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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2011
Online ISBN:
9780511921551
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511921551
Subjects:
Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy: General Interest, Religion, Philosophy
Information

Book description

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.

Reviews

‘The writings of Emmanuel Levinas deserve a place as central to the discipline of moral philosophy. Michael Morgan’s riveting study provides a point of access available to all. Crossing the range of Levinas’s thought, Morgan provides [a] model of philosophical elaboration: patient, interrogative, and, at every turn, argumentatively suggestive. This book immediately takes its place as the best introduction to Levinas’s philosophy available.’

J. M. Bernstein - New School for Social Research

‘Morgan provides a clear and comprehensive introduction by situating Levinas’s thought within three contexts: problems about the authority of ethics and normativity faced by other recent philosophers from the Anglo-American as well as the Continental traditions; Levinas’s two corpora, consisting of philosophical and Jewish writings; and the atrocities of the twentieth century. The result is as helpful to newcomers as it is illuminating to those who are already familiar with Levinas’s challenging philosophy.’

Paul Franks - University of Toronto

‘Situating Levinas’s thought within twentieth-century debates on the sources of normativity, The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas argues for the originality of Levinas’s position as an account of ordinary life and what it is to live that life meaningfully and morally. Michael Morgan makes Levinas’s writings approachable without sacrificing their philosophical complexity or the depth of the ethical experience they attempt to convey. His book sharpens the terms of debate over Levinas’s ethics, brings new and important voices into the conversation, and challenges readers to move beyond standard interpretations. More than a simple introduction, this book is a deftly guided tour of the thorniest issues confronting those who seek to understand Levinas and his work. Morgan has brought us a book destined to change how we read Levinas today.’

