Discovering Levinas

In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O\'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising vocabulary, interpreting texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas\'s ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique.

• First book to offer a comprehensive reading of Levinas that places him within the world of Anglo-American, analytic philosophy • Deals with issues that are both contested in scholarship about Levinas and also would be problems for philosophers unfamiliar with his work • Attempts to demystify Levinas by placing him in conversation with prominent contemporary philosophers and uses familiar terms to clarify his terminology

1. Auschwitz, politics, and the twentieth century; 2. Phenomenology and transcendental philosophy; 3. The ethical content of the face-to-face; 4. Philosophy, totality, and the everyday; 5. Meaning, culture, and language; 6. Subjectivity and the self; 7. God and philosophy; 8. Time, Messianism, and diachrony; 9. Ethical realism and contemporary moral philosophy; 10. Beyond language and expressibility; 11. Judaism, ethics, and religion; Conclusion: Levinas and the primacy of the ethical: Kant, Kierkegaard, and Derrida; Appendix. Facing reasons: agent-neutral reasons and Levinasian ethics.

\'This clear, fascinating, and outstandingly learned study is remarkable for, among other things, bringing Levinas into fruitful conversation with notable Anglo-American philosophers. Morgan continually compares what Levinas has to say on a wide range of philosophical topics with the views of, e.g., Donald Davidson, John McDowell, Christine Korsgaard, Stanley Cavell, Hilary Putnam, and Charles Taylor. The result is an exemplary model of how to write across the so-called analytic/continental divide. It is obvious that Morgan has thought both hard and originally about how to teach Levinas, about how to introduce a figure whose writings are apt to come across as impenetrable. The result is stunning - a work of impressive depth and wonderful accessibility.\'

– David Finkelstein, University of Chicago