ABSTRACT
Emmanuel Levinas is responsible for at least two inaugural transformations of contemporary philosophical culture. Firstly, from 1930 onwards, he introduced Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggarian thought to the French philosophical scene. Secondly, Levinas transformed phenomenology through the introduction of otherness—’the traumatism of the other’. The chapter proposes that a way beyond what appears an impasse between Levinas and S. Freud, is to develop a practice which retrieves the ethical dimension of Freud’s sensibility. Freud’s psychoanalysis was a hybrid discipline which set out to subvert the modern contract. The hyper-responsibility of Levinasian ethics, even if such an ethical responsibility were possible, seems to rule out an ethically founded politics, or ethical practice in a group situation. Levinasian ethics clarifies how and why psychoanalysis works in all its various transformations and proliferations. Christianity transforms Platonism by exposing the soul to the mysterum tremendum of Christ.
