JDS 720SEM - Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas

Exposition and critical analysis of the ethics of 20th century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). Students will read selections from his two major works, Totality and Infinity (1961) and Otherwise than Being (1974), and several of his shorter Jewish writings. We seek to discover what is original and profound in his thought. How and why is my responsibility for the neighbor and for all others central for morality, for justice, and for the very intelligibility of the world? What is Levinas’s new theory of time, and how is it related to ethics?

Credits: 3