The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas
Cambridge University Press, 3/21/2011
EAN 9780521193023, ISBN10: 0521193028
Hardcover, 270 pages, 23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
This book provides a clear and helpful overview of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, one of the most significant and interesting philosophers of the late twentieth century. Michael L. Morgan presents an overall interpretation of Levinas' central principle that human existence is fundamentally ethical and that its ethical character is grounded in our face-to-face relationships. He explores the religious, cultural and political implications of this insight for modern Western culture and how it relates to our conception of selfhood and what it is to be a person, our understanding of the ground of moral values, our experience of time and the meaning of history, and our experience of religious concepts and discourse. Includes an annotated list of recommended readings and a selected bibliography of books by and about Levinas. An excellent introduction to Levinas for readers unfamiliar with his work and even for those without a background in philosophy.
Introduction
1. Responding to atrocity in the twentieth century
2. How to read Levinas
normativity and transcendental philosophy
3. The ethical content of the face-to-face
4. Philosophy, totality, and the everyday
5. Subjectivity and the self
passivity and freedom
6. God, philosophy, and the ground of the ethical
7. Time, history, and messianism
8. Greek and Hebrew
Conclusions, puzzles, problems
Annotated reading list and bibliography.