Levinas's idea of ethics as a relation of responsibility to the other person has become a highly influential and recognizable position across a wide range of academic and non-academic fields. Simon Critchley's aim in this book is to provide a less familiar, more troubling, and (hopefully) truer account of Levinas's work. A new dramatic method for reading Levinas is proposed, where the fundamental problem of his work is seen as the attempt to escape from the tragedy
of Heidegger's philosophy and the way in which that philosophy shaped political events in the last century. Extensive and careful attention is paid to Levinas' fascinating but often overlooked work
from the 1930s, where the proximity to Heidegger becomes clearer. Levinas's problem is very simple: how to escape from the tragic fatality of being as described by Heidegger. Levinas's later work is a series of attempts to answer that problem through claims about ethical selfhood and a series of phenomenological experiences, especially erotic relations and the relation to the child. These claims are analyzed in the book through close textual readings. Critchley reveals the problem with
Levinas's answer to his own philosophical question and suggests a number of criticisms, particular concerning the question of gender. In the final, speculative part of the book, another answer to Levinas's
problem is explored through a reading of the Song of Songs and the lens of mystical love.
Levinas's idea of ethics as a relation of responsibility to the other person has become a highly influential and recognizable position across a wide range of academic and non-academic fields. Simon Critchley's aim in this book is to provide a less familiar, more troubling, and (hopefully) truer account of Levinas's work. A new dramatic method for reading Levinas is proposed, where the fundamental problem of his work is seen as the attempt to escape from the tragedy
of Heidegger's philosophy and the way in which that philosophy shaped political events in the last century. Extensive and careful attention is paid to Levinas' fascinating but often overlooked work
from the 1930s, where the proximity to Heidegger becomes clearer. Levinas's problem is very simple: how to escape from the tragic fatality of being as described by Heidegger. Levinas's later work is a series of attempts to answer that problem through claims about ethical selfhood and a series of phenomenological experiences, especially erotic relations and the relation to the child. These claims are analyzed in the book through close textual readings. Critchley reveals the problem with
Levinas's answer to his own philosophical question and suggests a number of criticisms, particular concerning the question of gender. In the final, speculative part of the book, another answer to Levinas's
problem is explored through a reading of the Song of Songs and the lens of mystical love.
Preface
Abbreviations of Levinas' Works
Lecture One
Hegel or Levinas? - Philosophy and Sexual Difference - Why
Philosophy? The Problem of Method - Against Aristotle: The Meaning
of Drama - Moral Ambiguity - The Seduction of Facticity - At War
with Oneself - Heidegger's Comedy Turns Tragic - The Theology of
Clothes - Beyond the Tragedy of Finitude - A Happy Ending
Lecture Two
Hitlerism Against Liberalism - Elemental Evil - The Marxist
Critique of Liberalism and a Critique of Marxism - Embodiment and
Racism - Why Europe is So Great - The Bio-Politics of Fascism -
French Philosophy is Not Pornography - Escape: The Ur-Form of
Levinas' Thought - Being Riveted and the Need for Excendence -
Desire and Malaise - Pleasure and Shame - I Love Phaedra - The
Impotence of Being - Is There a Way Out of Barbarism? - Levinas in
Captivity
Lecture Three
The Break-up of Fate - How to Build an Immonument - Ethics Back to
Front - Levinas' Anarchism - Waving Goodbye to the Principle of
Non-Contradiction - The Weak Syntax of Skepticism - Escaping
Evasion Through That Which Cannot Be Evaded - The Structure of
Otherwise than Being - In Itself One: This is Not a Metaphor - Four
Problems: Prescription, Agency, Masochism, Sublimation - Love
Song
Lecture Four
Levinas' Marvelous Family - The Problem of Eros - Into the Abyss,
the Inexistent - Why You Should All Have Children - Pluralism, the
Break with the One - The Denouement of Levinas' Comedy -
Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Messianism: The End of Totality and
Infinity - Occupy Philosophy! Irigaray's Strategy - Shakespeare's
Misogyny - The Song of Songs, Finally - Against Scholem, For
Hysterical Extravagance - Mysticism in the Kitchen - All Mouth -
Decreation, Annihilation - The
Enjoyment of God - Sovereign Love
Afterword
Bibliography
Simon Critchley is Hans Jonas Professor at the New School for
Social Research. His books include Very Little ... Almost Nothing,
Infinitely Demanding, The Book of Dead Philosophers, The Faith of
the Faithless, The Mattering of Matter, Documents from the Archive
of the International Necronautical Society (with Tom McCarthy), and
Stay, Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrine (with Jamieson Webter). An
experimental
new work, Memory Theatre, and a book called Bowie were published in
September 2014. He is moderator of 'The Stone', a philosophy column
in The New York Times, to which he is a frequent contributor.
particularly important for our understanding of the philosopher's
work
*William Rees, Times Literary Supplement*
a triumph
*Times Literary Supplement*
[a] remarkable and helpful rereading, or perhaps better put,
dramatic rendering of Levinas' philosophical project
*James Hatley, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online*
The Problem with Levinas is simply put, an excellent book. It is an
enjoyable, dramatic and insightful read which far exceeds the
expectations one might usually have of a published set of lectures.
There is a clear train of thought throughout which is expressed
with clarity and a dash of literary flair.
*Mary Shanahan, History of Political Thought*
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