A Propos, Levinas

A Propos, Levinas
Author: David Appelbaum
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2013-07-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438443102

Rejects Levinas’s argument for the preeminence of ethics in philosophy. “Imagine listening at a keyhole to a conversation with the task of transcribing it, and the result may be a text similar to the present one.” — from Part I: Stagework In a series of meditations responding to writings by Emmanuel Levinas, David Appelbaum suggests that a flawed grammar warrants Levinas to speak of language at the service of ethics. It is the nature of performance that he mistakes. Appelbaum articulates this flaw by performing in writing the act of the philosophical mind at work. Incorporating the voices of other thinkers—in particular Levinas’s contemporaries Jacques Derrida and Maurice Blanchot—sometimes clearly, sometimes indistinctly, Appelbaum creates on these pages a kind of soundstage upon which illustrations appear of what he terms “a rhetorical aesthetic,” which would reestablish rhetoric, rules for giving voice—and not ethics—as the correct matrix for understanding the otherness and beyond-being that Levinas seeks in his work.

Kierkegaard and Levinas

Kierkegaard and Levinas
Author: J. Aaron Simmons
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2008-10-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253003598

Recent discussions in the philosophy of religion, ethics, and personal political philosophy have been deeply marked by the influence of two philosophers who are often thought to be in opposition to each other, SÃ ̧ren Kierkegaard and Emmanuel Levinas. Devoted expressly to the relationship between Levinas and Kierkegaard, this volume sets forth a more rigorous comparison and sustained engagement between them. Established and newer scholars representing varied philosophical traditions bring these two thinkers into dialogue in 12 sparkling essays. They consider similarities and differences in how each elaborated a unique philosophy of religion, and they present themes such as time, obligation, love, politics, God, transcendence, and subjectivity. This conversation between neighbors is certain to inspire further inquiry and ignite philosophical debate.

Volume 11, Tome II: Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy

Volume 11, Tome II: Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy
Author: Jon Stewart
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351875329

Kierkegaard's relation to the field of philosophy is a particularly complex and disputed one. He rejected the model of philosophical inquiry that was mainstream in his day and was careful to have his pseudonymous authors repeatedly disassociate themselves from philosophy. But although it seems clear that Kierkegaard never regarded himself as a philosopher, there can be no doubt that his writings contain philosophical ideas and insights and have been profoundly influential in a number of different philosophical traditions. The tomes in this volume seek to document the different traditions of the philosophical reception of Kierkegaard's thought and the articles demonstrate the reach of Kierkegaard's writings in philosophical contexts that were often different from his own. The present volume attempts to document these different traditions of the philosophical reception of Kierkegaard's thought. The articles featured here aim to demonstrate the vast reach of Kierkegaard's writings in philosophical contexts that were often quite different from his own. Tome II is dedicated to exploring Kierkegaard's influence on Francophone philosophy. The French intellectual tradition squares well with Kierkegaard's eclectic profile since its leading figures are often difficult to classify unambiguously as philosophers, theologians, literary critics or simply writers. Kierkegaard's thinking was highly influential for many generations of French philosophers right up to the present. It was not just existentialism that tried to co-opt Kierkegaard for its own purposes; he has also been influential in the context of almost every modern school of French thought: phenomenology, feminism, structuralism, post-structuralism, semiotics, and deconstruction.

Addressing Levinas

Addressing Levinas
Author: Eric Sean Nelson
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2005-08-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0810120488

At a time of great and increasing interest in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, this volume draws readers into what Levinas described as "philosophy itself"—"a discourse always addressed to another." Thus the philosopher himself provides the thread that runs through these essays on his writings, one guided by the importance of the fact of being addressed—the significance of the Saying much more than the Said. The authors, leading Levinas scholars and interpreters from across the globe, explore the philosopher's relationship to a wide range of intellectual traditions, including theology, philosophy of culture, Jewish thought, phenomenology, and the history of philosophy. They also engage Levinas's contribution to ethics, politics, law, justice, psychoanalysis and epistemology, among other themes. In their radical singularity, these essays reveal the inalienable alterity at the heart of Levinas's ethics. At the same time, each essay remains open to the others, and to the perspectives and positions they advocate. Thus the volume, in its quality and diversity, enacts an authentic encounter with Levinas's thought, embodying an intellectual ethics by virtue of its style. Bringing together contributions from philosophy, theology, literary theory, gender studies, and political theory, this book offers a deeper and more thorough encounter with Levinas's ethics than any yet written.

