Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Husserl and Levinas

Abstract

Some commentators on Levinas's phenomenology hold the view that the phenomenological movement from Husserl to Heidegger, and then from the latter to Levinas, can be described as a process of unidirectional development. According to this view - one that IS widespread in the phenomenological world - Husserl's phenomenology was overcome by Heidegger's phenomenology, which has again been overcome by Levinas's phenomenology of the face. This view was not initiated by commentators, but by Levinas himself in some of his major works, such as Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence.