Totality and Infinity

Totality and Infinity is Levinas's first magnum opus, one of two. It is truly an amazing and magnificient piece of work. I had read later Levinas first and began reading this one initially as a sort of self-imposed mandatory prerequisite to read his second magnum opus Otherwise Than Being. Being used to later Levinas, it was an adjustment to read this earlier text. The language of both eras is highly dense and complex (and original), but the earlier language is more pedagogic and the structure more methodic. At times, I didn't think I would finish the book. I knew I loved Levinas, but in this book the phenomological analyses are so thorough and extensive, that I wondered if it was the same author at times or when I'd find the definitive Levinasian mark of ethics, of the face. However, I am very happy that I did finish this book. Virtually the first half of the book is about Separation - an ambivalence in which a being masters and enjoys but is also dependent on the resources of the world. Interiority does not commence as a cogito or reason, but as enjoyment (of the world). Every being, in their enjoyment of this life, is separated from a totality that would fully account for all of them. The vertigo of existence, of the "il y a" ("there is"), is subsided in the prolongation of labor and in the dwelling. However, the interior economy is still not in a "face to face." Only separated beings can enter into a face to face and share their resources with an Other. Finally, the last sections (beginning from section 3) of the book begin to look a lot like later Levinas, and he goes into extensive and radical analyses of the ultimate, irreducible relation of the face to face and its highly ethical situation. He ruminates on goodness, justice, language, plurality, and peace. He speaks of the end of philosophy, of its inadequacy to do justice to the uniqueness of a face. He deliberately and deservingly after many rigorous pages of working out an original and unforeseen thought invokes how this is a departure from and in opposition to most of Western philosophy. No one who reads and truly understands this book will remain unchanged. To read the first magnum opus of such an original mind, to join Levinas in his thought process by way of the apex of the first part of his career, is truly an unparalleled and beautiful experience, and one you will never forget nor cease to take with you.

There's no doubt that this is a difficult read (though much easier than Deleuze's Difference and Repetition). I would urge anyone tackling this great book that they skip Levinas' Introduction, saving it until the very end. As is often the case with philosophy books, the Introduction was probably written last, and is more of a summary than an intro. I have read others state that this is a book about morality. In fact, it is much more; it is a phenomenological description of the inner life in all its aspects. Morality is a consequence or an outcome of the inner life as it is portrayed here. God is occasionally mentioned but only as a distant and remote observer. For example, Levinas' concept of Justice implies some kind of inscrutable Synoptic Insight (similar to what you find in Royce) which observes all the inward thoughts of men from an insurmountable distance and renders a final verdict so that the outward historicism of mankind never has the final word. The shadow of Martin Heidegger is present throughout, but Levinas attempts to critique him for the most part; or it might be more accurate to say that Levinas argues is that Heidegger is only partially correct in his observations, and that Levinas supplies the corrective revision. The most difficult part of the book and the part which has generated the most controversy is a section toward the end where Levinas writes about fecundity and the father-son relation. If you take his words literally it is patently sexist language, which many critics have put down to the patriarchal tendencies of Levinas' Jewish faith. But Levinas states quite clearly that the biological father-son relation is only to be understood as the token of a more general prototypical relation. The primary and fundamental token of the fecundity relation is the time-relation of the individual with himself or herself. This is often missed even on a close reading. Fecundity is primarily "the relation with my future which is mine and not mine; a possibility of myself." Fecundity denotes "a duality of the Identical, my future, my adventure." The relation is one between parent and child. But here the child is "the other that I will be." The child is a stranger, "but he is also me." "He is me, a stranger to myself." The child is an "infinite being, an ever-recommencing being, produced in the guise of fecundity." In other words, I am the child of the younger man I once was. I am Other than that younger man, and yet, I am the Same. The old man I will become is the child I will bear, the Stranger, the Other, that I will become. He is my child because my thoughts, words, and actions in the present will bring him forth out of the womb of time. He is the Me that I shall become, yet he is also Other than me; the Stranger that I shall become. "Being is produced as a multiple and as split into Same and Other; this is its ultimate structure." The fecundity relation thus describes the fundamental and ultimate structure of Being. Of cour

