Horizons de l’affectivité: l’hyperbole comme method phénoménologique de Lévinas

Abstract

The phenomenological method according to Emmanuel Levinas consists of two steps: first, reducing the said (le dit) to the saying (le dire); and second, hyperbole in his own words. Reducing the said to the saying, in itself, means in this context of the methodology a method to escape from ontology and cognitive philosophy, and to discover the dimension of inter-human facticity. In the second step of hyperbole, Levinas outlines the horizon of this inter-human facticity as that of affectivity. In this horizon (of ethics), the self is defined as phenomena containing the affectivity related to the two extreme situations: personal (physical and mental) suffering and that of the other. Ultimately, the death of the other person and a person's own possible death limit the internal structure of this horizon.