Unforeseen history / Emmanuel Levinas ; translated from the French by Nidra Poller ; foreword by Don Ihde ; introduction by Richard A. Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lévinas, Emmanuel.

Standardized Title:

Imprevus de l'histoire. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 150 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2004]

Summary:

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-95) placed ethics at the foundation of philosophy; during his life, which spanned almost the entire twentieth century, he witnessed devastating events that could not have been more demanding of that philosophical stance. Unforeseen History covers the years 1929-92, providing a wide overview of Levinas's work -- especially his views on aesthetics and Judaism -- offering examples of his precise thinking at work in small essays, long essays, and interviews. The earliest essays in Unforeseen History discuss phenomenology, a subject Levinas introduced to a great many French thinkers, including Jean-Paul Sartre. In his prescient 1934 essay "Some Thoughts on the Philosophy of Hitlerism," moreover, he confronted a philosophy that had yet to manifest itself fully in cataclysm.

Contents:

Part 1 Reflections on Hitlerism in 1934

1. Some Thoughts on the Philosophy of Hitlerism 13

Part 2 Husserl, Heidegger, Jean Wahl

2. On Ideen / E. Husserl 25

3. Freiburg, Husserl, and Phenomenology 57

4. Letter concerning Jean Wahl 65

5. Contribution to Jean Wahl's Petite histoire de l'existentialisme 67

Part 3 Sartre, Existentialism, and History

6. Existentialism and Antisemitism 73

7. Reality and Its Shadow 76

8. A Language Familiar to Us 92

9. When Sartre Discovers Holy History / Interview with Victor Malka 96

Part 4 Peaceful Coexistence

10. On the Spirit of Geneva 101

11. Principles and Faces 104

12. Dialectics and the Sino-Soviet Quarrel 107

Part 5 Secularism and Morality

13. Secularism and the Thought of Israel 113

Part 6 Interviews

14. On the Utility of Insomnia / Interview with Bertrand Revillon 127

15. Interview with Roger-Pol Droit 130.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [135]-139) and index.

ISBN:

025202883X

OCLC:

52127551