Who is Emmanuel Levinas? He was rather discreet about the biographical details of his life, though there has been a fair amount gathered in the course of interviews. At the end one of his works, Difficult Freedom, there is a biographical piece titled “Signature.” It is prefaced by the following conversation, which Levinas says he overheard in the subway.
“The language that tries to be direct and name events fails to be straightforward. Events induce it to be prudent and make compromises. Commitment unknowingly agglomerates men into parties. Their speech is transformed into politics. The language of the committed is encoded.”
“Who can speak in a non-coded way about current events? Who can simply open his heart when talking about people? Who shows them his face?”
“The person who uses the words ‘substance,’ ‘accident,’ ‘subject,’ ‘object,’ and other abstractions…”
I did not realize until I began thinking about my question-title for this mini-course why Levinas placed that mysterious bit of conversation, inspired by the muse of the métro, at the beginning of his biographical note. I now think it was as if to say: “My most personal self (not necessarily the one my neighbors knew, nor even my close family) is expressed in my philosophical writings.” He might then have gone on to correct the false impression that his “Talmudic Readings” are not, in a sense, a part of his philosophical writings, since for him the Talmud represented precisely the endeavor to prolong and go beyond (see his Beyond the Verse) the biblical verses by reason.
1. Bio-bibliography; totality vs. infinity. See link to Levinas bibliography on left of this blog.
Levinas's two major theses:
1. Totality and Infinity (1961)
2. Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974)
The Greek vs. the Judaic side of his writings, and their interrelatedness.
Talmudic Readings
Hegel (1770-1831) and the Totality--Closure, finitude, system, organic whole, organism.
The notion of Infinity--Openness, endlessness, אין סוף
What is at stake for Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), and then for Emmanuel Levinas in the difference between these two terms?
Subjectivity.
About Me
- Michael
- I grew up in Freeport, Long Island and then in Brookfield Center, CN. Educated in British West Indies (Barbados and Jamaica), and then in France (Paris). Taught English in Germany, then returned to the US (mid-Sixties) and taught French. Received Doctorate from University of California, San Diego, in French and Philosophical Studies. I have translated works by French historiographer Michel de Certeau, and French philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas. My first book, "Toward the Outside: Themes and Concepts in Emmanuel Levinas" was published by Duquesne University Press in 2005. Retired from teaching French Literature and Philosophy at Berry College in Rome, GA, I moved to Riverdale with my wife Helen in 2006, where I continue to translate philosophical works from French to English for American University Presses such as Yale, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Fordham.