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SIX: Beyond Being
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CHAPTERI S I X Beyond Being Autrement qu'etre ou au-deZa de Z'essence, which was published in 1974, can be considered as the second opus magnum of Levinas . In more than one regard, it continues and develops the main ideas of Totalite et Infini and answers-mostly in an implicit way-some criticisms that were brought up against the first book.! It is, at the same time, an independent whole, which states the problem of Totality and Infinity in a different manner and develops those problems from other perspectives. It is impossible to understand the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (or any philosophy) if it is isolated from the prephilosophical life (the experience, conviction, events, and the spiritual climate) in which it has its roots. The interpreter of a philosophy does not, however, need to consider explicitly its philosophical and nonphilosophical presuppositions if he/she and most other readers share them with the author of the interpreted text. One can legitimately state that Levinas's thought is an expression of the spiritual climate of our time, 1 The most important, in fact the only, critique with which Levinas argues-in an implicit way-seems to me to be the long essay of Jacques Derrida, "Violence et metaphysique: Essai sur la pensee d'Emmanuel Levinas." This critique appeared first in the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 69 (1964): 322-54, 425-73, and was reprinted in J. Derrida, L'ecriture et la difference (Paris: Du Seuil, 1967), 117-228; cf. Writing and Difference, 79-153. A respectful dissension, which does not exclude affinity, is to be found in the short contribution under the title "Tout autrement," which Levinas wrote in an issue of L'Arc devoted to Derrida (no. 54, 1973) and which is also included in Noms propres (81-89). I 209 210 I C HAP T E R SIX held in common by all those who were educated in the Greek and European traditions, who went through the Nietzschean crisis of our culture, and who suffered the wars and persecutions of the twentieth century. A particular trait of Levinas's Lebenswelt that he does not share with all contemporary thinkers is, however, that he is a Jew who, since his youth in Lithuania and the Ukraine, has been familiar with the Bible and who, since the end of the Second World War, has intensely studied the tradition of the Talmud. The stress that Levinas lays on morality and religion has caused some misunderstandings. Some readers consider his philosophy to be too pious or even to be a sort of theology. Yet few contemporary philosophers have criticized the praxis and the idea of traditional theology more radically than has Levinas; and, although no philosophy can or may free itself from its prephilosophical, and therefore naive, convictions, Levinas has stressed more than once the fact that he is not a theologian but a philosopher, one who tries philosophically to explain and to justify only a part of his convictions and positions.2 Is this self-interpretation accurate? The answer to this question must be found through a philosophical analysis of the works themselves. We should thus read them as philosophical works that have won a place in contemporary philosophy. Notwithstanding their surprising originality, they belong to the tradition of Husserlian and post-Husserlian phenomenology. The relation between Levinas's philosophy and phenomenology is, however, a very special one because it is at the same time a radical critique of the main phenomenological presuppositions. A thorough acquaintance with Husserl's and Heidegger's thought is necessary to understand his "method," but it demands a special explanation beyond this. Although Levinas does not dwell very much on methodological reflections, concentrating instead on direct 2 Cf. TH 110: "My point of departure is absolutely non-theological. This is very important to me; it is not theology which I do, but philosophy ." In a conversation of 1 May 1975 on the occasion of his receiving an honorary doctorate in Leiden, Levinas repeated: "I have never even thought that I was doing theology. Whatever my experiences and prephilosophic sources may have been, I have always had this idea (a bit mad perhaps): that I was doing or was endeavouring to do philosophy, even in commenting on the biblical text which called this forth." This conversation has been published under the title "Questions et reponses," in DDVI 128-57. [54.166.170.195] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:42 GMT) 211 I Beyond Being...