"The Dignity of the mind": Levinas’s reading of Husserl

ENStaying with the theme of phenomenology, James Dodd shows how Levinas’s early studies of Husserl serve as the best point of departure for helping us to understand the significance of Levinas’s relation to the phenomenological tradition and his subsequent transformation of it. Dodd’s examination of five fundamental themes in Husserl’s phenomenology (intentionality, self-evidence, sensation, egoic life, and the transcendental reduction) provides valuable insights into Levinas’s mature thinking, not only in relation to Husserl, but also in connection with ethics. In retrospect, despite the fact that Levinas is frequently regarded as a “post-phenomenological thinker,” it can be seen that Levinas represents a continuation and development of Husserl’s thought rather than a clean break with it.