EMMANUEL LEVINAS’ CONCEPT OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY AS INFINITE RESPONSIBILITY

American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) 2025
A J H S S R J o u r n a l P a g e | 170
American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR)
e-ISSN : 2378-703X
Volume-09, Issue-06, pp-170-182
www.ajhssr.com
Research Paper Open Access
EMMANUEL LEVINAS’ CONCEPT OF INTER-
SUBJECTIVITY AS INFINITE RESPONSIBILITY
1
George Kithinji Bauni, 2
Nyambedha J. Apiyo, 3
Fredrick W. Nafula
Department of Philosophy: The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT: Inter-subjectivity as such is at the core of what makes us human. However, this exclusive human
potential can either be positive or negative. It is negative when it becomes a tool for the preservation of the “Same”
or the “Totality” and the alienation of the “Other”. This alienation has led to stigmatization, isolation, injustices
and violence against those perceived to be outside the “in-group. Among the many theories of inter-subjectivity
that have been espoused by different thinkers, Levinas’ theory of inter-subjectivity stands out as the only theory
that reclaims the “Other” from the maze of totalizing systems that have no regard to the alterity and dignity of the
“Other”. Indeed, Levinas’ ethical phenomenology is a sort of Copernican revolution as far as ontology is
concerned in the sense that he gives primacy to “Other” over the “totality” and demands infinite responsibility for
the former.
I. INTRODUCTION
Levinas’ critique of Husserl’s phenomenology and the transmutation of his concept of intentionality became the
substratum of his ethical thinking. In addition, his critique of the traditional Western metaphysics’ ontological
categories, Martin Heidegger’s account of facticity and Martin Buber’s reciprocal I-Thou relationship crystallized
into his ethical theory. Moreover, Levinas was also influenced by Plato’s idea of the primacy of “the Good” and
Rene Descartes’ idea of infinity and also his personal experience of Nazism and the horror of the Holocaust.
However, his ethical phenomenology is ultimately dominated by one theme, namely, the relationship between the
Self and the “Other”. Consequently, his ethics is an investigation into the nature of the ethical, whereby, he
analyses the possibility of a respectful, rewarding and humane inter-subjective encounter anchored in the Self’s
infinite responsibility for the “Other”. Therefore, the aim of this discussion is to elaborate on the key aspects of
Levinas’ concept of inter-subjectivity as infinite responsibility.
1.1 Levinas’ Critique of Western Philosophy
Levinas’ critique of metaphysics that is embraced by the Western philosophical tradition is anchored in
phenomenology as understood by Husserl. It is a “critique different from that of Heidegger because whereas
Heidegger’s critique of the Western metaphysical tradition or onto-theology is principally pursued from the
question of being, Levinas approaches his critique from an epistemological vantage point.”1
He views the
“Western philosophical tradition as a repetition of leading the other person and God back to what he refers to as
the ‘Same’.”2
First, Levinas is critical of the tendency in Western metaphysics of making a distinction between
knowledge and being. This is because for him, “this coincidence and unity of thought and being is the primary
starting point for all knowledge in Western metaphysics.”3
This is clear from his assertion that:
The dignity of being the ultimate and royal discourse belongs to Western philosophy because of the strict
coincidence of thought, in which philosophy resides, and the idea of reality in which this thought thinks.
For thought, this coinciding means not having to think beyond what belongs to ‘being’s move’ or at least
not beyond what modifies a previous belongingness to ‘being’s move’, such as formal or ideal notions.
For the being of reality, this coinciding means: to illuminate thought and the conceived by showing itself.
1
Shannon, Nason, “Levinas and the Philosophical Discourse of the West: Some Questions Regarding Levinas’
Critique of the Tradition” accessed at https://www.academia.edu/9699052/, on 25th
April, 2024.
2
Nason, “Levinas and the Philosophical Discourse of the West: Some Questions Regarding Levinas’ Critique
of the Tradition” accessed at https://www.academia.edu/9699052/, on 25th
April, 2024.
3
April, 2024.

To show oneself, to be illumined, is just what having meaning is, what having intelligibility par
excellence is; the intelligibility underlying every modification of meaning.4
Thus, from the aforesaid, it is apparent Levinas’ take on the Western metaphysical tradition is that it has “led to
the reducibility of thought to being, where thought and knowledge, both actual and potential is conditioned and
governed by ‘Being’ itself.”5
The other problem that Levinas finds with the Western metaphysical tradition and which is related to the first, is
that it posits the idea of a strict relationship between knowledge and comprehension. This is tantamount to saying
that “everything intelligible is subject to the movement of the comprehensive function of the intellect, ordered to
the intelligible conditions of being itself.”6
It is not surprising therefore, that Levinas stresses on the fact that “the
philosophical discourse of the West claims the amplitude of an all-encompassing structure or of ultimate
comprehension. It compels every other discourse to justify itself before philosophy.”7
Furthermore, Levinas
claims that in such a scenario, even the “Absolute Being is sought so that it can undergo philosophical inquiry and
analysis based on the deep and comprehensive structure of the law of being.”8
Levinas is also critical of the Western philosophical tradition because for him, in the Western ontological
categories everything can be comprehended as intelligible or meaningful not in isolation but only as a part of a
neutral and all-encompassing system.9
This is evident in his claim that “Western philosophy has most often been
an ontology: a reduction of the other to the same by interposition of a middle and neutral term that ensures the
comprehension of being.”10
Furthermore, Levinas asserts that “the ontological event that dominates the
philosophical tradition from Parmenides to Heidegger consists in suppressing or reducing all forms of otherness
by transmuting them into the same.”11
This means that Western philosophy or metaphysics has given primacy to
the “Same” at the expense of the “Other”, whereby the latter is reduced to the “Same”, thus becoming a theme or
an object.
