To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

by Adriaan Peperzak

The fruit of the author's many courses on Emmanuel Levinas in Europe and the United States, this study is a clear introduction for graduate students and scholars who are not yet familiar with Levinas's difficult but exceptionally important oeuvre. After a first chapter on the existential background and the key issues of his thought, chapters 2, 3, and 4 concentrate on and include a short text, "Philosophy and the idea of the Infinite," which contains the program of Levinas's entire oeuvre. Chapter 5 is a companion to the reading of Levinas's first opus magnum, Totality and the Infinite . It analyzes the structure of this book and shows how its questions and answers adhere together. "Through phenomenology toward a saying beyond phenomena and essence" could be the summary of Levinas's attempt to think, with and against Martin Heidegger, the otherness of the Other. This is brought out even more clearly in his second opus magnum, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence , whose significance is shown in chapter 6. A bibliography is added to facilitate further study.

247 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1993

Reviews

[Corbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peperzak provides a rather thorough introduction to Levinas' philosophy, clarifying several ambiguities in Levinas' texts that reappear in the secondary literature, though to be honest, Peperzak's clarifications were often very disappointing. If this is indeed what Levinas believed, and I think Peperzak makes strong cases for believing it to be the case, then I am much less enamored with Levinas' philosophy. Nonetheless, this is a useful tool which includes an important essay, "Philosophy and the Idea of the Infinite" (translated by Alphonso Lingis, commentary by Peperzak), and a lengthy commentary on TOTALITY AND INFINITY. Based on the conclusions and arguments, I would have rated this book much lower, but the commentary is thorough and helpful for researchers, so I have to acknowledge the scholarship.

[Aitana Monzón · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The desire of the Other can never be satisfied because the closer one comes to the desired, the more one is confronted with the profound distance and separation that belongs to the essence of its alterity."