ENEmmanuel Levinas and Karol Wojtyla are two thinkers who state clearly the non-reducibility of consciousness to intentionality and who, moreover, refuse to accord this peripheral awareness a merely preparatory state of inchoate potentiality relative to intentionality. They present what I believe should be seen as complementary visions of the nature and function of this global subjectivity. Both relate a new, elevated status of non-thematic consciousness to the primacy of the ethical.