A masterful series of interviews with Levinas, conducted by French philosopher Philippe Nemo, which provides a succinct presentation of Levinas's philosophy.

The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy's most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it. In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem of (...) pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural grounding. Taking his cue from Foucault's fragmentary analysis of biopolitics, Agamben probes with great breadth, intensity, and acuteness the covert or implicit presence of an idea of biopolitics in the history of traditional political theory. He argues that from the earliest treatises of political theory, notably in Aristotle's notion of man as a political animal, and throughout the history of Western thinking about sovereignty, a notion of sovereignty as power over "life" is implicit. The reason it remains merely implicit has to do, according to Agamben, with the way the sacred, or the idea of sacrality, becomes indissociable from the idea of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt's idea of the sovereign's status as the exception to the rules he safeguards, and on anthropological research that reveals the close interlinking of the sacred and the taboo, Agamben defines the sacred person as one who can be killed and yet not sacrificed—a paradox he sees as operative in the status of the modern individual living in a system that exerts control over the collective "naked life" of all individuals. (shrink)

The philosophy of Hitler is simplistic [primaire]. But the primitive powers that burn within it burst open its wretched phraseology under the pressure of an elementary force. They awaken the secret nostalgia within the German soul. Hitlerism is more than a contagion or a madness; it is an awakening of elementary feelings.But from this point on, this frighteningly dangerous phenomenon becomes philosophically interesting. For these elementary feelings harbor a philosophy. They express a soul's principal attitude towards the whole of reality (...) and its own destiny. They predetermine or prefigure the meaning of the adventure that the soul will face in the world.The philosophy of Hitlerism therefore goes beyond the philosophy of Hitlerians. It questions the very principles of a civilization. The conflict is played out not only between liberalism and Hitlerism. Christianity itself is threatened in spite of the careful attentions or Concordats that the Christian churches took advantage of when Hitler's regime came to power.But it is not enough to follow certain journalists in distinguishing between Christian universalism and racist particularism: a logical contradiction cannot judge a concrete event. The meaning of a logical contradiction that opposes two forms of ideas only shows up fully if we go back to their source, to intuition, to the original decision that makes them possible. It is in this spirit that we are going to set forth the following reflections. Emmanuel Levinas has been professor of philosophy at the Ecole Normale Superieure Israelite de Paris and at the University of Paris I . Among his books that have been translated into English are Totality and Infinity, Ethics and Infinity, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, and The Levinas Reader. His essay "As If Consenting to Horror" appeared in the Winter 1989 issue of Critical Inquiry. Sean Hand is lecturer in French at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is the editor of The Levinas Reader and the translator of Levinas's Difficult Freedom . He is currently completing a book on Michel Leiris. (shrink)

A sequel to Levinas' Totality and Infinity.

Combining elements from Heidegger’s philosophy of “being-in-the-world” and the tradition of Jewish theology, Levinas has evolved a new type of ethics based on a concept of “the Other” in two different but complementary aspects. He describes his encounters with those philosophers and literary authors (most of them his contemporaries) whose writings have most significantly contributed to the construction of his own philosophy of “Otherness”: Agnon, Buber, Celan, Delhomme, Derrida, Jabès, Kierkegaard, Lacroix, Laporte, Picard, Proust, Van Breda, Wahl, and, most notably, (...) Blanchot. At the same time, Levinas’s own texts are inscriptions and documents of those encounters with “Others” around which his philosophy is turning. Thus the texts simultaneously convey an immediate experience of how his intellectual position emerged and how it is put into practice. A third potential function of the book is that it unfolds the network of references and persons in philosophical debates since Kierkegaard. (shrink)

