The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas

The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas

Author: Diane Perpich

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0804759421

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This work offers a new interpretation of what Levinas means when he says that we are infinitely responsible to the other person.


Book Synopsis The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas by : Diane Perpich

Download or read book The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas written by Diane Perpich and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work offers a new interpretation of what Levinas means when he says that we are infinitely responsible to the other person.


Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics

Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics

Author: Joshua James Shaw

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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Emmanuel Levinas has come to be regarded as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century European philosophy. Initially seen as an obscure popularizer of phenomenology, Levinas is now widely admired for his original philosophic writings on the encounter with "the other," his place in post-Holocaust Jewish philosophy, his influence on Derrida, and his powerful claims about the importance of ethics for philosophy and for human life generally. The past several years have seen an explosion of interest in his thought. Critics have charged, however, that his philosophy is seriously flawed by his failure to convey his understanding of ethical responsibility in a practical ethical theory. Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics: Putting Ethics First defends Levinas against this criticism. In doing so, it develops an interpretation that stresses Levinas' sensitivity to the urgency of acting to help those who are vulnerable. The book departs from trends in Levinas scholarship. Many scholars emphasize Levinas' epistemological claims about the incomprehensibility and inexpressibility of the relation to the other as the foundational theses of his philosophy. By contrast, Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics shows how he reaches them based on a subtle analysis of the practical demands involved in recognizing responsibility for others. The book argues that Levinas is best read as pragmatic thinker, one who, above all, is concerned to stress the importance of practical effectiveness in serving the other. Finally, the book shows how his understanding of responsibility can be expressed in practical ethical theories given this pragmatic interpretation. This book is an important work for Levinas scholars, particularly those interested in his relevance for contemporary ethical debates and for social and political philosophy. The book develops an interpretation that avoids jargon, and new readers as well as readers interested in placing Levinas in dialogue with Anglo-American philosophy will find it a useful resource. The book's efforts to situate Levinas in relation to issues in analytic ethics, such as Rawls' theory of justice and debates over moral realism, will be of particular interest to the latter.


Book Synopsis Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics by : Joshua James Shaw

Download or read book Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics written by Joshua James Shaw and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emmanuel Levinas has come to be regarded as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century European philosophy. Initially seen as an obscure popularizer of phenomenology, Levinas is now widely admired for his original philosophic writings on the encounter with "the other," his place in post-Holocaust Jewish philosophy, his influence on Derrida, and his powerful claims about the importance of ethics for philosophy and for human life generally. The past several years have seen an explosion of interest in his thought. Critics have charged, however, that his philosophy is seriously flawed by his failure to convey his understanding of ethical responsibility in a practical ethical theory. Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics: Putting Ethics First defends Levinas against this criticism. In doing so, it develops an interpretation that stresses Levinas' sensitivity to the urgency of acting to help those who are vulnerable. The book departs from trends in Levinas scholarship. Many scholars emphasize Levinas' epistemological claims about the incomprehensibility and inexpressibility of the relation to the other as the foundational theses of his philosophy. By contrast, Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics shows how he reaches them based on a subtle analysis of the practical demands involved in recognizing responsibility for others. The book argues that Levinas is best read as pragmatic thinker, one who, above all, is concerned to stress the importance of practical effectiveness in serving the other. Finally, the book shows how his understanding of responsibility can be expressed in practical ethical theories given this pragmatic interpretation. This book is an important work for Levinas scholars, particularly those interested in his relevance for contemporary ethical debates and for social and political philosophy. The book develops an interpretation that avoids jargon, and new readers as well as readers interested in placing Levinas in dialogue with Anglo-American philosophy will find it a useful resource. The book's efforts to situate Levinas in relation to issues in analytic ethics, such as Rawls' theory of justice and debates over moral realism, will be of particular interest to the latter.


Origins of the Other

Origins of the Other

Author: Samuel Moyn

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780801443947

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In Origins of the Other, Moyn offers new readings of the work of a host of crucial thinkers, such as Hannah Arendt, Karl Barth, Karl Lowith, Gabriel Marcel, Franz Rosenzweig, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean Wahl, who help explain why Levinas's thought evolved as it did."--Jacket.


