The Concept of Recognition In Levinas’s Thought

Abstract

concept of [la reconnaissance] appears variously and repeatedly throughout Emmanuel Levinas's corpus, perhaps most strikingly in Hegelian formula of a for recognition and perhaps most provocatively in Levinas's distinct sense of ethical of other.1 Despite multiple ways in which concept is used, there has been no sustained attention given to its meaning and significance both in relation to Levinas's own thought and in relation to broader intellectual movements of day. This essay attempts to address this gap by situating and thematizing operational concept of within Levinas's thought. To hone in on not only firmly situates Levinas's ethics of other in critical conversation with Hegel, with whom that concept is most associated, but I also argue that he sought to appropriate and reinterpret its meaning through insights and oversights of Husserlian phenomenology and its reflections on structure of cognition or knowledge [la connaissance], so as to arrive at a more primordial ethical dimension prior to struggle for recognition. The approach of this essay thematizes multiple modes of as it relates with multiple modes of being and sensation operative within Levinas's thought. Being, sensation, and are, I suggest, such basic and interrelated concepts that raising any one implicates other two. To highlight concept of recognition, then, necessarily involves and triangulates with concepts of being and sensation. Within this configuration of key concepts, course of this essay will proceed by considering naturalistic theory, Husserlian phenomenology, and finally Levinas's own approach. In each successive stage, there is a move toward a deeper, more concrete and primordial understanding of phenomenon of recognition. The task of this essay then is threefold: (1) to assemble distinct meanings of for Levinas vis-avis concepts of being and sensation; (2) to show that one meaning - Hegelian struggle for - is grounded in a certain interpretation of Husserl on relationship between being, cognition, and sensation; and (3) to show that recognition, in its proper ethical sense, is grounded in broadened understandings of concepts of being and sensation, best captured in phrase the sensation of infinite. Historical Context: The Resurrection of Hegel Studies and Emergence of Husserlian Phenomenology in France The question of emerged within intellectual context of French reception of Hegel in 1930s and 40s. Jean Wahl's Le malheur de la conscience, published in 1929,2 Alexandre Koyre's translations and readings of Hegel's Jena years,3 Alexandre Kojeve's famous seminars at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes from 1 933-1 939,4 and Jean Hyppolite's translation and commentary on Phenomenology* all contributed to revival of Hegel's thought in France. The appreciative reception of Hegel was so complete by 1950 that Koyre, who had only two decades prior reported relative impoverishment of Hegel studies, could now declare: Since publication of this report [in 1930], situation of Hegel in world of European philosophy and in particular French philosophy, has changed entirely: Hegelian philosophy has witnessed a veritable renaissance, or better, a resurrection.6 Levinas's early intellectual biography intersects with these towering figures in French thought. He attended Kojeve's lectures on Hegel in 1930s.7 Koyre oversaw his French translation of Husseri's Cartesianische Meditationen? And during his doctoral studies, Jean Wahl, to whom he would later dedicate Totalite et infini, would have a profound and lasting impact on Levinas's thought.9 Finally, it was Hyppolite's French translation of Hegel's Phenomenology that would be used when Levinas later taught students.10 However, it was not merely that Levinas was introduced to Hegel by these thinkers, but that they offered a compelling interpretation. …