Levinas's notion of il y a (there is) existence is shown to be the organizing principle behind his challenge to Being and Time. The two main aspects of that challenge propose an ontology that is not entirely reduced to being-in-the-world and a correlative account of the self that is not entirely reduced to context. In that way Levinas attempts first to restore unconditional value to the self and then to 'produce' a pluralist social ontology based on the independence of persons. (...) The il y a argument is shown to be composed of two versions, one constitutive and one axiological. It is argued that the constitutive argument fails, but that the axiological one remains pertinent. The latter, moreover, recalls a poetics of the transcendence of the work of literature and uncannily resembles the later Heidegger's own critique of Being and Time. The results contribute to a social ontology that affirms commonality without reducing the singularity of events. Key Words: Blanchot • Heidegger • il y a • Levinas • poetics • self • singularity • social ontology • transcendence. (shrink)

Levinas's idea of ethics as a relation of responsibility to the other person has become a highly influential and recognizable position across a wide range of academic and non-academic fields. Simon Critchley's aim in this book is to provide a less familiar, more troubling, and truer account of Levinas's work. He proposes a new dramatic method for reading Levinas, where the fundamental problem of his work is seen as the attempt to escape from the tragedy of Heidegger's philosophy and the (...) way in which that philosophy shaped political events in the last century. (shrink)

In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising vocabulary, interpreting (...) texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas's ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique. (shrink)

_Criticism and Conviction_ offers a rare opportunity to share personally in the intellectual life and journey of the eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Internationally known for his influential works in hermeneutics, theology, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, until now, Ricoeur has been conspicuously silent on the subject of himself. In this book--a conversation about his life and work with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay--Ricoeur reflects on a variety of philosophical, social, religious, and cultural topics, from the paradoxes of political power to the (...) relationship between life and art, and life and death. In the first of eight conversations, Ricoeur traces the trajectory of his life, recounting the origins of his convictions and the development of his intellect against the tragic events of the twentieth century. Declaring himself the "son of a victim of the First World War," Ricoeur, an orphan, sketches his early years in the house of stern but loving grandparents, and the molding of his intellect under the tutelage of Roland Dalbiez, Gabriel Marcel, and André Philip. Ricoeur tells the intriguing story of his capture and five-year imprisonment by the Germans during World War II, where he and his compatriots fashioned an intellectual life complete with a library and lectures, and where he, amazingly, was able to continue his dissertation research. Elegantly interweaving anecdotal with philosophical meditations, Ricoeur recounts his relationships with some of the twentieth century's greatest figures, such as Heidegger, Jaspers, and Eliade. He also shares his views on French philosophers and explains his tumultuous relationship with Jacques Lacan. And while expressing his deepest respect for the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Michel Foucault, Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for the narratologist Algirdas Julien Greimas. Ricoeur also explores the relationship between the philosophical and religious domains, attempting to reconcile the two poles in his thought. And readers who have struggled with Ricoeur's work will be grateful for these illuminating discussions that provide an invaluable key to his writings on language and narrative, especially those on metaphor and time. Spontaneous and lively, _Criticism and Conviction_ is a passionate confirmation of Ricoeur's eloquence, lucidity, and intellectual rigor, and affirms his position as one of this century's greatest thinkers. It is an essential book for anyone interested in philosophy and literary criticism. (shrink)

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. This new (...) edition marks the first time this important work has been made available in an inexpensive paperback edition. 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. (shrink)

A sequel to Levinas's Totality and Infinity, this work is generally considered Levinas's most important contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding the closure of metaphysical discourse, much commented upon by Jacques Derrida. This work contains a fundamentally original theory of the ethical relationship and describes the face-to-face relationship, sensibility, responsibility and speech. Renowned Levinas scholar Richard A. Cohen has contributed a new foreword to this edition of Otherwise than Being, which is also the first time the work is available in (...) an affordable paperback edition. This foreword, along with Alphonso Lingis's extensive introduction to the work, is a valuable tool for researchers and students of Levinas's philosophy. (shrink)

