Humanism of the Other [Hardcover]

Emmanuel Levinas (Author), Nidra Poller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2003

In "Humanism of the Other", Emmanuel Levinas argues that it is not only possible but of the highest exigency to understand one's humanity through the humanity of others. Based in a new appreciation for ethics, and taking new distances from the phenomenology of Hegel, Heidegger, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty, the idealism of Plato and Kant, and the skepticism of Nietzsche and Blanchot, Levinas rehabilitates humanism and restore its promises. He expresses disappointment with the revolutions that became bureaucracies and totalitarian governments, and the national liberation movements that eventually led to oppression and international wars. Defining the human as subject, ego, synthesis, identification, cognition, and mood all too easily lead to subjugation, persecution, and murder. Painfully aware of the long history of dehumanization which reached its apotheosis in Hitler and Nazism, Levinas does not underestimate the difficulty of reconciling oneself with another. The humanity of the human, Levinas argues, is not discoverable through mathematics, rational metaphysics or introspection. Rather, it is found in the recognition that the suffering and mortality of others are the obligations and morality of the self.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An interesting and long-awaited translation. Levinas is one of the central French postwar thinkers, on a par with Foucault, Althusser, Derrida, and Lacan." -- Tom Rockmore, author of On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy and Before and After Hegel: A Historical Introduction "Jewish, philosophical, timely, and aided by a brilliant introduction". -- Emil Fackenheim, author of God's Presence in History --and-- To Mend the World

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Hardcover: 136 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (September 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252028406
• ISBN-13: 978-0252028403
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,682,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A word of warning--you may already own this book, March 29, 2004

By 

M. PARADISO-MICHAU (Columbus, OH (USA)) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Humanism of the Other (Hardcover)

All five of the essays collected and (re)translated in this volume, _Humanism of the Other_, have previously appeared as chapters in Levinas' _Collected Philosophical Papers_, edited and translated by Alphonso Lingis (Duquesne Univ Press, 1998: ISBN#:0820703060). That is not to say that the essays here collected are no good. The new translation is self-avowedly more accurate to Levinas' French than the Lingis translation.

With the above proviso in mind, the five essays collected and published as _Humanism of the Other_ are wonderful representations of the radicality of Levinas' notions of ethics. Of particular is the essay "No Identity." Students and scholars of Levinas in particular and Continental ethics in general are well served by being or becoming familiar with this work.

The introductory essay by Richard Cohen is very clear and worthy of a serious reading in its own right. Cohen is a top-notch Levinas scholar and translator.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but non-essential Addition to Levinas Literature, February 2, 2010

By 

T. Anderson (Utah) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Humanism of the Other (Paperback)

A new translation (by Nidra Poller) of Emmanuel Levinas' 1972 collection of essays originally entitled Humanisme de l'autre homme. The three Levinas essays/chapters included are "Signification and Sense" (first published in 1964), "Humanism and An-archy (1968), and "Without Identity (1970). The text also includes a lengthy introduction by Richard Cohen.

The first chapter, one of Levinas' major considerations of language and method, is by far the most important text of the three. It has been previously translated and published (under the title "Meaning and Sense") in two prior collections of Levinas' writings--the Collected Philosophical Papers, and the Basic Philosophical Writings. The essay moves adroitly though a quasi-historical analysis of the signifier, considered first as a linguistic term inadequate to the task of fully expressing the signified, and second, as a saturated signifier, expressing a super-abundance of significations, and finally, as the face of the other person, whose signification belongs to another, primordial order of meaning--and thereby, opens upon another sense of language. The essay is also noteworthy for its parallel development of methodological differences between Levinas and other major phenomenologists, especially Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty.

The last two essays in Humanism of the Other also appeared in the Collected Philosophical Papers (translated by Al Lingis), and are remarkable primarily for articulating Levinas' response to the (largely) French debates over humanism and culture during the 1960s. They are not among his better essays, however.

The new translations by Nidra Poller correct some inaccuracies in the earlier Lingis translations (though the Lingis renderings are still more readable, in many places, than are Poller's), but none of those corrections are as significant as Cohen's "Introduction" to the text would have readers believe. Cohen's introductory essay (some 35 pages in length) is longer, in fact, than any of the Levinas essays it ostensibly introduces. It does provide an interesting account of the 1929 Cassirer/Heidegger encounter in Davos, but it suffers in both tone and content from what are becoming somewhat tiresome and formulaic criticisms of Heidegger.

In short, this volume is a welcome addition to the bookshelves of Levinas scholars and students, insofar as it preserves the structure of the original text and offers new translations of its chapters, but neither the reworked translations nor the edition itself justifies its purchase by readers who can obtain the same essays (and more) by purchasing the Collected Philosophical Papers or who are interested in reading more important and representative Levinas writings than those included in this volume.