Kierkegaard's International Reception

Kierkegaard's International Reception
Author: Jon Stewart
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2009
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780754664963

Tome I covers the reception of Kierkegaard in Northern and Western Europe. The articles on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland can be said to trace Kierkegaard's influence in its more or less native Nordic Protestant context. Since the authors in these countries (with the exception of Finland) were not dependent on translations or other intermediaries, this represents the earliest tradition of Kierkegaard reception. The early German translations of his works opened the door for the next phase of the reception which expanded beyond the borders of the Nordic countries. The articles in the section on Western Europe trace his influence in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Flanders, Germany and Austria, and France. All of these countries and linguistic groups have their own extensive tradition of Kierkegaard reception.

Politics of Benjamin’s Kafka: Philosophy as Renegade

Politics of Benjamin’s Kafka: Philosophy as Renegade
Author: Brendan Moran
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319720112

This book provides a critical assessment of Benjamin’s writings on Franz Kafka and of Benjamin’s related writings. Eliciting from Benjamin’s writings a conception of philosophy that is political in its dissociation from – its becoming renegade in relation to, its philosophic shame about – established laws, norms, and forms, the book compares Benjamin’s writings with relevant works by Agamben, Heidegger, Levinas, and others. In relating Benjamin’s writings on Kafka to Benjamin’s writings on politics, the study delineates a philosophic impetus in literature and argues that this impetus has potential political consequences. Finally, the book is critical of Benjamin’s messianism insofar as it is oriented by the anticipated elimination of exceptions and distractions. Exceptions and distractions are, the book argues, precisely what literature, like other arts, brings to the fore. Hence the philosophic, and the political, importance of literature.

Levinas's Politics

Levinas's Politics
Author: Annabel Herzog
Publisher:
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2020
Genre: Jewish ethics
ISBN: 0812251970

"This book is about the postructural Franco-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. This book covers Jewish ethics in the twentieth century and also cultural philosophy"--

The Cambridge Companion to Levinas

The Cambridge Companion to Levinas
Author: Simon Critchley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2002-07-25
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780521665650

A convenient and accessible guide to Levinas, first published in 2002, which emphasises the interdisciplinary significance of his work.

Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine

Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine
Author: Claire Elise Katz
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2003-11-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253110777

Challenging previous interpretations of Levinas that gloss over his use of the feminine or show how he overlooks questions raised by feminists, Claire Elise Katz explores the powerful and productive links between the feminine and religion in Levinas's work. Rather than viewing the feminine as a metaphor with no significance for women or as a means to reinforce traditional stereotypes, Katz goes beyond questions of sexual difference to reach a more profound understanding of the role of the feminine in Levinas's conception of ethical responsibility. She combines feminist interpretations of Levinas with interpretations that focus on his Jewish writings to reveal that the feminine provides an important bridge between his philosophy and his Judaism. Katz's reading of Levinas's conception of the feminine against the backdrop of discussions of women of the Hebrew bible points to important shifts in contemporary philosophy toward the creation of life and care for the other.

The Oxford Handbook of Levinas

The Oxford Handbook of Levinas
Author: Michael L. Morgan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 975
Release: 2019-04-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190910690

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) emerged as an influential philosophical voice in the final decades of the twentieth century, and his reputation has continued to flourish and increase in our own day. His central themes--the primacy of the ethical and the core of ethics as our responsibility to and for others--speak to readers from a host of disciplines and perspectives. However, his writings and thought are challenging and difficult. The Oxford Handbook of Levinas contains essays that aim to clarify and engage Levinas and his writings in a number of ways. Some focus on central themes of his work, others on the ways in which he read and was influenced by figures from Plato, Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant to Blanchot, Husserl, Heidegger, and Derrida. And there are essays on how his thinking has been appropriated in moral and political thought, psychology, film criticism, and more, and on the relation between his thinking and religious themes and traditions. Finally, several essays deal primarily with how readers have criticized him and found him wanting. The volume exposes and explores both the depth of Levinas's philosophical work and the range of applications to which it has been put, with special attention to clarifying why his interests in the human condition, the crisis of civilization, the centrality and character of ethics and morality, and the very meaning of human experience should be of interest to the widest range of readers.