Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney / This dissertation investigates the possibility of a renewed phenomenological ethics that would ground ethics in the structure of lived experience, so that daily existence is ethically informative and the good is located in the concrete, heartfelt affairs of dwelling in the world with others. Thus far, phenomenological ethics has been deeply influenced by the two schools of Max Scheler’s value ethics and Emmanuel Levinas’ alterity ethics, both of which I argue share a fundamental point of contact in what I am calling Deep Kantianism. That is, phenomenological ethics has been haunted by Immanuel Kant’s non-phenomenological divide between nature and freedom, being and goodness, ontology and ethics. In response, I will suggest a new point of departure for phenomenological ethics beginning with the originary unity of being and goodness as revealed by the love that moves the self beyond herself toward her ground in the other person. Chapter One seeks to establish and identify the problem of Deep Kantianism, or explain what exactly Deep Kantianism is according to its origins. Kant begins his ethics with Hume’s assumption that being and goodness, is and ought, are separate. The implications of this divide threaten to reduce being to bare being without ethical import and to convert the good into an abstract shadow that is irrelevant to the situations of daily life. Chapter Two examines how Scheler in his value ethics shows against Kant that the ethical is only experienced by a being with a heart. The source of normativity is revealed and known through affectivity. However, this insight is troubled by Scheler’s distinction between values and bearers of value that repeats the Kantian distinction between nature and freedom, respectively. Chapter Three focuses on Scheler’s prioritization of love as the fundamental affect of the heart and person in its moving the person outside of herself, a movement that constitutes the person as such. However, this love turns out to not be for the sake of the person but for the value-essence that she bears, again placing the ethical with Kant outside of the realm of Being. Chapter Four begins with Levinas’ discovery that ethics is constituted by the relation to the Other, an ethical relation that is the first relation before any ontological relation, indicating that the self is responsible for the Other. Yet Levinas here is haunted by Deep Kantianism in his denigration of affectivity, which for him is an egoist return to the self that excludes the Other. Chapter Five argues that Levinas’ ethics is permeated by an abyssal nothingness that is exhibited in the destitution of the Other in Totality and Infinity and the passivity of the self in Otherwise than Being. The nothingness that permeates the ethical relation hints at the necessity of a return to the ontological, suggesting that ontology is not, as Levinas maintains following Kant, devoid of ethical implications. Chapter Six turns to Martin Heidegger in his retrieval of a pre-Kantian pathos through his readings of Augustine and Aristotle. This pathos suggests that affectivity is always already oriented toward the things and persons of the world in a way that reveals what is conducive and detrimental to one’s Being, implying a notion of what is good and bad for one’s Being, which Heidegger leaves undeveloped. Chapter Seven conducts a phenomenology of the ground of ethics that is informed by the discoveries made by Scheler, Levinas, and Heidegger. The self begins as constituted by a nothing, demanding that it move outside of itself in the exteriorization of love. This exteriorization directs the self to the concrete other person, the thou, who is revealed to be both the Good and Being as the proper end of love, indicating that the self is constituted by Being-for-the-Other. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

This project focusses on the idea of how the person as developed by Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950) is a departure from a common understanding of the person. Mounier's concept of the person is simultaneously singular and relational. Furthermore, the person is a spiritual being who represents the highest form of humanity that one can become. The idea of the person contains liberal and communitarian elements: the person understands herself as a unique subject whilst ontologically requiring the other to fully flourish as a person. It is incoherent for the person to conceive of herself as fundamentally separate of the other, which is why the person joins with the other to form a nous. This draws a stark line between Mounier and liberal individualist thought that conceives of the person as an isolated subject. The liberal element of Mounier's thought is that the state protects the person and her communities against actions that impinge upon the person's fundamental rights so that the person can maximise her freedom to flourish. Moreover, the institutions that form the personalist state are inspired by liberal thought. This means that Mounier's project begins from a communitarian standpoint and finishes by offering a liberal communitarianism. -- Ce projet se concentre sur l'idée de la personne qu'a développée Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950) et comment elle dévie d'une compréhension courante de la personne. Le concept de la personne de Mounier est simultanément singulier et relationnel. De plus, la personne est un être spirituel qui représente la plus honte forme de l'humanité que l'on pourrait devenir. Cette idée de la personne comprend des éléments libéraux et communautaires : la personne se perçoit comme un sujet unique alors qu'elle requiert ontologiquement autrui, afin de s'épanouir en tant que personne. Il est incohérent que la personne se conçoive comme être fondamentalement séparé d'autrui, ce qui est pourquoi la personne se joint à autrui pour qu'ils forment un nous. Cela établit une distinction nette entre Mounier et la pensée individualiste libérale qui conçoit de la personne comme un sujet isolé. L'élément libéral de la pensée de Mounier est que l'État protège la personne et ses communautés contre des infractions contre ses droits fondamentaux, afin que la personne puisse maximiser sa liberté de s'épanouir. En outre, les institutions qui forment l'État personnaliste s'inspirent de la pensée libérale. Cela veut dire que le projet de Mounier commence d'une perspective communautaire et se termine en proposant un communautarisme libéral.

