Editing Emmanuel Levinas (section)

==Philosophy==
In the 1950s, Levinas emerged from the circle of intellectuals surrounding the philosopher [[Jean Wahl]] as a leading French thinker. His work is based on the [[ethics]] of [[Other (philosophy)|the Other]] or, in Levinas's terms, on "ethics as first philosophy". For Levinas, the Other is not knowable and cannot be made into an object of the self, as is done by traditional [[metaphysics]] (which Levinas called "[[ontology]]"). Levinas prefers to think of philosophy as the "wisdom of love" rather than the "love of wisdom" (the usual translation of the Greek "φιλοσοφία"). In his view, responsibility towards the Other precedes any "objective searching after truth".

Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the encounter with the Other. For Levinas, the irreducible relation, the epiphany, of the [[Face-to-face (philosophy)|face-to-face]], the encounter with another, is a privileged [[phenomenon]] in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. "The Other precisely ''reveals'' himself in his [[alterity]] not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness."<ref>E. Levinas, ''[[Totality and Infinity]]: An Essay on Exteriority'' ([[Alphonso Lingis]], transl. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p. 150.</ref> At the same time, the revelation of the face makes a demand, and this demand is before one can express or know one's freedom to affirm or deny.<ref>For recent reflections on the ethical-political imports of Levinas's tradition (and biography), along with the examination of the notion of the ''face-to-face'' in relation to ''le visage'', while taking into account the Levantine/Palestinian standpoint on conflict, see: [[Nader El-Bizri]], "Uneasy Meditations Following Levinas," ''Studia Phaenomelnologica'', Vol. 6 (2006), pp. 293–315.</ref> One instantly recognizes the transcendence and [[heteronomy]] of the Other. Even murder fails as an attempt to take hold of this otherness.

While critical of traditional theology, Levinas does require that a "trace" of the Divine be acknowledged within an ethics of Otherness. This is especially evident in his thematization of debt and guilt. "A face is a trace of itself, given over to my responsibility, but to which I am wanting and faulty. It is as though I were responsible for his mortality, and guilty for surviving."<ref>Emmanuel Levinas, ''Otherwise than Being'', trans. A. Lingis (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1974), p. 91.</ref> The moral "authority" of the face of the Other is felt in my "infinite responsibility" for the Other.<ref>Levinas, Entre Nous, trans. M. B. Smith & B. Harshav (New York: Columbia, 1998), p. 74.</ref> The face of the Other comes towards me with its infinite moral demands while emerging out of the trace.

Apart from this morally imposing emergence, the Other’s face might well be adequately addressed as "Thou" (along the lines proposed by [[Martin Buber]]) in whose welcoming countenance I might find great comfort, love and communion of souls—but not a moral demand bearing down upon me from a height. "Through a trace the irreversible past takes on the profile of a ‘He.’ The beyond from which a face comes is in the third person."<ref>Levinas, "The Trace of the Other," in ''Deconstruction in Context'', ed. M. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 356.</ref> It is because the Other also emerges from the ''illeity'' of a He (''il'' in French) that I instead fall into infinite debt vis-à-vis the Other in a situation of utterly asymmetrical obligations: I owe the Other everything, the Other owes me nothing. The trace of the Other is the heavy shadow of God, the God who commands, "[[Thou shalt not kill]]!"<ref>Levinas, ''Difficult Freedom'', trans. S. Hand (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1990), p. 8f.</ref> Levinas takes great pains to avoid straightforward theological language.<ref>"A face does not function in proximity as a sign of a hidden God who would impose the neighbor on me." ''Otherwise than Being'', p. 94.</ref> The very metaphysics of signification subtending theological language is suspected and suspended by evocations of how traces work differently than signs. Nevertheless, the divinity of the trace is also undeniable: "the trace is not just one more word: it is the proximity of God in the countenance of my fellowman."<ref>Levinas, ''Entre Nous'', p. 57.</ref> In a sense, it is divine commandment without divine authority.

