Autrement qu’etre ou au-dela de L’Essence (Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence)

La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/very good. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Autrement qu’etre ou au-dela de L’Essence (Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence); Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, 1974. Half-title + TP + [v] – viii = table matieres + [ix] – x = Note Preliminaire + 1 leaf + [3]-233, Octavo. First Edition.
$250

Otherwise than being or beyond essence is a sequel to Levinas's Totality and Infinity. An immensely challenging and sophisticated work, it is generally considered Levinas's most important contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding the closure of metaphysical discourse, much commented upon by Jacques Derrida. The work contains a fundamentally original theory of the ethical relationship and describes the face-to- face relationship, sensibility, responsibility and speech. The process of the revelation of Being as laid out by modern phenomenological ontology is severely criticized, as the author claims that the ultimate account of these phenomena is not in ontology, the exposition of the meaning of Being, but in a paradoxical discourse, in a skeptical mode, of what is beyond Being.

CONDITION: In publisher's original blue cloth with light blue, printed dustjacket, lightly chipped. There is a trace of a small library marking to the bottom of the dustjacket spine. Bright blue cloth boards. Small stamp of previous owner to front free endpeper. A very good copy of a scarce book.


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