Editing Emmanuel Levinas (section)

==Life and career==
Levinas was born on 12 January 1906, into a [[middle-class]] [[Litvaks|Litvak]] family in [[Kaunas]], in present-day [[Lithuania]], then Kovno district, at the Western edge of the [[Russian Empire]]. Because of the disruptions of [[World War I]], the family moved to [[Kharkiv]] in [[Ukraine]] in 1916, where they stayed during the Russian revolutions of February and October 1917. In 1920, his family returned to the Republic of Lithuania. Levinas's early education was in secular, Russian-language schools in Kaunas and Kharkiv.<ref>{{cite book | last= Moyn | first= S. | year= 2005 | title= Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and Ethics | url= https://archive.org/details/originsofotherem00moyn | url-access= registration | publisher= Cornell University Press | location= Ithaca, New York | pages=[https://archive.org/details/originsofotherem00moyn/page/23 23–24] | isbn= 9780801473661 }}</ref> Upon his family's return to the Republic of Lithuania, Levinas spent two years at a Jewish [[Gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]] before departing for France, where he commenced his university education.

Levinas began his philosophical studies at the [[University of Strasbourg]] in 1923,<ref name="Shapiro">{{cite web |last1=Shapiro |first1=Susan E. |title=Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) |url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/routwriting/emmanuel_levinas_1906_1995 |website=Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work |publisher=Routledge |access-date=14 October 2018}}</ref> and his lifelong friendship with the French philosopher [[Maurice Blanchot]]. In 1928, he went to the [[University of Freiburg]] for two semesters to study [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] under [[Edmund Husserl]]. At [[Freiburg]] he also met [[Martin Heidegger]], whose philosophy greatly impressed him. Levinas would in the early 1930s be one of the first French intellectuals to draw attention to Heidegger and Husserl by translating, in 1931, Husserl's ''[[Cartesian Meditations]]'' (with the help of Gabrielle Peiffer and with advice from [[Alexandre Koyré]]) and by drawing on their ideas in his own philosophy, in works such as ''{{lang|fr|La théorie de l'intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl}}'' (''The Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology''; his 1929/30 [[doctoral thesis]]), ''{{lang|fr|De l'Existence à l'Existant}}'' (''From Existence to Existents''; 1947), and ''{{lang|fr|En Découvrant l’Existence avec Husserl et Heidegger}}'' (''Discovering Existence with Husserl and Heidegger''; first edition, 1949, with additions, 1967). In 1929, he was awarded his doctorate (''[[Doctorat d'université]]'' degree) by the University of Strasbourg for his thesis on the meaning of intuition in the philosophy of Husserl, published in 1930.

Levinas became a naturalized French citizen in 1939.<ref name="Bergo2017">{{cite web |last1=Bergo |first1=Bettina |title=Emmanuel Levinas |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopher |access-date=14 October 2018}}</ref> When France declared war on Germany, he reported for military duty as a translator of Russian and French.<ref name="Shapiro" /> During the German invasion of France in 1940, his military unit was surrounded and forced to surrender. Levinas spent the rest of [[World War II]] as a [[prisoner of war]] in a camp near [[Hanover]] in [[Germany]]. Levinas was assigned to a special barrack for Jewish prisoners, who were forbidden any form of religious worship. Life in the Fallingbostel camp was difficult, but his status as a prisoner of war protected him from [[the Holocaust]]'s concentration camps.<ref name="Ivry">{{cite web |last1=Ivry |first1=Benjamin |title=A Loving Levinas on War |url=https://forward.com/culture/125385/a-loving-levinas-on-war/ |website=Forward |date=11 February 2010 |access-date=14 October 2018}}</ref> Other prisoners saw him frequently jotting in a notebook. These jottings were later developed into his book ''De l'Existence à l'Existant'' (1947) and a series of lectures published under the title ''Le Temps et l'Autre'' (1948). His wartime notebooks have now been published in their original form as ''Œuvres: Tome 1, Carnets de captivité: suivi de Écrits sur la captivité; et, Notes philosophiques diverses'' (2009).

Meanwhile, [[Maurice Blanchot]] helped Levinas's wife and daughter spend the war in a monastery, thus sparing them from the Holocaust. Blanchot, at considerable personal risk, also saw to it that Levinas was able to keep in contact with his immediate family through letters and other messages. Other members of Levinas's family were not so fortunate; his mother-in-law was deported and never heard from again, while his father and brothers were killed by the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] in Lithuania.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bergo |first=Bettina |title=Emmanuel Levinas |date=2019 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/levinas/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Fall 2019 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=2022-07-17}}.</ref> After the Second World War, he studied the [[Talmud]] under the enigmatic [[Monsieur Chouchani]], whose influence he acknowledged only late in his life.

Levinas's first book-length essay, ''[[Totality and Infinity]]'' (1961), was written as his ''[[Doctorat d'État]]'' primary thesis (roughly equivalent to a [[Habilitation]] thesis). His secondary thesis was titled ''Études sur la phénoménologie'' (''Studies on Phenomenology'').<ref name="Schrift p. 159">Alan D. Schrift (2006), ''Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes And Thinkers'', Blackwell Publishing, p. 159.</ref> After earning his habilitation, Levinas taught at a private Jewish High School in Paris, the {{Interlanguage link multi|École normale Israélite orientale (Paris)|fr}}, eventually becoming its director.<ref>{{Cite journal | url=https://www.academia.edu/30541734 |title = The Temptation of Pedagogy: Levinas's Educational Thought from His Philosophical and Confessional Writings|journal = Journal of Philosophy of Education|last1 = Matanky|first1 = Eugene D.| date=January 2018 | doi=10.1111/1467-9752.12302 | s2cid=149995642 }}</ref> He participated in 1957 at the International Meeting at the [[monastery of Toumliline]], a conference focused on contemporary challenges and interfaith dialogue.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pont |first1=Daniel |title=Pont Toumliline English - DIMMID |url=https://dimmid.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B647E5337-0D2E-42C0-B307-75D22155DE77%7D |website=dimmid.org |access-date=25 January 2024 |date=June 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mattelart |first1=Armand |title=Por una mirada-mundo - Armand Mattelart - Conversaciones con Michel Sénécal |date=5 March 2014 |publisher=Editorial GEDISA |isbn=978-84-9784-803-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JzYlBQAAQBAJ |access-date=25 January 2024 |language=es}}</ref> Levinas began teaching at the [[University of Poitiers]] in 1961, at the Nanterre campus of the [[University of Paris]] in 1967, and at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] in 1973, from which he retired in 1979. He published his second major philosophical work, ''Autrement qu'être ou au-delà de l'essence'', in 1974. He was also a professor at the [[University of Fribourg]] in [[Switzerland]]. In 1989, he was awarded the [[Balzan Prize]] for Philosophy.

According to his obituary in ''[[The New York Times]]'',<ref name="Levinas's obituary">{{Cite news |last=Steinfels |first=Peter |date=1995-12-27 |title=Emmanuel Levinas, 90, French Ethical Philosopher |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/27/world/emmanuel-levinas-90-french-ethical-philosopher.html |access-date=2022-07-17 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Levinas came to regret his early enthusiasm for Heidegger, after the latter joined the [[Nazis]]. Levinas explicitly framed several of his mature philosophical works as attempts to respond to Heidegger's philosophy in light of its ethical failings.
 
His son is the composer [[Michaël Levinas]], and his son-in-law is the French mathematician [[:fr:Georges Hansel|Georges Hansel]]. Among his most famous students is Rabbi Baruch Garzon from Tetouan (Morocco), who studied with Levinas at the Sorbonne, and later went on to become one of the most important Rabbis of the Spanish-speaking world.