Emmanuel Levinas is one of the most important figures of twentieth-century philosophy. Exerting a profound influence upon such thinkers as Derrida, Lyotard, Blanchot, and Irigaray, Levinas's work bridges several major gaps in the evolution of continental philosophy--between modern and postmodern, phenomenology and poststructuralism, ethics and ontology. He is credited with having spurred a revitalized interest in ethics-based philosophy throughout Europe and America.

Entre Nous (Between Us) is the culmination of Levinas's philosophy. Published in France a few years before his...

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-95) placed ethics at the foundation of philosophy; during his life, which spanned almost the entire twentieth century, he witnessed devastating events that could not have been more demanding of that philosophical stance. Unforeseen History covers the years 1929-92, providing a wide overview of Levinas's work - especially his views on aesthetics and Judaism - offering examples of his precise thinking at work in small essays, long essays, and interviews. The earliest essays in Unforeseen History discuss phenomenology, a subject Levinas introduced to a great many French...

This book consists of transcripts from two lecture courses Levinas delivered in 1975-76, his last year at the Sorbonne. They cover some of the most pervasive themes of his thought and were written at a time when he had just published his most important--and difficult--book, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. Both courses pursue issues related to the question at the heart of Levinas's thought: ethical relation. The Foreword and Afterword place the lectures in the context of his work as a whole, rounding out this unique picture of Levinas the thinker and the teacher. The lectures...

One of the most influential philosophers of our day has selected 16 previously uncollected pieces that are unified by Levinas's project of revising the phenomenological description of the world in light of our experience of other persons.