Levinas is a warm existential blanket for me. Such a refreshingly different, but somehow gentle, take on ethics.

I'm breathless with the philosophical concepts expounded here. Amazed that humans can go so far in grasping such complex concepts which let us have a small fighting chance at understanding a good part of the mystery of existence.

Yes there is a lot more to say but the number of concepts and clarity with which they are presented in this video is astonishing. Anyone who is serious about actually reading Totality & Infinity will find this video an exceptionally helpful guide to get started. Hope you get to do one on Otherwise Than Being someday.

Great exposé of one of the hardest books I remembered reading in philosophy. It still reminds me to a phenomenologist writing Buber's 'I and Thou'. I studied in Leuven where Levinas taught for many years and I always considered him a Catholic metaphysicist, very much in the tradition of Husserl. One of the classic philosophy readings of the last century.

Another great video! I’m happy to finally get some Levinas on KZfaq!

I have discovered Lévinas just recently, and it is such an extraordinary thinker that really changes the game in what concerns to the respect of the Other in its difference that should be taken cared by us, instead of killing that difference usually out of fear or injustice, and so when facing the Other we become responsible for keeping that difference safe and alive keeping an openness to this Other in its difference without fear of that uncertainty of the infinite that the Other imposes to oneself... it is a system that I feel closer to what makes more sense into my life, so I am like surprised and excited with this late discovery

I feel like the last point that was made about the masculine vs. the feminine contradicts the conception of the Other that Levinas lays out in the beginning. He seems to be quantifying something that was previously described as unquantifiable, and it seems to me that he's assuming that our current social roles/divisions are inherent to the consciousness that defines the human condition. If the Other is so beyond our grasp, it feels incredibly short-sighted to fall back on an essentialist binary distinction between two separate types of consciousness (especially when the group designated as the "Other" is one that has historically been somewhat excluded from philosophy circles). I do agree that every being separate from a subject can constitute an "Other" (since you can't climb inside someone else's consciousness), but I think that the definition of the Other necessarily means that you can't group beings through an "us vs. them" distinction.

I've never heard of Levinas. Very interesting... Thanks for the amazing video professor!

Thank you for such a clear and motivating introduction to Levinas! 🙏🏾

Robert Bernasconi said that when you spoke to Levinas on the phone, at even the slightest delay in response, Levinas would say, Allô?! Allô? As though he needed to know you were still there. True

For some reason I'm reminded of the novel Solaris. Thank you!

Thank you Dr. Anderson. I enjoyed hearing about what was historically considered first philosophy and that the alternative could be ethics as first philosophy instead. Reflecting on your explanation of Levinas's ideas, i got the impression that he was encouraging an acknowledgement of Otherness so as to maintain an openness (to diverse, subjective opinions) that the Totality approach potentially overlooks.

I used to teach this as a way to interact with a culture entirely beyond the "western world". American foreign policy, I used to teach, continually and will continue to fail because our so called brightesband most brilliant keep believing we can turn everywhere into Dayton, Ohio and mall rat world. You cannot walk another's path, but you can ask them, honestly about is and listen, produces amazing results. There are universal Ethics though, and ethics should always come first and philosophers and scientists et al should get away from "boxifying" everything. Brilliant explanation of "infinity"... sciency and mathy and so many other fields cannot bear the thought that all things cannot be mastered and put in a box and tinkered with, at will, with our human "brilliantness"... Icarus syndrome.... no idea why... but I always pronounced him as "Descartes- Des-Cart-Es'... funny how we choose to book memory away.

Levinas is fucking blowing my mind. This philosophy describes the phenomenology of my every day experiences and interactions with others... However, what I notice is that other people seem to be... different? I don't use social media or scroll through video shorts or anything like that. I spend the majority of my day out in the community engaging with people and the same with work. I think spending too much time on screens has impacted the way that people experience the Other. In some cases you can see it in how people seem to not prioritize their responsibilities to others. People flake out and in general are not people you can rely on. I see something going wrong, something having a hard time, I offer help. I've responded to and assisted in multiple emergencies involving complete strangers, my job is in community service... It's like I have no control over myself in these situations. It's like I'm just commanded to jump in and help people that need it. I had no idea what it was until I read Levinas. Now I know what commands me to act in the service of others

Wow your explanations are so grounding to the complexity of Levinas’ philosophy. I’m learning about him now and the way you present it, your meticulous word choice, helps so much!! You just got a new subscriber!

