of radio conversations shared between Levinas and French philosopher Philippe Nemo, who does an admirable job of engaging Levinas in such a way as to tease out his most complex conceptualizations. To be sure, Ethics and Infinity is by no means an easy read; it was only upon my second encounter with the text that I truly began to comprehend the basic tenets of Levinasian thought. Nevertheless, with diligent intellectual commitment, the burgeoning student of philosophy will find Levinas’ ideas provocative, inspiring, and even life-changing.
Levinas articulates an ethics of the face, in which the Other, as face, speaks to me and demands my response. Levinas speaks of “an essential poverty of the face,” which in its destitution imposes its concern on me (EI 86). In this concern, I am responsible for the Other insofar as I must respond to her cry. Levinas says that “responsibility [is] responsibility for the Other. . . . Since the Other looks at me, I am responsible for him” (EI 96). Individuation therefore derives from my response to the Other for whom I am responsible. “My position as I,” Levinas asserts, “consists in being able to respond to the essential destitution of the Other, finding resources for myself” (TI 215). The responsibility I have toward the Other is uniquely mine, so that I become myself via my responsibility. I am for the Other and I alone can say that.
As per the Levinasian account, individuation does not derive from the perception of my Self in the Other as the same, but from the realization that the Other is irreducibly different than me. Levinas speaks of “the alterity that is expressed in the face”; the Other is the “stranger, the widow, and the orphan, to whom I am obligated” (TI 198, 215). The Other is different than me, but not because she possesses different properties or dispositions. Differences are due to what Levinas refers to as I-Other conjuncture, to the movement of orientation from oneself toward the Other in response to her cry (TI 215). “Alterity is only possible starting from me” (TI 40). I cannot neutralize the alterity of the Other; I cannot possess her or know her because she is not the same. In sum, Lisa Guenther says that individuation for Levinas “involves a relation between existents who are irreducible to each other,” which arises from the encounter with the face. “I become myself in being commanded to unique responsibility for you,” she explains.
Specifically, Levinas characterizes responsibility for the Other as responsibility for the death of the Other. “The face in its expression claims me,” Levinas asserts, “as if the invisible death faced by the face of the other were ‘my business’” (EN 145). This makes him question the reflexive structure of states-of-mind expressed by Heidegger. Whereas Heidegger characterizes anxiety, the basis of fear, as a double intentionality—anxiety about my being-at-issue for myself is anxiety for my being-at-issue for myself—Levinas contends that fear for the Other does not return to the self in this way (EI 119). “Fear for the death of the other . . . is my fear, but it is in no way a fear for oneself,” Levinas contends (EN 146). The Other may render me questionable, but only insofar as I am compelled to respond to her command because I am responsible for her death. In short, the potential death of the Other allows me to become myself.
The acute imperativeness of the ethical demand thrust upon me by the face of the Other strikes me as phenomenologically compelling. I am thrown into a network of relationships with others to whom I must respond. I can only make sense of myself in my response to their pleas because I am, it seems, responsible for their deaths. I occupy space in this world; I cannot simply persevere in the conatus essendi in naivety and innocence. It is impossible for me to purchase a chocolate bar, for instance, without concern imposed upon me by modern day slaves on the Ivory Coast of Africa, whether I know about them or not. My conscience is bad. Those slaves put me in question. Thus, my death can only make sense in my response to the command of the Other, for whose death I am responsible. Ethics is, I think, first philosophy. The Levinasian account of individuation, however, places a heavy burden on interpersonal existence. I conclude with a brief sketch of the interpersonal consequences of such an approach toward responsibility and death.
The Levinasian account of how I become myself in face of the death of the Other means that I cannot call it quits, so to speak, in my responsibility toward the Other. I cannot not respond to the Other in the aloneness of her death. Even an ostensible refusal to respond constitutes a response; if I try to turn away from her face in silence, I kill her. “I cannot evade by silence,” Levinas insists, “the discourse which the epiphany that occurs as a face opens” (TI 201). This places a heavy burden on interpersonal existence, especially because my relation with the Other is a non-reciprocal relation (EI 98). My responsibility to the Other is infinite, and not in response to the responsibility the Other has to me. In the realm of responsibility, at least—Levinas also talks about the realm of politics, where justice limits my infinite responsibility—I must continue, despite this heavy burden, to respond to the death of the Other without concern for my own potential death, and in so doing become myself. Even if I am powerless in the Other’s last moments, I must nevertheless answer, “Here I am” (EN 149).
