ONLINE FIRST
published on November 4, 2022
Silvia Richter
https://doi.org/10.5840/levinas202211327
¡°Jewish Existence as a Category of Being¡±: Revisiting Franz Rosenzweig¡¯s Influence on Levinas¡¯s Work
This article reconsiders the influence of Rosenzweig¡¯s thought on Levinas¡¯s work in the light of the captivity notebooks (Carnets de captivit¨¦), as well as the lectures given shortly after the war at the Coll¨¨ge philosophique. Levinas¡¯s ongoing dealings with Rosenzweig are discussed in two ways: first, by analyzing the articles he explicitly dedicated to Rosenzweig and, second, by identifying elements of Rosenzweig¡¯s thought in Levinas¡¯s work that are not explicitly mentioned therein. By combining these two approaches, I show that Rosenzweig¡¯s work offered Levinas an ontological narrative that contrasts with Heidegger¡¯s analysis of Dasein, and it motivated a concept of a new mode of transcendence linked to Judaism. Language, as spoken words produced face-to-face, plays a crucial role in this context: just as it opens up the mute Self into a loving Soul in The Star of Redemption, it is the face that speaks in Levinas, opening up the relationship to the Other and the ¡°beyond of being.¡±