I can finally understand the idea of ethics being primordial to ontology. thx for the clarification.

This is stuck in my brain. If ignorance is infinite, the unknown unknowns our phrase 'unknown unknowns' fails to know are its overflow.

Thank you for this video! I've been tackling with Levinas for some times now, this one is useful.

I didn't notice the hair was out of place until you mentioned it 😂😂 Just find your channel, but It's becoming a fav. You're excellent at explaining complex ideas. Bravo

You’re making me love Levinas

Not an "ah" nor an "um" but clarity, compression. and precision. Professors like this reinvigorate the study of philosophy.

Yes I know I made the hair worse😂😂 Thank you so much for all of these videos, as an enthusiast who has no idea where to start and what to look for, these are very helpful! I've been binge watching for a while now

We're currently covering these ideas of levinas in my philosophy class. What i found is that although i find it an interesting perspective and critique of philosophy's tradition, the ethics that he is proposing is based on very weak foundations. Wether it is the idea of infinity, the relationship of the self with the world and the idea of the other, none of these i found hold on for long under scrutiny. It seems to me like an ethical approach that is based on an abstract thought experiment rather than on reality. At least these are my first thoughts.

Magical thinking

These videos go so hard! Thank you for the explinatiion

Wow! mind blown with the infinity concept

You are one of the best

the concept of infinity : well at least that’s the best thought provoking argument for the existence of God I’ve come across.

Thank you! I am now interested in knowing more about the idea of Levinas, but do not have to courage to read him LOL.

Very well done Dr. Ellie Anderson. Including ‘the other’ is a way philosophy will keep pace with what science’s quantum mechanics has done to notions set by Descarte and Newton.

Thank you so much 🌷😇🌷 Keep up the good work I learn a lot from your videos I hope you would make a philosophy crash course for beginners like me 😇 Greetings from Egypt 🥰

Ellie is the modern angel of Philosophy

Wow, the video barely came out and you guys already added subtitles. That's actually so professional

Really am enjoying these short summary videos. It’s so well done. I was wondering if anyone ever heard of Michael Sugrue, as it would be awesome to see a collaboration between this channel and his.

Thank you for the clear exposition of Levina's work "Totality and infinity." I wonder what happens to our experience of the same when we throw ourselves into alterity or infinity. It seems that Levinas seals dualism by separating the self from the other. Or is it that the same or totality (same+other) is annihilated in front of infinity? Thanks.

Way over my head! But I enjoyed listening anyhow.

Thank you very much. Both clear and useful.

Thank you so much for the lecture! Though I was hoping to hear more on the Eros part :”(

Could you please talk about the axioms in mathematics

At 8:35. I thought it was Anselm who drew that conclusion about God's existence, not Descartes.

Thanks for recommending what sounds like an interesting book that is "other". Unobtainable from the library and unaffordable at $280.

Levinas can make a section of a chapter of Hegel. The main task for humanity during these centuries is to understand Hegel.

This is interesting.

Very clear exposure, thank you. Does Levinas only refer to other people by "the other"? Or does he conceive alterity as the characteristic of the non-human too?

