Proefschrift--Philosophie--Nimègue, 2005. / Bibliogr. p. 254-262.

Ce mémoire est consacré au problème de la place de l’herméneutique dans l’œuvre d’Emmanuel Levinas. Au premier abord, l’œuvre semble présenter une forte ambivalence quant à la valeur que le philosophe accorde aux catégories herméneutiques. D’abord, dans les œuvres proprement philosophiques, Levinas présente une critique sévère de la compréhension dans laquelle il décèle un geste de totalisation et d’appropriation du sens contre lequel il élèvera une pensée de l’éthique comme « philosophie première ». D’autre part, un autre pan du corpus levinassien, celui des Lectures talmudiques, est consacré au déploiement d’une herméneutique des textes religieux de la tradition juive où Levinas fait puissamment intervenir les catégories éthiques propres à sa philosophie au sein de son activité exégétique. L’un des paradoxes intéressants que nous présente donc l’œuvre levinassienne est celui d’une philosophie s’érigeant en bonne partie sur une critique de la catégorie centrale de l’herméneutique, la compréhension, et qui ne se décline pas moins elle-même en une théorie de l’interprétation des textes. Afin de résoudre ce paradoxe, il nous faut d’abord exposer la critique de la compréhension qui est consubstantielle au projet philosophique de Levinas. En nous appuyant sur quelques textes centraux de son œuvre, nous expliciterons à la fois le déficit éthique de la compréhension que pointe Levinas et les possibilités de sens au nom desquelles cette critique s’accomplit. Nous verrons ainsi ce qui conduit Levinas à suggérer qu’autrui, en son visage, témoigne d’un sens qui ferait exception à la structure gnoséologique du sensé que suppose l’herméneutique. Dans un deuxième temps, nous tenterons de cerner les raisons qui peuvent légitiment conduire Levinas à faire usage, dans le contexte de son herméneutique talmudique, des « concepts » nés de sa critique de la compréhension. L’étude du rapport entre éthique et herméneutique, entre texte et visage, nous conduira à identifier le principe directeur de l’herméneutique levinassienne et à articuler la façon dont il se rattache à l’éthique du visage. Finalement, nous tenterons de faire valoir la pertinence philosophique de l’herméneutique levinassienne en étudiant la manière dont elle peut rendre compte de phénomènes fondamentaux liés à l’interprétation des textes. / This thesis presents a study about the place of hermeneutics in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. At first glance, the writings of the philosopher seem quite ambiguous concerning the value that ought to be given to hermeneutics. In his strictly philosophical works, Levinas presents a severe critique of understanding (compréhension) which he views as a totalising approach of meaning. Against the reduction of meaning to understanding, Levinas will defend the idea that the structure of meaning is primary ethical, the relationship to the other being the privileged site where the world, the self as well as the idea of God first become meaningful. Nonetheless, in the other part of the levinassian corpus, that of his Talmudic Readings, Levinas develops an hermeneutics of his own using the ethical categories of his major philosophical works and applying them to his exegetical activity. We are then faced with this paradox, inherent to the work of Levinas, of a philosophy which largely develops itself as a critique of the central category of hermeneutics (i.e. comprehension) but which can nonetheless also present itself as a theory of interpretation (i.e. hermeneutics) in a significant portion of Levinas’ writings. Resolving this apparent paradox will necessitate that we first present the philosophical project of Levinas and the critique of hermeneutics which is consubstantial to it. Using a few central texts of the philosopher’s work, we will try to point with precision at the ethical deficit which Levinas sees in hermeneutics and to identify the possibilities of meaning that, according to Levinas, are being left behind by the primacy conferred to comprehension. We will then see what leads Levinas to suggest that the face (visage) of the other bears a meaning that constitute an exception to the hermeneutical structure of meaning which philosophy, at least explicitly since Heidegger, supposes. In a second step, we will attempt to present the reasons that justify Levinas’ use, in his Talmudic Readings, of the ‘concepts’ born out of his critique of comprehension in order to better grasp the unity of his work. The study of the relationship between ethics and hermeneutics, between the text and the face, will lead us to identify the guiding principle of what might be called levinassian hermeneutics and to articulate how it relates to the ethics of the face. Finally, we will attempt to assert the relevance of the ‘‘philosophical hermeneutics’’ of Levinas by presenting how it can account for two fundamental phenomena related to interpretation, namely the mode through which the subject enters into relation with a text and the individuation of the subject taking part in this relation.

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss.