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Bloechl / The dissertation addresses two interrelated questions through a reading of works by Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil: (1) what justification is there for the reality of ethics since the Shoah, and (2) what does the vulnerability of the person and of ethics imply about the nature of human subjectivity and its witness to atrocity? The thesis argued is that vulnerability is the one quality that best defines human existence at every level of experience, hence that ethics requires constant active preservation. After introducing Levinas and Weil through their ideas of substitution and decreation, respectively, we consider how their tolerance of contradiction defines a decreative hermeneutics, or self-abdicative interpretation of the world. Further preliminaries justify Levinas’s use of value judgments in philosophical arguments and review the relation of his and Weil’s thought to Heidegger’s philosophy, to Nelson Goodman’s notion of worldmaking, and to the problem of evil. Through Levinas’s controversial notion of persecution, the method of decreative phenomenology is developed as an approach to ethical problems that explicitly seeks to preserve the alterity of the other person. Applications include Levinas’s idea of subjectivity as expiation, the status of testimonial literature on atrocity, and the present-day totalizing legacy of the concentration camps. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

O personalismo de Emmanuel Mounier não é nem uma filosofia do sujeito, nem uma de suas expressões, como filosofia do Eu ou filosofia da consciência; nem uma filosofia da morte do sujeito e nem também uma filosofia do objeto. O personalismo de Emmanuel Mounier é uma filosofia da relação. Ao eleger a intuição da experiência originária como sendo o modo de ser da relação, ele junta a conseqüente inscrição da afirmação da vida no cerne mesmo do movimento mais próprio da pessoa criadora em sua luta pelo real. Isso faz com que ele perspective, por sua vez, sob o modo de ser do artefato, a maneira pela qual a pessoa se compreende a si mesma e compreende o mundo. Ou seja, não somente como quer a ideologia do trabalhismo como homo faber. Pois desde a manifestação do Ser em suas formas mais simples até a sua expressão mais grandiosa, que é a pessoa criadora e afirmadora de vida não somente enquanto expressão empírica, quantitativa, mas qualitativa, ou seja, como afirmação do amor, quer dizer, Eros cativo por Agápe, o personalismo vai dizer não somente homo artifex est, mas homo perfectibilis est e, em seguida, ampliará mais ainda para omnia arte facta sunt. Para o personalismo: tudo está por se fazer, a própria pessoa e o mundo. Essa tarefa é realizada em dois níveis em mútua interação: no da expressão singular, em que à pessoa cabe a execução de uma tarefa que pertence só a ela como expressão de sua especificidade na realização de sua vocação singular e única, em sua luta pelo real, e no da expressão da pessoa em comunidade. Não há aqui separação, mas distinção, pois se trata, em suma, para o personalismo, de uma mesma tarefa cujas dimensões e tratamento das problemáticas específicas implicarão o êxito ou o fracasso na realização integral da vida pessoal, quer dizer, em sua manifestação singular e em comunidade. A manifestação da pessoa singular, portanto, só encontrará sua realização plena quando ela tomar parte, como elo insubstituível, na formação de uma pessoa de pessoas: a comunidade. Todavia para essa tarefa coletiva cada um é convocado, pois cada pessoa, em sua expressão singular, é, para o personalismo, o nó górdio que desata um mundo de criação e de sentido insuspeito. Assim, Mounier colocará, em sua busca de diálogo, como critério para avaliar e pesar a densidade das outras filosofias, compreender o quanto elas, permanecendo fiéis a si mesmas, ou seja, aos seus valores, permanecerão fiéis, 10 ao mesmo tempo, à pessoa e o quanto os seus conteúdos cooperarão para o cumprimento dessa vocação fundamental da pessoa ou se elas não serão apenas mais um adiamento e protelação ocidentais que, apesar de sua maior antiguidade, Mounier prefere datar do século XVI e com o surgimento da burguesia e do individualismo reivindicador; adiamento e protelação ocidentais sempre da escolha da pessoa livre e criadora por alguma outra coisa, ou seja, para o personalismo, mais um tipo de alienação fundamental, ou mais um tipo de objetificação da pessoa. Assim, a crítica personalista, entendendo a Razão como a lógica da personalidade integral, será um complemento necessário à crítica kantiana ao dogmatismo do além da razão; ou seja, a crítica personalista será uma crítica ao dogmatismo do aquém da razão que tem se fixado dentro do pensamento contemporâneo, quer dizer, pós-kantiano, como sendo a última palavra. / The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier isnt a philosophy of the subject, or one of its expressions as a philosophy of the I or a philosophy of consciousness; or a philosophy of the death of the subject; or even