Levinas Between Ethics and Politics

This volume traces the unfolding of Levinas' phenomenology into his hermeneutic of subjectivity. It focuses upon his two magna opera, Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence with a view toward sketching the destiny of a phenomenology of ethical intersubjectivity. Therefore, while being a monograph devoted to the philosopher's mature work, it is also a study of the hermeneutical end-point of ethical projects grounded in the phenomenological method. It shows how the metaphysics of the 'face' and its ethical force must give rise, at the social and political levels, to an enigmatic reference to the third party, which resembles certain transcendental terms in German Idealism. This work will give philosophers interested in Levinas both an insight into the evolution of his work, and a clear, critical perspective on the shortcomings of the use of phenomenology in ethics, as well as on the difficulties for post-modern thought found in the relationship between ethics and politics. The book also utilizes the contributions of major French, Belgian, British and German commentators on Levinas. In that respect, its sources are wider in scope than most Anglo-American monographs on Levinas.