Following ''[[Totality and Infinity]]'', Levinas later argued that responsibility for the other is rooted within the subjective constitution. The first line of the preface of this book is "everyone will readily agree that it is of the highest importance to know whether we are not duped by morality."<ref>E. Levinas, ''[[Totality and Infinity]]: An Essay on Exteriority'' ([[Alphonso Lingis]], transl. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p. 21.</ref> This idea appears in his thoughts on recurrence (chapter 4 in ''[[Otherwise than Being]]''), in which Levinas maintains that subjectivity is formed in and through subjection to the other. Subjectivity, Levinas argued, is primordially ethical, not theoretical: that is to say, responsibility for the other is not a derivative feature of subjectivity, but instead, ''founds'' subjective being-in-the-world by giving it a meaningful direction and orientation. Levinas's thesis "ethics as first philosophy", then, means that the traditional philosophical pursuit of knowledge is secondary to a basic ethical duty to the other. To meet the Other is to have the idea of Infinity.<ref>French: "''Aborder Autrui [...] c'est donc recevoir d'Autrui au-delà de la capacité du Moi: ce qui signifie exactement: avoir l'idée de l'infini.''" in ''Totalité et Infini'', Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, 1991, p. 22.</ref>

The elderly Levinas was a distinguished French public intellectual, whose books reportedly sold well. He had a major influence on the younger, but more well-known [[Jacques Derrida]], whose seminal ''Writing and Difference'' contains an essay, "Violence and Metaphysics", that was instrumental in expanding interest in Levinas in France and abroad. Derrida also delivered a eulogy at Levinas's funeral, later published as ''Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas'', an appreciation and exploration of Levinas's moral philosophy. In a memorial essay for Levinas, [[Jean-Luc Marion]] claimed that "If one defines a great philosopher as someone without whom philosophy would not have been what it is, then in France there are two great philosophers of the 20th Century: [[Henri Bergson|Bergson]] and Lévinas."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/print.asp?editorial_id=9839 |title=Radical Philosophy - print friendly |access-date=2011-06-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105000553/http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/print.asp?editorial_id=9839 |archive-date=2011-01-05 }}</ref>

His works have been a source of controversy since the 1950s, when [[Simone de Beauvoir]] criticized his account of the subject as being necessarily masculine, as defined against a feminine other.<ref>{{cite book | last= de Beauvoir | first= S. | year= 2009 | title= The Second Sex | publisher= Vintage | location= New York | pages=6 | isbn= 9780307277787 }}</ref> While other feminist philosophers like [[Tina Chanter]] and the artist-thinker [[Bracha L. Ettinger]]<ref>Bracha L. Ettinger in conversation with Emmanuel Lévinas, (1991–1993). Time is the Breath of the Spirit. Translated by C. Ducker and J. Simas (with portrait-photos of E. L. taken by Bracha L.E.). Oxford: MOMA, 1993. Reprinted (Hebrew) in: Iyyun, Oct. 1994. Reprinted (Russian) in: Kabinet, Prilozehnie nº 3, 1994. Reprinted as "Un monde sans moi" (French) in: Athanor nº 5: 29–33, 1994. Reprinted in: Kaninet – An Anthology. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1997.</ref><ref>Emmanuel Lévinas in conversation with Bracha L. Ettinger, (1991–1993). "Le féminin est cette différence inouïe". Four one-off Artist's Books, 1994. Reprinted as "Que dirait Eurydice?" Braka! nº 8, 1997. Reprinted as "Que dirait Eurydice?"/"What Would Eurydice Say?" (English/French) to coincide with Kabinet exhibition, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Paris: BLE Atelier, 1997. Reprinted in Athena: Philosophical Studies. Vol. 2, 2006.</ref> have defended him against this charge, increasing interest in his work in the 2000s brought a reevaluation of the possible misogyny of his account of the feminine, as well as a critical engagement with his French nationalism in the context of colonialism. Among the most prominent of these are critiques by [[Simon Critchley]] and [[Stella Sandford]].<ref>Critchley, S. 2004. "Five Problems in Levinas’ View of Politics and the Sketch of a Solution to Them". Political Theory 32, 2;172-185. V. also Sandford, S. 2001. The Metaphysics of Love: Gender and Transcendence in Levinas, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, New York.</ref> However, there have also been responses which argue that these critiques of Levinas are misplaced.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://rdcu.be/6nYT|title = Of Levinas' 'structure' in address to his four 'others'| year=2016 | doi=10.1007/s11007-015-9346-0 | last1=Galetti | first1=Dino | journal=Continental Philosophy Review | volume=49 | issue=4 | pages=509–532 | s2cid=254797828 }}</ref>