a philosophy of the object. The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier is a philosophy of connection. When He elects as a fundamental intuition of originary experience the mode of being of connection, he attaches the consequent inscription of the affirmation of life into the pith even of movement more proper of creator person in its fight for the real. This makes him to put in perspective, consequently, under the mode of being of artifact the way by means of that the person comprehends him/herself and the World. In other words, it isnt as the ideology of labourism wants: to present man only as homo faber. The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier wants to go farther: till the manifestation of Being in its more simple forms until its more sublime, that is, the creator person and affirmer of life, and that not only as empiric expression, or quantitative, but qualitative expression, it sees the manifestation of person as unconditional affirmation of love, that is, Eros captive for Agápe. So, personalism goes to say not only homo artifex est, but homo perfectibilis est and, in continuation, it increases still more for omnia arte facta sunt. In the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier all is yet to be made, the person itself and the World. The latter task is realized in two levels in loan company interaction: in the singular expression, in which only to the person belongs the action of the accomplishment, task that belongs him/her as a realization on the strength of the expression of his/her specific character in his/her accomplishment of his/her singular and unique vocation in his/her fight for the real, and too in the expression of the person in the community. There isnt here separateness, but distinction, for this matter, in short, for the personalism of Emmnauel Mounier, is one same task whose specific dimensions and treatment of the specific problems will implicate the success or the ruin in the integral realization of personal life. That is, in its singular manifestation and in its life of the inter-connection in community. The manifestation of the singular person, therefore, only will meet its full realization when the person takes part, as an irreplaceable link, in the constitution of the one person of persons: that is, the community. However, for this collective task each one is convoked, 12 for each person, in his/her singular expression, is, for the personalism of Mounier, the Gordian-knot that unfastens a World of creation and sense unexpected. Then, Mounier posits, in his quest for dialogue, as the criterion by which he evaluates and to ponder the density of others philosophies and by which he understands how far persons have been faithful to themselves, that is, to their worth, and at the same time have been faithful to the person. If their contents announce the accomplishment of this fundamental vocation of the person or if they would be only one more occidental adjournment and procrastination that, in spite of their more ancient history, Mounier prefers to start from XVI century and with the appearance in history of the bourgeoisie and claimant individualism; Occidental adjournment and procrastination that has been in all time the choice of other thing than free and creator person. That is, for Mounier, one more kind of fundamental alienation, or one more kind of objectification of the person. Thus, Personalist criticism, which understands Reason as the logic of integral personality, will be a necessary complement to Kantian criticism of the dogmatism of the beyond of reason; that is, Personalist criticism will be a criticism of the dogmatism of the below of reason, that has fixed itself into contemporary thought, that is, pos-Kantian, as being the last word.

本研究從對理性主體教育學之質疑出發，透過與Emmanuel Levinas他者哲學之對話，嘗試從責任、對話與正義三個與教育相關之議題切入，闡述Levinas他者哲學對存有論、知識論與政治學之批判，藉此，豐富教育學在主體觀、知識論與政治學三個面向上之倫理性意涵。因此，本研究關於Levinas他者哲學與教育學之連結，所採取的不是將Levinas他者哲學應用在教育學實踐之取徑，而是在理論層面上，透過Levinas他者哲學對西方傳統哲學之反思，重新返回教育學原初的倫理處境，挖掘更豐富的教育學意涵。最後，本研究之主要結論為：一、教育主體必先是為他人負責的責任主體，才可以是自由的主體；二、與他者的關係必先是一種言說關係，知識才可以有其客觀性，互為主體的認識關係方可以運作；三、在為他負責的主體性及不對稱關係作為教育正義之前提下，教育的多元性才可以不只是多樣性，才可以是平等的，而正義方可以是比較的。 / Based on “ethics as first philosophy”, Levinas criticized the western philosophy in ontology, epistemology, and politics. Along with Levinas’ thought, this research discusses the educational implications of responsibility, dialogue, and justice. As for the connection between Levinas’ thought and pedagogy, this research is not intended to apply the former to the latter. The author believes that Levinas’ ethical thought (about ontology, epistemology, and politics) can enrich the meanings of pedagogy theoretically. Finally, this research findings conclude: (1) the responsibility for the other is prior to the freedom of the subject; (2) the saying with the other is prior to the comprehension of the inter-subjectivity; (3) the dissymmetrical relation is prior to the equality.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Tübingen. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-301).

