Phenomenology and Ethics in Emmanuel Levinas

Abstract

The current article shows some aspects of Levinas’ phenomenology, distinguishing it from Husserl and Heidegger. As Ontology fails to say the other man, the philosopher searches for another language more respectful of his alterity. Ethics offers itself then as the other man’s language. The task of building a philosophy of alterity makes our author build his own method that takes him beyond Husserl and Heidegger, both still fixed in theory and in phenomenon. Phenomenology and Ethics meet each other in Levinas’ notion of Face and both, as two modalities of meaning, produce themselves in the intrigue of language.

Key words: ethics, phenomenology, meaning, manifestation, proximity.