The  well  known  conference  of  Paul  Ricœur ‘Love and Justice’, pronounced when he received Leopold Lucas award in 1989, shows a dialectical tension between those two notions, and searches deeper in the philosophical –and even theological– basis that reveals love as rectification and safeguard of justice; without love, justice would be cruel, utilitarian and, paradoxically, unfair, remembering us the old Roman adage: summum ius, summa iniuria”. Moreover, Levinas, in his Talmudic Lesson on Justice”, compiled after in New Talmudic Readings, presents a less intuitive position, but no less interesting: justice is the place of forgiveness and love, it becomes humane everything it touches, and that’s why it doesn’t need correction; a justice that needed love, had maybe never been true justice. Here lies a critic that complements and improves both, the theory exposed by Paul Ricœur and its Rawlsian basis. / La célebre conferencia ‘Amor y justicia’ pronunciada por Paul Ricœur cuando se le dio el premio Leopold Lucas en 1989, muestra una tensión dialéctica entre  esas  dos  nociones  y  profundiza  las  bases  filosóficas  e  incluso  teológicas que  revelan  al  amor  como  rectificación  y  hasta  salvaguarda  de  la  justicia;  sin aquél,  esta  sería  cruel,  utilitaria  y,  paradójicamente,  injusta,  recordándonos  el viejo adagio romano summum ius, summa iniuria”. Por otra parte, Levinas en su Lección talmúdica sobre la justicia”, compendiada después en Nuevas lecturas talmúdicas, presenta una tesis menos intuitiva pero no menos interesante: la justicia es la sede del perdón y del amor, ella vuelve humano todo lo que toca, por eso no necesita corrección; una justicia que precisara del amor tal vez nunca ha sido verdadera justicia. Aquí radica una crítica que complementa y perfecciona tanto a la teoría de la justicia expuesta por Paul Ricœur como a sus bases rawlsianas.

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Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney / This dissertation addresses and then attempts to further what could be called the “French” Phenomenological tradition and its developments of a phenomenology of eros in dialogue with—and often as a response to—older Platonic conceptions of eros. Eros, I show, had a foundational role in Plato’s ethics; becoming ethical was dependent on first having an erotic encounter with beauty. However, this connection between love and ethics has been frequently abandoned in 20th-century philosophy. I argue that this move, a side-effect of the development of a philosophy of alterity, was ultimately founded on faulty assumptions about the nature of love, as well as its connection to the good and the beautiful. For that reason, after first elucidating the concerns raised regarding an ethical eros and the reasons for the denial of love’s foundational role, I establish a definition of eros that can once again play the same role as Plato saw for it while simultaneously addressing the 20th century’s concerns about alterity and the recognition of the Other. Re-establishing this role requires arguing for three key theses: 1. Recognition of the Other is based on recognizing his or her beauty and goodness 2. Love of the Other is love of the Other as individual, not in light of some attribute 3. Love of the Other forms the basis of our entering into the ethical attitude. Combined, these theses build toward an ethical eros in two senses. First, they show that eros itself is an ethical relationship, which will be defined as an encounter with the Other structured by signification (the reasons for this definition will be made clear when I examine Levinas’ ethics). Second, the erotic encounter with one beautiful Other (which may or may not lead to a response of love) leads to the development of an ethical disposition toward all Others. In the dissertation, these theses are developed against the background of existing views about eros, in order to show their necessity, as well as to explore the reasons why they have so far been denied. Part I, “Platonic Eros,” therefore, is an in-depth reading of eros from the Platonic point of view, as seen primarily in the Symposium and Phaedrus. Part II, “Impossible Eros,” picks up on Plato’s failing to recognize the alterity of the Other and begins a critique of Plato from that point, carried out by a variety of early philosophers in the French philosophical tradition, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, and Shulamith Firestone. Part III, “Unspeakable Eros,” is a direct response to Part II, dealing primarily with Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion. Part IV, “Ethical Eros” is the conclusion of the dissertation, in which I argue that love can once again take on its role, assigned to it already in Plato, as the basis of ethics. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Abstract: Emmanuel Levinas: Ethics, Justice and the Human beyond Being. Levinas finds the early twentieth century to be marked by a rejection of the concept of humanity, at the moment of its awakening to its own brutality. While accepting the anti-humanist position, insofar as it questions the primacy of free will, and an unquestionable security in its attachment to a pregiven, universal Reason, Levinas' work questions the value of rethinking the human in terms of being. This thesis traces Levinas' attempt to rehabilitate humanity from its devotion to ontology as first philosophy. It argues that Levinas offers a reinterpretation of the relation of being and the human, tracing the movement in Levinas' work from a critical attempt to rethink the human and being, to the notion of the human beyond being. The thesis begins with a critical engagement with Heideggerian ontology suggesting that Levinas' renewal of the question of being in his prewar essays reflects a concern for the meaning of subjective existence and its relation to the social and political totality. These concerns lie behind his reinterpretation of the relation of existence and the existent in his essays of the 1940's in which Levinas undertakes a critique of a Platonic social totality and introduces a notion of the alterity of eros which does not have its value determined in terms of a teleology of social production. From this basis, Levinas is shown to address the question of justice by articulating the essentially ambiguous relation between the subject and another in terms of the ambivalence of the face, and contrasting this with the alterity of love. The development of these ideas is traced across Levinas' major works. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas argues that the response to the singular other is conceived of as the event of the production of a universal which affirms the tertiality of the social totality, that is, attests to the whole of humanity. In Otherwise than Being, the relation of ethics and justice is discussed in different terms, those of the relation of the ethical Saying and the realm of the Said or being's justice. Levinas juxtaposes the ontological tertiality of the third, with the notion of an ethical tertiality, which he calls illeity. Illeity is found to not be reducible to the ontological tertiality of the third party, but to name the exceeding of subjectivity in terms of an absolute susceptibility to the Other, and is an excessive concept of a singular universal: the human beyond being.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Duquesne university. / Bibliogr. p. 181-186. Index.

Thèse de doctorat : Philosophie : Paris 12 : 2004. Thèse de doctorat : philosophie : Université Babes-Bolyai : 2004. / Version électronique uniquement consultable au sein de l'Université Paris 12 (Intranet). Thèse soutenue en co-tutelle. Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. : 185 réf.