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17Emmanuel Levinas: Philosopher and JewRevista Portuguesa de Filosofia 62 (2/4). 2006.Levinas seamlessly unites philosophy and religion via ethics. By doing so he satisfies philosophy's quest for justification by finding it neither in epistemology nor aesthetics (nor in an escapist "fundamentalism") but in the responsibility of each person for each other and for all others. That is to say, the "ground" of meaning emerges neither in intellect nor imagination but in the moral responsibilities one person has for another and, beyond these already infinite obligations, in the justice …Read more
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17Levinas on Art and Aestheticism: Getting “Reality and Its Shadow” RightLevinas Studies 11 (1): 149-194. 2016.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Levinas on Art and AestheticismGetting “Reality and Its Shadow” RightRichard A. Cohen (bio)1. The Standard Misreading of Levinas on Arta. IntroductionMuch has been written in the secondary literature about Levinas and art and about Levinas and literature more specifically. In addition to Maurice Blanchot’s observations in The Writing of the Disaster, which is more a primary text than a secondary source, two exceptional studies — well…Read more
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16Emmanuel Levinas, "Nine Talmudic Readings" (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (1): 154. 1993.
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16Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (review)International Studies in Philosophy 19 (1): 90-91. 1987.
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14Levinas and the paradox of monotheismIn Claire Elise Katz & Lara Trout (eds.), Emmanuel Levinas, Routledge. pp. 3--59. 2005.
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14Non-in-difference in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas and Franz RosenzweigGraduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 13 (1): 141-153. 1988.
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13Poetique du possible (review)Review of Metaphysics 40 (2): 382-384. 1986.In many ways the whole of contemporary thought reduces to the search for new middle terms, such as 'desire', 'will to power', 'language', and "difference', to mediate, displace, or evade the classical philosophical dualisms, such as being and nonbeing, ideality and reality, mind and matter, is and ought. These dualisms--set up by the ancients, pursued by the moderns, and bequeathed to us contemporaries by their failures--are Kearney's target. His aim is to overcome them through the notion of fig…Read more
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11Discovering Existence with Husserl (edited book)Northwestern University Press. 1998.Contemporary philosophers are increasingly turning to the work of Emmanuel Levinas to bring a consideration of ethics into their own thinking. As an exponent of the phenomenological tradition, Levinas ranks with Heidegger and Sartre; as a disciple of Husserl, he was one of the most independent and original interpreters, testifying to the fruitfulness of Husserl's phenomenology. In collecting almost all of Levinas's articles on Husserlian phenomenology, this volume gathers together a wealth of th…Read more
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11Out of control: confrontations between Spinoza and LevinasState University of New York Press. 2016.I. Levinas, Spinozism, Nietzsche and the body -- II. Prophetic speech in Levinas and Spinoza (and Maimonides) -- III. Levinas and Spinoza: to love God for nothing -- IV. Levinas and Spinoza: justice and the state -- V. Spinoza's Prince: for whom is the theological-political treatise written? VI. Levinas on Spinoza's misunderstanding of Judaism -- VII. Thinking least about death: mortality and morality in Spinoza, Heidegger and Levinas -- VIII. Spleen: Spinoza's babies, fools and madmen.
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10Editor’s IntroductionLevinas Studies 11 (1): 7-14. 2016.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editor’s IntroductionRichard A. Cohen (bio) and Jolanta Saldukaitytė (bio)For more than a decade, Levinas Studies has served admirably as the only English-language journal dedicated exclusively to the academic study of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. It is an honor to coedit an issue of Levinas Studies — not only to contribute articles but also to organize an entire volume. Volume 11 of Levinas Studies gathers together essays from s…Read more
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9The Politics of Humanity: Justice and Power (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2021.This book is the collaborative response of engaged scholars from diverse countries and disciplines who are disturbed by the contemporary resurgence of anti-democratic movements and regimes throughout the world. These movements have manifest in vitriolic “nationalist” polemics, state-supported violence, and exclusionary anti-immigrant policies, less than a century after the rise and fall and horrific devastations of fascism in the early 20th century.
