Orality and Writing: A Proposal for the Reintegration of Ethics and Hermeneutics in the Work of Emmanuel Levinas

Abstract

If Levinas’s work is characterized by the development of an entirely new philosophical language capable of pointing toward the alterity that has eluded Western ontology, his relation to writing and to books is more problematic. There is, rather, a sustained defense of orality, which would seem to be aligned with the ethical, as opposed to writing, which would belong on the side of the ontological. This holds, at least, for the major works: Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being. Nevertheless, I argue that, if attention is turned to other parts of Levinas’s work –both certain unpublished texts and the Jewish writings– new perspectives may emerge that offer tools for the ethical reintegration of writing. To that end, I examine the relationships between orality and writing and how the saying precedes both instances, as well as the analogical relationship between the ethical and the book.