Hither end Beyond. Approaches to Art in the Oeuvre of Lévinas

Abstract

Although the question of art and aesthetics cannot be considered central in the theories of Lévinas, those writings, in which Lévinas makes a detour into the field of art, carry the stamps of the changes of his ethical philosophy. In this study I examine the ambivalence, which characterizes Lévinas’s approaches to art through two writings of his, Reality and Its Shadow (La réalité et son ombre) and The Other in Proust (L’autre dans Proust). While Lévinas radically criticizes art in the 40s, we will perceive its spectacular transformation later. The reversal can be regarded as the consequence of the emphasis of language presented in the development of ethics, however this perspective would be over-simplified not only in the view of art but also concerning the modification of the Lévinasian philosophy. Therefore, the aesthetic analyses create the possibility to question the very basis of his philosophy through these arising difficulties.