Philosophy of Religion Research

From "Identity" in Western Philosophical Tradition to "Non-identity" of the Name of God in Levinas’s Thought

Document Type : Original Research

Author

Ph. D. Graduate in Religions and Mysticism, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

10.30497/prr.2024.244544.1836

Abstract

In the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, the philosophical tradition of the West is the history of elimination of absolute alterity. In this context, being is subordinated to thought through thematization, or the same and the other are totalized in a neutral impersonal being, which in any case is disposed to tyranny and self-immanence. In this research, we are trying to show that Levinas's critical view is formulated on linguistic analysis, and his suggestion to break up the ontological totality is based on a Jewish approach to language. Using Jewish nominalistic ideas, Levinas points out language is not one-dimensional logos including mere indicative statements. Name is the representative of the vocative dimension of language and it resists totalization. It is only in the speech that the other remains outside the conditions of human knowledge. Since in the Jewish tradition the Torah is considered as the names of God, Levinas shows that the Jewish revelation is understood in the vocative and imperative realm of language. Revelation is not a knowledge about God, but God's speaking with man and a relationship between two individuals. In this sense, God's names are moral commands (musts) from beyond existence that break up the ontological identity and make space for alterity.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Ben-Sasson, Hillel. 2019. Understanding YHWH The Name of God in Biblical, Rabbinic, and Medieval Jewish Thought. Springer International Publishing.
Bielik-Robson, Agata. 2012. "The Promise of the Name: ‘Jewish Nominalism’as the Critique of Idealist Tradition." Bamidbar: 11-35.
Bielik-Robson, Agata. 2014. Jewish Cryptotheologies of Late Modernity: Philosophical Marranos. Routledge.
Caputo, John D. 2006. The Weakness of God a Theology of Event. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Dan, Joseph. 1996. "The Name of God, the Name of the Rose, and the Concept of Language in Jewish Mysticism." Medieval encounters: 228-248.
Galli, Barbara E. 1994. "Rosenzweig and the Name for God." Modern Judaism-A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience: 63-86.
Large, William. 2013. "The Name of God: Kripke, Lévinas and Rosenzweig on Proper Names." Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: 321-334.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity. Martinus Nijhoff.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1981. Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. Martinus Nijhoff.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1986. "The Trace of the Other." Pp. 345-359, In Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy, edited by Mark C. Taylor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1987. Collected Philosophical Papers of Emmanuel Levinas. Martinus Nijhoff.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1990. Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism. London: Athlone.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1994a. Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures. Indiana University Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1994b. In the Time of the Nations. New York: Continuum.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1996. Proper Names. Stanford University Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 2000. God, Death, and Time.Stanford University Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 2020. Le Temps et l'autre. Translated by Samira Rashidpour. Tehran: Nashr-i Ney. (In Persian)
Mettinger, Tryggve. 2009. In cerca di Dio, Il significato e il messaggio dei nomi eterni. Bologna: EDB.
Miller, Michael. 2016. The Name of God in Jewish Thought: A philosophical Analysis of Mystical Traditions from Apocalyptic to Kabbalah. Routledge.
Miller, Michael. 2022. "Name Theology: Judaism." Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception: 659-663.
Min, Anselm. 2006. "Naming the Unnameable God: Levinas, Derrida, and Marion." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion: 99-116.
Srajek, Martin C. 2012. In the Margins of Deconstruction: Jewish Conceptions of Ethics in Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Springer Science & Business Media.
Uljée, Rozemund. 2018. "Hegel and Levinas: On Truth and the Question of Interruption." Hegel Bulletin: 221-235.
Ward, Graham. 2005. "The Revelation of Wholly Other as the Wholly Other: Between Barth`s Theology of Word and Levinas Philosophy of Saying." Pp. 316-338, in Emmanuel Levinas: Levinas and the Question of Religion, edited by Claire Katz and Lara Trout. Routledge.
Wyschogrod, Edith. 2005. "The Imperative of the Other." Pp. 402-414, in Emmanuel Levinas, Critical Assessments of, edited by Claire Katz and Lara Trout. Routledge.
Xiushan, Ye. 2008. "Levinas Faces Kant, Hegel and Heidegger: Debates of Contemporary Philosophy on Ontology." Frontiers of Philosophy in China: 438-454.
Philosophy of Religion Research
Volume 22, Issue 2 - Serial Number 44
November 2024
Pages 215-238