To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (Purdue University Series in the History of Philosophy)

by Emmanuel Levinas, Adriaan Peperzak

Overview

The fruit of the author's many courses on Emmanuel Levinas in Europe and the United States, this study is a clear introduction for graduate students and scholars who are not yet familiar with Levinas's difficult but exceptionally important oeuvre. After a first chapter on the existential background and the key issues of his thought, chapters 2, 3, and 4 concentrate on and include a short text, "Philosophy and the idea of the Infinite," which contains the program of Levinas's entire oeuvre. Chapter 5 is a companion to the reading of Levinas's first opus magnum, Totality and the Infinite. It analyzes the structure of this book and shows how its questions and answers adhere together. "Through phenomenology toward a saying beyond phenomena and essence" could be the summary of Levinas's attempt to think, with and against Martin Heidegger, the otherness of the Other. This is brought out even more clearly in his second opus magnum, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, whose significance is shown in chapter 6. A bibliography is added to facilitate further study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557530240
Publisher:	Purdue University Press
Publication date:	02/02/2005
Series:	Series in the History of Philosophy
Pages:	247
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Adriaan Peperzak is the author of numerous articles and books, including Philosophy and Politics: A Commentary on the Preface of Hegel’s Philosophy and Politics: A Commentary on the preface of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and System and History in Philosophy.

Table of Contents

PREFACE
List of Abbreviations
CHAPTER ONE: The One for the Other
CHAPTER TWO: A Commentary on "Philosophy and the Idea of the Infinite"
CHAPTER THREE: Text
CHAPTER FOUR: Text and Commentary
CHAPTER FIVE: A Key to Totality and Infinity
CHAPTER SIX: Beyond Being
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Editorial Reviews

". . . a brilliant, exemplary reading of a major thinker by a philosopher of note, a reading that is both accessible to intelligent readers and a 'must' for those who work with contemporary continental thought." —Edith Wyschogrod, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought: Rice University

". . . To the Other will long remain the definitive handbook to which puzzled readers of Levinas can be sent with confidence." —Robert Bernasconi, Moss Professor of Philosophy, Memphis State University)

From the Publisher

. . . To the Other will long remain the definitive handbook to which puzzled readers of Levinas can be sent with confidence.”

Robert Bernasconi

. . . a brilliant , exemplary reading of a major thinker by a philosopher of note, a reading that is both accessible to intelligent readers and a ‘must’ for those who work with contemporary continental thought.”

Edith Wyschogrod