| Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Emmanuel Levinas |
| Original title | Totalité et Infini: essai sur l'extériorité |
| Translator | 1969: Alphonso Lingis |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Subject(s) | philosophy, ethics, religion |
| Publication date | 1961 |
| Published in English |
1969 (Duquesne University Press) |
Totality and Infinity is a work of philosophy authored by Emmanuel Levinas. It advances the thesis that all ethics derive from a confrontation with an other. This other, with whom we interact concretely, represents a gateway into the more abstract Otherness.
The distinction between totality and infinity divides the limited world, which contains the other as a material body, from a spiritual world. Subjects gain access to this spiritual world, infinity, by opening themselves to the Otherness of the other. For example:
To approach the other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity (p. 51).
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Levinas places heavy emphasis on the physical presence involved in meet the other. He argues that only a face-to-face encounter allows true connection with Infinity, because of the incessance of this type of interaction. Written words and other words do not suffice because they have become past by the time the subject perceives them. That is: they have fallen into the register of totality.
Jacques Derrida, in "Violence and Metaphysics," takes Levinas to task for this assumption, arguing characteristically that writing might be at least as sacred as speech.
Totality and Infinity is considered an original and significant contribution to the world of philosophy—continental philosophy in particular. The work can be read as a response to Levinas's teachers, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Brittanica both identify Totality and Infinity, along with Otherwise Than Being as one of Levinas's most important works.[1][2]
Callier, Bernadette."Totality and Infinity, Alterity, and Relation: From Levinas to Glissant." Journal of Francophone Philosophy, 19(1), 2011.
Davidson, Scott, and Diane Perpich. Totality and Infinity at 50.Duquesne University Press,2012.
Derrida, Jacques. "Violence and Metaphysics," in Writing and Difference.
Mensch, James. Levinas' Existential Analytic: A Commentary on Totality and Infinity.