Abstract
What is Levinas's relation to Hegel, the thinker who seems to summarize everything which Levinas's philosophy opposes, yet with whom Levinas never enters a sustained philosophical engagement? An answer can be found through an analysis of the concept of work, understood both as activity of labor and product thereof. The concept of work reveals that, despite the apparent (but superficial) sense of opposition, Levinas's philosophy works in a deliberately noncommittal, or, to use a Levinasian expression, ``dis-interested'' mode with respect to Hegel. Such mode of disinterstedness expresses an ethical gesture of joyful hospitality that neither confirms nor refutes the German philosopher but rather opens him up to an eschatological dimension.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Brian Schroeder (Rochester Institute of Technology) and Maurizio Pagano (Università di Trieste) for their insightful comments, suggestions, and assistance.
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Benso, S. Gestures of work: Levinas and Hegel. Cont Philos Rev 40, 307–330 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-006-9030-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-006-9030-5