Open AccessEmmanuel Levinas in the face of the rise of Nazism elementary philosophy: a methodological and political debate.
Author(s) -
Pablo Facundo Ríos Flores
Publication year - 2017
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2007-8498
DOI - 10.21555/top.v0i53.823
Subject(s) - destiny (iss module) , nazism , politics , marxist philosophy , political philosophy , philosophy , appeal , face (sociological concept) , epistemology , civilization , meaning (existential) , religious studies , sociology , law , social science , political science , physics , astronomy
In Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism (1934) and in the face of the rise of Nazism in Europe, Levinas calls the European civilization, in particular, the Jewish, Christian, Liberal and Marxist traditions, to confront the emergence of the elementary philosophy of Hitlerism. In this short article, the philosopher urges those traditions to trace their identities back to their sources, intuitions and original decisions, in particular, to the "spirit of freedom" that animates them and to their conceptions of human destiny (Levinas, 1990, p. 64).However, in contemporary reception on Levinas’ reflections there’s a methodological and political discussion about how to interpret this appeal to a common "spirit" or "feeling" shared by European traditions, as well as about the meaning that acquires the elementary and threatening counterpart that is Hitlerism. This paper aims to inquire into some aspects of this methodological and political debate aroused by interwar writings of Levinas.