The concept of death in Levinas’s philosophy

Abstract

Bearing in mind that the issue of death is present in L?vinas?s entire oeuvre, L?vinas?s philosophy of death requires specific and layered interpretative strategies that pay special attention both to the insights that are continuously present in his texts, as well as to ambivalent aspects and tensions. This article starts from the fact that L?vinas offers an alternative phenomenology of death as a paraphenomenon and ?mystery?. It also points out the way in which L?vinas deviates from Heidegger?s thanatology, emphasizing, among other things, that our relationship to death is not (only) beingtowards- death, that is, that the Other plays a key role when it comes to our mortality. The article also analyzes L?vinas? understanding of the relationship between temporality and death. The violence of death is also taken into account, which, according to L?vinas, makes it impossible to interpret death using abstract ontological categories. Special attention is paid to the question of one?s own death, with particular attention to the problem of loneliness. At the end of the article, institutions and love are interpreted with which, according to L?vinas, it is possible to overcome death.