Longing for the Other: Levinas and Metaphysical Desire

CONTENTS

CONTENTS Abbreviations xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: Levinas and the Problem of Human Longing 1 Levinas’s Phenomenology of Metaphysical Desire 1 Defining Longing 4 The Unusual Grammar of Longing 11 Pursuing Levinas’s Analysis of Human Longing 14 PART ONE: HUMAN LONGING ONE • The Origins, Aim, and Ends of Human Longing: Levinas and Plato in Dialogue 19 Levinas on Longing 19 Levinas and Plato on Desire 24 Plato’s Eros Reexamined 29 An Erotic Homecoming? 34 Longing, the Good, and the Other 36 Levinas and Plato on the Origins of Desire 43 Levinas on the Ends of Desire 49 Metaphysical Desire and Desire Proper 54 Plato’s Account of Desire Reconsidered 60 Conclusions 65 TWO • Longing and Striving for the Beyond: Levinas and Heidegger in Dialogue 67 Levinas’s Heideggerian Roots 67 Heidegger’s Treatment of Plato and Eros 69 Heidegger on the Erotic Phenomenon 72 The Internal Inherence of Having and Striving in the Erotic Phenomenon 79 Authentic Eros and Primordial Longing 86 Heidegger and Levinas Reexamined 94 Heidegger’s Being as “Beyond Being”? 98 Heidegger and Levinas on the Good Beyond Being 104 Conclusions 109 PART TWO: ETHICAL LONGING THREE • The Ethics of Longing: Levinas and Fichte in Dialogue 113 Ethics: The Metaphysical Optics 113 The History of Idealism 114 Shame: An Introduction 121 Shame’s First Revelation: Self-Consciousness 128 Shame, Responsibility, and Freedom 133 Shame and Longing 137 Idealism Reexamined: Fichte on Solicitation, Freedom, and Recognition 139 Strange Bedfellows: Fichte and Levinas on the Ethical and Longing 149 Levinas and Fichte Reconciled? 157 Conclusions 162 viii Contents PART THREE: DIVINE LONGING FOUR • The Metaphysics of Longing and CreatureConsciousness : Levinas and Schelling in Dialogue 167 Through Shame to Creation 167 Creation in Levinas: Creation as Contractio Dei 171 Creation, the Trace, and Longing 179 Creation in Levinas: Hypostasis as Contractio Hominis 182 Creation through the Eyes of Schelling 187 From Being to beings 191 The Mutuality of Independence and Dependence 200 Schelling and Levinas: A Missed Connection 206 The Legacy of Creation: Ethics and Longing 212 Conclusions 221 FIVE • Longing and the Numinous: Levinas and Otto in Dialogue 224 Longing and the Beyond 224 The Beyond and the Numinous 229 Levinas and the Numinous: The Ambiguity of the Infinite 236 Heidegger and Schelling on the Numinous: God in the Docks 245 Longing and Evil 250 Conclusions: Longing as the Vaccination of the Infinite 257 Notes 263 Bibliography 293 Index 305 Contents ix ...