L’objectif de notre présente étude est d’examiner un contexte philosophique dans lequel s’inscrit la recherche de la subjectivité liée à l’idée de l’extériorité à travers une étude des liens entre la philosophie de Franz Rosenzweig et celle d’Emmanuel Levinas. L’idée de socialité dans notre recherche se fonde sur la question de l’extériorité et sur celle de la subjectivité dans leurs philosophies. Ces deux philosophes soutiennent tous deux l’idée de la rupture de la totalité et défendent la subjectivité. Toutefois, leurs divergences sont profondescar la tentative de Levinas qui aboutit à la recherche d’une subjectivité consistant dans le dérangement de l’ordre ne renvoie pas au système rosenzweigien. Dès lors, quel est l’héritage de Rosenzweig dans la philosophie de Levinas ? Dans la première partie, nous déterminons la portée de la notion de système et celle de totalité dans leurs philosophies. Dans la seconde partie, nous observons la divergence entre leurs philosophies sur la conception du Soi et son rapport à l’extériorité. Dans la troisième partie, nous examinons la signification de la socialité fondée sur la question du temps. Selon nous, la question du langage qui fonde la relation entre le sujet et autrui se déploie à travers les analyses du temps, et ce sont des modalités du langage – le rapport entre le dialogue du « face-à-face » et l’intrusion de l’autre dans le sujet exprimé par Levinas comme « Dire sans Dit » - qui nous permettent de relier encore une fois la philosophie de Levinas à la philosophie de Rosenzweig. Levinas approfondit la question rosenzweigienne du dialogue sans dévaloriser sa signification et sans la systématiser, en partant de la pensée du système. / The objective of our present study is to examine the philosophical context in which the research of a subjectivity which would be linked to the idea of the exteriority becomes possible. This objective will be achieved thanks to the study of the connection between Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophy and Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy. In our research the idea of sociality is founded upon the question of the exteriority and upon the question of the subjectivity. Both Rosenzweig and Levinas are determined to put the idea of the totality into question and to defend the subjectivity. However, their differences are great: Levinas’s endeavor to open the field for a new understanding of the subjectivity, which consists in the disturbance of the order, doesn’t appear in Rosenzweig’s system. If such is the case, what does Levinas’s philosophy owe to the heritage of Rosenzweig? In the first part, we try to determine the realm of the notion of system and that of totality in their philosophies. In the second part, we try to observe the difference between their philosophies about the conception of the Self and of its link to the exteriority. In the third part, we examine the meaning of a sociality founded upon the question of time. In our view, the question of language, which is the basis of the relationship between a subject and the other, is inseparable from a profound analysis of time. The modalities of language – the connection between the dialogue of the “face-to-face” and the intervention of the other into the subject expressed by Levinas as “ Saying without Said” - allow us to underline the relation between the philosophy of Levinas with that of Rosenzweig. Levinas has deeply studied Rosenzweig’s understanding of the dialogue without depreciating its signification.

