Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo [Paperback]

Emmanuel Levinas (Author), Richard A. Cohen (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0820701785 | ISBN-13: 978-0820701783 | Publication Date: March 1985 | Edition: 1st

Levinas brings together the phenomenology of Husserl, the fundamental ontology of Heidegger, and the Bible. This book highlights his modesty and reserve and, above all, his rigor. It is 'the best introduction' to his work. Chapters Include: Bible and Philosophy; Heidegger; The 'There Is'; The Solitude of Being; Love and Filiation; Secrecy and Freedom; Responsibility for the Other; The Glory of Testimony; The Hardness of Philosophy and the Consolations of Religion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Levinas is one of those writers we like so much that we envy those who have not yet read him and so still have in store for themselves the pleasure of discovering him .[and] his conversations with Nemo, which, by their demanding simplicity, constitute the best possible introduction to his work..." -- Le Monde.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: Duquesne Univ Pr; 1st edition (March 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820701785
• ISBN-13: 978-0820701783
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #91,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent and Sublime!, June 6, 2004

By 

Campbell Roark "tri-zeta" (from under the floorboards and through the woods...) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo (Paperback)

An exceptionally lucid series of interviews with one of the most central, misunderstood and neglected thinkers of the 20th C. If you are looking to take a quick dip in the work of Levinas (something that may not be possible) I would council you to pick this up, it is the most easily accesible book to attempt a (cursory) look at some of Levinas' key points. The questions are interesting and (more importantly) not trivial... Levinas's responses are succint but also thorough and searching. I found this much more rewarding and illuminating than some of his more weighty tomage.

Good for recovering academics, practicing theorists, intellectual dilletantes and anyone else interested in adopting an ethically based philosophy that can stand up and go toe to toe with all those wily postmodernists with their impenetrable and convoluted jargon of hubris...

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Generousity of a Great Mind, June 12, 2002

By 

Jonathan Strandjord (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo (Paperback)

Emmanuel Levinas' books and articles are famously difficult reading, both because of their depth and because their themes, proposals and obessions manage to be breathtakingly against the grain of modernity and, simultaneously, postmodernity. This little book shows Levinas to be not only a great philosopher but also a good one--that is, an author genuinely concerned for his audience. In these transcribed interviews first broadcast on Radio-France, we meet Levinas the generous conversation partner who engages each question in a way that makes fresh understanding possible. Overhearing this conversation is the shortest route to a basic orientation to this wonderfully disorienting thinker.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Levinas in a Nutshell, May 4, 2001

By 

Charles Comer (Baltimore, Maryland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo (Paperback)

The influence of Levinas on Contemporary thought cannot be under-estimated. Many of the subtle and overt nuances in Derrida, Nancy, Deleuze and, on this side of the Atlantic, Lingis and Caputo, derive from Levinasian insights. Indeed, the French reverence for difference and alterity has its origin in the phenomenological findings of Levinas.

With Levinas comes a dramatic shift from the Heideggarian cum Greek privilege of ontology. As levinas suggests, prior to any investigation of Being we first encounter the Other. And it is this encounter with the other that commands me - a command whose first words are 'Thou shalt not kill'. Thus it is ethics that is first philosophy.

This description, its reasons and implications, are many and complex. However, this wonderful little book gives a breadth and clarity that should prove invaluable to the scholar and dilettante alike. Nemo's questions are poignant and Levinas' responses are clear, precise and exhibit a genuine gentility and articulateness that is most apreciated in philosophical writings.

In addition this book is a wonderful accompaniment to Levinas' two main texts: Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being.