Thinking Difference with Heidegger and Levinas: Truth and Justice (SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought)

Highlights the extent to which the two thinkers share a common philosophical framework, while also demonstrating how Levinas shifts the orientation of philosophical thinking from truth to justice. Tracing the relationship between truth and justice as articulated by Heidegger and Levinas, Rozemund Uljée presents the relation between the two thinkers as a subtle, profound, and complex rapport, which includes both their proximity and radical difference. This rapport is conceived not as a confrontation, but rather as a transformation, as Levinas’s notion of justice does not renounce Heidegger’s account of truth and its deployment. Thinking Difference with Heidegger and Levinas shows how the ethical relation transforms the essence and task of philosophy in its entirety, since it shifts the orientation of philosophy and the task of thinking from its concern with truth as ground or foundation to a question of justice. As a result, philosophy is no longer riveted to Being and its truth, but answers to the call for justice and must be conceived of as infinite commencement, where its impossibility to totalize meaning ensures that it remains open to the alterity of transcendence. Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One Considering Being and Truth in Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit Introduction Being and the Entity Dasein and its World Heidegger’s Interpretation of Truth And its History Death and Resolution The Temporalization of Temporality Dasein and History as Historizing Conclusion Chapter Two Being and the Possibility of Transcendence Introduction The Need to Leave Being The Ontological Adventure and Desire in De L’existence à L’existant Ontological Difference or Ontological Separation? There Is as a Way of Thinking the Anonymity of Being Ontic Attainment as Hypostasis Thinking the Present as Subjection and Manifestation On Time and the “Production of Nothingness” Self and Other: Thinking the Interpersonal Conclusion Chapter Three Totality Interrupted: Levinas’s Totalité et infini as Response to Hegel Introduction Part 1: Truth and Justice Hegel and Spirit as the Movement of Truth Levinas: Truth Supposes Justice Part 2: Infinity Before Totality? Hegel’s Totality Levinas on Totality and Infinity Vision and Speech in Totalité Et Infini On Expression Alterity, Language, and Truth Enjoyment: Living From as the Way of the Same The Secrecy of Psychism Part 3: Recognition or Alterity? Hegel on Alterity and the Movement of Recognition Heteronomy in Interiority Fecundity (The Time of Forgiveness) Conclusion Chapter Four Thinking the Question of Presence in Heidegger Introduction The Event of Appropriation in Heidegger’s “Zeit Und Sein” Language and Thinking in the Later Heidegger Heidegger and the Ethical Conclusion Chapter Five The Question of Metaphysics and Being’s Justice in Heidegger’s Nietzsche Introduction Nietzsche: the Problem of Metaphysical Justice Belonging as Nearness and Responsibility Being’s Justice in Heidegger’s “Der Spruch Des Anaximander” Conclusion Chapter Six The Time of Justice Introduction Part 1: On Essence and Truth The Time of Essence in the Later Levinas Being’s Language as the Said The Temporality of the Saying Part 2: Subjection and Responsibility The Saying as Corporeal Exposure Temporality of Proximity Being Oneself Election As Interruption of the Givenness of Being Signification as Trace The Ambiguity of Prophecy The Surprise of Revelation Part 3: Justice The Birth of the Question Skepticism and Philosophy The Task of Philosophy Conclusion Works Cited Index "This book shows how Heidegger and Levinas, in a novel and non-totalizing manner, attempt to re-think the history of philosophy in order to reveal a difference that has remained unthought, yet supposed by it. For Heidegger, this difference is the truth of Being, whereas for Levinas this difference is the other person. Uljée presents the relation between Levinas and Heidegger as a subtle, profound and complex rapport, which includes both their proximity and radical difference. This rapport is conceived not as a confrontation but rather as a transformation, as Levinas's notion of justice does not renounce Heidegger's account of truth and its deployment. Thinking Difference with Heidegger and Levinas shows how the ethical relation transforms the essence and task of philosophy in its entirety, since it shifts the orientation of philosophy and the task of thinking from its concern with truth as ground or foundation to a question of justice. As a consequence, philosophy is no longer riveted to Being and its truth, but answers to the call for justice. As such, philosophy must be conceived of as infinite commencement, where its impossibility to totalize meaning means that it can and remain open to the alterity of transcendence"-- Provided by publisher __Highlights the extent to which the two thinkers share a common philosophical framework, while also demonstrating how Levinas shifts the orientation of philosophical thinking from truth to justice.____Thinking Difference with Heidegger and Levinas__