It is this complete interrelated description of everything that is, and placing it under one system that defines
everything and from which all existents derive their value and intelligibility, that Levinas refers to as the “Totality”
or the “Same”.12
In a nutshell, according to Levinas, Western philosophy since “Plato has attempted to reduce all
otherness or alterity to the ‘Same’, that is, an attempt by the subjective ego to grasp or appropriate that which is
different and make it fit into preconceived ontological categories and this is a gross perversion of the uniqueness
of the ‘Other’.”13
It is in response to the predominance of this “Totality” which obliterates all otherness in the Western philosophical
tradition that Levinas’ thought took a new direction in which “beings are preserved in their specificity and isolation
and not subsumed under the general category of ‘Being’.”14
In this new paradigm, “the central focus is no longer
on the relationship between Being and beings, but on the question: what is there other than ‘Being’ (the One, the
Same, Totality? or what is there apart from everything?”15
Levinas calls “this something-outside-everything,
transcendence, exteriority, infinity, the ‘Other’, alterity, discourse and most crucially, ethics.”16
The paradox in Levinas’ explication of what lies beyond “Being” or outside “Totality” is that he makes a return
to Western metaphysics. He returns to Plato’s Republic wherein “Socrates describes the ‘Good’ which is not
4
Emmanuel, Levinas, “God and Philosophy”, in The Levinas Reader, Sean Hand (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1989.
5
April, 2024.
6
April, 2024.
7
Cf. Levinas, “God and Philosophy”, in the Levinas Reader, 167.
8
Shannon, Nason, “Levinas and the Philosophical Discourse of the West: Some Questions Regarding Levinas’
Critique of the Tradition” accessed at https://www.academia.edu/9699052/, on 25th
April, 2024.
9
Emmanuel, Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Alphonso Lingis (trans.), (Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press), 1969, 43.
10
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 43.
11
Simon, Critchley, “Introduction”, in the Cambridge Companion to Levinas, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 16.
12
Cf. Gona, Asaro, “Emmanuel Levinas’ Ethics of Responsibility as Paramount to a Complete Same-Other
Relationship”, A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Philosophy: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Catholic
University of Eastern Africa in August, 2022, 20.
13
William, P. Simmons, “An-archy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas’ Political Thought”, A
Doctoral Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University, 1996, 14.
14
Colin, Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), 34
15
Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, 34.
16
Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, 34-35.

essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power.”17
Levinas understands this assertion by
Socrates to mean that ethical questions are separate from ontological concerns and that since the ‘Good’ transcends
essence, it does not belong to being or totality and therefore, there is a clear distinction between ethics and
ontology.18
Indeed, Levinas defines ethics as the putting into question of one’s spontaneity by the presence of the
“Other” and emphasizes that ethics precedes ontology as is explicit in his statement that:
A calling into question of the same-which cannot occur within the egoist spontaneity of the same-is
brought about by the other. We name this calling into question of my spontaneity by the presence of the
Other ethics. The strangeness of the Other, his irreducibility to the I, to my thoughts and my possessions,
is precisely accomplished as a calling into question of my spontaneity, as ethics. Metaphysics,
transcendence, the welcoming of the other by the same, of the Other by me, is concretely produced as
the calling into question of the same by the other, that is, as ethics that accomplishes the critical essence
of knowledge. And as critique precedes dogmatism, metaphysics precedes ontology.19
This assertion makes it clear that ethics for Levinas is also a critique because “it is the critical putting into question
of the liberty, spontaneity and cognitive emprise of the ego that seeks to reduce all otherness to itself. Ethics is
thus the location of a point of otherness or exteriority that cannot be reduced to the same.”20
Again, the passage
above, in a sense, contains in embryo what is put forward in Totality and Infinity.21
The magnitude of Levinas’ criticism and the subsequent provision of an antidote to the tyranny or imperialism of
the “Same” as found in the Western philosophical tradition is aptly captured by Jacques Derrida who calls the
work of Levinas a “thought for which the entirety of Greek logos has already erupted, and is now quiet topsoil
deposited not over bedrock, but around a more ancient volcano.”22
This statement is clearly an acknowledgement
of the tremors that the philosophy of Levinas visited on Western philosophy. Nevertheless, Derrida has issues
with Levinas’ critique of Western philosophical tradition in that he “failed to establish transcendence beyond
totality because a philosophy which seeks to think otherwise than totality cannot rely on the dominant logos of
the tradition.”23
He argues that Levinas, though desiring to “replace ontology with ethics relies on terms which
are permeated with ontological connotations such as being, truth, objectivity and infinite.”24
1.2 The Paradigm Shift: Levinas’ Notion of the “Other”
In his introduction to Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, Wild observes that:
Totalitarian thinking accepts vision other than language as its model. It aims to gain an all-inclusive,
panoramic view of things, including the other, in a neutral, impersonal light like the Hegelian Geist
(Spirit), or the Heideggerian Being. It sees the dangers of an uncontrolled, individual freedom and puts
itself forth as the only rational answer to anarchy. To be free is the same as to be rational and to be
rational is to give oneself over to the total system that is developing in world history. Since the essential
self is also rational, the development of this system will coincide with the interests of the self. All
otherness will be absorbed in this total system of harmony and order.25
This observation by Wild aptly captures and reiterates what Levinas thought about the Western metaphysical
tradition and thus “whether the traditional theories were truly rational or not, they were one-sidedly egocentric
and reductive and did a lot of injustice to the ‘Other’.”26
Consequently, for Levinas, reconciling the “Same” and
the “Other” in a rational system of thought is not possible because the two are totally independent or distinct
existences. Subsequently, Levinas came up with a new paradigm asserting that:
Instead of building great systems in which singular diversities of things and persons are passed over and
diluted, this way of thinking prefers to start with the careful analysis of the peculiar features of each
being in its otherness, and then to clarify its relations with other things in the light of its peculiar and
distinctive features. This other-oriented mode of speaking and thinking will pay less attention to things
17
Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, 35. Cf. Plato, “Republic”, in Plato: Complete Works, John M. Cooper (ed.),
(Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 7. 509b.
18
19
20
Simon, Critchley, “Introduction”, in the Cambridge Companion to Levinas, Simon Critchley and Bernard
Bernasconi (eds.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 15.
21
22
Jacques, Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, Alan Bass (trans), (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982), 82.
23
Simmons, “Anarchy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas’ Political Thought”, 16.
24
Simmons, “Anarchy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas’ Political Thought”, 16.
25
26

as they appear to the separated self, and the search of what they are in themselves in their radical
otherness.27
It is important to note here that although Levinas’ ethical phenomenology reclaims the place of the “Other” from
the maze of the “Same”, it does not necessarily mean that his “thought privileges the ‘Other’ at the expense of the
‘Same’ because to do this would end up reproducing the totality-thinking which he is trying to dispense with.”28
In other words, this would ultimately lead to the invasion of the “Same” by the “Other”. This is explicit in his
observation that:
The intended transcendence would be thus reabsorbed into the unity of the system, destroying
the radical alterity of the other. Irreversibility does not only mean that the same goes unto the
other differently than the other unto the same. That eventuality does not enter into account: the
radical separation between the same and the other means precisely that it is impossible to place
oneself outside of the correlation between the same and the other so as to record the
correspondence or non-correspondence of this going with this return. Otherwise the same and
the other would be reunited under one gaze, and the absolute distance that separates them, filled
in.29
Conversely, what Levinas aims at is coming up with a “philosophy in which both the ‘Same’ and the ‘Other’ are
preserved as independent and self-sufficient, but in some sense in relation with one another.”30
It is noteworthy
that such a project is made difficult by the fact that it is in “the nature of relation to bring the ‘Other’ into the
Self’s sphere of familiarity, thus making it intelligible from the perspective of the Self and reducing its true
otherness.”31
However, Levinas is categorical that the “Other” remains essentially unintelligible when viewed
from the viewpoint of the Self and for him, it is this lack of understanding of the “Other” by the Self that is key if
the radical otherness of the ‘Other’ is to be left intact.32
In order for Levinas to avoid a pitfall whereby the alterity
of the “Other” would be diminished, he had to describe and defend subjectivity, give an account which does not
reduce the ‘Other’ to the ‘Same’ and account for the relation between ‘Same’ and ‘Other’ that does not abolish
either.”33
In his description of the Self, Levinas keeps away from thinking of the “Same” or the Self and the “Other” in
terms of what differentiates them because to do this would give room for the conception of the “Same” and the
“Other” as two sides of the same coin. Further, this would mean that the two are defined in relation to one another
and thus are parts of the same totality.34
This is clear from Levinas’ assertion that “if the ‘same’ would establish
its identity by simple opposition to the ‘Other’, it would already be part of a totality encompassing the ‘Same’ and
the ‘Other’.”35
As a consequence, he “describes the Self as neither different from nor opposed to the ‘Other’, but
separate from it.
Levinas’ position is that the Self is the site where the ‘Same’ identifies itself as such.”36
Besides, although the
Self is constantly changing or undergoing some alteration and finds itself unlike what it was before, it is
nevertheless “characterized by its capacity to survive change and to identify itself as the ‘Same’ even as it becomes
different.”37
In this regard, Levinas argues that:
The I is not a being that always remains the same, but is the being whose existing consists in
identifying itself, in recovering its identity throughout all that happens to it…The I is identical
in its alterations. It represents them to itself and thinks them. The universal identity in which the
heterogenous can be embraced as the ossature of a subject, of the first person…The I is identical
in its alterations in yet another sense. The I that thinks hearkens to itself thinking or takes fright
before its depths and is to itself another. It thus discovers the famous naivete of its thought,
which thinks ‘straight on’ as one follows one’s nose.38
Levinas’ insistence in the averment above, is that “the Self can discover its self-other but never “Other” and that
the other within the “same” prompts a re-identification and forms part of the identity which constitutes the same.”39
27
28
29
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 35-36.
30
31
32
Cf. Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, 41.
33
34
Cf. Davies, Levinas: An Introduction, 41.
35
36
Davies, Levinas: An Introduction, 42.
37
38
39

It is noteworthy that in this instance, Levinas is referring to the other that the Subject encounters in its dealing
with the world such as the good soup one eats, the air one breaths, the spectacles one wears, the work one does,
the ideas one has, the stars that one beholds, and so forth. The other that is spoken about here is the one that the
Self can appropriate to satisfy its needs or what Levinas refers to as enjoyment. Hence “in food, for example, the
energy to be found is something outside the Self and is transformed into the Self’s energy and this transmutation
of the other into the ‘Same’ is according to Levinas, the essence of enjoyment.”40
Levinas describes the relation of the Self to this other as follows:
But the true and primordial relation between them, and that in which the I is revealed precisely as
preeminently the same, is produced as a sojourn in the world. The way of the I against the ‘other’ of the
world consists in sojourning, in identifying oneself by existing here at home with oneself [chez soi]. In a
world which is from the first other the I is nonetheless autochthonous. It is the very reversion of this
alteration…it is enough to walk, to do [faire], in order to grasp anything, to take. In a sense everything
is in the site, in the last analysis everything is at my disposal, even the stars, if I but reckon them, calculate
the intermediaries or the means. The site, a medium [Le lieu, milieu] affords means. Everything is here,
everything belongs to me; everything is caught up in advance with the primordial occupying of a site,
everything is comprehended. The possibility of possessing, that is, of suspending the very alterity of what
is only at first other, the other relative to me, is the way of the same.41
In the scenario described above then, the Self finds itself existing “in a world of alien things and elements which
are other than, but not negations of itself.”42
It is a world in which the Self takes precedence over the various
objects around it and learns to manipulate and control them to its advantage. This means that these objects are at
the disposal of the Self; meaning that one can play with them, live on them and enjoy them at one’s pleasure.43
This primary relation between the Self and the world is therefore biased and egocentric. This means that “there is
a strong tendency in all human individuals and groups to maintain this egocentric attitude and to think of other
individuals either as extensions of the self, or as alien objects to be manipulated for the advantage of the individual
or social self. According to Levinas, neither of these egocentric views does justice to our original experience of
the other person.”44
This is the reason why he proposes a different phenomenology of the “Other” whereby a
distinction is clearly made between other and “Other” (l’ Autre, or its personalized form Autrui) or where the
“Same” produced as an egoism can enter into a relationship with an “Other” without immediately divesting it of
its alterity.
As we have explained above, the things in the world which we inhabit are other in relation to us but the otherness
of the Self and the world inhabited is only formal because in this world the otherness falls under the power and
control of the Self.45
Nonetheless, for Levinas, the “metaphysical ‘Other’ is other with an alterity that is not formal,
is not the simple reverse of identity, and is not formed out of resistance to the ‘Same’, but is prior to every
initiative, to all imperialism of the ‘Same’.”46
He describes this “Other” thus:
The absolutely other is the Other. He and I do not form a number. The collectivity in which I say “you”
or “we” is not a plural of the I… I, you-these are not individuals of a common concept. Neither possession
nor the unity of number nor the unity of concepts link me to the Stranger [l’Etranger], the stranger who
disturbs the being at home with oneself [le chez soi]. But Stranger also means the free one. Over him I
have no power. He escapes my grasp by an essential dimension, even if I have him at my disposal. He is
not wholly in my site. But I who have no concept in common with the Stranger, am, like him, without
genus. We are the same and the other. The conjunction and here designates neither addition nor power
of one term over the other.47
The distinction between other and “Other” made in the above assertion is central and thus indispensable to
Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. The distinction is monumental because:
The former may be incorporated into the “same” whereas the latter never can be; the former confirms
totality, the latter reveals infinity. The other may initially appear alien to the empirical self, but it does
not fundamentally challenge its supremacy; the ‘Other’ is utterly resistant to the transcendental Ego and
cannot be assimilated into the world the Ego creates for itself.48
40
41
42
43
Cf. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 12.
44
45
46
47
48

1.3 Levinas’ Notion of the Face of the “Other” and the Face to Face Ethical Encounter
We have already explicated Levinas’ central argument that instead of all realities being seen or perceived as
“unfolding or surrounding elements of one basic and central instance called the ‘Same’, which realizes itself by
appropriating them, the irreducibility of all Otherness must be recognized.”49
It is this recognition that displaces
the veiled “monism of ontology by a pluralism whose basic ground model is the relation of the ‘Same’ and the
‘Other’.”50
According to Levinas, this “relation whose terms do not form a totality can be produced within the
general economy of being only as proceeding from the I to the other, as a face to face.”51
Accordingly, the
otherness of the “Other” is concretized in the face of another human.
When Levinas speaks of “face” he does not simply refer to the narrow or the common linguistic meaning whereby
the word refers to the countenance that we behold when we encounter another human being or “the face that
constitutes the central zone of the body where our eyes and our mouth are located and the play of features takes
place and which cannot be hidden or protected except by use of visible or invisible masks.”52
On the contrary, he
uses the term in the emphatic sense which comes forth when the face “is understood not simply as something
present but as the other’s corporeal self-presence, performed by the gaze or appeal we are exposed to.”53
In fact,
Levinas does not give a definition but only a figurative description of the “face” and in this regard contends that:
The face is present in its refusal to be contained. In this sense, it cannot be comprehended, that is
encompassed. It is neither seen nor touched-for in visual or tactile sensation, the identity of the I envelops
the alterity of the object, which becomes precisely a content…The Other remains infinitely transcendent,
infinitely foreign; his face in which his epiphany is produced and which appeals to me breaks with the
world that can be common to us, whose virtualities are inscribed in our nature and developed by our
existence. 54
What is expressed above simply means that the face is the way the other presents himself or herself to me that
exceeds the idea of the other in me. Hence, “another comes to the fore as Other if and only if his or her
‘appearance’ breaks, pierces, destroys the horizon of my egocentric monism, that is, when the other’s invasion of
my world destroys the empire in which all phenomena are, from the outset, a priori, condemned to function as
moments of my universe.”55
Levinas, then, is of the position that the “face resists possession, resists my powers.
In its epiphany, in expression, the sensible, still graspable, turns into total resistance to the grasp.”56
As a result,
“the expression the face introduces into the world does not defy the feebleness of my powers, but my ability for
power. The face speaks to me and thereby invites me to a relation incommensurate with a power exercised, be it
enjoyment or knowledge.”57
The core emphasis by Levinas is that “the other person as he or she comes before me in a face to face encounter
is not an alter ego, another self with different properties and accidents but in all respects like me.”58
Indeed, the
other is not a mere object to be subsumed under one of my categories and given a place in my world.59
Therefore,
although the Self encounters the “Other”, and beholds his or her countenance nude and bare, “there is still a sense
of distance and even absence in his questioning glance.”60
For this reason, that the “Other” is a stranger and one
is not sure what the “Other’s” strangeness may conceal. For this reason “the ‘Other’ transcends the limits of (self-
) consciousness and its horizon; the look and the voice that surprise me are ‘too much’ for my capacity of
assimilation.”61
In this sense, the “Other” comes to me as a total stranger and from a dimension that surpasses me;
he is infinite or an enigma.”62
Furthermore:
The “Other” resists the attempt by the Self to “monopolize the world because the “Other’s” greatness
does not fit in any enclosure-not even that of theoretical comprehension. This resistance to all
49
Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, (West Lafayette, Indiana:
Purdue University Press, 1993), 19.
50
Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, 19.
51
52
Waldenfels “Levinas and the face of the other”, in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, 64.
53
Waldenfels “Levinas and the face of the other”, in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, 64.
54
55
Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, 19-20.
56
57
58
59
60
61
62

comprehension is founded on the fact that the mere fact of another’s existence is a ‘surplus’ that cannot
be reduced to becoming a part or movement of the same.63
The question that then arises in this regard is: How can this distance that separates the Self from the “Other” be
bridged? Levinas answer to this apparent paradox is that the only way this distance can be surmounted is through
discourse or language. This is because “the questioning glance of the other is seeking for a meaningful response
and if communication and community is to be achieved, a real response, a responsible answer must be given.”64
Simply put, the face of the ‘Other’ demands a discourse or communication. He expresses this clearly by in his
observation that:
The incomprehensible nature of the presence of the other which we spoke of above, is not to be described
negatively. Better than comprehension, discourse relates with what remains essentially
transcendent…Language is a relation between separated terms. To the one the other can indeed present
himself as a theme. The word that bears on the other as a theme seems to contain the other. But already
it is said to the other who as an interlocutor, has quit the theme that encompassed him, and upsurges
inevitably behind the said. Words are said be it only by the silence kept, whose weight acknowledges
this evasion of the other. The knowledge that absorbs the other is forthwith situated within the discourse
I address to him. Speaking rather than ‘letting be’ solicits the other. Speech cuts across vision...In
discourse, the divergence that inevitably opens between the other as my theme and the other as my
interlocutor, emancipated from the theme that seemed for a moment to hold him, forthwith contests the
meaning I ascribe to my interlocutor. The formal structure of language thereby announces the ethical
inviolability of the other and without any odor the ‘numinous,’ his ‘holiness.65
Let us underscore the fact that the aforementioned discourse, language or communication does not entail
circulation of words, gestures and things but a giving of the Self to the “Other”.
