Levinas and Camus: Humanism for the Twenty-First Century (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy, 15)

This important new book compares the respective oeuvre of two seminal thinkers of the 20th century, Emmanuel Levinas and Albert Camus. Tal Sessler compares their lasting legacies within the specific context of intellectual resistance to totalitarianism and political violence, with particular focus on their respective approaches to the Holocaust and genocide in the 20th century and, correspondingly, the question of theodicy and religious faith. Levinas and Camus explores each thinker's congruent and complimentary metaphysical and political rationale in opposing tyranny. Sessler emphasises the religious component in Levinas's depiction of Hitlerism as paganism (a perception that Camus shares), and the correlation between liberalism and monotheism. The book explores Levinas and Camus's reflections on the Holocaust and the question of theodicy and deals with their corresponding critiques of Stalinism and Hegelian philosophy of history. Sessler goes on to consider how Levinas and Camus would have contended with the central political issue of our own era, religious fundamentalism, and explicates the dualist nature of Israel and Algeria in the writings of Levinas and Camus. > Table of Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 10 I. Two Key Paradigms in Twentieth-Century Intellectual History......Page 12 II. Structure and Themes......Page 16 I. Emmanuel Levinas......Page 22 II. Albert Camus......Page 24 I. Levinass and Camuss Analysis of Nazism in Terms of Philosophical Anthropology......Page 27 II. On the Linkage between Monotheism and Liberalism......Page 29 III. Levinas and Camus on Political Nietzscheanism......Page 33 IV. Levinas and Camus Contra the Nietzschean Antagonistic Mode of Inter-Subjectivity and Its Politicization......Page 37 V. Nietzschean Streaks in the 'Early Camus and the Levinas of the Post-1945 Era......Page 39 VI. Levinas and Camus on Anti-Judaeo-Christian Streaks in Nazism......Page 42 I. Depiction of Marxism as Philosophical Anthropology......Page 51 II. Critique of Soviet Marxism......Page 53 III. Critique of Hegelian Philosophy of History......Page 59 IV. Conclusion of the Critique of Left Totalitarianism......Page 63 I. Levinas and Camus Contra Religious Fundamentalism......Page 67 II. Visionary Politics......Page 75 III. Humanisms for the Twenty-First Century......Page 80 IV. Afterword......Page 81 Notes......Page 83 Bibliography......Page 114 Index......Page 123

This important new book compares the respective oeuvre of two seminal thinkers of the 20th century, Emmanuel Levinas and Albert Camus. Tal Sessler compares their lasting legacies within the specific context of intellectual resistance to totalitarianism and political violence, with particular focus on their respective approaches to the Holocaust and genocide in the 20th century and, correspondingly, the question of theodicy and religious faith.

Levinas and Camus explores each thinker's congruent and complimentary metaphysical and political rationale in opposing tyranny. Sessler emphasises the religious component in Levinas's depiction of Hitlerism as paganism (a perception that Camus shares), and the correlation between liberalism and monotheism. The book explores Levinas and Camus's reflections on the Holocaust and the question of theodicy and deals with their corresponding critiques of Stalinism and Hegelian philosophy of history.

Sessler goes on to consider how Levinas and Camus would have contended with the central political issue of our own era, religious fundamentalism, and explicates the dualist nature of Israel and Algeria in the writings of Levinas and Camus.