DOCSLIB.ORG

The Levinas Reader

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Levinas Reader The Levinas Reader Emmanuel Levinas EDITED BY SEAN HAND Basil Blackwell Copyright © Introduction and editorial apparatus, Sean Hand 1989 Copyright © 'The Phenomenological Theory of Being', 'There Is', 'Time and the Other', 'Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge', 'Ethics as First Philosophy', 'Substitution', 'Reality and Its Shadow', 'The Transcendence of Words', 'The Servant and her Master', 'The Other in Proust', 'God and Philosophy', 'Revelation in the Jewish Tradition', 'The Pact', 'Ideology and Idealism', 'Judaism', 'Judaism and the Pre­ sent', 'The State of Israel and the Religion of Israel', 'Means of Identification', 'The State of Caesar and the State of David', 'Politics After', 'Assimilation and New Culture', 'Ethics and Politics', Emmanuel Levinas, 1930, 1946, 1947, 1963, 1984, 1968, 1948, 1949, 1966, 1947, 1975, 1977, 1982, 1973, 1971, 1960, 1951, 1963, 1971, 1979, 1980, 1982 First published 1989 Basil Blackwell Ltd 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 lJF, UK Basil Blackwell Inc. 3 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA All rights reserved . Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanic­ al, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and witout a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Dala A CIP catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library Library of Congress Calaloging in Publication Data Levinas, Emmanuel. [Selections. English. 1989] The Levinas reader/edited by Sean Hand. p. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-631-16446-4. - ISBN 0-631-16447-2 (pbk.) 1. Ontology. 2. Ethics. 3. Aesthetics. 4. Religion. 5. Political science. I. Hand, Sean. H. Title. B2430.L482E6 1989 89-14865 194--dc20 CIP Typeset in 10 on 12 pt Plantin by Graphicraft Typesetters, Ltd Printed in Great Britain by Camelot Press PLC, Southampton Contents Preface v Acknowledgements vu Introduction 1 I From Existence to Ethics 9 1 The Phenomenological Theory of Being 11 2 There is: Existence without Existents 29 3 Time and the Other 37 4 Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge 59 5 Ethics as First Philosophy 75 6 Substitution 88 11 Reading, Writing, Revolution, or Aesthetics, Religion, Politics 127 Aesthetics 7 Reality and Its Shadow 129 8 The Transcendence of Words 144 9 The Servant and her Master� 150 10 The other in Proust 160 Religion 11 God and Philosophy 166 12 Revelation in the Jewish Tradition 190 13 The Pact 211 14 Prayer Without Demand 227 Politics 15 Ideology and Idealism 235 16 Difficult Freedom 249 17 Zionisms 267 iv Contents 18 Ethics and Politics 289 Glossary 298 Bibliography 301 Index 308 Preface Emmanuel Levinas is one of the most profound, exacting and original philosophers of twentieth-century Europe. His post-rational ethics stands as the ultimate and exemplary challenge to the solitude of Being, a rigorous and moving testimony of one's infinite obligation to the other person. Levinas's teaching reveals ethics to be the first philosophy: his call to responsibility henceforth obliges thought to refer not to the truebut to the good. In assuming this colossal responsibility, Levinas has changed the course of contemporary philosophy. The Levinas Reader is the most comprehensive introduction to Levinas's work yet published in English. The essays chosen encompass every aspect of his thought: the early phenomenological studies written under the gui­ dance and inspiration of Husserl and Heidegger; the fully developed ethical critique of such totalizing philosophies; the piolleering essays on the moral dimension to aesthetics; the rich and subtle readings of the Talmud which are an exemplary model of an et4ical, transcendental philosophy at work; the admirable meditations on current political issues. Given the extra­ ordinary range of these texts, their specialized vocabulary and assumed knowledge, each essay has been prefaced by a brief introduction presenting the basic issues and the necessary background, and suggesting ways to study the text further. The general introduction to the edition presents a clear resume of the circumstances surrounding Levinas's thought and each stage of its development, in the hope that the beginner as well as the specialist will be able to benefit from Levinas's inspiring teaching. A full bibliography has also been provided. The Levinas Reader has both used the best of several extant English­ language versions of his work, and commissioned translations especially for this volume. Given the very nature of Levinas's thought, involving an infinite responsibility for the other and an equally infinite interpretability of those texts which are the bedrock of our culture, the attempt to homogenize these translations to an excessive degree would directly contravene the very spirit of his philosophy. The notion of a true translation is precisely the VI Preface impossible goal of Levinas's ethical enterprise. Editorial intervention has