Levinas, Phenomenology and beyond: Fidelities and Infidelities

Abstract

Emmanuel Levinas learned to think and “work in philosophy” thanks to Husserl and, later, Heidegger. Of them he praised the suspicion of an alleged objectivity to which reason would access and the exploration of affective intentionalities that characterize human experience. However, openly declaring himself a heir of phenomenology, he insisted on getting away from it. Levinas considered that philosophical discourse paved the way for the atrocities of the 20th century, and he intended to reorient it by attending to an encounter with alterity that suspends the usual movement of consciousness - all of it being representation, power and assimilation. Thus, he tried to speak of that which founds language and escapes it, so that thought stops being a disoriented monologue and even a prelude to violence. We will investigate how Levinas reviews his phenomenological and even philosophical heritage in general, and how he responds to it by opening new paths for it.