Abstract

This dissertation examines the ethical theory of the contemporary French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. The dissertation is guided by two objectives. First, it examines critically the mature works of Levinas: Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence . Second, it poses the following questions regarding these works: Why was it that motivated Levinas to write a second magnum opus after Totality and Infinity ? What are the contributions of the second work? Commentators, and Levinas himself, argue for a fundamental continuity in the philosopher's project of fundamental ethics. Nevertheless, Otherwise than Being differs stylistically, methodologically and conceptually from Totality and Infinity. ;The contribution of Levinas to ethics, as I explain in Part One, lies in the unprecedented way in which he defines the notion thereof. For Levinas, ethics must be understood as first philosophy. However, ethics can only be first philosophy if it is essential to what is traditionally conceived as first philosophy. This means that Levinas must show how the encounter with another human is prior to, and forms the basis of, all our conceptions of the good. Now, with this claim Levinas is not arguing for a pragmatics of interpersonal relations. Neither is he rejecting metaphysics. Rather, influenced by dialogical philosophy, Levinas argues that the face-to-face relation is the event by which a consciousness comes to place itself in question. This "event" contains the germ of all forms of human sociality, and indeed, of reflection. The dialogical relation is, moreover, misunderstood when described from the position of an observing, "Third Party." Instead, Levinas proposes a phenomenological description of the first person experience of this encounter. ;Part One of the dissertation sketches Levinas's phenomenology of sensibility, willing and intersubjectivity. It examines critically the influences--from Husserl and Heidegger to Rosenzweig--upon his ethics as first philosophy. It inquires into his ontology and his theory of politics. ;Part Two addresses directly the question of the two magna opera. It situates the thematic occasion of Otherwise than Being in Levinas's theory of signification and his definition of justice