He perceives the role of philosophy (or theology) as challenging the desire to possess the other, questioning the impulse toward domination that emerges so often in the human experience of wanting. Our need, instead, is to recognize our deepest human longing as a matter of appreciating the “distance” and unique character of what is different from us. Our profoundest desire, says Levinas, “tends toward something else entirely, toward the absolutely other.” From this perspective, then, “possession” inevitably destroys, while true eros simply delights. It does not try to control what it cannot
...more