therefore been undertaken primarily to help the reader: minor stylistic changes have been made, and a glossary explaining the main Judaic refer­ ences has been provided at the end of the volume. Certain conventions concerning the translation of the term 'other' have been observed: autrui, autre, and Autre have been rendered as 'Other', 'other' and 'Other (l'Autre), respectively. In general, quotations from the Bible have been taken from the Collins Revised Standard Version, and quotations from the Talmud come from The Babylonian Talmud, under the editorship of Isidore Epstein (London: Soncino Press), 1948. I should like to thank my editor at Basil Blackwell, Stephan Chambers, my desk editor, Andrew McNeillie, and my copy editor, Alex McIntosh, for the commitment and complete professionalism which all of them brought to the production of this volume. The Bodleian Library, the Taylor Institution recondite material. Sarah Richmond produced superb translations of diffi­ cult works with impressive efficiency. Michael Holland brought his expert knowledge of Blanchot to bear on his translation. Roland Lack, Jonathan Romney and Michael Temple worked hard to produce their new trans­ lations. Daniel Frank of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Stu­ dies generously helped me to read specific passages of the Talmud. Above all, I should like to thank Emmanuel Levinas for his kind support, and for the continuously inspiring nature of his work, based on responsibility for the other. Any errors which remain in this work must be my own respon­ sibility. Sean Hand Acknowledgements The editor and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to include the material collected in this edition: for 'The Phenomenological Theory of Being', Northwestern University Press; for 'There is', 'Substitu­ tion', 'Reality and its Shadow' and 'God and Philosophy', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (division of Kluwer academic publishers); for 'Time and the Other', Duquesne University Press; for 'Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge', Open Court Publishing Company; for 'Ethics as First Philo­ sophy', Editions de l'Universite de Bruxelles; for 'The Transcendence of Words', 'The Servant and her Master' and 'The other in Proust', Editions Fata Morgana; fore 'Revelation in the Jewish Tradition', 'The Pact', 'The State of Caesar and the State of David', 'Politics After!' and 'Assimilation and New Culture', Editions de Minuit; for 'Prayer Without Demand', Presses Universitaires de France; for 'Ideology and Idealism', Ohio State University Press; for 'Judaism', 'Judaism and the Present', 'The State of Israel and the Religion of Israel' and 'Means of Identification', Johns Hopkins University Press; for 'Ethics and Politics', the editor, Les nouveaux cahiers. Introduction 'We are all responsible for everyone else - but I am more responsible than all the others.' This remark, spoken by Alyosha Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov, is one Levinas is fond of quoting. It is a neat indication of the nature of a thought that, in the words of Jacques Derrida, 'caD make us tremble'. 1 Its challenge is an excessive one: a mode of being and saying where I am endlessly obligated to the Other, a multiplicity in being which refuses totalization and takes form instead as fraternity and discourse, an ethical relation which forever precedes and exceeds the egoism and tyranny of ontology. It is not surprising that the remark is taken from Dostoyevsky. Emma­ nuel Levinas was born in Lithuania in 1906 of Jewish parents. His earliest memories include the news of the death of Tolstoy, and the tricentennial celebrations of the house of Romanov. The First World War, which up­ rooted the family, and the 1917 revolution, merge in his memories with his father's bookshop in Kovno. A particular confluence of the old and the new was therefore much in evidence. Judaism had been developed to a high spiritual point in Lithuania, and in the eighteenth century had produced arguably the last Talmudist of genius, the Gaon of Vilna. At the same time, Levmas's parents belonged to a generation that saw their futur� in the Russian language and culture. Levinas's earliest reading therefore involved not only the Hebrew Bible, but the great Russians: Pushkin, Gogol, Dos­ toyevsky and Tolstoy. It was the preoccupations of these Russian writers that led Levinas in 1923 to Strasbourg (the closest French city to Lithuania) in order to study philosophy under such teachers as Charles Blondel and Maurice Pradines. At this time the writings of Bergson were making a strong impact among the students, and Levinas has always insisted on the importance of Bergson's theory of duration.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Adieu to Levinas Ronald C. Arnett “...The Meaning of Death Does Not
