The World and Its Nightmare (Levinas on Sense and Nonsense)

0571589 - FLÚ 2024 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Matysová, Daniela
The World and Its Nightmare (Levinas on Sense and Nonsense).
Human Studies. Roč. 46, č. 1 (2023), s. 79-99. ISSN 0163-8548. E-ISSN 1572-851X
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA21-22224S
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : ethics * Heidegger * intentionality * Levinas * madness * Maldiney * nonsense * transcendence
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Impact factor: 1, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-023-09662-w

This text deals with the interpretation of where the meaningfulness of existence and our being in the world in Emmanuel Levinas’s conception originates in its contrast to the similar conception developed by phenomenology of appearing which is represented by M. Heidegger and H. Maldiney. I want to show on what premises Levinas argues that the epiphany of sense can only emerge in the case of a continuous overcoming of the nonsense of appearing and thus of Being as such. Therefore, I intend to go through the steps of Levinas’ reasoning, which he never developed systematically, and explain why he can view Being as nonsensical and what this notion of nonsense could possibly mean in Levinas’s philosophy. As a result, I would like present an implicit argumentation behind Levinas’s well-known claim that the birth of sense must be of ethical origin and cannot arise through the process of appearing or Being alone.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0343466