Ethics as first philosophy, the phenomenology of the face, and one’s responsibility to the Other stand at the center of Ethics and Infinity, yet Levinas also discusses Heidegger, love, Scripture, the limitations of ontology, and the relationship between philosophy and religion. All in all, Ethics and Infinity is an excellent primer for those seeking to determine whether to delve deeper into Levinasian thought. It should not, however, stand in for Levinas’s major works, which the philosophically-minded reader, enthralled by Levinas’s singular phenomenological thinking, will want to read immediately after finishing this gem of a book.
Levinas articulates an ethics of the face, in which the Other, as face, speaks to me and demands my response. Levinas speaks of “an essential poverty of the face,” which in its destitution imposes its concern on me (EI 86). In this concern, I am responsible for the Other insofar as I must respond to her cry. Levinas says that “responsibility [is] responsibility for the Other. . . . Since the Other looks at me, I am responsible for him” (EI 96). Individuation therefore derives from my response to the Other for whom I am responsible. “My position as I,” Levinas asserts, “consists in being able to respond to the essential destitution of the Other, finding resources for myself” (TI 215). The responsibility I have toward the Other is uniquely mine, so that I become myself via my responsibility. I am for the Other and I alone can say that.
As per the Levinasian account, individuation does not derive from the perception of my Self in the Other as the same, but from the realization that the Other is irreducibly different than me. Levinas speaks of “the alterity that is expressed in the face”; the Other is the “stranger, the widow, and the orphan, to whom I am obligated” (TI 198, 215). The Other is different than me, but not because she possesses different properties or dispositions. Differences are due to what Levinas refers to as I-Other conjuncture, to the movement of orientation from oneself toward the Other in response to her cry (TI 215). “Alterity is only possible starting from me” (TI 40). I cannot neutralize the alterity of the Other; I cannot possess her or know her because she is not the same. In sum, Lisa Guenther says that individuation for Levinas “involves a relation between existents who are irreducible to each other,” which arises from the encounter with the face. “I become myself in being commanded to unique responsibility for you,” she explains.
Specifically, Levinas characterizes responsibility for the Other as responsibility for the death of the Other. “The face in its expression claims me,” Levinas asserts, “as if the invisible death faced by the face of the other were ‘my business’” (EN 145). This makes him question the reflexive structure of states-of-mind expressed by Heidegger. Whereas Heidegger characterizes anxiety, the basis of fear, as a double intentionality—anxiety about my being-at-issue for myself is anxiety for my being-at-issue for myself—Levinas contends that fear for the Other does not return to the self in this way (EI 119). “Fear for the death of the other . . . is my fear, but it is in no way a fear for oneself,” Levinas contends (EN 146). The Other may render me questionable, but only insofar as I am compelled to respond to her command because I am responsible for her death. In short, the potential death of the Other allows me to become myself.
The acute imperativeness of the ethical demand thrust upon me by the face of the Other strikes me as phenomenologically compelling. I am thrown into a network of relationships with others to whom I must respond. I can only make sense of myself in my response to their pleas because I am, it seems, responsible for their deaths. I occupy space in this world; I cannot simply persevere in the conatus essendi in naivety and innocence. It is impossible for me to purchase a chocolate bar, for instance, without concern imposed upon me by modern day slaves on the Ivory Coast of Africa, whether I know about them or not. My conscience is bad. Those slaves put me in question. Thus, my death can only make sense in my response to the command of the Other, for whose death I am responsible. Ethics is, I think, first philosophy. The Levinasian account of individuation, however, places a heavy burden on interpersonal existence. I conclude with a brief sketch of the interpersonal consequences of such an approach toward responsibility and death.
The Levinasian account of how I become myself in face of the death of the Other means that I cannot call it quits, so to speak, in my responsibility toward the Other. I cannot not respond to the Other in the aloneness of her death. Even an ostensible refusal to respond constitutes a response; if I try to turn away from her face in silence, I kill her. “I cannot evade by silence,” Levinas insists, “the discourse which the epiphany that occurs as a face opens” (TI 201). This places a heavy burden on interpersonal existence, especially because my relation with the Other is a non-reciprocal relation (EI 98). My responsibility to the Other is infinite, and not in response to the responsibility the Other has to me. In the realm of responsibility, at least—Levinas also talks about the realm of politics, where justice limits my infinite responsibility—I must continue, despite this heavy burden, to respond to the death of the Other without concern for my own potential death, and in so doing become myself. Even if I am powerless in the Other’s last moments, I must nevertheless answer, “Here I am” (EN 149).
Ethics as first philosophy, the phenomenology of the face, and one’s responsibility to the Other stand at the center of Ethics and Infinity, yet Levinas also discusses Heidegger, love, Scripture, the limitations of ontology, and the relationship between philosophy and religion. All in all, Ethics and Infinity is an excellent primer for those seeking to determine whether to delve deeper into Levinasian thought. It should not, however, stand in for Levinas’s major works, which the philosophically-minded reader, enthralled by Levinas’s singular phenomenological thinking, will want to read immediately after finishing this gem of a book.
January 9, 2022
Uma escrita límpida e muito esperançosa. As obras de Levinas conjugam conhecimento e fé.
A exegese de Levinas está, também, presente em cada obra e esta não é excepção.
Os diálogos desta obra são muito interessantes e actuais, debatendo-se a ontologia, Husserl, Heidegger, a solidão, alteridade, sociologia e outros temas muito interessantes, pela voz deste grande filósofo.
"A socialidade será uma maneira de sair do ser, sem ser pelo conhecimento"
"A pele do rosto é a que permanece mais nua, mais despida. A mais nua se bem que de uma nudez decente.
A mais despida também: há no rosto uma pobreza essencial; a prova disto é que se procura mascarar tal pobreza assumindo atitudes, disfarçando. O rosto está exposto, ameaçado, como se nos convidasse a um acto de violência. Ao mesmo tempo, o rosto é o que nos proíbe de matar."
A exegese de Levinas está, também, presente em cada obra e esta não é excepção.
Os diálogos desta obra são muito interessantes e actuais, debatendo-se a ontologia, Husserl, Heidegger, a solidão, alteridade, sociologia e outros temas muito interessantes, pela voz deste grande filósofo.
"A socialidade será uma maneira de sair do ser, sem ser pelo conhecimento"
"A pele do rosto é a que permanece mais nua, mais despida. A mais nua se bem que de uma nudez decente.
A mais despida também: há no rosto uma pobreza essencial; a prova disto é que se procura mascarar tal pobreza assumindo atitudes, disfarçando. O rosto está exposto, ameaçado, como se nos convidasse a um acto de violência. Ao mesmo tempo, o rosto é o que nos proíbe de matar."
March 23, 2020
حوار مهم يوضح الكثير من الأفكار التي تشغل فلسفة ليفيناس اكثر الكتاب يقع في نقاش حول كتابي الزمان والآخر وكتاب الكلية والتناهي وبصفة اقل كتاب بطريقة اخرى غير الوجود او ما وراء الجوهر
November 18, 2025
Die hier zusammengestellten Interviewtranskripte von Emmanuel Lévinas mit Philippe Nemo bilden eine Art kurzweiligen Lektürennschlüssel für das Werk von Levinas. Die Kontexte und kurzweiligeren Ausführungen scheinen mir eine super Ergänzung, um sich mit dem ausgesprochen faszinierenden Werk von Levinas zu befassen!
March 22, 2025
Based off the bits of this book that I could understand, which wasn't much, it's a banger.
"It is something one can also feel when one thinks that even if there were nothing, the fact that 'there is' is undeniable. Not that there is this or that; but the very scene of being is open: there is. In the absolute emptiness that one can imagine before creation - there is."
"We are all responsible for all for all men before all, and I more than all the others." !!!
"Should I be dedicated to being? By being, by persisting in being, do I not kill?"... "In no way do I want to teach that suicide follows from the love of the neighbor and the truly human life. I mean to say that a truly human life cannot remain life satis-fied in its equality to being, a life of quietude, that it is awakened by the other, that is to say, it is always getting sobered up, that being is never--contrary to what so many reassuring traditions say--its own reason for being, that the famous conatus essendi is not the source of all right and all meaning."
"It is something one can also feel when one thinks that even if there were nothing, the fact that 'there is' is undeniable. Not that there is this or that; but the very scene of being is open: there is. In the absolute emptiness that one can imagine before creation - there is."
"We are all responsible for all for all men before all, and I more than all the others." !!!
"Should I be dedicated to being? By being, by persisting in being, do I not kill?"... "In no way do I want to teach that suicide follows from the love of the neighbor and the truly human life. I mean to say that a truly human life cannot remain life satis-fied in its equality to being, a life of quietude, that it is awakened by the other, that is to say, it is always getting sobered up, that being is never--contrary to what so many reassuring traditions say--its own reason for being, that the famous conatus essendi is not the source of all right and all meaning."
November 23, 2020
A «[p]resença do filósofo junto das coisas, sem ilusão, sem retórica, no seu verdadeiro estatuto, esclarecendo precisamente este estatuto, o sentido da sua objetividade, do seu ser, não respondendo apenas à pergunta de saber "o que é?", mas à pergunta "como é o que é, que significa que ele seja?".» Esta é a definição que Lévinas nos dá de fenomenologia. Podia ser a definição do trabalho filosófico em si, do pensar filosofante de um historiador (como deveria ser sempre), de políticos, etc. Lévinas não escreve (fala, neste caso, já que é uma entrevista) para o «average reader» perceber. Esta expressão está algures nos comentários a este livro aqui no Goodreads. Mas por que carga d'água é que haveria de explicar tudo para totós? Certo que há graus de hermetismo, e Lévinas consegue ter um discurso muito obscuro, denso, profundo. Não sei se a profundidade que ele alcança se consegue com um discurso mais ligeiro, mas sei que consegue elevar a Filosofia aos palanques mais altos. Se concordei com tudo? Não, mas tentem lá pensar como este senhor...
April 27, 2024
Il suffit de lire "Ethique et infini" pour comprendre pourquoi Jean Paul II a tellement admire l'oeuvre d'Emmanuel Levinas. Ici dans ce petit volume on presente les grands themes de Levinas.
-1- l'autre n'est pas quelque chose que l'on percoit mais une realite absolu
-2- c'est dans l'echange de regards que l'on trouve l'infini et par extension Dieu
-3- l'homme est responsable de l' autre (c'est a dire il a l'obligation d'aimer et de secourir son prochain
-4- l'homme a l'obligation de temoigner de Dieu ou de prophetiser
-5- l'holocaust a ete un evenement historique et un mal absolu.
-6- la vocation de la philsophie et l'ethique. L"homme a l"obligation de se servir de la philosophie afin de lutter contre les maux qui resultent du processesus historique
Voila. C"est pourquoi Jean Paul II admire tellement ce grand penseur.
-1- l'autre n'est pas quelque chose que l'on percoit mais une realite absolu
-2- c'est dans l'echange de regards que l'on trouve l'infini et par extension Dieu
-3- l'homme est responsable de l' autre (c'est a dire il a l'obligation d'aimer et de secourir son prochain
-4- l'homme a l'obligation de temoigner de Dieu ou de prophetiser
-5- l'holocaust a ete un evenement historique et un mal absolu.
-6- la vocation de la philsophie et l'ethique. L"homme a l"obligation de se servir de la philosophie afin de lutter contre les maux qui resultent du processesus historique
Voila. C"est pourquoi Jean Paul II admire tellement ce grand penseur.
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June 17, 2024Reading Levinas's philosophy is an emotional experience, which makes you not only think but feel his philosophy's power. He talks about the challenge posed by the Other's face, and how it is a testimony to the Infinity, and reading him evokes precisely the sensation of being in front of the Face.
This short book, transcribing an interview was a good primer on Levinas's thought after having read about him in Badiou and Putnam, and it poses no insurmountable challenge, as some of the quotes straight from his books serve to prove that his actual writing can be quite hard to grasp. The greater levity of the interview and the panoramic overview of his ideas mostly makes it more accessible, even at the cost of depth and argumentation. But it's not always to the advantage. Especially when discussing the testimony I felt that not going into more precise explanations left the topic shallowly exposed. Or also in the many moments that Nemo asks something and Levinas seems to just answer with something he wanted to talk about instead, leaving me curious to hear what would've been the direct answer to the question.
All that aside, it's a beautiful and engaging philosophy that dares to thematize the unthematizable, to say something after Wittgenstein said that about these topics we should remain silent, that we should experience them instead. But Levinas's thought is an experience in itself. The way he talks about the Other and our infinite responsibility is no mere systematic reflection of our duties or a search for the truth of the universe. Infinity is prior to all that, Ethics is first philosophy. It's wonderful to try to systematize the ontology of our world, but in our lives we are first faced with that which cannot be totalized, the infinite ethical responsibility towards the other and their death, knowing that being implies murder and having to live in this ambiguity, in the unending task of being for the other.
Those are the more famous themes from later in his career, but I was also fascinated by his thoughts on desire, on the erotic and the filial relations, how the feeling of alterity happens in those contacts. How they cannot be known, as we can't make them ours, make them the Same.
