Re-Reading Lévinas

by Robert Bernasconi, Simon Critchley (Editor)

These essays provoke new responses to the work of the eminent French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas through an analysis of how the problematics of reading, deconstruction, feminism, and psychotherapy complicate and deepen Levinas's account of responsibility. The re-reading presented here continues and expands on the long-standing debate between Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Published in English for the first time are two key texts in this debate: "Wholly Otherwise" by Levinas and "At this very moment in this work here I am" by Derrida.

Genres: Philosophy

272 pages, Paperback

First published May 22, 1991

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes the passing of time to understand the misplaced retrospective introspection from these series of essays in this 1991 book concerning decade(s) earlier philosophical assertions.

Quaint is the word I would use to describe this book for today. There is some psychoanalysis, separation of the sexes through defending feminism thus separating humans even further, sexual identity being binary, and other topics that read cringe worthy today. The most egregious being having a presumption of fairness and assuming good faith from the interlocutor; Trump and his kind were around in 1990 and aren’t really going away. Rush Limbaugh spoke of ‘feminazis’ and hunting them down like Bambi. Only in imaginary worlds should one assume the best about the other especially when the stakes concern democracy verse fascism.

Beyond the silly there is the worthwhile within Levinas. There is the one word that matters, it is god, but not a thing as such, rather the knowing that philosophy is not the love of wisdom, but the wisdom to love and that love manifests as our desire.

Derrida is the one philosopher that when I read him, I think he is intentionally insulting his reader and purposely committing violence to the text and these essays often go through him to get to Levinas. The sacrificial violence of the other towards the interior reaching the exterior becomes muddle because of that. Derrida sees Nietzsche thru Heidegger and Heidegger made a turn against Nietzsche and these essays seemed to have not known that.

These essays illustrate critical literary analysis that became stuck in a time-warp that will never exit the 1990s and it is apparent from these essays about Levinas.

The false binaries with certainties such as there is only male and female and spectrums don’t exist plays into the hands of MAGA morons, and the presumption of good will argumentation disarms the sane crowd who support vaccines, say. That kind of thought is deadly, but at the same time, there are many connections from Kant, to Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, and Heidegger that connect to Levinas’ meaning and those are worth the read just as the egregious parts make us realize that we need to stay away from 1990 (and earlier) thought except when searching for misplaced retrospective introspection.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highlights include: Irigaray's critique of Levinas's inability to think sexual difference and the feminine Other with the suggestion that what is needed is a recovery of another genealogy, a genealogy that stretches from the feminine Divine to the women lover (l'amante); Levinas's own response to Derrida's writing, which suggests that it is at once a revolution in philosophy as significant as Kant's critique of pure reason and locates at the center of that writing a movement that is destructive, an army driving refugees before it; and Derrida's second direct engagement with Levinas's texts, which (under the enigmatic title "At this moment in this work here I am") is at least in one respect a polyvocal interrogation of Abraham's hineini, the "here I am" before the Other and God.

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must for anyone interested in Levinas... So many good pieces full of insight.

[Mo2this]

especially: Chapter 2 'at this very moment in this work here I am'