Diane Perpich - Clemson University

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Contents

Contents
References
Recommended Readings
Works by Levinas
Levinas, Emmanuel. Basic Philosophical Writings. Peperzak, Adriaan T., Critchley, Simon, and Bernasconi, Robert (eds.). (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). Excellent collection of nine important philosophical essays, with helpful introductions; includes “Is Ontology Fundamental?,” “Transcendence and Height,” and “Substitution.” The best available place to begin reading Levinas's philosophical works.
Levinas, EmmanuelEthics and Infinity. Conversations with Philippe Nemo (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1985). Very helpful set of interviews, broadcast in 1981, on various themes. A good place to begin reading Levinas.
Levinas, EmmanuelTime and the Other. Cohen, Richard A. (trans.). (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1987). Early set of lectures that forms the skeleton for the systematic structure of Totality and Infinity.
Levinas, EmmanuelTotality and Infinity (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969). Published in 1961, Levinas's great early systematic work; very challenging.
Robbins, Jill (ed.). Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). Excellent collection of many interviews conducted during the 1980s and 1990s. A good place to become acquainted with Levinas.
Levinas, Emmanuel. A Levinas Reader. Ed. Hand, Seán (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1989). Helpful collection of pieces of various kinds, some selections from works, others articles and occasional writings; includes an important radio interview after the Lebanon War with Alain Finkelkraut.
Levinas, EmmanuelDifficult Freedom. Hand, Seán (trans.). (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). Important collection of Jewish writings, originally published in 1963 and 1976; includes “A Religion for Adults,” “Loving the Torah More than God,” and “Signature.”
Levinas, EmmanuelNine Talmudic Readings. Aronowicz, Annette (trans.). (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). Important collection of Levinas's Talmudic lessons.
Secondary Works
Caygill, Howard. Levinas and the Political (London: Routledge, 2002). Important study of Levinas's implications for themes in political philosophy.
Chanter, Tina (ed.). Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001). Useful collection of essays on Levinas and gender issues.
Cohen, Richard A.Elevations: The Height of the Good in Rosenzweig and Levinas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Helpful set of essays on these two figures, as philosophers and as Jewish thinkers.
Cohen, Richard A. (ed.). Face to Face with Levinas (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986). Earliest collection of essays in English on Levinas, with an extremely helpful interview by Richard Kearney and important papers by Theodore de Boer, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Robert Bernasconi, and Luce Irigaray.
Critchley, Simon. The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas. 2nd edition. (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999; orig. 1992). Major study of Derrida and Levinas on ethics and politics.
Critchley, Simon, and Bernasconi, Robert (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Levinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Outstanding collection of essays on all aspects of Levinas's work; includes an excellent introduction by Critchley and essays by Hilary Putnam on Levinas and Judaism, Robert Bernasconi on substitution, Gerald Bruns on art and poetry, Richard Bernstein on evil, and other valuable essays.
Davis, Colin. Levinas: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996). Helpful brief introduction to Levinas's major works.
Drabinski, John E.Sensibility and Singularity: The Problem of Phenomenology in Levinas (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001). Excellent study of selfhood in Levinas and the role of phenomenology in his thinking.
Gibbs, Robert. Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). Challenging but valuable study of Rosenzweig and Levinas.
Hand, Seán. Emmanuel Levinas (London: Routledge, 2008). Short introduction to Levinas's works and main themes.
Kosky, Jeffrey L.Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001). Excellent study of Levinas's treatment of religion and theology.
Morgan, Michael L.Discovering Levinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). An attempt to explore Levinas's thought in conversation with Anglo-American analytic philosophy.
Moyn, Samuel. Origin of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and Ethics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). Important study of the influence of theology in Weimar Germany on Levinas's understanding of transcendence and ethics.
Peperzak, Adriaan. To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993). A translation of and detailed commentary on Levinas's “Philosophy and the Idea of the Infinite” and an introduction to Totality and Infinity.
Perpich, Diane. The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008). Outstanding recent study of Levinas's understanding of the face and its ethical significance; excellent chapters on animal rights, natural resources, and gender issues.
Robbins, Jill. Altered Reading: Levinas and Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Important study of Levinas on literature.
Wyschogrod, Edith. Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). Early influential study of Levinas that addresses many central themes.
Selected Bibliography
English Translations of Additional Works of Emmanuel Levinas
Levinas, Emmanuel. Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Levinas, EmmanuelExistence and Existents (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2001; orig. 1978).
Levinas, EmmanuelProper Names (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996).
Levinas, Emmanuel “Useless Suffering.” Trans. Cohen, Richard A.. In Bernasconi and Woods, pp. 156–167.
Levinas, EmmanuelOtherwise than Being (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1998; orig. 1981).
Levinas, EmmanuelThe Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973).
Levinas, EmmanuelEntre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
Levinas, EmmanuelOutside the Subject (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).
Levinas, EmmanuelCollected Philosophical Papers. Lingis, Alphonso (trans.). (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1998; orig. 1987).
Levinas, EmmanuelIn the Time of the Nations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Levinas, EmmanuelUnforeseen History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).
Levinas, EmmanuelHumanism of the Other (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003).
Levinas, EmmanuelDiscovering Existence with Husserl. Cohen, Richard A. and Smith, Michael B. (trans.). (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998).