His argumentation is far from the precise, logical, argumentative tone of analytic philosophy, and I am not sure if a clear and tight argument can be made to defend any of Levinas's position. It might sound very post-modern, but that is also sort of the point. The ethics that he discloses is beyond knowledge, or prior to it. By the moment we are making arguments and systematizing, it already becomes ontology, a tentative totalization, which might be useful but it's already past the primordial call of God through the face of the Other, tempting us to answer "Hineni! Here I am!"
All of that echoes (or rather, pre-echoes) Deleuze and makes me realize that there might be greater influence there than I first imagined.
I was especially curious about topics that he only slightly brushes on, and I have a feeling that doesn't go into further depth in other texts. That is, the political. I am touched by his philosophy of alterity and responsibility, but how should we deal when different Others have conflicting goals, and that might end in violence? How can I bring on this ethical duty to a larger political understanding? Perhaps that is all part of the posterior systematization and totalitization that escapes the truly ethical. Nonetheless, it's the question that stayed in my mind.
This short book, transcribing an interview was a good primer on Levinas's thought after having read about him in Badiou and Putnam, and it poses no insurmountable challenge, as some of the quotes straight from his books serve to prove that his actual writing can be quite hard to grasp. The greater levity of the interview and the panoramic overview of his ideas mostly makes it more accessible, even at the cost of depth and argumentation. But it's not always to the advantage. Especially when discussing the testimony I felt that not going into more precise explanations left the topic shallowly exposed. Or also in the many moments that Nemo asks something and Levinas seems to just answer with something he wanted to talk about instead, leaving me curious to hear what would've been the direct answer to the question.
All that aside, it's a beautiful and engaging philosophy that dares to thematize the unthematizable, to say something after Wittgenstein said that about these topics we should remain silent, that we should experience them instead. But Levinas's thought is an experience in itself. The way he talks about the Other and our infinite responsibility is no mere systematic reflection of our duties or a search for the truth of the universe. Infinity is prior to all that, Ethics is first philosophy. It's wonderful to try to systematize the ontology of our world, but in our lives we are first faced with that which cannot be totalized, the infinite ethical responsibility towards the other and their death, knowing that being implies murder and having to live in this ambiguity, in the unending task of being for the other.
Those are the more famous themes from later in his career, but I was also fascinated by his thoughts on desire, on the erotic and the filial relations, how the feeling of alterity happens in those contacts. How they cannot be known, as we can't make them ours, make them the Same.
His argumentation is far from the precise, logical, argumentative tone of analytic philosophy, and I am not sure if a clear and tight argument can be made to defend any of Levinas's position. It might sound very post-modern, but that is also sort of the point. The ethics that he discloses is beyond knowledge, or prior to it. By the moment we are making arguments and systematizing, it already becomes ontology, a tentative totalization, which might be useful but it's already past the primordial call of God through the face of the Other, tempting us to answer "Hineni! Here I am!"
All of that echoes (or rather, pre-echoes) Deleuze and makes me realize that there might be greater influence there than I first imagined.
I was especially curious about topics that he only slightly brushes on, and I have a feeling that doesn't go into further depth in other texts. That is, the political. I am touched by his philosophy of alterity and responsibility, but how should we deal when different Others have conflicting goals, and that might end in violence? How can I bring on this ethical duty to a larger political understanding? Perhaps that is all part of the posterior systematization and totalitization that escapes the truly ethical. Nonetheless, it's the question that stayed in my mind.
June 3, 2020
short and sweet. a pretty good supplement to Levinas' major works, but on its own does not give the philosopher the time and space to elaborate satisfactorily. or, for the dialectically inclined, you could read this as a condemnation of books themselves (favouring a Socratic mode), as these brief bits of conversations do manage to illuminate key features of Levinas' most important contributions and ideas, all in the space of a couple paragraphs.
April 24, 2023
"¿Acaso me debo yo al ser?"
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January 11, 2024Too stupid for a lot of this
February 11, 2025
J’ai quasiment rien compris mais j’aime
March 15, 2025
Ik zou dit boek nog drie keer lezen vooraleer ik die echt begrijp, maar ondertussen voel ik me toch al wat wijzer
December 24, 2020
Gran entrevista que compendia el pensamiento de Levinás en pocas páginas. Además, la síntesis es hecha por él mismo, de tal forma que puede considerarse una obra introductoria a su pensamiento.
May 12, 2023
Mi cool mi branlette, cool pcq il atténue la branlette. Mais fondamentalement ca reste de la branlette.
