Emmanuel Levinas. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.
Emmanuel Levinas’s Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (1969) describes how subjectivity arises from the idea of infinity, and how infinity is produced in the relationship of the self with the other.
Levinas says that ontology enacts a relation with being which reduces the other to the same. Instead, Levinas takes an approach which does not reduce the other to the same, but which views the separation between the same and the other as inherent to the relation with Being.
Levinas explains that exteriority is how the finite individual transcends being merged into infinity. Exteriority is how the individual transcends being merged into a totality. Exteriority is a relation whereby the self is separated from the Other. Exteriority is a relation whereby the being of self and Other cannot be totalized or merged into infinity because it is absolutely separated.
Exteriority is produced by interiority. Interiority is a subjective relation in which a being refers to itself. Subjectivity allows the self to view itself as separate from the Other. Exteriority is a state of being in which the self cannot be merged into a totality.
The separation of the self from the Other is a form of non-participation by the self in the being of the Other. When the self is separated from the Other, the self no longer derives its being from the way in which it refers to the Other. The self that no longer participates in the being of the Other derives its being from itself.
The self must be separated from the Other in order to have the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity is itself a form of transcendence of the relation to the Other. Exteriority is achieved by having the idea of infinity.
Levinas says that the idea of infinity is not a representation of infinity.1 Infinity overflows the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity is an overflowing of finite thought by infinite content. Infinity is produced by the overflowing of the intellect.
The production of infinity cannot be separated from the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity is the mode of being of infinity.2
Infinity is produced as a revelation to the self of the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity does not proceed from the self, but is revealed to the self. Infinity is revealed as the infinite being of the absolutely other.
To have the idea of infinity is to be aware of the infinity of the Other. Thus, the idea of infinity maintains the exteriority of the Other.
The Other is absolutely other than the same. The Other is everything other than the self. The Other is infinite being which overflows the idea of infinity. The Other is an infinitely transcendent reality.
Levinas says that the idea of infinity requires the separation of the same from the Other. This separation is a fall of the same and Other from totality. The level of separation is a level of fallenness. But this fall from totality produces infinity.
The idea of infinity is moral in that it is an idea of what the finite being lacks in relation to infinity. Thus, the self can transcend this relation by a welcoming of the Other. Indeed, to have the idea of infinity is to have already welcomed the Other.3 The welcoming of the Other is the beginning of moral consciousness.4
Exteriority is a form of subjectivity, but is not a selfish protest against totality. Subjectivity is a welcoming of the Other.
Levinas distinguishes between the idea of totality and the idea of infinity. The idea of totality seeks to integrate the other and the same into a totality, but the idea of infinity maintains the separation between the other and the same. According to Levinas, the idea of totality is theoretical, but the idea of infinity is moral.5
Multiple beings can exist in a totality, but Being itself is exterior to totality. The truth of Being is a being situated in a subjective field of exteriority.6
The face of the Other overflows the idea which the self has of the Other. The face of the Other transcends the distinction between form and content, because it reveals the idea of infinity to the separated being. The revelation of the face of the Other to the self is necessary for separation.
The face of the Other is the way in which the Other is revealed to the self. The face of the Other is the exteriority of its Being.
The face to face relation of the self to the Other is an ultimate situation. The face to face is an ethical relation, and calls the freedom of the self to responsibility.
The face to face relation of the self to the Other does not integrate the self and Other into a totality. Nor does the face to face relation integrate the self and Other into each other. The self and Other are transcendent to their face to face relation.
Levinas explains that the face of the Other speaks to the self. Language begins with the presence of the face, with expression. Language is a system of interaction whereby meaning is derived from the face of the Other.
Signification requires the presence of exteriority. Signification arises from the way in which the face of the Other is revealed to the separated being. Signification does not arise merely from the need or desire of the self for exteriority, or because the self is lacking something. Signification is derived from the signs which the Other reveals in speaking about the world.
The Other is the signifier, manifested in language by the production of signs which propose objective reality or which thematize the world.7 The Other itself cannot be thematized. Thematization cannot make an object of the Other.
Truth is a modality of the relation between the same and the other. Truth is the modality in which the same speaks to the other, though they are separated. Truth emerges from a dimension of exteriority.
The face which the absolutely other presents to the self is not a negation of the self. The presence of the Other does not contradict the freedom of the self. The presence of the Other endows the self with a responsible freedom.
The mode of being for the Other is not a negation of the self. Being for the Other does not mean that the self disappears in a totality. Being for the Other is a state of exteriority. Being as goodness is being for the Other. Goodness brings transcendence of the face to face relation, in that the being of the self affirms the being of the Other.
Levinas admits that the assertion that a separated being derives its being from itself is a form of atheism. The independence of the separated being also introduces the problem of causality. The problem to be solved is how cause-and-effect relations can exist between separated beings, and how absolute separation can explain objective reality.
Totality and Infinity is a profound and challenging work of philosophy. Levinas provides an interesting viewpoint on the problem of modern alienation in that he explains how separation can be understood as a basic condition of Being.
1 Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, translated by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p. 27.
2 Ibid., p. 26.
3 Ibid., p. 93.
4 Ibid., p. 84.
5 Ibid., p. 83.
6 Ibid., p. 291.
7 Ibid., p. 96.