I am currently reading a collection of Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophical papers, and would appreciate the chance to discuss some of the implications which his thought might have (or has had), on continental philosophy. I have taken as my starting point his brief but important paper ‘Is Ontology Fundamental’, as I figured this would be ideal for those who have not themselves studied Levinas, and are contemplating whether or not it is worth their effort. The guiding question for this discussion will more or less be;
- To what extent does Levinas undermine Heidegger’s ontological project (early and late) and lead us in a new direction?
A second question, whether (later) Heidegger or Levinas give us renewed impetus vis-a-vis the question of God, will be reserved for another thread.
Is Ontology Fundamental?
This is the guiding question of Levinas’ paper. However his observations are around as well as within the limits of this guiding theme, the latter of which he is in the process of redefining (i.e. the ‘limits’). This is what is meant when he asks ‘is ontology fundamental?’
The presupposition of a mind - or rather an ‘entity’ - that knows, in a phenomenological sense, is what informs Heidegger’s conception of truth (aletheia) as unconcealedness. It is only because we already know what being is, in some sense, that we can ‘uncover’ and ‘disentangle’ it from the misconceptions of the They. This is a fundamental methodological premise; one which Levinas calls ‘unusual’, and also, I might surmise, ‘original’. However, we must remember that this ‘ontological privilege’ is conditioned not;
In what way, then, does Levinas construct his confrontation with Heidegger? It seems to me that, whereas Heidegger moves towards radical revelatory openness, Levinas’ description has the effect of qualifying this equation of being with openness by positing an Other which cannot be domesticated under the rubric of Being, in the general or ‘universal’ sense. The Other is a revelation which cannot be reduced to merely another instance of the Same.
But not so fast. Levinas wants to say that not every relation is such that it can be called an ‘openness’ onto Being. For him, “it turns out that the analysis of existence and of what is called its haecceity (Da) is only the description of the essence of truth, of the condition of the very understanding of being.†Levinas continues Heidegger’s project of reaching past what he calls ‘classical intellectualism’; i.e. by arguing against the idea that consciousness of reality can be reduced to mere intellectual comprehension; however he reads Heidegger’s ontology as having equated existence with a broader notion of comprehension, characterised by ‘openness’, which whilst not merely intellectual as such, does nonetheless bypass that relation which Levinas holds to be fundamental; namely the relation with the Other which is irreducible to comprehension at all. And so I say that Levinas moves radically in a new direction – or at least sees himself as doing so.
Levinas’ reading of Heidegger, and difference from him, are captured in the following;
Levinas is moving towards a question. It is;
He thinks that the answer to this is ‘yes’. The relation he has in mind is the relation with the Other. If this relation cannot be contained within the framework of Being, then it follows that the question of the fundamentality of ontology must also be answered in the negative.
The question becomes, why can’t we account for the invocation of the Other in terms of comprehension? Levinas argues in contradistinction to Heidegger that comprehension has not just the quality of overcoming in knowledge an object against the backdrop of the world, the ‘horizon of being’; rather he says that this comprehension also has the qualities of consumption and possession, and that these two qualities are anachronistic when accounting for the kind of relation we have with the Other (this I read to be more an argument against Sartre than Heidegger – see side note below*).
(*Side note: I am not sure if Levinas has sufficiently appreciated the interplay of Being and ‘the Nothing’ in Heidegger’s thought, but in any case it does seem as if he has raised a legitimate question. Also, I have my qualms over whether Levinas’ reading is perhaps a little (obviously not completely) insensitive to the role of the mit-sein in Heidegger’s description, by which I mean; what is the extent of Sartre’s influence on Levinas? – However this is a lesser worry and does not compromise the overall point being made.)
And so Levinas writes;
This is another way of saying;
The essential point is that I do not first project the individual onto a background of generality; he remains at the first a ‘pure individual’. And so Levinas argues that the relation to the other is not an ontological one. He writes;
And perhaps more telling, this;
Another way of reading Levinas is to say that he is reversing Heidegger’s emphasis from beings to being, by moving back from being to beings, in search of the more fundamental phenomenon. In any case, I recommend Levinas as food for thought for anyone who is well versed in continental philosophy. He has been provocative enough to arouse my interest, as well as insightful enough to keep it (although this is just my opinion based on my first reading). - At least, that is, when I am not waking up on the analytic side of the bed… 
Regards,
James
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