Abstract

Levinas’s use of Descartes exceeds the boundaries of his ethical work and dates back to his first commentaries on phenomenology. In his earliest texts, Levinas mentions Descartes with the sole purpose of proving the superiority of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s description of existence. However, his first personal phenomenological essays began to turn to Descartes’ cogito and idea of infinity, and view them as relevant perspectives on the essence of subjectivity. In 1957, Levinas singles out the idea of infinity and claims that its unique formal structure is of ethical nature. In 1961, Totality and Infinity further defines the principles supporting this use of Descartes through a commentary of the first three Meditations on first Philosophy. For Levinas, the cogito defines a self-sufficient existence that corresponds to the enjoyment of life. In turn, the idea of infinity is an absolute responsibility to the other whose discourse is a teaching and a demand. Therefore, Levinas’ use of Descartes consists in treating his Meditations as an authentic phenomenological description of transcendence, expressed in the form of a complex relation between the ego and the infinite whose truth lies in ethics.