To previous reviewers: ~ Levinas is trying to uncover the source of the idea of infinity ~ No, infinity by definition is boundless and cannot be encompassed or reduced. Levinas is not asking the Cartesian question nor concerned with securing the `existence' of the external world. The concept of infinity is unique in that its content always exceeds or overflows its concept. Ethical relation operates in just this manner: the relation to the other is not negative (ala Idealism) but rather a relation to an excess. This excess is no Hinterwelt, but rather goodness. ~ Then he proceeds to "show" that the face to face relation with the Other is the source for our capacity to have theoretical and practical knowledge. ~ Indeed. Though the term `source' is very problematic. Levinas shows theoretical and practical `knowledge' - science and law/politics - are fundamentally social. In this way, the ethical relation opens and conditions this `knowledge,' while always exceeding it. What if science claimed to discover that women were `inferior' to men? We would no doubt question the `truth' of this discovery. Why? Because such a claim seems to exceed the bounds of what scientific activity can produce. This example shows how ethics exceeds theoretical knowledge. The same goes for the `practical.' Why do we think that segregation is wrong or unjust? Why is excluding the `other' from basic political participation, and the responsibility and rights it entails, a problem? Political theory and practice, which in its way is a kind of `scientific ethics,' can also lead to problematic situations. How are we able to judge or discern or resist claims that seek to justify unethical attitudes and practices? The face-to-face is Levinas's attempt to grapple with this perennial problem. ~ Oh yeah, the Other is a man, because the feminine other is not Other enough for Levinas, and romantic love is bad. ~ The problem of the feminine in Levinas is a real issue. Yet only a reductive and amateurish reading would pose the problem in these blunt terms. "The Other is man" and not women, is false according to any close reading of Levinas's texts. It is true that Levinas implicitly treats gender with a patriarchal slant, yet it is also true that he complicates and problematizes the way gendered is valued. There is a running debate on this within feminist camps. The more thoughtful and rigorous feminists realize the complexity and nuanced structural problems within Levinas's thinking of the feminine. Even if we admit that there is an undeniable patriarchal aspect in Levinas's work, we must also admit that he subverts that same patriarchy from within his own work. Here we may possibly oppose Levinas to Levinas. (Check out Tine Chanter's essay in `Addressing Levinas'). Oh ya, `romantic love is bad'?? Go read `Phenomenology of Eros' more carefully. ~Essentially, what he does is fuse Husserl and Heidegger's theories, to an extent, and replaces the transcendental ego of Husserl wit

Yeah, this is hard to read. Yes, it is worth it. Levinas stands tall in a tradition that embraces the flux and rejects the totalizing tendencies of modernity. Totality and Infinity was a powerful influence on Derrida, can be seen as a parrallel to Heidegger's Essay Concerning the Question of Technology, and certainly repesents a powerful attempt at post-metaphysical ethics. Levinas points out the egology, the self and family centered closedness that does violence on many scales. In a time when there seems to be unconditional heralding of freedom, Levinas points out the violence of freedom and encourages responsibility. Regardless of how effective one finds his arguments, I think the attitude and way of being Levinas is describing is one that would make life much fuller and less driven by inertia and ignorence. Infinitely important (pun), highly recommended.

This books demands the attention of us all, at every moment, and is a quiet masterpiece in recent continental thought. A work which Derrida has commented on, and built on so much in his earlier and later (affirmative) deconstrucion. This book is not simply a treatise on ethics, but one on metaphysics, logic, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, epistemology and indeed every thinkable area of ontological, onto-theological work that one can imagine. A treatise that makes us dramtically rethink everyone of these areas and so much more. Levinas will, in time, no doubt become regarded as one of the greats in the history of philosophy.