Existence And Existents

Description:
Existence and Existents was written mostly during Levinas's imprisonment in World War II, and provides the first sketch of his mature thought -- later developed in Totality and Infinity and Otherwise Than Being, or Beyond Essence (also published by Duquesne University Press). Levinas's project in Existence and Existents is to move from anonymous existence to the emergence of subjectivity; to subjectivity's practice, theory and morality; to its encounter with the alterity of the other person. He is concerned here primarily with the time of the solitary subject; time is the inner structure of subjectivity, of the movement of existing. Existence and Existents introduces the major themes and concerns that occupied Levinas throughout his career. It is essential reading for understanding both Levinas's own philosophy and the developments in philosophical thought in the twentieth century.

Review:
'Levinas's work...contains not only wholly new analyses of the forms of time-of the present, the past, the future-but also a new conception of the work of time. Alphonso Lingis

Author Biography:
Emmanuel Levinas, now internationally renowned as one of the great philosophers of the contemporary era, died in late 1995. His writings have profoundly influenced several generations of philosophers, including prominent postmodern thinkers such as Derrida, Lyotard, and Irigaray. Alphonso Lingis is Professor of Philosophy at The Pennsylvania State University.