Levinas, EmmanuelGod, Death, and Time (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000).
Levinas, EmmanuelOf God Who Comes to Mind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).
Levinas, Emmanuel “As If Consenting to Horror.” Critical Inquiry 15 (Winter 1989), pp. 485–488.
Levinas, Emmanuel “The Meaning of Religious Practice.” Trans. Peter Atterton, Matthew Calarco, and Joelle Hansel. Modern Judaism 25:3 (2005), pp. 285–289. [Orig. 1937].
Levinas, Emmanuel “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism.” Critical Inquiry 17 (Autumn 1990), pp. 63–71.
Levinas, EmmanuelOn Escape (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).
Levinas, EmmanuelAlterity and Transcendence (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
Additional Secondary Sources
Alford, C. Fred. “Levinas and Political Theory.” Political Theory 32:2 (2004), pp. 146–171.
Atterton, Peter, and Calarco, Matthew. On Levinas. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2005.
Batnitzky, Leora. Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).
Bernasconi, Robert. “Rereading Totality and Infinity.” In Scott, Charles and Dallery, Arleen (eds.), The Question of the Other (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), pp. 23–24 and 225–226.
Bernasconi, Robert “The Trace of Levinas in Derrida.” In Wood and Bernasconi, pp. 13–29.
Bernasconi, Robert “Different Styles of Eschatology: Derrida's Take on Levinas's Political Messianism.” Research in Phenomenology 28 (1998), pp. 3–19.
Bernasconi, Robert, and Woods, D. (eds.). The Provocation of Levinas (London: Routledge, 1988).
Bernasconi, Robert, and Critchley, Simon (eds.). Re-Reading Levinas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).
Bernstein, Richard J.Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).
Blanchot, Maurice. The Infinite Conversation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992).
Bloechl, Jeffrey. Liturgy and the Neighbor: Emmanuel Levinas and the Religion of Responsibility (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2000).
Bloechl, Jeffrey (ed.). The Face of the Other and the Trace of God (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).
Blum, Roland Paul. “Emmanuel Levinas' Theory of Commitment.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 46:2 (1983), pp. 145–168.
Chalier, Catherine. What Ought I to Do? Morality in Kant and Levinas. Trans. Todd, Jane Marie. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002; orig. 1998).
Chanter, Tina. Time, Death, and the Feminine: Levinas with Heidegger (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).
Cohen, Richard A.Ethics, Exegesis and Philosophy: Interpretation after Levinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Critchley, Simon. Ethics – Politics – Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas and Contemporary French Thought (London: Verso, 1999).
Critchley, SimonVery Little … Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature (London: Routledge, 1997).
Critchley, Simon “Five Problems in Levinas's View of Politics and the Sketch of a Solution to Them.” Political Theory 32:2 (2004), pp. 172–185.
Boer, Theodore. The Rationality of Transcendence: Studies in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (Amsterdam: J.C. Giehen, 1997).
Derrida, Jacques. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).
Derrida, JacquesThe Gift of Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Drabinski, John. “The Possibility of an Ethical Politics: From Peace to Liturgy.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 26:4 (2000), pp. 49–73.
Dudiak, Jeffrey. The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001).
Eaglestone, Robert. Ethical Criticism: Reading after Levinas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997).
Fagenblat, Michael. A Covenant of Creatures: Levinas's Philosophy of Judaism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).
Fryer, David Ross. The Intervention of the Other: Ethical Subjectivity in Levinas and Lacan (New York: Other Press, 2004).
Grossman, Vasily. Life and Fate. Trans. Chandler, Robert. (New York: Harper & Row, 1985).
Hand, Seán (ed.). Facing the Other: The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas (Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon, 1996).
Hendley, Steven. From Communicative Action to the Face of the Other: Levinas and Habermas on Language, Obligation, and Community (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000).
Herzog, Annabel. “Is Liberalism ‘All We Need’?: Levinas's Politics of Surplus.” Political Theory 30:2 (2002), pp. 204–227.
Hutchens, B. C.Levinas: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York and London: Continuum, 2004).
Kleinberg, Ethan. Generation Existential: Heidegger's Philosophy in France, 1927–1961 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).
Llewelyn, John. Emmanuel Levinas: The Geneology of Ethics (London: Routledge, 1995).
Manning, Robert John Sheffler. Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger: Emmanuel Levinas's Ethics as First Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: Dusquene University Press, 1993).
Nemo, Philippe. Job and the Excess of Evil (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1998).
New, Melvyn, with Bernasconi, Robert and Cohen, Richard A. (eds.). In Proximity: Emmanuel Levinas and the 18th Century (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2001).
Peperzak, Adriaan Theodoor. Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1997).
Peperzak, Adriaan T. (ed.). Ethics as First Philosophy: The Significance of Emmanuel Levinas for Philosophy, Literature and Religion (London: Routledge, 1995).
Plant, Bob. Wittgenstein and Levinas: Ethical and Religious Thought (London: Routledge, 2005).
Plant, Bob “Ethics without Exit: Levinas and Murdoch.” Philosophy and Literature 27 (2003), pp. 456–470.
Purcell, Michael. Levinas and Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Reinhard, Kenneth. “Kant with Sade, Lacan with Levinas.” MLN 110:4 (1995), pp. 785–808.
Robbins, Jill. Prodigal Son/ Elder Brother (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
Sandford, Stella. The Metaphysics of Love (London and New Brunswick, NJ: The Athlone Press, 2000).
Simmons, William Paul. “The Third: Levinas' theoretical move from an-archical ethics to the realm of justice and politics.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 25:6 (1999), pp. 83–104.
Smith, Steven G.The Argument to the Other: Reason beyond Reason in the Thought of Karl Barth and Emmanuel Levinas (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983).
Toumayan, Alain P.Encountering the Other: The Artwork and the Problem of Difference in Blanchot and Levinas (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2004).
Wood, David, and Bernasconi, Robert (eds.). Derrida and Diffe̍rance (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988).
Wright, Tamra. The Twilight of Jewish Philosophy: Emmanuel Levinas' Ethical Hermeneutics (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999).

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