    Adieu to Levinas Ronald C. Arnett “. the meaning of death does not begin in death. This invites us to think of death as a moment of death’s signification, which is a meaning that overflows death. We must note carefully that ‘to otherflow death’ in no sense means surpassing or reducing it; it means that this overflowing has its signification, too.”1 Signification is stronger than death—the Other continues to interrupt and awaken the living, calling the “I” into responsibility. When one experiences the death of another, one is jarred by the face of the Other who continues to demand of “me” responsibility. As long as one responds to the face of another, death cannot eclipse the power of the Other upon me. Evoking a call from beyond death does not lessen weeping and raw lament for the loss of another who no longer physically walks among us. A definition of a meaningful life is that a face continues to speak from the grave with the demand of responsibility from a particular Other. As if it was just yesterday, I remember the death of my mother and the depth of pain that penetrated to the core of my soul. As I stood outside my parent’s house, I was confused. I wondered why the world had not stopped with the death of my mother. Cars still moved. Branches tossed in the wind. Small children were still playing. How could such commotion continue after the death of my mother? Yet, somehow my mother continued to demand responsible action from me.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effect of Using the Mind Mapping Technique on the Mastery of Grammar Among Tenth Graders In
    Al Azhar University - Gaza Deanery of Graduate Studies & Scientific Research Faculty of Education Department of Curriculum and Teaching Methods The Effect of Using The Mind Mapping Technique on The Mastery of Grammar among Tenth Graders in Gaza Governorates Submitted By Aziz Harbi Elkahlout Supervised By Prof. Dr. Hassan Abu Jarad 2013/2014 أَلَمْ تَزَ كَيْفَ ضَزَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا كَلِمَتً طَيِّبَتً كَشَجَزَةٍ طَيِّبَتٍ أَصْلُهَا ثَابِتٌ وَفَزْعُهَا فِي السَّمَاءِ}42{ تُؤْتِي أُكُلَهَا كُلَّ حِنيٍ بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهَا وَيَضْزِبُ اللَّهُ الْأَمْثَالَ لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَذَكَّزُونَ}42{ صدق اهلل العظيم )سورة إبراهيم، اﻵية: 42-42( II Dedication To the soul of my mother, To my father for his love, endless support and encouragement, To my teachers and guides, To my dear wife for her extraordinary patience and understanding, To my daughters and sons, who endured a lot to let me continue. To my brothers, especially Safawt, for opening my eyes to higher education, To my friends for motivating and encouraging me to attain my dream, To the great martyrs and prisoners, the symbol of sacrifice, To all those who believe in the importance of learning. To all, I dedicate my research. III Acknowledgement All praise to Allah, the Lord of the worlds; and prayers and peace be upon prophet Mohammed, His servant and messenger. This thesis could not have been accomplished without the assistance, support, and encouragement of many people in my life. I would like to thank them for their support and guidance along the way. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Dr. Hassan Abu Jarad, who patiently revised each chapter of this thesis and provided invaluable guidance and support throughout my writing process.
    [Show full text]
  • Facing Nature: the Infinite in the Flesh
    Facing Nature: The Infinite in the Flesh Robert Daniel Victorin-Vangerud, B.A., M.Div. This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of. Murdoch University Perth, Western Australia 2004 I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research. ------------------------------------- Robert Daniel Victorin-Vangerud i Abstract “Facing Nature: The Infinite in the Flesh” by Robert Victorin-Vangerud This thesis explores the relation between two interpretations of chôra, drawn from a reading of Plato’s Timaeus. The first I label the elemental chôra. The second, I call the social chôra. The first chapter addresses the elements in Ionian philosophy, with an eye toward the political and social backdrop of the important cosmological notion of isonomia, law of equals. Here social and elemental are continuous. Chapter two looks at the next phase of Presocratic thought, Elea, specifically Parmenides and his influence on later thought, then turns to Heidegger’s reading of Parmenides’ through the key word of alêtheia. Finally, I offer a reading of Parmenides through a different key word— trust. The third chapter examines Plato’s cosmology in the Timaeus, focusing on the way the beginning of this dialogue inflects the dialogue in a political/social direction, putting the social chôra in tension with the elemental chôra that the body of the Timaeus’ discusses. In the fourth chapter, which examines the Phaedrus, this tension is inverted, since this dialogue on writing and justice set in what proves to be the mesmerizing and erotic elemental milieu of the world outside the walls of the polis. The second half of the dissertation turns to some modern thinkers within the phenomenological tradition or its wake who write about elementals.
