A Trace of the eternal return? Levinas and neoplatonism

ENDespite the predominantly materialist turn of late modern philosophy, the "death of God," the deconstruction of metaphysics, and the poststructuralist critique of philosophies of identity, one still finds vestiges of Neoplatonism in contemporary philosophy and theology. Even Heidegger, at least in his early thought, is unable to vanquish completely the specter of this ancient though potent philosophy;1 and although he ultimately abandons his attempt to develop a fundamental ontology, the impact of that project, and with it that of Neoplatonism, continues to reverberate throughout much subsequent thinking. One who reveals the abiding influence of Neoplatonism is Heidegger's former student and later critic Emmanuel Levinas, whose philosophy signals a marked retrieval of specific Plotinian themes, reinterpreting and appropriating them in the development of his ethical metaphysics.