The giving that is referred to above, “is a giving which exceeds or goes beyond pure exchange and presupposes
more, that is, the face “expresses itself”.66
In this case, “the face is not the site from which a sender delivers certain
messages by means of linguistic tools.”67
Conversely, in this discourse “we assist the birth of the “Other” out of
the Word and the birth of the Word out of the “Other”. The Logos does not just become flesh, it becomes face.”68
Moreover, Levinas maintains that:
The event proper to expression consists in bearing witness to oneself, and guaranteeing this witness. This
attestation of oneself is possible only as a face, that is, as speech. It produces the commencement of
intelligibility, initially itself, principally, royal sovereignty, which commands unconditionally. The
principle is possible only as command. A search for the influence that the expression would have
undergone or unconscious source from which it would emanate would presuppose an inquiry that would
refer to new testimonies, and consequently to an original sincerity of an expression…If at the bottom of
speech there did not subsist this originality of expression, this break with every influence, this dominant
position of the speaker foreign to all compromise and all contamination, this straightforwardness of the
face to face, speech would not surpass the plane of activity, of which it is evidently not a species-even
though language can be integrated in a system of acts and serve as an instrument. But language is possible
only when speaking precisely renounces this function of being action and returns to its essence of being
expression. 69
With these words, Levinas is simply insisting that the linguistic intercourse he is talking about is not the everyday
interlocution whereby somebody speaks to the other about something or somebody, because that would simply
remain an activity or action. Hence he “is not concerned with the said but the saying.”70
Actually, he avoids “any
established linguistic system until reaching the point where the speaking face functions as the primordial signifier.
In this case, the “Other” is the giver of a sense which precedes my giving of meaning to his existence; meaning
that we learn from the other what we cannot learn by ourselves.”71
Levinas also emphasizes that the relation to the face is straightaway ethical in that “the face is what one cannot
kill, or at least it is that whose meaning consists in saying: ‘thou shall not kill’.”72
This means that “the way the
63
64
65
66
Cf. Waldenfels, “Levinas and the Face of the Other”, in the Cambridge Companion to Levinas, 68.
67
Waldenfels, “Levinas and the Face of the Other”, in the Cambridge Companion to Levinas, 68.
68
69
70
Waldenfels, “Levinas and the Face of the Other”, in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, 68.
71
Waldenfels, “Levinas and the Face of the Other”, in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, 68.
72
Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations With Philipe Nemo, Richard A. Cohen (trans.),
(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 87. It is noteworthy that Levinas does not tell us that we should

other imposes its enigmatic irreducibility and non-relativity or absoluteness is through a command or prohibition:
you are not allowed to kill me; you must accord me a place under the sun and everything that is necessary to live
a truly human life.”73
If the Self has to give space to the “Other” to live without any attempt at appropriation or
monopolization, it obliges the former to avoid activities that may hurt the latter and also calls the former to
responsibility. Thus, the injunction given by the face of the “Other” becomes both a command and a norm. This
is tantamount to saying that the “immediate encounter or experience of the face of the human ‘Other’ contains the
root of all possible ethics because the ‘Other’s’ existence reveals to the Self the foundation and the prime sense
of its obligations.”74
Levinas states that this obligation of the Self to the “Other” is born of the fact that “the face in its nakedness as a
face presents to the Self the destitution of a poor one and a stranger.”75
At the same time, the poor one, the stranger
presents himself as an equal who joins the Self for service while commanding the Self as a master; a command
that paradoxically also commands the Self to command because the I is also a master itself.76
It is important to mention here that equating the face to the destitution of the poor one or a stranger does not mean
“that the face is something we can see or touch, while moving within open horizons, passing through changing
perspectives, transforming it into a content we embrace or manipulate.”77
This is explicit in Levinas’ assertion
that “the presence of the face, the infinity of the other, is a destituteness, a presence of a third party (that is the
whole of humanity which looks at us) and a command that commands commanding.”78
This command by the
“Other” does not divest the Self of its freedom but rather enhances and “gives proper foundation to freedom in
the sense that whereas the transcendental Ego would like to be the sole source of its own knowledge, actions and
meanings, the encounter with the ‘Other’ shows such freedom to be egoistical, arbitrary and unjustified.”79
According to Levinas, then, freedom is granted through the agency of the ‘Other’ and without the ‘Other’ freedom
is without purpose or foundation and in this connection observes that:
The face in which the other-the absolutely-other-presents himself does not negate the same, does not do
violence to it as do opinion or authority or the thaumaturgic supernatural. It remains commensurate with
him who welcomes it remains terrestrial. This presentation is preeminently nonviolence, for instead of
offending my freedom it calls it to responsibility and founds it. As nonviolence it nonetheless maintains
the plurality of the same and the other. It is peace. The relation with the other-the absolutely other- who
has no frontier with the same is not exposed to the allergy that afflicts the same in a totality.80
Besides, in the face to face, “the ‘Other’ gives one’s freedom meaning because one is confronted with real choices
between responsibility and obligation towards the ‘Other’, or hatred and violent repudiation.”81
In other words,
the ‘Other’ does not only make the Self realize that it shares the world and that the world is not its unique
possession (a realization it does not like) but also puts the Self into question by revealing that its powers and
freedom is limited.82
Therefore, “the face does not annihilate the Self; on the contrary, it is the condition of its
separateness. It instigates dialogue, teaching and hence reason, society and ethics.”83
1.4 The “Third Other” or “Third Party” in Levinas’ Concept of Responsibility
In the preceding discussion, we have given an elaborate exposition of the relationship between the Subject and
the “Other” and the consequent obligation of responsibility to the “Other” ensuing from such a relationship.
not kill the “Other”; he tells us rather that the ‘Other’ cannot be killed. This means Levinas makes a distinction
between the “Other” and others. Others can be killed notwithstanding the fact that murder is the most banal
incident of human history. Thus, for Levinas, even with the extermination of human beings like it happened during
the Holocaust, the “Other” remains inviolate and inviolable. Hence, Levinas apparently does not necessarily
denounce violence as wrong but rather attempts to show that it always fails and can never succeed in its true aims;
meaning that when I kill, I am trying to kill the “Other”, that which is utterly beyond my powers; I may succeed
in killing the “Other” or even numerable others but the “Other” survives. Violence, then, always ends in failure.
Cf. Davies, Levinas: An Introduction, 51.