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9In Proximity: Emmanuel Levinas and the Eighteenth CenturyTexas Tech University Press. 2001.In a world in which everything is reduced "to the play of signs detached from what is signified," Levinas asks a deceptively simple question: Whence, then, comes the urge to question injustice? By seeing the demand for justice for the other—the homeless, the destitute—as a return to morality, Levinas escapes the suspect finality of any ideology.Levinas’s question is one starting point for In Proximity, a collection of seventeen essays by scholars in eighteenth-century literature, philosophy, his…Read more
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9Responses to Fleishman and SauerPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 4 (4): 21-25. 1997.I want first to thank Professor Charles Harvey for his kindness and his efforts in putting together today's session of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World on my book, Elevations, which is to say, on the ethics of Levinas and Rosenzweig. It is fitting too. Ethics more than any area of philosophy, it seems to me, speaks to the purpose of our Society, which is to gather in friendship for intelligent discussion about our contemporary world with a view to its improvement and our own.
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8The Strangeness of AlterityLevinas Studies 11 (1): 95-120. 2016.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Strangeness of AlterityJolanta Saldukaitytė (bio)The problem of strangeness can be approached from different angles: aesthetic, sociological, psychological, cultural, etc. Strangeness can be found as well in the strangeness of experience: I as stranger to myself, or the strange place I find myself, or the strange people who surround me. These would enable us to uncover the uncanny (Freud, Heidegger), or discuss sociological notio…Read more
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8Social Theory in Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason AloneInternational Philosophical Quarterly 61 (4): 409-438. 2021.The present article argues: that to support the primary aim of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, which is to establish the primacy of practical reason for religion, Kant elaborates and assigns to it a social ethics. Contrary to the tired adage that without religious foundation ethics must collapse, the reverse is actually the case: without ethical foundation religion must collapse, degenerating into dogmatism, superstition and fanaticism. To ground and concretize the link between ethic…Read more
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7Levinas Faces Biblical Figures (edited book)Lexington Books. 2014.Levinas Faces Biblical Figures captures the drama of the encounter between a great philosopher and a text of primary importance. The book considers the ways in which Levinas's thoughts can open up the biblical text to requestioning, and how the biblical text can inform our reading of Levinas
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7Introduction: Politics, Humanity, Power and JusticeIn Richard A. Cohen, Tito Marci & Luca Scuccimarra (eds.), The Politics of Humanity: Justice and Power, Springer Verlag. pp. 1-19. 2021.This volume brings together a variety of scholars and intellectual disciplines from around the world and across academia. Differences of person, place, culture, history and expertise do not alienate but rather fructify the perspectives of the ongoing conversation of the politics of humanity. The latter is a struggle for justice, for human rights, to be sure, but also for the availability, sustainability and fair distribution of food, clothing, shelter, health care, culture and living environment…Read more
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6The Future of Justice: Politics, Time and the Contemporary Political Triangulation—Liberalism, Socialism and FascismIn Richard A. Cohen, Tito Marci & Luca Scuccimarra (eds.), The Politics of Humanity: Justice and Power, Springer Verlag. pp. 153-200. 2021.Contemporary philosophy realizes that time, like language and embodiment, is not an obstacle to truth and reality but one of its primary mediums. Time is dimensionality, past, present, future, and directionality, before and after. Politics has its own temporality. Conservatives aim to restore a selected past; progressives to create a better future; and authoritarians to reinforce the present status quo. In each case, however, the dominant temporal dimension is the future. Time, as Levinas has sh…Read more
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6Editor’s IntroductionLevinas Studies 11 (1): 95-120. 2016.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editor’s IntroductionRichard A. Cohen (bio) and Jolanta Saldukaitytė (bio)For more than a decade, Levinas Studies has served admirably as the only English-language journal dedicated exclusively to the academic study of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. It is an honor to coedit an issue of Levinas Studies — not only to contribute articles but also to organize an entire volume. Volume 11 of Levinas Studies gathers together essays from s…Read more
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6Two Types of Philosophy in the Thought of Emmanuel LevinasDiscipline filosofiche. 24 (1): 9-26. 2014.Recalling the Greek origins of philosophy and its attachment to science as universal knowledge: “thinking and being are one”. Contrast with the challenge of Levinas’ conception of philosophy as significance of signification via encounter with irreducible alterity of the vulnerable other person through moral responsibility. Challenge to science as first philosophy by ethics – morality and justice – as first philosophy. The intelligibility of the latter explicated in terms of the “saying” of the “…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
20th Century Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
17th/18th Century Philosophy |