Emmanuel Lévinas (January 12, 1906 - December 25, 1995) was a Jewish philosopher and Talmudic scholar from Kaunas in Lithuania, who moved to France, where he wrote most of his works. He was naturalized in 1930. January 12 is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... December 25 is the 359th day of the year (360th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 6 days remaining. ... 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... A philosopher is a person devoted to studying and producing results in philosophy. ... The first page of the Talmud, in the standard Vilna edition. ... City Flag Kaunas (approximate English transcription [ˈkəʊ. ... 1930 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

Levinas was deeply influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, whom he met at the university of Freiburg, as well as by Jewish religion. He was one of the first intellectuals to introduce to France the work of Heidegger and Husserl, by translations (for example of Husserl's 'Cartesian Meditations') and original philosophical tracts. Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl, (April 8, 1859 - April 26, 1938), philosopher, was born into a Jewish family in Prostějov (Prossnitz), Moravia, Czech Republic (then part of the Austrian Empire). ... Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... Freiburg city from Schlossberg Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, in the Breisgau region, on the western edge of the southern Black Forest (in German language: Schwarzwald) with about 200,000 inhabitants. ...

War experiences

During the German invasion of France in 1940, Levinas was reactivated with his military unit, which was quickly surrounded and forced to surrender. Initially sent to a prisoner of war camp in France, he was soon transferred to a camp on German soil near Hannover, where he remained until the end of the war. 1940 was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Although protected by the Geneva Convention from deportation to a concentration camp, Levinas was segregated in special barracks for Jewish prisoners, who were forbidden any forms of religious worship. Life in the camp was as difficult as might be expected, with Levinas often forced into wood-chopping duties.

Other prisoners report seeing him make frequent jottings in a notebook, which would later be shaped into his breakthrough treatises "De l'Existence à l'Existant," a landmark appreciation and criticism of the philosophy of Heidegger, and "Le Temps et l'Autre" (both 1948).

In the meantime, his wife was shielded from deportation through the efforts of the philosopher Maurice Blanchot. Other family members were not so lucky: his mother-in-law was deported and never heard from again, while his father and brothers were murdered in Lithuania by the SS.

Later philosophy

After the war, Levinas became a leading thinker in France, emerging from the circle of intellectuals surrounding Jean Wahl. His work is based on the ethics of the Other. The Other is not knowable and cannot be made into an object, as is done by traditional metaphysics (called ontology by Levinas). Levinas prefers to think of philosophy as the 'knowledge of love' rather than the love of knowledge. In his arrangement, an ethics of responsibility precedes any 'objective searching after truth'. Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the encounter with the Other. For Levinas, the face-to-face encounter with another human being is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's promixity and distance are both strongly felt. Upon the revelation of the face a person's first natural desire is to murder the Other. At the same time, the revelation of the face forces the immediate recognition of one's inability to do so. One must instantly recognize the inviolability and autonomy of the Other. One must then place himself in the position of a student, and the Other is recognized as a teacher. Ultimately, morality is recognized through one's relation to the Other. Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ... The other or constitutive other is a key concept in psychology and philosophy where it is often considered to be what defines or even constitutes the self (see self (psychology), self (philosophy), and self-concept) and other phenomena and cultural units: What appear to be cultural units--human beings, words...

Among the many works of Levinas, key texts include Totalité et infini: essai sur l'extériorité (1961) and Autrement qu'être ou au-delà de l'essence (1974). Both works have been translated into English by the American philosopher Alphonso Lingis.

See also

• The Other
• Authenticity
• Golden Rule

The other or constitutive other is a key concept in psychology and philosophy where it is often considered to be what defines or even constitutes the self (see self (psychology), self (philosophy), and self-concept) and other phenomena and cultural units: What appear to be cultural units--human beings, words... See also authenticity (philosophy) and authentication (which deals only with computer security). ... Golden Rule has several meanings: Golden Rule - in philosophy and Christianity (Gospel of Matthew chapter 7, verse 12), an ethical statement, also known as the Ethic of Reciprocity. ...

External links

• See a webpage giving brief details of his life and writings (http://home.pacbell.net/atterton/levinas/)
• On Escape (http://othervoices.org/2.3/mmichau/index.html), a review of Levinas' De L'êvasion by Michael R. Michau, Other Voices (http://www.othervoices.org), January 2005.