    [Show full text]
  • Deconstructing Emmanuel Levinas' Aesthetics
    ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Deconstructing Emmanuel Levinas’ Aesthetics: A Reading of The Seagram Murals ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Uskontotieteen pro gradu-tutkielma Teologinen tiedekunta Kira Zaitsev ! 29.8.2014 HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO − HELSINGFORS UNIVERSITET Tiedekunta/Osasto − Fakultet/Sektion Laitos − Institution Teologinen tiedekunta uskontotieteen laitos Tekijä − Författare Kira Zaitsev Työn nimi − Arbetets titel Deconstructing Emmanuel Levinas’ Aesthetics: A Reading of the Seagram Murals Oppiaine − Läroämne uskontotiede Työn laji − Arbetets art Aika − Datum Sivumäärä − Sidoantal pro gradu 29.8.2014 63 !Tiivistelmä − Referat Emmanuel Levinas on ranskanjuutalainen filosofi, jonka filosofia keskittyy etiikkaan ja toisen kohtaamiseen. Tämä pro gradu keskittyy Levinaksen estetiikkaan, joka on riippuvainen hänen !”ensimmäisestä filosofiastaan”, eli etiikasta. Työn tutkimuskysymykset ovat Kuinka Levinaksen estetiikka on muodostunut sekä kuinka Mark Rothkon Seagram Murals-maalauksia tulisi arvioida Levinaksen estetiikan pohjalta. Tämän !lisäksi työ pohdiskelee juutalaisen filosofian mahdollisuutta ja fiosofian luonnetta. Pro gradussa arvioidaan ensin Levinaksen laajempaa filosofiaa feministisen dekonstruktion avulla, joka paljastaa filosofian näennäisen rationaalisuuden ja Levinaksen naisvihamielisen paikantumisen. Tämän jälkeen gradussa arvioidaan Levinaksen estetiikkaa ja pohditaan Levinaksen estetiikan rajoja ensin tarkastelemalla Levinaksen argumenttien koherenttiutta hyväksikäyttäen Jacques Derridan kuva — merkki-analyysia, ja tämän jälkeen
    [Show full text]
  • Emmanuel Levinas
    14 Emmanuel Levinas Contact and Interruption AMIT PINCHEVSKI ________________________________________ Emmanuel Levinas was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, yet has only been recently acknowledged as such. He proposed a radically different way to approach ethical questions—in fact, to approach the question of ethics itself. An heir to the phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, his thought came to problematize the foundations upon which lies the work of his teachers. While his presence among French academic circles remained relatively marginal for most of his career, his work nevertheless informed some of the key debates in continental philosophy of the latter half of the century, and had a decisive impact on a generation of thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Marion, Enrique Dussel, and Luce Irigaray. For the better part of his life, Levinas studied and taught the Talmud, whose wisdom he attempted to introduce to various philosophical and contemporary questions. Indeed, one way to describe his philosophy is as a consistent effort to implicate “Greek” with “Hebrew,” that is, to translate the ethical message of Judaism into the Western philosophical discourse. Looming over Levinas was the dark shadow of the Holocaust, which claimed most of his family and in many respects dominated the development of his work. Born in 1906 in Lithuania to a Jewish Orthodox family, Levinas became acquainted with the Hebrew Bible from a young age. During the First World War, his family fled to the Ukraine, where he witnessed the first stages of the Russian Revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • Draft Version 5-4-10 Please Do Not Quote Or Circulate the Politics of Logic
    Draft Version 5-4-10 Please do not quote or circulate The politics of logic: On the consequences of formalism Introduction: An Inquiry into Forms of Life I begin with a formulation of Wittgenstein‘s, as enigmatic today as it was when written fifty years ago, which nevertheless captures the central problem on which a post-―analytic‖ philosophical reflection on language and a critical theory of politics in the ―continental‖ mode are today converging: What has to be accepted, the given, is -- so one could say -- forms of life.1 In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein uses the term Lebensform (or Lebensformen) only a handful of times. But in these few cases, Wittgenstein employs the term in a positively assertoric voice that is rare within a text dedicated almost wholly to criticizing what we may otherwise take to be the ―givens‖ of our language and everyday world. Contemporary interpretations oscillate between two ways of understanding Wittgenstein‘s elliptical invocation of forms of life as ―the given.‖ One line of interpretation understands it as indicating a conventionalist anthropologism of practices or cultures. This is a doctrine of the communal determination of meaning by means of shared practical conventions and norms ―implicit in practice.‖ Another takes it to suggest a biologism of adaptive forms, a ―naturalist‖ reduction of language and meaning to broadly natural-scientific facts.2 I shall argue, however, that Wittgenstein here gestures toward a different problematic altogether, one that actually tends to undermine the very terms in which this decision between culturalist and naturalist readings is normally couched. Indeed, as I shall argue, the problem posed by Wittgenstein‘s invocation of forms of life is not located simply either in the question of the nature of lives or of their forms, but rather in what lies between these two terms: in what it is, roughly, for a form to be a form of life, what it means that something like form or forms shape a (human) life at all.
