Levinas:
Between Judaism, Christianity and Philosophy

19 February 2020

In cooperation with:

Keynotes

From “Penseur juif” to “Juif qui pense” : Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Philosophy

by Shmuel Wygoda

Few Jewish philosophers have had significant impact both on the realm of philosophy at large and on that of Jewish thought. In the twentieth century such figures included Hermann Cohen, who anchored his attention to Jewish texts on the Bible and particularly on its Prophets; Franz Rosenzweig, who was particularly attracted to the thought of the medieval Jewish scholar Judah Halevy; and Martin Buber, who found inspiration in the mystical world of Hassidism. Emmanuel Levinas, subsequent to his meeting with his mysterious teacher Monsieur Chouchani, developed special interest in the Talmud. However, his reading of Talmudic texts differs both from the tradition of the Talmudic academies (yeshivot) and from the historical philological mode practiced in the academic world. In this presentation, the idiosyncrasies of the “Levinassian” approach to the Talmud and its relevance for Levinas’s general philosophy will be demonstrated.

Forgiving the unforgivable? Levinas’s polemics against a Christian concept of almighty forgiveness

by Marcel Poorthuis

In Levinas’s thought forgiveness is not just a religious or social issue, but also the concrete way by which time itself can be understood. True philosophy lives from experience, and the experience of dismissing the past by remembering it shows the ambiguity of time itself, both in its continuity and in its discontinuity. Time cannot properly be understood as an isolated subject, although the majority of Western philosophy has attempted to do so. One’s relationship with the other human being creates dimensions of past, present, and future that are unimaginable in a solitary subject. Claiming a forgiveness that can dispense with one’s own relationship to the other human being is nothing but violence. We may wonder whether the Lord’s prayer – “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive” – intends to state otherwise. This also raises questions about how to address major social conflicts, such as with South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and with criminals in our own society. How do we deal with forgiveness and who is entitled to grant it? 

The Problem of Method in Levinas’s Ethics as First Philosophy

by Arthur Cools

It is well known that Emmanuel Levinas defends ethics as first philosophy and that he contributes to a philosophy of subjectivity which he defines as responsibility for the other person. At the same time, however, many of his texts are highly difficult to read, not to say unreasonable, hyperbolic, extraordinary. How is Levinas able to state what he means to say? This question is the starting point for an examination of the philosophical method in Levinas’s analyses of subjectivity. Prof. Dr. Arthur Cools seeks to show that Levinas’s method consists of a combination of three methodological devices: phenomenology, de-formalization, and reduction. 

The Idea of Infinity: The Impacts of Levinas’s Understanding of Transcendence for the Jewish-Christian Dialogue

by prof. René Dausner – Institut für Katholische Theologie, Universität Hildesheim

In his magnificent work “God and Philosophy” Emmanuel Levinas develops a new understanding of transcendence. In returning to basic deliberations about the idea of infinity, Levinas shows how the infinite can be interpreted as involved in finity but without becoming finity. His rereading of the discourse of Descartes‘s idea of infinity – which opened the modern paradigm of subjectivity – offers much interpretive potential for theology in terms of a post-metaphysical thinking (J. Habermas). In his paper, prof. Dausner seeks to reconstruct the impacts of Levinas‘s philosophical thinking, especially on the Jewish-Christian dialogue.