March 17, 2018
This is an interview that shows the outline of Levinas' lifework. Levinas is very good at expressing unique ideas in dense expression, and Philippe Nemo is significantly a genius questioner, sensitive to the gist of of the conversation and to Levinas' internal problematic. He prompts Levinas to situate himself in contrast to other philosophers and to formulate his own ideas more concretely.
Levinas' thought originates from the consideration of a metaphysical problem, the "there is", which is subsequently transformed into the locus where an ethics of the Other has its significance for philosophy at large. Roughly speaking, the "there is" (and later the Other) signifies an original indeterminacy which cannot be reduced to being or nothingness (for they are determined). Levinas calls all that is determined and thus incorporated "knowledge", and this, for him, forms a totality which conforms to the Hegelian "identity of identity and non-identity".
For Levinas, the danger of traditional metaphysics consists in its claim to have incorporated, or to be able to incorporate in principle, everything there is. This is where thought based on knowledge does violence to the Other, i.e. what exceeds the grasp of knowledge indefinitely. As knowledge proceeds, the Other recedes, but never vanishes. Bearing this in mind is important, because it reminds us that what we know and conceive is never the whole story. In other words, we never had, and in principle will never have, something like a totality proper. To pretend that we do and to ignore the excess of the Other is thus the major problem of traditional metaphysics.
The rest of Levinas' philosophy hinges on this peculiar conception of the Other (sometimes characterized as Infinity), which is at once focal and non-focal. The paradox is this: if the Other is brought to focus completely, then it gets absorbed in the Same and is no longer the Other. If, on the other hand, the Other is retained at the horizon of knowledge, it easily gets neglected as in traditional metaphysics. Levinas himself seems to deem it more urgent to avoid the latter, as he tries to thematize the un-thematizable as un-thematizable, to catty out a philosophy that eventually problematizes itself as philosophy (an enterprise of knowledge). But in this way Levinas risks absolutifying the Other, especially when someone takes what he says to be the final word.
Partly as a consequence of this (or one may say as an ontic precedent of this), Levinas' ethics champions the asymmetry of intersubjectivity, in which the alterity of the Other is forcefully insisted on. As he says, "reciprocity is his [the Other's] affair" (98) - we can question whether and where genuine communication can be found in this framework, if my stance towards the subjectivity of the Other is characterized as this empty openness, which effectively is not so distinct from indifference. Accordingly, although Levinas may be right to define subjectivity primarily in terms of responsibility toward the Other (in Other's face, he might say), the type of responsibility he conceives is again astonishingly unilateral. The revival of a most powerful subject can be recognized here which, though deriving its initiative from the presence of the Other, has all the volitional power to carry out the rest of the project regardless of the Other's response. In avoiding the inclusive power of a knowing subject, which is supposed to prevail once reciprocal communication takes place, Levinas gives way to the exclusive power of a "gratuitous" subject: my love toward you is aroused by you, but once aroused it is completely, or exclusively, my business.
This, then, contributes to Levinas' concluding claim that "being is never [...] its own reason for being" (122). There is some guilt in simply being, because my being and persistence at once pose a threat to others. But this is so only because I do not bother to go out and really converse with others, to appreciate and contribute to the amiability that renders our being reasonable! For sure, Levinas rightly reminds us not to take pride and be egoistic in our being, but someone is the guilt of being is at least equally egoistic, and this time not with amusing confidence, but with convoluted bitterness.
To conclude, in his formula "otherwise than being", Levinas is arguably already presupposing being as something enclosed and absolute. Accordingly, the horizonal concept of the Other (the excess) also has to be absolutified into a direct opposite. The latter move is overtly disastrous, but the seed is already hidden in the former. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to Kant's phenomena and noumena, Sartre's being and nothingness, or Deleuze's actuality and virtuality: in each case, the former, which should have an open border and an ability to co-present the latter in its own presence, is artificially confined, so as to "leave space" for an entified version of the latter, which in turn proclaims to be something opposite but is actually leveled down next to the former, as if they were of the same category. What Levinas failed to learn from phenomenology is precisely the idea that knowledge itself comes with a halo of indeterminacy, that the indefinite is not at once the Infinite.
Levinas' thought originates from the consideration of a metaphysical problem, the "there is", which is subsequently transformed into the locus where an ethics of the Other has its significance for philosophy at large. Roughly speaking, the "there is" (and later the Other) signifies an original indeterminacy which cannot be reduced to being or nothingness (for they are determined). Levinas calls all that is determined and thus incorporated "knowledge", and this, for him, forms a totality which conforms to the Hegelian "identity of identity and non-identity".
