Face to Face with Levinas

Richard A. Cohen is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola College of Maryland. He is translator of Ethics and Infinity and Time and the Other by Emmanuel Levinas.

"These essays are not simply a collection of excellent but disparate pieces. Instead the editor's placement shows that they fall into highly significant categories. The first, 'Proximity,' introduces the main themes of Levinas' work and provides a glimpse of his personality. The second, 'From Ethics to Philosophy,' offers a critical consideration of major themes by leading scholars of the significance of his theory of the other person and its relation to logic, language, and reason in Levinas' thought. The third, 'Contexts,' situates Levinas in a comparative context, in conversation with Kant, Hegel, and others. It includes phenomenological accounts of the sensuous (contrasting Levinas and Heidegger) and the erotic, thus developing themes important in Levinas' own writings." — Edith Wyschogrod, Queens College of the City University of New York