Emmanuel Levinas Quotes on Knowledge
Emmanuel Levinas was a 20th-century Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher of the phenomenological and ethical tradition, one of the most influential figures of late 20th-century continental philosophy. This page collects quotes attributed to Emmanuel Levinas on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Emmanuel Levinas:
“Ethics is first philosophy.”
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“On the doctrine of prefiguration.”
If every pure character in the Old Testament announces the Messiah, if every unworthy person is his torturer and every woman his Mother, does not the Book of Books lose all life with this obsessive theme? -
“Persons or Figures (1950)”
If every pure character in the Old Testament announces the Messiah, if every unworthy person is his torturer and every woman his Mother, does not the Book of Books lose all life with this obsessive theme? -
“Totality and Infinity (1961)”
The moral consciousness can sustain the mocking gaze of the political man only if the certitude of peace dominates the evidence of war. Such a certitude is not obtained by a simple play of antitheses. The peace of empires issued from war rests on war. It does not restore to the alienated beings their lost identity. For that a primordial and original relation with being is needed. -
“Totality and Infinity (1961)”
The comprehension of God taken as a participation in his sacred life, an allegedly direct comprehension, is impossible, because participation is a denial of the divine , and because nothing is more direct than the face to face , which is straightforwardness itself. -
“The Theory Of Intuition In Husserls Phenomenology 1963, 1995 p. 9”
By asserting the objectivity of the physical world, naturalism identifies the existence and the conditions of existence of the physical world with existence and the conditions of existence in general. It forgets that the world of the physicist necessarily refers back, through its intrinsic meaning, through the subjective world which one tries to exclude from reality as being pure appearance, condi