73
74
75
76
Cf. Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, 22.
77
78
79
80
81
82
Cf. Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, 48.
83

However, Levinas also asserts that a Subject’s relation extends beyond a single “Other” to the other “Other” or
the “third party”. In Otherwise than Being, he observes that:
If proximity ordered to me only the other alone, there would not have been any problem in even the most
general sense of the term. A question would not have been born, nor consciousness, nor self-
consciousness. The responsibility for the other is an immediacy antecedent to questions, it is proximity.
It is troubled and becomes a problem when the third party enters.84
It can be inferred from this observation that the solid relationship between the Self and the “Other” is interrupted
by the appearance of the third party. This is because the third party that appears demands responsibility from the
Subject in the same manner as the “Other” does. Nevertheless, Levinas cures this apparent disturbance by his
argument that the “Other” appearing in the epiphany of the face is not particular or privatized but universal and
therefore, that the third party’s appearance is concomitant with the appearance of the “Other”.85
Levinas also argues that the ‘Other’ does not pursue covert affection but places itself in the full light of
revelation.86
For example, the ability to speak presupposes a belonging to a language community. Consequently,
in the manifestation or epiphany of the “Other”, the third party also gazes at the Self, and this is well expressed in
Levinas’ assertion that:
Language as the presence of the face does not invite complicity with the preferred being, the self-
sufficient “I-Thou” forgetful of the universe; in its frankness it refuses the clandestinity of love, where it
loses its frankness and meaning and turns into laughter or cooing. The third party looks at me in the eyes
of the Other-language is justice. It is not that there first would be the face, and then the being it manifests
or expresses would concern himself with justice; the epiphany of the face qua face opens humanity.87
The meaning of this affirmation is that when the Self encounters the naked face of the “Other”, it simultaneously
encounters the third party that calls the Self with humility and with as much imperative as does the “Other”
standing before him or her. In this sense, “the epiphany of the face opens up to humanity in that the presence of
the face or the infinity of the other is a destituteness or a presence of the third party (that is, of the whole of
humanity that looks at us).”88
As a consequence, Levinas considered the relation between the Self and the “Other”
as social relation or sociality; meaning that the otherness of the “Other” has a fundamentally social extension and
his or her alterity contains an immediate reference to all the others.
In spite of the fact that Levinas presents the “Other” as other, perfect and to some degree distant to the Self, he
affirms that “the third party is the free being whom the Self can harm by exerting coercion on his or her freedom.”89
The third party is apparently more vulnerable than the “Other” and because of this susceptibility to harm, it
intrudes on the relation between the Self and the “Other”.90
Moreover, Levinas argues that since “with the presence
of the third party, the Subject is faced with the possibility of choice, the Subject needs to do some calculus, to
compare and judge in order to determine for itself who is in more need than the other.”91
This is because the
responsibility for the “Other” now encompasses the third “Other”. The impact of the entry of the third party is
that it entails a passage to justice, which in turn calls into place the political state with its juridical institutions and
bill of rights. In this regard, Levinas states that:
It is the moment of justice. The love of one’s fellowman, and his original right, as unique and
incomparable, for which I am answerable, tend of their own accord to make appeal to a reason capable
of comparing incomparable, a wisdom of love. A measure superimposes itself on the ‘extravagant
generosity of the ‘for the other’, on its infinity. Here, the right of the unique, the original right of man,
calls for judgement and, hence, objectivity, objectification, thematization, synthesis. It takes institutions
to arbitrate and a political authority to support all this.92
84
Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Alphonso Lingis (trans.), (Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 157.
85
Cf. Ramona, Rat, Un-Common Sociality: Thinking Sociality with Levinas, Sodertorn Philosophical Studies,
2016, 171.
86
87
88
89
Emmanuel Levinas, “The Ego and the Totality”, in Collected Philosophical Papers, Alphonso Lingis
(trans.), Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987, 37.
90
91
Mkhwanazi, “To be Human is to be Responsible for the ‘Other”, 133-149.
92
Levinas, Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other, Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (trans.), (New York:
Columbia University Press), 195.

Nonetheless, the system of justice and the political authority necessitated by the appearance of the third party
does not abrogate the Self’s obligation toward the “Other” because “the reference to the face of the other preserves
the ethics of the state.”93
Levinas further contends that the presence of the third party not only limits the radical responsibility for one
another but calls for the installation of an equitable system in “which justice meets the needs of the third party
because of the potential conflict between the rights of the “Other” and the third other or others.”94
Accordingly,
the obligation of responsibility takes a new turn in that instead of only paying attention to the uniqueness of the
“Other”, the Self must compare the different others so that responsibility can be just and equitable. This is explicit
in Levinas’ statement that:
But the order of justice of individuals responsible for one another does not arise in order to restore that
reciprocity between the I and its other; it arises from the fact of the third who, next to the one who is an
other than me, is “another other” to me. The I, precisely as responsible for the other and the third, cannot
remain indifferent to their interactions, and in the charity for the one cannot withdraw its love to the
other. The self, the I, cannot limit itself to the incomparable uniqueness of each other, which is expressed
in the face of the other…This is the hour of inevitable justice –required, however, by charity itself. The
hour of justice, of the comparison between incomparables who are grouped by human species and genus.