For Levinas, the danger of traditional metaphysics consists in its claim to have incorporated, or to be able to incorporate in principle, everything there is. This is where thought based on knowledge does violence to the Other, i.e. what exceeds the grasp of knowledge indefinitely. As knowledge proceeds, the Other recedes, but never vanishes. Bearing this in mind is important, because it reminds us that what we know and conceive is never the whole story. In other words, we never had, and in principle will never have, something like a totality proper. To pretend that we do and to ignore the excess of the Other is thus the major problem of traditional metaphysics.
The rest of Levinas' philosophy hinges on this peculiar conception of the Other (sometimes characterized as Infinity), which is at once focal and non-focal. The paradox is this: if the Other is brought to focus completely, then it gets absorbed in the Same and is no longer the Other. If, on the other hand, the Other is retained at the horizon of knowledge, it easily gets neglected as in traditional metaphysics. Levinas himself seems to deem it more urgent to avoid the latter, as he tries to thematize the un-thematizable as un-thematizable, to catty out a philosophy that eventually problematizes itself as philosophy (an enterprise of knowledge). But in this way Levinas risks absolutifying the Other, especially when someone takes what he says to be the final word.
Partly as a consequence of this (or one may say as an ontic precedent of this), Levinas' ethics champions the asymmetry of intersubjectivity, in which the alterity of the Other is forcefully insisted on. As he says, "reciprocity is his [the Other's] affair" (98) - we can question whether and where genuine communication can be found in this framework, if my stance towards the subjectivity of the Other is characterized as this empty openness, which effectively is not so distinct from indifference. Accordingly, although Levinas may be right to define subjectivity primarily in terms of responsibility toward the Other (in Other's face, he might say), the type of responsibility he conceives is again astonishingly unilateral. The revival of a most powerful subject can be recognized here which, though deriving its initiative from the presence of the Other, has all the volitional power to carry out the rest of the project regardless of the Other's response. In avoiding the inclusive power of a knowing subject, which is supposed to prevail once reciprocal communication takes place, Levinas gives way to the exclusive power of a "gratuitous" subject: my love toward you is aroused by you, but once aroused it is completely, or exclusively, my business.
This, then, contributes to Levinas' concluding claim that "being is never [...] its own reason for being" (122). There is some guilt in simply being, because my being and persistence at once pose a threat to others. But this is so only because I do not bother to go out and really converse with others, to appreciate and contribute to the amiability that renders our being reasonable! For sure, Levinas rightly reminds us not to take pride and be egoistic in our being, but someone is the guilt of being is at least equally egoistic, and this time not with amusing confidence, but with convoluted bitterness.
To conclude, in his formula "otherwise than being", Levinas is arguably already presupposing being as something enclosed and absolute. Accordingly, the horizonal concept of the Other (the excess) also has to be absolutified into a direct opposite. The latter move is overtly disastrous, but the seed is already hidden in the former. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to Kant's phenomena and noumena, Sartre's being and nothingness, or Deleuze's actuality and virtuality: in each case, the former, which should have an open border and an ability to co-present the latter in its own presence, is artificially confined, so as to "leave space" for an entified version of the latter, which in turn proclaims to be something opposite but is actually leveled down next to the former, as if they were of the same category. What Levinas failed to learn from phenomenology is precisely the idea that knowledge itself comes with a halo of indeterminacy, that the indefinite is not at once the Infinite.
October 26, 2023
Seems a really good introduction and overview of Levinas's thought in his own words; provocative and helpful interviewer. Covers a lot of ground and unveils what I understand to be some key claims across his work - about the space between Being and nothingness (otherwise than being), subjectivity/interiority, determinate being as a refuge from the horrifying "there is," the glory given the infinite in one's taking responsibility for the other, the inadequacy of vision or knowledge in real encounters with the Other's face, the solitude of being, the exceptions to this solitude in eros and filiation...and so on. Not an easy thinker to delve into, but this little work gives a feel for the man and his thought as he reflects on his own writing.
March 9, 2016
Great -short- introduction to the works and philosophy of Levinas, from the man himself. Despite the short lenght, Levinas does not hold back, and we travel through the core arguments and insights in all of Levinas' major works. So, we get a nice structure upon which a detailed reading of Levinas can be accomplished. This is a priceless feature for an introductory philosophy book, if you ask me.
