1906

Born January 12 in Kaunas (or Kovno, in

Russian), Lithuania. Lithuania is a part of
pre-Revolutionary Russia in which the then
surrounding culture tolerates Jews. He is
the eldest child in a middle class family and
has two brothers, Boris and Aminadab.
1914
In the wake of the War, Levinas's
family emigrates to Karkhov, in the
Ukraine. The family returns to
Lithuania in 1920, two years after the
country obtains independence from the
Revolutionary government.
1923
Goes to study philosophy in Strasbourg
(France). Levinas studies philosophy
with Maurice Pradines, psychology with
Charles Blondel, and sociology with
Maurice Halbwachs. He meets Maurice
Blanchot who will become a close
friend.
192829
Levinas travels to Freiburg to study
with Edmund Husserl; he attends
Heidegger's seminar.

1930
Publishes his thesis in
French, The Theory of
Intuition in Husserl's
Phenomenoloagy.
1931
French translation, by
Levinas, of Husserl's
Sorbonne lectures, Cartesian
Meditations, in collaboration
with Gabrielle Peiffer.
1932
He marries Rassa Levi,
whom he had known since
childhood.
1961
Publishes his doctorate (s
Lettres), Totality and Infinity:
An Essay on Exteriority.
Position at the Universit de
Poitiers.
1994
Rassa Levinas dies in September.
Levinas publishes a collection of
essays, Libert et commandement (no
English translation) and Unforeseen
History, edited by Pierre Hayat.

1995
Emmanuel Levinas dies in Paris,
December 25.
Totality
And
Infinity
 Levinas one of the most
important work is totality and
infinity: an essay on exteriority.
In the later, Levinas, according
to a phenomenological method,
describes how subjectivity
arises from the idea of infinity,
and how infinite is a product of
the relationship of self to
another.
Levinas argues that ontology
enacts a relationship with
another being that reduces to
the same. Instead, Levinas
adopts an approach that does
not reduce to other to the
same, but considers the
separation between himself
and the other as inherent in a
relationship with being.
 According to Levinas, the
externality is how individual
transcends finite into the infinite.
The externality is a relationship in
which the self is separate from the
other. The externality is a
relationship where the being of self
and other cannot be aggregated of
fused to infinity, because they are
completely separated.
In home, in order to have the idea of
infinity relationship, the home members
must be separated from each other. The
idea of infinity is in itself a form of
transcendence in a relation to the other.

The other is absolutely other than the self.

The other is other oneself. The other is
transcendent reality.

The idea of infinity requires the separation

of the same and the other. This separation
is a drop in the same and the other from
the whole.
 Levinas distinguishes between
the idea of totality and the idea of
infinity. The idea of trying to
integrate all the different and the
same in all is totality, while the
idea of infinity maintains
separation between the other and
the same. According to levinas, the
idea is all theoretical, while the
idea of infinity is moral.
The importance of face
Face of the other is how other
reveals itself. The face of the other
is the exteriority of his being. Face
to face is an ethical relationship, and
calls freedom of self responsibility.
 Levinas explains that the face of other
talking to yourself. Language begins with the
presence of the face with the expression.
Language is a system of interaction in which
meaning is derived from the face of the other.
The other is the signifier, which manifests
itself in language by the production of signs.

Face, this absolutely other, is not a

negation of the self. The presence of the other
does not contradict the freedom of self. I can
kill the other, but his face reminds me of my
responsibility.
Prepared by:
Base, Cliff Levin
Berdin, Jesus
Castillo, Joshua
Dominguez, Reynato
Narciso, Bonny
Sario, John Carl Angelo