Book Synopsis Origins of the Other by : Samuel Moyn

Download or read book Origins of the Other written by Samuel Moyn and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Origins of the Other, Moyn offers new readings of the work of a host of crucial thinkers, such as Hannah Arendt, Karl Barth, Karl Lowith, Gabriel Marcel, Franz Rosenzweig, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean Wahl, who help explain why Levinas's thought evolved as it did."--Jacket.


Facing the Other

Facing the Other

Author: Sean Hand

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1317832485

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Emmanuel Levinas is one of the key philosophers in the post-Heideggerian field and an increasingly central presence in contemporary debates about identity and responsibility. His work spans and encapsulates the major philosophical and ethical concerns of the twentieth century, combining the insights of a basic phenomenological training with the demands of a Jewish culture and its basis in the endless exegesis of Talmudic reading. His concerns and subjects are wide: they include the Other, the body, infinity, women, Jewish-Christian relations, Zionism and the impulses and limits of philosophical language itself. This collection explicates Levinas's major contribution to these debates, namely the idea of the primacy of ethics over ontology or epistemology. It investigates how, in the wake of a post-structuralist orthodoxy, scholars and practitioners in such fields as literary theory, cultural studies, feminism and psychoanalysis are turning to Levinas's work to articulate a rediscovered concern with the ethical dimension of their discipline. Stressing the largely assumed but unexplored Jewish dimension of Levinas's work, this book is an important contribution to the field of Jewish studies and philosophy.


Book Synopsis Facing the Other by : Sean Hand

Download or read book Facing the Other written by Sean Hand and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emmanuel Levinas is one of the key philosophers in the post-Heideggerian field and an increasingly central presence in contemporary debates about identity and responsibility. His work spans and encapsulates the major philosophical and ethical concerns of the twentieth century, combining the insights of a basic phenomenological training with the demands of a Jewish culture and its basis in the endless exegesis of Talmudic reading. His concerns and subjects are wide: they include the Other, the body, infinity, women, Jewish-Christian relations, Zionism and the impulses and limits of philosophical language itself. This collection explicates Levinas's major contribution to these debates, namely the idea of the primacy of ethics over ontology or epistemology. It investigates how, in the wake of a post-structuralist orthodoxy, scholars and practitioners in such fields as literary theory, cultural studies, feminism and psychoanalysis are turning to Levinas's work to articulate a rediscovered concern with the ethical dimension of their discipline. Stressing the largely assumed but unexplored Jewish dimension of Levinas's work, this book is an important contribution to the field of Jewish studies and philosophy.


Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas

Author: E. Wyschogrod

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 9401020442

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Emmanuel Levinas recounts the main events of his life in a brief essay, "Signature," appended to a collection of essays on social, political and religious themes entitled Dillicile Uberti. He was born in I905 in Lithu ania and in I9I7, while living in the Ukraine, experienced the collapse of the old regime in Russia. In I923 he came to the University of Strasbourg where Charles Blondel, Halbwachs, Pradines, Carteron and later Gueroult were teaching. He was deeply influenced by those of his teachers who had been adolescents during the time of the Dreyfus affair and for whom this issue assumed critical importance. Continuing his studies at Freiburg from I928-I929, he served an apprenticeship in phenomenology with Jean Hering. Subsequent encounters with Leon Brunschwicg and regular conversations with Gabriel Marcel served to distinguish, to sharpen and bring into the foreground, his own unique point of view. He also attests a long friendship with Jean Wahl. To gether with Henri Nerson he undertook a study of Talmudic sources under the guidance of a teacher who communicated the traditional Jewish mode of exegesis. It is no accident that Levinas begins his autobiographical account, which is indeed no more than a spare outline of events and formative influences, with the information that the Hebrew Bible directed his thinking from the time of his earliest child hood in Lithuania.


Book Synopsis Emmanuel Levinas by : E. Wyschogrod

Download or read book Emmanuel Levinas written by E. Wyschogrod and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emmanuel Levinas recounts the main events of his life in a brief essay, "Signature," appended to a collection of essays on social, political and religious themes entitled Dillicile Uberti. He was born in I905 in Lithu ania and in I9I7, while living in the Ukraine, experienced the collapse of the old regime in Russia. In I923 he came to the University of Strasbourg where Charles Blondel, Halbwachs, Pradines, Carteron and later Gueroult were teaching. He was deeply influenced by those of his teachers who had been adolescents during the time of the Dreyfus affair and for whom this issue assumed critical importance. Continuing his studies at Freiburg from I928-I929, he served an apprenticeship in phenomenology with Jean Hering. Subsequent encounters with Leon Brunschwicg and regular conversations with Gabriel Marcel served to distinguish, to sharpen and bring into the foreground, his own unique point of view. He also attests a long friendship with Jean Wahl. To gether with Henri Nerson he undertook a study of Talmudic sources under the guidance of a teacher who communicated the traditional Jewish mode of exegesis. It is no accident that Levinas begins his autobiographical account, which is indeed no more than a spare outline of events and formative influences, with the information that the Hebrew Bible directed his thinking from the time of his earliest child hood in Lithuania.


Vigilant Memory

Vigilant Memory

Author: R. Clifton Spargo

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2006-09-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0801888840

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Vigilant Memory focuses on the particular role of Emmanuel Levinas's thought in reasserting the ethical parameters for poststructuralist criticism in the aftermath of the Holocaust. More than simply situating Levinas's ethics within the larger context of his philosophy, R. Clifton Spargo offers a new explanation of its significance in relation to history. In critical readings of the limits and also the heretofore untapped possibilities of Levinasian ethics, Spargo explores the impact of the Holocaust on Levinas's various figures of injustice while examining the place of mourning, the bad conscience, the victim, and the stranger/neighbor as they appear in Levinas's work. Ultimately, Spargo ranges beyond Levinas's explicit philosophical or implicit political positions to calculate the necessary function of the "memory of injustice" in our cultural and political discourses on the characteristics of a just society. In this original and magisterial study, Spargo uses Levinas's work to approach our understanding of the suffering and death of others, and in doing so reintroduces an essential ethical element to the reading of literature, culture, and everyday life.


Book Synopsis Vigilant Memory by : R. Clifton Spargo

Download or read book Vigilant Memory written by R. Clifton Spargo and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vigilant Memory focuses on the particular role of Emmanuel Levinas's thought in reasserting the ethical parameters for poststructuralist criticism in the aftermath of the Holocaust. More than simply situating Levinas's ethics within the larger context of his philosophy, R. Clifton Spargo offers a new explanation of its significance in relation to history. In critical readings of the limits and also the heretofore untapped possibilities of Levinasian ethics, Spargo explores the impact of the Holocaust on Levinas's various figures of injustice while examining the place of mourning, the bad conscience, the victim, and the stranger/neighbor as they appear in Levinas's work. Ultimately, Spargo ranges beyond Levinas's explicit philosophical or implicit political positions to calculate the necessary function of the "memory of injustice" in our cultural and political discourses on the characteristics of a just society. In this original and magisterial study, Spargo uses Levinas's work to approach our understanding of the suffering and death of others, and in doing so reintroduces an essential ethical element to the reading of literature, culture, and everyday life.


Entre Nous

Entre Nous

Author: Emmanuel Levinas

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2006-06-13

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780826490797

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Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) was a leading philosopher and Talmudic commentator. This book is a major collection of essays representing the culmination of Levinas's philosophy. It gathers his important work and reveals the development of his thought. It looks at issues of suffering, love, religion, culture, justice, human rights, and legal theory.


Book Synopsis Entre Nous by : Emmanuel Levinas

Download or read book Entre Nous written by Emmanuel Levinas and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-06-13 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) was a leading philosopher and Talmudic commentator. This book is a major collection of essays representing the culmination of Levinas's philosophy. It gathers his important work and reveals the development of his thought. It looks at issues of suffering, love, religion, culture, justice, human rights, and legal theory.