Those who want a fuller understanding of the man may feel a bit incomplete, but such a task is not really possible through a single book. Keep reading friends, Levinas is definitely worth it.
Those who want a fuller understanding of the man may feel a bit incomplete, but such a task is not really possible through a single book. Keep reading friends, Levinas is definitely worth it.
August 19, 2016
This work marks my first engagement with Levinas, a towering and canonical figure in 20th century philosophy whose shadow we will not escape. This book offers a delightful and brief account of the major themes of his philosophy which revolve around ethics - namely the non-thematizable (face of the) Other to whom we are infinitely responsible such that all knowing and thinking become subservient to this primary responsibility which haunts any talk of having a "good conscience." When encountered by the Other, our responsibility reveals itself as infinite.
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May 20, 2025i appreciate what levinas had to say, i think, but whenever i read philosophy like this i can't help thinking about that one post that's about how men think they say things so profound when it's a thought i had as a teen girl in my bedroom at like... midnight. was nice that it was an interview, though, it was a pretty easy read.
May 31, 2019
Incomprehensible - and it's difficult to believe that's due to honest ambition, or honest confusion.
Taking him on face value (pardon the pun) though, his ethics makes infinities out of molehills and so has no help to offer us.
Taking him on face value (pardon the pun) though, his ethics makes infinities out of molehills and so has no help to offer us.
April 18, 2007
Levinas' writing is the most beautiful I have ever read. This is the only book I own/am borrowing, many others to check out. His philosophy could make the world a better place, inside and out.
March 26, 2008
He has some great ideas, but he doesn't present them in a way that is understandable to the average person.
January 26, 2012
So SO hard to read...and this is just a sampling of Levinas' work. Its intriguing and has made me see things in a new light. It took some class discussion to really understand it though.
December 2, 2018
I had picked up this book and read half of it and basically forgot it for a while. While going through some boxes of books I had after I recently moved, I realized that I forgot about it and finished it. It's fairly short and it is transcribed from an interview Levinas had; however, beyond that, it doesn't do much more. It does go into some detail about his own philosophical studies in which made the most interesting original part of the interview is his Phenomenology of the Face, for it is about the conception of the other, but it is the entire face not just a part like the eye or the nose. In this he gives his phenomenology of the other which for Levinas has an ethical nature to it. Other interesting parts include him talking about other philosophers, it is nice to see him recognize the importance of Bergson's Duration and how it was radically different from Heidegger's conception of time, as Levinas says, Bergson gives Time back an Ontological status. If you are a scholar of Levinas and are trying to differentiate Heidegger's work from Levinas', then this may be a place to start. One difficult part about Levinas is not his conceptions; rather, it is that his work is drenched in Religion: mainly Christianity and Judaism. So, in that case Levinas may be a deal breaker for some, and since this is an interview, the religious aspect was assumed through the interview and not really questioned. There was a section in which he went over the power of testimony, not in the sense of a person describing what happened, but in a religious sense similar to the type of revelation given to the profits of the Bible. Either way, if you have an interest in Levinas, you might get something from it.
December 18, 2025
I like this kind of other-oriented ethics: 1. Phenomenology is the clarification of clarification, believing that Dasein still revolves around the subject's self-planning and has not escaped the influence of "I think." 2. Ilya is the pre-ontological loneliness of man after being thrown into the world, a continuous presence. 3. Only through encounters with the other can the subject bring an absolutely external, infinite future; breaking the original linear time is necessary to break Ilya. The face of the other, with an absolute transcendence, suddenly interrupts the self. 4. The ethical responsibility the subject bears towards the other is infinite; in every encounter with the other, a transcendent ethical experience is gained. God, as a flowing, transcendent ethical command, manifests in every face-to-face moment. He is the metaphysical guarantee that commands me to bear infinite responsibility towards the other. 5. Ethical truth is common; infinite glory is an ethical testimony that any ethical person can provide at any time and in any place. I don't particularly like the parent-child and love-related parts.
March 31, 2020
A quick and dirty intro to various Levinasian concepts extolled by the man himself. I very much enjoy Levinas' penchant for non-thematizable sections of our existence. I'm still not sure how to feel about him as a literary figure. When libraries open again, I'll make sure to check out one of his more substantial works. Existence and Existants seems the most interesting to me right now. If I ever end up reading more of the Bible, I'll definitely try and get my hands on one of his commentaries. He's definitely someone I'd trust with a task like that.
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