O personalismo de Emmanuel Mounier não é nem uma filosofia do sujeito, nem uma de suas expressões, como filosofia do Eu ou filosofia da consciência; nem uma filosofia da morte do sujeito e nem também uma filosofia do objeto. O personalismo de Emmanuel Mounier é uma filosofia da relação. Ao eleger a intuição da experiência originária como sendo o modo de ser da relação, ele junta a conseqüente inscrição da afirmação da vida no cerne mesmo do movimento mais próprio da pessoa criadora em sua luta pelo real. Isso faz com que ele perspective, por sua vez, sob o modo de ser do artefato, a maneira pela qual a pessoa se compreende a si mesma e compreende o mundo. Ou seja, não somente como quer a ideologia do trabalhismo como homo faber. Pois desde a manifestação do Ser em suas formas mais simples até a sua expressão mais grandiosa, que é a pessoa criadora e afirmadora de vida não somente enquanto expressão empírica, quantitativa, mas qualitativa, ou seja, como afirmação do amor, quer dizer, Eros cativo por Agápe, o personalismo vai dizer não somente homo artifex est, mas homo perfectibilis est e, em seguida, ampliará mais ainda para omnia arte facta sunt. Para o personalismo: tudo está por se fazer, a própria pessoa e o mundo. Essa tarefa é realizada em dois níveis em mútua interação: no da expressão singular, em que à pessoa cabe a execução de uma tarefa que pertence só a ela como expressão de sua especificidade na realização de sua vocação singular e única, em sua luta pelo real, e no da expressão da pessoa em comunidade. Não há aqui separação, mas distinção, pois se trata, em suma, para o personalismo, de uma mesma tarefa cujas dimensões e tratamento das problemáticas específicas implicarão o êxito ou o fracasso na realização integral da vida pessoal, quer dizer, em sua manifestação singular e em comunidade. A manifestação da pessoa singular, portanto, só encontrará sua realização plena quando ela tomar parte, como elo insubstituível, na formação de uma pessoa de pessoas: a comunidade. Todavia para essa tarefa coletiva cada um é convocado, pois cada pessoa, em sua expressão singular, é, para o personalismo, o nó górdio que desata um mundo de criação e de sentido insuspeito. Assim, Mounier colocará, em sua busca de diálogo, como critério para avaliar e pesar a densidade das outras filosofias, compreender o quanto elas, permanecendo fiéis a si mesmas, ou seja, aos seus valores, permanecerão fiéis, 10 ao mesmo tempo, à pessoa e o quanto os seus conteúdos cooperarão para o cumprimento dessa vocação fundamental da pessoa ou se elas não serão apenas mais um adiamento e protelação ocidentais que, apesar de sua maior antiguidade, Mounier prefere datar do século XVI e com o surgimento da burguesia e do individualismo reivindicador; adiamento e protelação ocidentais sempre da escolha da pessoa livre e criadora por alguma outra coisa, ou seja, para o personalismo, mais um tipo de alienação fundamental, ou mais um tipo de objetificação da pessoa. Assim, a crítica personalista, entendendo a Razão como a lógica da personalidade integral, será um complemento necessário à crítica kantiana ao dogmatismo do além da razão; ou seja, a crítica personalista será uma crítica ao dogmatismo do aquém da razão que tem se fixado dentro do pensamento contemporâneo, quer dizer, pós-kantiano, como sendo a última palavra. / The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier isnt a philosophy of the subject, or one of its expressions as a philosophy of the I or a philosophy of consciousness; or a philosophy of the death of the subject; or even a philosophy of the object. The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier is a philosophy of connection. When He elects as a fundamental intuition of originary experience the mode of being of connection, he attaches the consequent inscription of the affirmation of life into the pith even of movement more proper of creator person in its fight for the real. This makes him to put in perspective, consequently, under the mode of being of artifact the way by means of that the person comprehends him/herself and the World. In other words, it isnt as the ideology of labourism wants: to present man only as homo faber. The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier wants to go farther: till the manifestation of Being in its more simple forms until its more sublime, that is, the creator person and affirmer of life, and that not only as empiric expression, or quantitative, but qualitative expression, it sees the manifestation of person as unconditional affirmation of love, that is, Eros captive for Agápe. So, personalism goes to say not only homo artifex est, but homo perfectibilis est and, in continuation, it increases still more for omnia arte facta sunt. In the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier all is yet to be made, the person itself and the World. The latter task is realized in two levels in loan company interaction: in the singular expression, in which only to the person belongs the action of the accomplishment, task that belongs him/her as a realization on the strength of the expression of his/her specific character in his/her accomplishment of his/her singular and unique vocation in his/her fight for the real, and too in the expression of the person in the community. There isnt here separateness, but distinction, for this matter, in short, for the personalism of Emmnauel Mounier, is one same task whose specific dimensions and treatment of the specific problems will implicate the success or the ruin in the integral realization of personal life. That is, in its singular manifestation and in its life of the inter-connection in community. The manifestation of the singular person, therefore, only will meet its full realization when the person takes part, as an irreplaceable link, in the constitution of the one person of persons: that is, the community. However, for this collective task each one is convoked, 12 for each person, in his/her singular expression, is, for the personalism of Mounier, the Gordian-knot that unfastens a World of creation and sense unexpected. Then, Mounier posits, in his quest for dialogue, as the criterion by which he evaluates and to ponder the density of others philosophies and by which he understands how far persons have been faithful to themselves, that is, to their worth, and at the same time have been faithful to the person. If their contents announce the accomplishment of this fundamental vocation of the person or if they would be only one more occidental adjournment and procrastination that, in spite of their more ancient history, Mounier prefers to start from XVI century and with the appearance in history of the bourgeoisie and claimant individualism; Occidental adjournment and procrastination that has been in all time the choice of other thing than free and creator person. That is, for Mounier, one more kind of fundamental alienation, or one more kind of objectification of the person. Thus, Personalist criticism, which understands Reason as the logic of integral personality, will be a necessary complement to Kantian criticism of the dogmatism of the beyond of reason; that is, Personalist criticism will be a criticism of the dogmatism of the below of reason, that has fixed itself into contemporary thought, that is, pos-Kantian, as being the last word.