And the hour of institutions empowered to judge, of states within which institutions are consolidated, of
universal law which is always a dura lex, and of citizens equal before the law.95
It is clear from the assertion above that according to Levinas, the incomparable uniqueness of the third party can
only be appreciated by the organization of a system of equality. It is responsibility in the third person. Nonetheless,
Levinas is apparently aware of the fact that since a system can ignore the concrete face of the “Other”, it can lead
to perversion of responsibility. In order to take care of such an eventuality, he maintains that “the possibility that
responsibility is perverted by the organization does not imply every system as such should condemned. On the
contrary, the totalizing elements must be constantly questioned and criticized by the original goodness.”96
1.5 Levinas’ Notion of Infinite Responsibility
Levinas’ primary focus in Totality and Infinity is the establishment and elaboration of the otherness of the other
person as moral height and destitution, that is, ethical alterity.97
Inversely, in Otherwise than Being, which is a
sequel to Totality and Infinity, Levinas focuses on ethical subjectivity. He “elaborates this ethics of alterity like
ethics itself by turning back to the moral sensibility of the subject awakened by the ‘Other’, to its unique temporal
and moral de-phasing, a fissured self, traumatized, held hostage by the other.”98
Richard Cohen argues that in
Otherwise than Being:
The moral subject rises in subjection, ‘despite itself,’ introjected deeper than its own synthetic activities,
suffering an immemorial past never contracted in the present, the trace of a diachrony, to the point of
obsession, substitution for the other, turning the self inside out, hostage to and for the other, for the
other’s needs, for the other’s life, to be sure, but also for the other’s responsibility, even for the other’s
evil, in an an-archic moral inspiration expiating even for the other’s persecution. I am my brother’s
keeper all the way. 99
The implication of Cohen’s contention is that in Otherwise than Being, the encounter with and/or existence of
the ‘Other” does not only reveal to the Self the foundation and prime sense of its obligations but also calls it “to
a responsibility that goes beyond what the Self may or may not have done to the “Other’ or whatever acts the Self
may or may not have committed, as if it were devoted to the “Other” before being committed to itself.”100
It means
that the “Other” is summoning the Self to a responsibility that has no boundaries whatsoever; in other words, the
Self is being summoned to infinite responsibility.101
93
Levinas, Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other, 195
94
Luc, Anckaert, “Ethics of Responsibility and Ambiguity of Politics in Levinas’ Philosophy”, Problemos 97
(2020), 61-74.
95
Emmanuel, Levinas, “The Other, Utopia and Justice”, in Is it Righteous to be?: Interviews with Emmanuel
Levinas, Jill Robbins (ed.), (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 205-206.
96
Anckaert, “Ethics of Responsibility and Ambiguity of Politics in Levinas’ Philosophy”, 61-74.
97
Cf. Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, xii.
98
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, xii.
99
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, xii.
100
Robert, Bernasconi, “The Third Party: Levinas on the Intersection of the Ethical and the Political”, Journal
of the British Society for Phenomenology, vol. 30.1 (January, 1999), 76-87.
101
The term infinite is “derived etymologically from the Latin, infinitus, which is a combination of in
(meaning: not) and finitus (meaning: end, boundary, limit, termination, etc.). In general, the word signifies the
quality or condition arising from not having some sort of end or limit. The term infinite therefore, can refer to an

Levinas’ averment is that this is a responsibility that unites the past and present in that it encompasses not only
the faults and misfortunes of the “Other” but also the freedom of the “Other”. This is clear from Levinas’ assertion
that:
But the relationship with a past that is on the hither side of every present and every re-presentable, for
not belonging to the order of presence, is included in the extraordinary and every day event of my
responsibility for the faults or misfortune of others, in my responsibility that answers for the freedom of
another, in the astonishing human fraternity in which fraternity, conceived with Cain’s sober coldness,
would not by itself explain the responsibility between separated beings it calls for .102
Surprisingly, Levinas is of the position that the unlimited responsibility of the Self to the “Other” neither begins
in the former’s commitment nor voluntariness and instead emphasizes that:
The unlimited responsibility in which I find myself comes from the hither side of my freedom, from a
‘prior to every memory, ‘an ‘ulterior to every accomplishment,’ from the non-present par excellence, the
non-original, the an-archical, prior to or beyond essence. The responsibility for the other is the locus in
which is situated the null-site of subjectivity, where the privilege of the question ‘Where’ no longer
holds.103
Based on the above emphasis, unlimited responsibility as an order that the Self receives does not originate with
the Self but precedes it in the sense that it originates from a time preceding the Self’s freedom, that is, before the
Self’s beginning.104
Levinas also insists that the aforementioned unlimited responsibility is “pre-original and refers to a past that is
irrecoverable and pre-ontological. This implies that for as long as one is one ought to be responsible for
another.”105
This also indicates that infinite responsibility belongs to the very nature of subjectivity: “I am
responsible for the ‘Other’ because my existence as individuated Subject is entirely bound up with my relation to
the ‘Other’ or to him or her.”106
Here, Levinas makes an inherent relatedness between “responsibility” and the
“Other” in a way that translates into a declaration that the sole measure of being human is one’s responsibility for
the “Other”.107
According to Levinas, this responsibility is the indispensable, original and elemental structure of
subjectivity.
In order to explain what necessitates this ethical or gratuitous infinite responsibility, Levinas argues that “at the
heart of subjectivity is not a ‘for itself’, but what he calls ‘the one-for-the-other.”108
This is what is referred to as
the doctrine of “substitution”. In his description of this doctrine of substitution, Levinas states that:
The self is on the hither side of the rest; it is the impossibility to come back from all things and concern
oneself only with oneself. It is to hold on to oneself while gnawing away at oneself. Responsibility in
obsession is a responsibility of the ego for what the ego has not wished, that is, for the others. This
anarchy in the recurrence to oneself is beyond the normal play of action and passion in which the identity
of a being is maintained, in which it is. It is on the hither side of the limits of identity. This passivity
undergone in proximity by the force of an alterity in me is the passivity of a recurrence to oneself which
is not the alienation of an identity betrayed. What can it be but a substitution of me for others? It is,
however, not an alienation, because the other is the same in my substitution for the other through
responsibility, for which, I am summoned as someone irreplaceable. I exist through the other and for the
other, but without this being alienation: I am inspired.109
It can be deduced from the above that substitution is neither a swapping of places nor an absorption of the identity
of the Subject into the “Other” but rather a Subject’s kenosis, so to say, so that it creates room for the “Other”. As
Levinas puts it: “as a substitution of one for another, as me, a man, I am not a transubstantiation, a changing of
unlimited extent of time, space, quantity of mass, quantity of power, essence and substance. On the other hand,
the term responsibility is derived from the Latin “word responsus which means ‘to respond’. The word therefore,
refers to the fact of responding to, being accountable to or answerable to. From this etymological definition of the
two terms, the phrase “infinite responsibility” refers the act of endless, boundless or limitless accountability or
answerability. Cf. Leo, Sweeney, Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought, (New York: Peter Lang
Publishing, Inc., 1992), 3.
102
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 10.
103
104
Mkhwanazi, “To be Human is to be Responsible for the Other”, 133-149.
105
106
107
Cf. Mkhwanazi, “To be Human is to be Responsible for the “Other”, 133-149.
108
Robert, Bernasconi, “What is the question to which ‘substitution is the answer”, in the Cambridge
Companion to Levinas, 234.
