God, Death, and Time

Author: Emmanuel Levinas
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: In his dialogues with his two contemporaneous thinkers, Heidegger, Bloch, as well as traditional thinkers Aristotle, Hegel, and particularly Kant, on death and time, Levinas developed and deepened the reflection on the connection between death and time: considering time from the perspective of death, rather than inscribing death onto the web of time. Subsequently, he inverted Heidegger's judgment: if philosophy initially confuses God with existence, it is not because the latter is forgotten, but first and foremost because the former is obscured. Therefore, the task of thought is to liberate God from the influence of onto-theology.