Proximity in distance: Levinas and Plotinus

ENIt may appear strange to find the name of Emmanuel Levinas, a phenomenolo- gist and an advocate of alterity, beside that of Plotinus, who (from Levinas' perspective) would be considered a metaphysician of identity. My intention is not to dismiss the differences between them but to show that a close reading of their philosophies, at least according to some decisive texts, helps us to understand how the same has a relation with the other that preserves both the identity of the same and the alterity of the other. The other here refers to what Vladimir Jankelevitch calls the "absolutely other, always-wholly-other" (absolument autre, toujours-tout-autre). I want to show that the same's relation to the other consists of proximity in distance.