Skip to main content
Book cover

Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy pp 249–268Cite as

Emmanuel Levinas: The Phenomenology of Sociality and the Ethics of Alterity

  • Chapter

Part of the Contributions to Phenomenology book series (CTPH,volume 47)

Abstract

Born into a Jewish family in Lithuania in 1906, Levinas left in 1917 for the Ukraine, where he witnessed the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. In 1923, he moved to Strasbourg and became a student of philosophy at the university. He spent 1928 and 1929 studying under Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg. After returning to France in 1930 Levinas published his dissertation, La théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl (THI). In it he acknowledged the importance of Husserl’s recognition of practical and axiological truths with a different ontological structure from theoretical truth (THI, 133). However, Levinas accepted Heidegger’s rejection of Husserl’s privileging of theory. The Heideggerian reading of Husserl in The Theory of Intuition came to dominate the French appropriation of phenomenology and established Levinas as one of the foremost exponents of phenomenology.

Keywords

  • Ethical Relation
  • Phenomenological Description
  • Philosophical Writing
  • Egoistic Identity
  • Radical Alterity

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-9924-5_13
  • Chapter length: 20 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   229.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-94-015-9924-5
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Softcover Book
USD   299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Hardcover Book
USD   299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Selected Bibliography

Primary Sources

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. La théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1930.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Trans. André Orianne. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. De l’existence à l’existant. Paris: Fontaine, 1947.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Existence and Existents. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Totalité et infini. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Quatre lectures talmudiques. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Humanisme de l’autre homme. Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise than being or beyond essence. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. En découvrant l’existence avec Husserl et Heidegger. 3rd ed. Paris: J. Vrin, 1974.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Noms Propres. Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Proper Names. Trans. Michael B. Smith. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Difficile liberté. 2nd ed. Paris: Albin Michel, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Difficult Freedom. Trans. Sean Hand. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Du Sacré au Saint. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Le temps et l’autre. Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Time and the Other. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. De Dieu qui vient à l’idée. Paris: Vrin, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Of God Who Comes to Mind. Trans. Bettina Bergo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Éthique et infini, Paris: Fayard, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Ethics and Infinity. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. L’au-delà du verset. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Beyond the Verse. Trans. Gary D. Mole. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Collected Philosophical Papers. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Hors sujet. Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Outside the Subject. Trans. Michael B. Smith. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. À l’heure des nations. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. In the Time of the Nations. Trans. Michael B. Smith. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Nine Talmudic Readings. Trans. Annette Aronowicz. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Entre nous. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Entre Nous. Trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Dieu, la mort et le temps. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Altérité et transcendance. Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Alterity and Transcendance. Trans. Michael B. Smith. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Nouvelles lectures talmudiques. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. New Talmudic Readings. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. Discovering Existence with Husserl. Trans. Richard A. Cohen and Michael B. Smith. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

Secondary Sources

  • Bernasconi, Robert. “The Ethics of Suspicion.” Research in Phenomenology 20 (1990): 3–18.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Bernasconi, Robert. “The Third Party.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 30 (1999): 76–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernasconi, Robert and Simon Critchley, eds. Re-Reading Levinas. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bergo, Bettina. Levinas Between Ethics and Politics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloechl, Jeffrey, ed. The Face of the Other and the Trace of God. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burggraeve, Roger. E. Levinas: Une bibliographie primaire et secondaire (1929–1989). Leuven: Peeters, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chanter, Tina. “Levinas and the Question of the Other.” In her Ethics of Eros, 170–224. New York: Routledge, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Richard A. Elevations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Richard A., ed. Face to Face with Levinas. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • Critchley, Simon. The Ethics of Deconstruction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Colin. Levinas. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. “Violence et métaphysique.” In his L’écriture et la difference, 117–228. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. “Violence and Metaphysics.” In his Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass, 79–153. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas. Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs, Robert. Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hand, Sean, ed. The Levinas Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irigaray, Luce. “Fécondité de la caresse.” In her Ethique de la difference sexuelle, 173–199. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irigaray, Luce. “The Fecundity of the Caress.” In her An Ethics of Sexual Difference. Trans. Carolyn Brooke, 185–217. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamelle, François. Textes pour Emmanuel Lévinas. Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Llewelyn, John. Emmanuel Levinas: The Genealogy of Ethics. London: Routledge, 1995.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Peperzak, Adriaan. To the Other. West Lafayette, IN; Purdue University Press, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peperzak, Adriaan., ed. Ethics as First Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peperzak, Adriaan, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi, eds. Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poirié, François. Emmanuel Lévinas: Qui êtes-vous? Lyon: La Manufacture, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, Jill. Altered Reading. Levinas and Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, David, and Robert Bernasconi, eds., The Provocation of Levinas. London: Routledge, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyschogrod, Edith. Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics. 2nd edition. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Memphis, USA

    Robert Bernasconi & Stacy Keltner

Authors
  1. Robert Bernasconi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Stacy Keltner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bernasconi, R., Keltner, S. (2002). Emmanuel Levinas: The Phenomenology of Sociality and the Ethics of Alterity. In: Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9924-5_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9924-5_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6082-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9924-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive