Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Repository | Series | Book | Chapter

202615

Essence and disinterest

Emmanuel Levinas

pp. 3-20

Abstract

If transcendence has meaning, it can only signify the fact that the event of being, the esse, the essence,1 passes over to what is other than being. But what is Being's other? Among the five "genera" of the Sophist a genus opposed to being is lacking, even though since the Republic there had been question of what is beyond essence. And what can the fact of passing over mean here, where the passing over, ending at being's other, can only undo its facticity during such a passage?

Publication details

Published in:

Levinas Emmanuel (1991) Otherwise than being or beyond essence. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 3-20

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-7906-3_1

Full citation:

Levinas Emmanuel (1991) Essence and disinterest, In: Otherwise than being or beyond essence, Dordrecht, Springer, 3–20.