The Broken Middle offers a startlingly original rethinking of the modern philosophical tradition and fundamentally rejects the anti-philosophy and anti-theory of post-modernity. Extending across the disciplines from philosophy to theology, Judaica, law, social and political theory, literary criticism, feminism and architecture, this book stakes itself on a renewed potential for sustained critique. Against the grain of much contemporary thought, this work of criticism offers the reader a way beyond the spurious alternatives of "totalization" or acknowledgement of the "other". The Broken (...) Middle expounds the phenomenology of the diremption of law and ethics. By reconstructing the suppressed political history of modernity, it shows that contemporary thought belongs to a tradition which has become ancient. Following this drama in the configuration of anxiety of beginning, equivocation of the ethical, and agon of authorship, the logos opens out of the pathos of the concept. (shrink)

Howard Caygill systematically explores for the first time the relationship between Levinas' thought and the political. From Levinas' early writings in the face of National Socialism to controversial political statements on Israeli and French politics, Caygill analyses themes such as the deconstruction of metaphysics, embodiment, the face and alterity. He also examines Levinas' engagement with his contemporaries Heidegger and Bataille, and the implications of his rethinking of the political for an understanding of the Holocaust.

Altered Reading will interest philosophers, literary critics, scholars of religion, and others drawn to Levinas's work.

Pittsburgh, Penn.: Duquesne U. P., 2004. ISBN: 0 8207 0347 8. Since the exultant reception of Levinas’ work, particularly in the United States, an imposing obstacle to this oeuvre has steadily been erected. It is not Levinas’ complicated, often unstated philosophical disputations, nor his exhortatory style, nor even the originality of his argument that constitute the most formidable obstructions to his work today. On the contrary, the greatest difficulty today is the ease with which Levinas is arrogated, a facility that (...) risks making him so accessible as to be wholly irrelevant. The ubiquity in contemporary intellectual circles of an “ethics of the other” leads, from ever diverse paths, directly to Levinas; and it is just this that prevents us from reading him well. (shrink)

The act of thought-thought as an act-would precede the thought thinking or becoming conscious of an act. The notion of act involves a violence essentially: the violence of transitivity, lacking in the transcendence of thought... Totality and Infinity The work of Emmanuel Levinas revolves around two preoccupations. First, his philosophical project can be described as the construction of a formal ethics, grounded upon the transcendence of the other human being and a subject's spontaneous responsibility toward that other. Second, Levinas has (...) written extensively on, and as a member of, the cultural and textual life of Judaism. These two concerns are intertwined. Their relation, however, is one of considerable complexity. Levinas' philosophical project stems directly from his situation as a Jewish thinker in the twentieth century and takes its particular form from his study of the Torah and the Talmud. It is, indeed, a hermeneutics of biblical experience. If inspired by Judaism, Levinas' ethics are not eo ipso confessional. What his ethics takes from Judaism, rather, is a particular way of conceiving transcendence and the other human being. It owes to the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber a logos of the world and of the holy, which acknowledges their incom mensurability without positing one as fallen and the other as supernal. (shrink)

Explores the ethical and political possibilities of philosophy after deconstruction.

What, at this historical moment "after Auschwitz," still remains of the questions traditionally asked by theology? What now is theology's minimal degree? This magisterial study, the first extended comparison of the writings of Theodor W. Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas, explores remnants and echoes of religious forms in these thinkers' critiques of secular reason, finding in the work of both a "theology in pianissimo" constituted by the trace of a transcendent other. The author analyzes, systematizes, and formalizes this idea of an (...) other of reason. In addition, he frames these thinkers' innovative projects within the arguments of such intellectual heirs as Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, defending their work against later accusations of "performative contradiction" (by Habermas) or "empiricism" (by Derrida) and in the process casting important new light on those later writers as well. Attentive to rhetorical and rational features of Adorno's and Levinas's texts, his investigations of the concepts of history, subjectivity, and language in their writings provide a radical interpretation of their paradoxical modes of thought and reveal remarkable and hitherto unsuspected parallels between their philosophical methods, parallels that amount to a plausible way of overcoming certain impasses in contemporary philosophical thinking. In Adorno, this takes the form of a dialectical critique of dialectics in Levinas, that of a phenomenological critique of phenomenology, each of which sheds new light on ancient and modern questions of metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. For the English-language publication, the author has extensively revised and updated the prize-winning German version. (shrink)