Repository | Book | Chapter

The thesis which is argued throughout Levinas' work is that the world-views opened by science and history presume their standpoints to be final. Thus they fail to take into account their origin in a lifeworld which lies outside the jurisdiction of the methods which they use and from which these methods derive. In this respect Levinas' thought is continuous with that of Husserl. But the failure of science and history in Levinas' view, lies not only in the objectification of consciousness, in considering consciousness as an object in the world and therefore failing to recognize its absolute uniqueness; it lies also in the proposed corrective. The critique of science and history requires more than the recovery of the intentional structures of consciousness for these very structures must themselves be judged by a self anterior to their upsurge. Not only do history and science as world views stand under judgment, but a proper critique of these world views must rest, not on a recovery of the machinery of consciousness, but upon moral foundations.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-2044-2_8

Full citation: