Religion and ethics in the thought of Emmanuel Levinas

Abstract

The present text aims to address religion and its relationship with ethics in the thought of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, in which such notions are interconnected in an open and non-dogmatic domain. The perspective of religion in Levinas avoids the context of systematization and the conceptual synthesis prevalent in Western thought, sliding towards ethical intrigue as the primary source of intelligibility. Such ethics is understood as the event of the human encounter, based on the acceptance of asymmetrical and morally inexcusable responsibility for others, a circumstance in which the word God gains its meaning. The French Lithuanian philosopher opened up new possibilities for the problematization of the religious by establishing the face of the other man not only as the central point of ethics and justice, but also as the privileged locus from which God, or his Word, comes to mind in a concrete way. The responsibility for the Other, prior to logical formulations, is the vestige of the Infinite, the originating Saying from God revealed in the face of the other man as the trace of an immemorial past that was never present. In the face of the Other, the word of God, non-thematized, reveals itself as a commandment of ethics and justice.