109

one substance into another, I do not shut myself up in another identity, I do not rest in a new avatar.”110
Substitution
therefore, simply means “one-in-the-place-of-another, being-in-one’s-skin or having-the-other-in-one’s skin”111
Hence, in substitution, the Subject is obliged to assume the role of shielding the “Other” from external hazards.
In Levinas’ opinion, “substitution is indispensable to the comprehension of subjectivity because it is the process
by which the Subject empties itself of its being so that it can make space for the other.”112
Levinas’ also affirms that the taking of the “Other’s” place includes not only bearing the faults of the “Other” or
being answerable for the misdeeds and mistakes of the “Other” but also expiation and persecution for the sins of
others. In this connection, he alludes to the fact that:
Every accusation and persecution, as all interpersonal praise, recompense, and punishment presuppose
the subjectivity of the ego, substitution, the possibility of putting oneself in place of the other, which
refers to the transference from “by the other” into a “for the other” and in persecution from the outrage
inflicted by the other to the expiation for his fault by me. But the absolute accusation, prior to freedom,
constitutes freedom which, allied to the Good, situates beyond and outside of all essence.113
Levinas maintains that the responsibility that the Subject takes for the actions of the persecutor that is mentioned
in the above assertion, forms the basis of the Subject’s goodness and “this goodness is not the result of a moral
choice; it describes an obligation arising from the fact that, in my condition as a Subject, I am given over to the
‘Other’.”114
Consequently, all moral qualities derive from this basic ethical thesis: “It is through the condition of
being hostage that there can be in this world pity, compassion, pardon and proximity-even the little there is, even
the simple ‘After you, sir’.”115
It is also worthy of note that since Levinas is categorical that the inter-subjective relation is a non-symmetrical
one, the responsibility for the “Other” is not a two-way traffic or a give and take affair. Thus, the Subject’s
responsibility for the “Other” is not dependent on the latter’s reciprocity. Indeed, Levinas insists that responsibility
is the Subject’s affair and in this regard emphasizes that:
I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it. Reciprocity is his
affair. It is precisely insofar as the relationship between the Other and me is not reciprocal that I am
subjection to the Other; and I am ‘subject’ essentially in this sense. It is I who support all. You know that
sentence in Dostoyevsky: ‘We are all guilty of all and for all men before all, and I more than the others.’
This is not owing to such or such guilt which is really mine, or the offences that I would have committed;
but because I am responsible for a total responsibility, which answers for all the others and for all in the
others, even for their responsibility. The I always has one responsibility more than all the others.
This affirmation by Levinas is not far-etched because in ordinary circumstances people abhor relationships that
have strings attached. As a matter of fact, in many instances some people do not assist the poor, the widow, the
orphan, the stranger, the victim of injustice, victims of accidents, et cetera, expecting any kind of reciprocity.
Although sometimes people give help with utilitarian intentions, it is not something that is ethically acceptable.
Similarly, our responsibility for the mistakes and misdeeds of others may not necessarily demand reciprocity as
is evident in instances where soldiers are sent for peace-keeping missions. They are entrusted with the
responsibility of quelling conflicts that they never took any part in igniting and protecting victims who they have
never met and to whom they are not related in any conventional way. In this way, they take responsibility for the
other’s mistakes of commission or omission.
Actually, in ordinary circumstances, whether with full knowledge or voluntariness on the Subject’s part, we bear
responsibility even for our persecutors. This is particularly true in our criminal or civil justice system where
through our taxes, we pay for the upkeep of criminals of all sorts who are locked up in our prisons. Similarly, in
the Prisoners of War camps, soldiers are required to guard and provide food and shelter for the enemy soldiers
who may have been responsible for massacring their friends or colleague soldiers.
Conclusion
Levinas’ ethical phenomenology does not propose an ethical code but rather seeks to give an explanation of the
existential preconditions for the possibility of morality. Therefore, Levinas is neither interested in establishing
norms for guiding moral behaviour nor in examining the nature of ethical language or the conditions of how to
live well. Contrariwise, his analysis of the non-symmetrical relationship between the Self and the “Other”
ultimately leads to the conclusion that the Self is not only called to a responsibility for the “Other” but that this
responsibility is infinite. Notwithstanding the fact that the theory has its gaps and flaws, many scholars today view
110
111
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 14, 114-115.
112
113
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 117-118.
114
115

it as a paradigm that can be used in solving problems that arise from the alienation of the “Other” in diverse fields
such as politics, medical field, penal code, et cetera.
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Cambridge University Press, 2002.
[2] Davies, Colins. Levinas: An Introduction. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996.
[3] Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy. Alan Bass (Trans), Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982.
[4] Levinas, Emmanuel. The Levinas Reader. Sean Hand (Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1989.
[5] Levinas, Emmanuel. Alterity and Transcendence. Michael B. Smith (Trans.). New York: Althlone Press,
1999.
[6] ………………………………...Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Alphonso Lingis (Trans.).
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[8] ……………………………….Basic Philosophical Writings. Peperzak, S. Critchley & R. Bemasconi
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Journals and Articles
[1] Anckaert, Luc. “Ethics of Responsibility and Ambiguity of Politics in Levinas’ Philosophy”. Problemos 97
(2020), 61-74.
[2] Asaro, Gona. “Emmanuel Levinas’ Ethics of Responsibility as Paramount to a Complete Same-Other
Relationship”. A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Philosophy: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
Catholic University of Eastern Africa in August, 2022, 20.
[3] Bernasconi, Robert. “The Third Party: Levinas on the Intersection of the Ethical and the Political”.
Journal of British Society for Phenomenology, 30.1 (January, 1999), 76-87.
[4] Mkhwanazi, Ezekiel. “To be Human is to be Responsible for the Other”. Department of Philosophy,
Practical and Systematic Theology: University of South Africa (March, 2022), 133-149.
[5] Ramona, Rat. Un-Common Sociality: Thinking Sociality with Levinas. Sodertorn Philosophical Studies,
2016, 171.
[6] Simmons, P. William. “An-archy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas’ Political Thought”.
A Doctoral Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University,
1996.
[7] Shannon, Nason. “Levinas and the Philosophical Discourse of the West: Some Questions Regarding
Levinas’ Critique of the Tradition”, accessed at https://www.academia.edu/9699052/, on 25th
April, 2024.

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