Beyond

Beyond

Author: Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9780810114814

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Although Emmanuel Levinas is widely respected as one of the classic thinkers of our century, the debate about his place within Continental philosophy continues. In Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak shows Levinas's thought to be a persistent attempt to point beyond the borders of an economy where orderly interests and ways of reasoning make us feel at home--beyond the world of needs, beyond the self, beyond politics and administration, beyond logic and ontology, even beyond freedom and autonomy. Peperzak's examination begins with a general overview of Levinas's life and thought, and shows how issues of ethics, politics, and religion are intertwined in Levinas's philosophy. Peperzak also discusses the development of Levinas's relations with Husserl and Heidegger, demonstrating thematically the evolution of both Levinas's anti-Heideggerian view of technology and his critical attitude toward nature.


Book Synopsis Beyond by : Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak

Download or read book Beyond written by Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Emmanuel Levinas is widely respected as one of the classic thinkers of our century, the debate about his place within Continental philosophy continues. In Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak shows Levinas's thought to be a persistent attempt to point beyond the borders of an economy where orderly interests and ways of reasoning make us feel at home--beyond the world of needs, beyond the self, beyond politics and administration, beyond logic and ontology, even beyond freedom and autonomy. Peperzak's examination begins with a general overview of Levinas's life and thought, and shows how issues of ethics, politics, and religion are intertwined in Levinas's philosophy. Peperzak also discusses the development of Levinas's relations with Husserl and Heidegger, demonstrating thematically the evolution of both Levinas's anti-Heideggerian view of technology and his critical attitude toward nature.


Between Levinas and Heidegger

Between Levinas and Heidegger

Author: John E. Drabinski

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2014-08-25

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1438452578

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Investigates the philosophical relationship between Levinas and Heidegger in a nonpolemical context, engaging some of philosophy’s most pressing issues. Although both Levinas and Heidegger drew inspiration from Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological method and helped pave the way toward the post-structuralist movement of the late twentieth century, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the relation of these two thinkers. There are plenty of simple—and accurate—oppositions and juxtapositions: French and German, ethics and ontology, and so on. But there is also a critical intersection between Levinas and Heidegger on some of the most fundamental philosophical questions: What does it mean to be, to think, and to act in late modern life and culture? How do our conceptions of subjectivity, time, and history both reflect the condition of this historical moment and open up possibilities for critique, resistance, and transformation? The contributors to this volume take up these questions by engaging the ideas of Levinas and Heidegger relating to issues of power, violence, secularization, history, language, time, death, sacrifice, responsibility, memory, and the boundary between the human and humanism.


Book Synopsis Between Levinas and Heidegger by : John E. Drabinski

Download or read book Between Levinas and Heidegger written by John E. Drabinski and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2014-08-25 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigates the philosophical relationship between Levinas and Heidegger in a nonpolemical context, engaging some of philosophy’s most pressing issues. Although both Levinas and Heidegger drew inspiration from Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological method and helped pave the way toward the post-structuralist movement of the late twentieth century, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the relation of these two thinkers. There are plenty of simple—and accurate—oppositions and juxtapositions: French and German, ethics and ontology, and so on. But there is also a critical intersection between Levinas and Heidegger on some of the most fundamental philosophical questions: What does it mean to be, to think, and to act in late modern life and culture? How do our conceptions of subjectivity, time, and history both reflect the condition of this historical moment and open up possibilities for critique, resistance, and transformation? The contributors to this volume take up these questions by engaging the ideas of Levinas and Heidegger relating to issues of power, violence, secularization, history, language, time, death, sacrifice, responsibility, memory, and the boundary between the human and humanism.


Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas

Author: Lis Thomas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-08-04

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 113587543X

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This book explores Levinas's rethinking of the meaning of ethics, justice and the human from a position that affirms but goes beyond the anti-humanist philosophy of the twentieth century


Book Synopsis Emmanuel Levinas by : Lis Thomas

Download or read book Emmanuel Levinas written by Lis Thomas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Levinas's rethinking of the meaning of ethics, justice and the human from a position that affirms but goes beyond the anti-humanist philosophy of the twentieth century