Levinas s’intéresse à la notion du concret de la phénoménologie de Husserl. En 1930, Levinas montre que la notion de l’être a son origine dans l’expérience concrète de l’être qui est l’intuition immanente philosophique. Dans les années 1940, d’une part, Levinas met en relief que la phénoménologie consiste à rechercher dans les vécus concrets l’origine du phénoménologue et de sa vie ; et d’autre part, il détermine l’esprit humain par sa puissance de coïncider avec l’origine de sa vie et de lui-même. À l’époque de Totalité et infini, Levinas clarifie que la description phénoménologique de l’expérience concrète d’une entité est à la fois l’événement même de la révélation de l’être concret de cette entité et l’événement même de l’effectuation de cette entité. D’où Levinas met en évidence, d’une part, la méthode de concrétisation qui lie les expériences concrètes les unes aux autres et, d’autre part, le perspectivisme qui décrit l’expérience concrète telle qu’elle est vécue maintenant. Dans Totalité et infini, Levinas effectue la description phénoménologique comprise par lui. En décrivant les expériences concrètes du moi, il les distribue en deux séries : celle du besoin (vie naïve) et celle du désir (critique de soi). Dans la série du besoin, sur la base de l’habitation se fondent les expériences du moi naïf : le travail, la possession et la représentation. Et dans la série du désir se distribuent les expériences avec autrui : la parole, l’amour avec la femme et la fécondité. Ces deux séries d’expériences constituent la forme originaire de l’expérience du moi personnel. Totalité et infini est en ce sens la description phénoménologique du moi personnel par excellence. / Levinas brings out the notion of the concrete from Husserl’s phenomenology. In his 1930 book, Levinas shows that the notion of the being has its origin in the concrete experience of the being that is philosophical immanent intuition. In two articles published in the 1940s, Levinas reveals that the phenomenology searches in concrete experiences the origin of the phenomenologist himself and his life. On the other hand, he determines the human spirit by its power to coincide with the origin of his life and himself. In four articles published around 1960, Levinas clarifies the phenomenological description of the concrete experience of an entity is the very event of revelation of the concrete being of this entity and the very event of the effectuation of the entity. Hence, Levinas brings out the method of concretization which connects together concrete experiences as well as the perspective which describes concrete experience as it is now experienced. In Totality and infinity, Levinas practices the phenomenological description understood by himself. By describing concrete experiences of the “I”, Levinas categorizes them into two series of experience: that of need (naive life) and that of desire (self-criticism). In the series of need, the experiences of the naive “I” relies on the dwelling : labor, possession and representation. And in the series of desire, experiences with the other are distributed: speech, love with woman and fecundity. These two series of experiences constitute the proto-form of the experience of the personal “I”. Totality and infinity is in this sense the phenomenological description of the personal “I” par excellence.

In my thesis I try to describe transformation of French secularism/laicité from the 1980 and how the function and meaning of this principle has changed. My work is based on hypothesis that the change of laicité is not influenced just by arrival of more Muslims but that is result of deep changes in french politics and society around the turn of the milénium. The first part concentrates on discourse changes denoting Arabs/Muslim. The third part focuses on the changes in french policy on the axis laicité/politics/Muslims. Finally, I analyze the law from 2021 on the so-called separatism of President Emmanuel Macron and policicies related and I put them into overal transformation political use of the principle od laicité.