My dissatisfaction with Levinas is manifold. This guess of alterity belies a secret knowledge one must have of all beings to come to such amazing conclusion. Surmising that a person is completely foreign to me requires the same amount of faith of believing that we are identical. At least soft evidence is in abundant supply with the later. Human beings share equivalent subsistence strategies, anatomy, language, drives, aversions, chemistry, ambitions, facial expressions, communal tasks, and social organization. To all this, infinity shuts the door? That seems more like an aesthetic choice than the persuasion of reason. Desire does not arrive from ignorance. Quite the opposite. Let's stick to the example of eros. Men lust after what they see with their eyes. They want a physical relationship they know from experience is possible to obtain. Further more, if ignorance is the exclusive lure of desire, how can a man pine away for an ex-lover? Even if we speak about the higher order of qualities like kindness, intelligence, and loyalty. Those things are coveted upon experience. Missing a person is every wit the desire of pursuit. In no way is a dearth of information tempting outside of curiosity. Ignorance generally caps desire. I was just watching a program in which Emma Vigeland was interviewing Matthew Connolly who specializes in global history. They were discussing how the classification feature of government was running rampant. This does not increase political engagement. It actually does the inverse. It dampens interest. In a worst case scenario, it drives people away for suspicion of skullduggery. Wanting what you can't have is a different story than wanting what you don't know. It would be improper to call curiosity desire, at least on the level of eros. Furthermore, it is needful to account for deception or confusion. According to Levinas, we ought to avail ourselves of first party information exclusively. One word, politics. One candidate says he is the most economically shrewd. Another politician says the same of himself? The tie breaker is your independent analysis. The cross examination is always more insightful than the defense leading the witness. There is no more a nagging critic of psychology than myself, but psychology at it's best is predicated on a person not knowing themselves. Patients are typically not in touch with their emotions. Infinity is the difference between us and God. However we will all perish. We are all limited in knowledge and power. So how is infinity emblematic of the human condition? Remember, Descartes stipulated that God was responsible for that conceptual implant. How else would such a finite creature know of it? Lastly the transmittal of knowledge can not happen if we are that radically different. Visual arts, music, theater, and literature can not exist with little to no similarity. Even God created us in his image to have a relationship. What Levinas is pedaling is a fiction of the most bizarre sort.

The philosophical territory Levinas operated in, makes his full-throated support and proselytizing for Zionism and in no uncertain terms, the ethnostate project, particularly grotesque.

Thank you for the key ideas. I wonder what status violence has in his ethics. Is showing your “face” already violence? Or is it violence when you don’t respond on the “face”?

Dr. Ellie greatly appreciated Levinas philosophy. Would you consider bringing Philipp Mainländer philosophy to the fold? it’s quite obscure to find but he’s Nietzsche’s precursor

Are you saying “Errors” or “Eros”? Or do both apply? 😊 Great introduction to this guy! I never heard of him!

Great!!

Please please please, I know it's a ton to ask, but would there be any way you could craft a few questions for your videos? And have them as a downloadable pdf with the answer sheet? I think I'm understanding the subjects being discussed and I'm trying to do the readings but there's no way for me to confirm or deny if I'm capturing the info accurately. Thank you so much for your work. It's amazing ❤️

Hi Ellie, thank you for this video on Levinas. Will you be making a video on Simone Weil?

Derrida’s critique of Levinas in ‘Writing and Difference’ would make a good video later, perhaps.

Please, I'm here on an assignment I was giving. May I briefly know about Levinas?

Jerry Gogosian does philosophy also?

Thank you for the lecture. What about Maurice Blanchot? Any mutual influence?

Mulțumim!

The other is radically "not me" - she is an absolute other. The other and the me do not form a totality. Nevertheless, the other appears only because I appear, and I appear only because the other appears - but this is not reducing the other to the self- same. This fact arises from infinity, not psychology or being. It invites us into the "nearness" - the "welcome", the "sociality". It is not me welcoming - the welcome, the nearness, the sociality are instructed by infinity. Seing the face of the other brings up infinity. His book "Otherwise than being" is the book to read, as it was written to answer Derrida's critique of "Totality and Infinity". We are both free (Sartre) and "hostage" (of love- election).

Bollox to that… individualism defines the human spirit and the environment inspires talent.. infinite does not exist .. it is a concept designed to explain the unexplainable

A Totality is Infinite, because it is only in relation to itself ... This is the philosophical meaning of the Infinite ! To be oneself outside of oneself ... "Aufhebung" means to negate the Other as an Other, to recognize him as an other Self ... The Identity of Identity and Difference ... But "we" can only be equal (= the same) through our mind / spirit (= the moment of Universality) ... Through our particularities "we" are both united (e.g. sex, ethnicity, citizenship, class, culture, religion, etc.) and divided (men vs. women, or ethnic, political, class, religious divides or conflicts) ... Through our singularity "we" are opposed to all others (that's the Negative) ... I try to provide a view of the Totality of Being becoming conscious of itself (which is God !) in my videos ...

~Mystic Conversation Gaining Consciousness+ ( envelope).

4:14 Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty (or both)?

