Author: LIN Huamin, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Southwest University.
Abstract:
<p font-size:10.5pt;"="" style="box-sizing: border-box;text-align: justify">Through close reading of the text, comparative analysis and phenomenological description, this paper examines Levinas’ interpretation of Franz Rosenzweig, aiming to reveal one of the key inspirations of Rosenzweig to Levinas: the opposition to the idea of totality. Rosenzweig claims that God, humanity and the world are absolutely separated, and that reason cannot unite these three in a system; however, in the concrete lived experience of human beings, the three elements relate. The relationship between humanity and God is the primary experience and the original time. This paper will present the core connections between Levinas and Rosenzweig, and reveal the internal unity of phenomenology and theology in Levinas’ thought. The paper then places the two within traditions of empiricism and rationalism, pointing out that in the context of a transcendent God and Other, Rosenzweig and Levinas oppose the totalizing tradition of philosophy and defend the diversity of individual experience, so embodying a transcendent empiricism.
Keywords:
Franz Rosenzweig; Emmanuel Levinas; Totality; Transcendence; Empiricism
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