Levinas questioning Plato on eros and maieutics

ENIn a 1961 outline of the doctoral thesis that would become Totality and Infinity, Levinas provocatively characterized his project as "a return to Platonism." This is certainly a surprising description of a book that carries out a radical critique of the entire history of ontology and whose project one would therefore expect to be anti-Platonist. Yet the influence of Plato is indeed evident throughout Totality and Infinity, not only in the explicit citations of Plato's texts, which exceed in number the references to any other philosopher, including Descartes, but also, and even more importantly, in the very frequent and unattributed use of Platonic ideas and language. But why this appeal to Plato? And what is the nature of this "return" to Platonism, assuming that it is not simply a repetition? These are difficult questions to answer because, as will be seen, both Levinas' appropriation and his critique of Plato are characterized by a certain ambiguity. Once both the ambiguity and its source are recognized, however, a genuine Auseinandersetzung between Plato and Levinas becomes not only possible but indispensable.