A core challenge (if not _the_ core problem, gap, crisis) in philosophy (as practiced in contemporary academia) lies in confusing _words_ and _reality._ The map is not the territory, the geography, the living ecology, soundscape, nor multidimensional actuality in which actual experience _(being, agency, consciousness),_ phenomena, and timespace converge. Ideas, words, books, ideologies, and philosophies cannot and will not ever be an adequate, _let alone sufficient_ substitute for experience. For the experiencing of an infinitely and eternally unique, irreducible, irreplaceable experience of and in reality. Dancing salsa, baking and eating fresh bread, hiking deep into remote mountains, healing a rivulet plucking plastic out of its clogged arteries, staring into a campfire, making love... experiences beyond words, realities beyond frameworks, infinities within infinities. Not words but experiences. Not descriptions of reality but realities. Not books or digitized content packaging definitions and descriptions of reality but realities in themselves _(realidades en si, realidades vividas, vitales)._ Not tools to analyze, dissect, reduce, synthesize, or "express", i.e. create artificial webs of words and thoughts and papers through which to interpret, filter, process, and attempt to fish the experience and essence, the objects and subjects of reality out of the waters of reality. Not that. Rather, living, embodied experiences of realities in reality. ¿Will too much philosophy, too many words end up distancing us, maiming and even severing us from the experience of reality? ¿From experience? ¿From reality? ¿From life? ¿From infinity wrapped in the finite -- and the finite and temporal succession of experiences in this one life we live here and now -- from eternity and infinity? ¿Are they not? ¿Are philosophy, philosophers, and philosophizing bringing us into communion and harmony with reality... or alienating and even detaching, expulsing us from reality? ¿Are we too busy eating too many apples in the Garden of Eden?

So interesting. Would love to hear more about your feminist perspective ❣️

Herbert Mead. Me and I.

I am Your Fan so No Worries California :)😉

I cannot access Professor Anderson's paper.

🥰😘

As to infinity, Levinas claims infinity as an absolute unknowable. In some sense perhaps god like. But infinity can be known in ways like Cantor demonstrated. Meaning infinity is not feature less or unknowable. Rather such concepts ask us what is the shape of or the ‘features’ of knowing. Knowing itself is then anchored in the human use of language. So too non language using beings engage in knowing too, but as to dna transmitted between generations. By this knowable feature of existence arises a totality life propels forward into the future via dna. This open ended life force as a shape of the reality carried by the dna or with us humans too with the language. Hence infinite reality is always present in the here and now as the force pushing life forward in myriad ways. To be clear the difference of shape between the realism of dna and the realism of language refutes Levinas claim for infinity.

A Human can Not Fathom Infinity Yet They can Totality. Exceptions to the Infinity Clause: Mathematicians. Are You Good at Math Dr. Ellie Anderson? Is Love Infinite in Your World? Metaphorically, The Sea is Inifinite to Most People. Yet, Philosophy Always Causes Wars. To Say the Least, I am Enamoured By Your Zealolatarianism.

Actual infinity is an incoherent concept, a product of the human mind, mere word salad. Infinite is a valid adjective meaning unbounded - something more can always emerge - but outside of mathematical games there is no truth to be found in the word infinity as a noun.

I truly do enjoy this channel, but it Does seem a bit of a closed circuit... Where\how can us 'common folk' weigh in other than a KZfaq comment that'll get diluted by bots and the Internet pseudo-intelligencia?

Too human, Timothy Morton’s work leaves this behind.

I find Levinas’ reference to other people as the ‘other’ very obfuscating. I see he is trying to imply a generalization or as he says finding sameness in the other is troubled by knowing ‘all’. Let’s take two examples, one is language, the other is deafness with no access to sign language. One sense of sameness is knowing the same language. If someone says to me here is your coffee and I see the mug in their hand I know the other as a bridge of truth which is a totality of being inside a language. Meaning everywhere inside my finite lifetime this bridge of language truth functions as a totality of the language. Still language is full of anti-realism, meaning for example the mug of coffee might be anything but coffee. Or using a deaf person outside language that language is not infinite. Rather language is laborious work to obtain as a totalizing experience. The Levinas ‘other’ can’t engage with totalizing experiences of language which aren’t infinite, nor see outside language in the other as language-less totality in the sense there is no bridge of language knowing but the human being knows in the world just like the person who uses language to bridge knowing between people. In other words language starts in all humans irrespective of not doing the work to use language as an isolated deaf person might be.

The message of Levinas: Don't think; don't use reason; don't put the pieces together; just OBEY.

This just sounds like nonsense