    [Show full text]
  • Heidegger As Levinas's Guide to Judaism Beyond Philosophy
    religions Article Heidegger as Levinas’s Guide to Judaism beyond Philosophy Elad Lapidot Faculty of Theology, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland; [email protected] Abstract: This essay reflects on the way that Emmanuel Levinas stages the difference between Judaism and Philosophy, namely how he approaches Jewish thought as a concrete other of philosophy. The claim is that this mise en scène underlies Levinas’s oeuvre not only as a discourse about the Other, but as a real scene of an actual encounter with otherness, namely the encounter of philosophy with the epistemic otherness of Judaism. It is in the turn to Jewish thought beyond Philosophy that the essay identifies Heidegger’s strongest influence on Levinas. The essay’s reflection is performed through a reading of Levinas’s first major philosophical work of 1961, Totality and Infinity. The encounter between Philosophy and Judaism is explored in this context both as an epistemic and as a political event. Keywords: Heidegger; Levinas; totality and infinity; philosophy; Judaism; politics The name Heidegger has come to designate a singular phenomenon in the history of thought. The combination of powerful philosophical insight with powerful political shortsightedness (to say the least) has been producing what we can call tormented reception, namely generations of thinkers feeling uneasy about how deeply they were indebted to Heidegger. So uneasy, since their most ingenious attempts of taking distance from Heidegger were still inspired by his thought, and so brought them again and ever closer to Citation: Lapidot, Elad. 2021. him. Especially concerned were Heidegger’s direct students, and above all the Jewish ones, 1 Heidegger as Levinas’s Guide to such as Emmanuel Levinas.
    [Show full text]
  • Ba'da and Qabla in Online News: a Corpus-Based Study
    The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences ba’da and qabla in Online News: A Corpus-Based Study A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Applied Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Ayman Eddakrouri Under the supervision of Prof. Zeinab Taha Department of Applied Linguistics May 2016 This thesis is dedicated to my lovely wife, Dr. Amani Ramadan, who is indeed a gift from Allah. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to begin by expressing my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Zeinab Taha, not only for her guidance, comments, and notices during the whole period in which the research of this thesis was conducted, but also for her personal advice, encouragements, kindness, and thoughtfulness. I cannot capture in words what it has meant to me to have had the privilege of working with her. Indeed, she is more than a supervisor to me. I am most grateful to my first reader, Prof. Raghda Elessawi. Her guidance and patience with me, both during the writing of this thesis and over the entire course of my time at the American University in Cairo, were invaluable. I am deeply indebted to her. Also, I would like to thank my second reader, Prof. Amira Agameya, for her distinguished suggestions, notices, and feedback. I have greatly profited from her insightful responses to my work. A very special gratitude goes to Dr. Ashraf Abdou who helped me at the very beginning and initiated my knowledge in Corpus Linguistics. I owe a debt of gratitude to him.
    [Show full text]
  • Beckett's the Unnameable, Derrida and Levinas
    Law Text Culture Volume 3 Article 9 1997 The same and the other: Beckett's The unnameable, Derrida and Levinas A. Uhlmann Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc Recommended Citation Uhlmann, A., The same and the other: Beckett's The unnameable, Derrida and Levinas, Law Text Culture, 3, 1997, 127-147. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol3/iss1/9 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] The same and the other: Beckett's The unnameable, Derrida and Levinas Abstract In an article concerning the Mabo decision of the Australian High Court Paul Patton discusses Deleuze's notion of the problem-field around which structures are formed (Patton, 1995: 90). Events are themselves differences in that, like the present which repeats itself but is always a different present, the events which occur in our world are always different from one another. They are the things which happen in the world, the things which have happened and which are happening now and it is this series of happenings which define who we are. Deleuze further considers that, like an animal adapting to a given environment, events happen around problems and it is the problems which define the shape of a given society. This journal article is available in Law Text Culture: https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol3/iss1/9 Law Text Culture THE SAME AND THE OTHER: BECKETT'S THE UNNAMEABLE, DERRIDA AND LEVINAS Anthony Uhlmann n an article concerning the Mabo decision of the Australian High Court Paul Patton discusses Deleuze's notion of the problem-field around Iwhich structures are formed (patton, 1995: 90).
    [Show full text]
  • The Place and Face of the Stranger in Levinas "2279
    religions Article The Place and Face of the Stranger in Levinas † Jolanta Saldukaityte˙ Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative Industries, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, 01132 Vilnius, Lithuania; [email protected] † An earlier version of this article, entitled “Stranger as Foreigner from Elsewhere”, was presented at a conference on “Levinas, Displacement, and Repair”, organized by North American Levinas Society at Western Carolina University, NC, USA, on 1 August 2018, and again later, under the title “Face and Place in Levinas”, at a conference on “Problems and Research in Contemporary Phenomenology”, at Vilnius University, Lithuania, on 20 December 2018. Received: 31 December 2018; Accepted: 17 January 2019; Published: 22 January 2019 Abstract: This essay addresses the topic of place, more specifically it raises the question how and why place is essential for defining the strangeness of the other person. In Levinas’ philosophy the Other as stranger is the one whom I welcome to my home and country, i.e., to my place. This essay takes up three interrelated topics: (1) the general notion of place; (2) the ethical notion of place in Levinas’ philosophy, contrasted with an ontological notion of place. The deepest significance and virtue of place appears not in my dwelling or my compatibility with being but at the site from which the I is able to welcome the Other. Furthermore, the “ownness” of my place is always contested by the stranger as I have no necessity, no ultimate right to be; (3) the strangeness of the Other in Levinas’ philosophy defined not by topology but by vulnerability.
    [Show full text]
  • A Transcendental Phenomenological Explication of the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
    University of Kentucky UKnowledge University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2007 THE INFINITE AS ORIGINATIVE OF THE HUMAN AS HUMAN: A TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLICATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EMMANUEL LEVINAS Ronald Lynn Mercer, Jr. University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Mercer, Jr., Ronald Lynn, "THE INFINITE AS ORIGINATIVE OF THE HUMAN AS HUMAN: A TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLICATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EMMANUEL LEVINAS" (2007). University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations. 484. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/484 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Ronald Lynn Mercer, Jr. The Graduate School University of Kentucky 2007 THE INFINITE AS ORIGINATIVE OF THE HUMAN AS HUMAN: A TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLICATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EMMANUEL LEVINAS ____________________________________ ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION ____________________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences At the University of Kentucky By Ronald Lynn Mercer, Jr. Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Ronald Bruzina, Professor of Philosophy Lexington, Kentucky 2007 Copyright © Ronald Lynn Mercer, Jr., 2007 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION THE INFINITE AS ORIGINATIVE OF THE HUMAN AS HUMAN: A TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLICATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EMMANUEL LEVINAS Few philosophers, today, are doing more than simple recognition of Levinas’s debt to phenomenology when a thorough explication of how phenomenological methodology impacts Levinas’s work is needed.
    [Show full text]
  • CHAPTER FOUR the WORD ORDER in SINHALA CHAPTER FOUR the Word Order in Sinhala
    CHAPTER FOUR THE WORD ORDER IN SINHALA CHAPTER FOUR The Word Order in Sinhala 4.0. Preliminaries Languages in the world are classified according to their most typical syntactic structures. Greenberg (1963: 73-113) while considering the characteristics of different languages, divides them into three principal order types: Type 1. VSO (Verb, subject and object) Type 2. SVO (Subject, verb and object) Type 3. SOV (Subject, object and verb) Sinhala provides evidence for being classified as type 3. Indo -Aryan and Dravidian have the same order type. a. guruvaraya poto liyanovsi The teacher-S the book-0 writes- V-Pres The teacher writes the book "The basic word order in Sinhala remains as SOV, but this order may vary depending upon the context and the focus'' (Gair 2003:788). Thus, a simple SOV sentence like a can undergo changes as in the sentences l(b, c, d) b. kumsi.'rg pota kiyavonavn Kuma.ra-S the book-0 reads-V-Pres Kumara reads the book c. kumsi.ra kiyovondva poto Kumara—S reads-V-Pres the book-0 Kumara reads the book potd kiyavondva kuma.Td the book-0 reads- V-Pres Kumara -S Kumara reads the book The following utterance is less dominant in Sinhala. e. kiyavangvsi potd kumsi:r9 reads- V-Pres the book-0 Kuma:ra -S Kumara reads the book This chapter deals with the word order in Sinhala at the phrase level clause level and the sentence level. 4.1. The Word Order at the Phrase Level A phrase which is called in Sinhala /pHdokcefi/ is a group of words which form a grammatical unit.
    [Show full text]