ABSTRACT
The considerable prominence accorded to the work of Emmanuel Lèvinas in recent decades met by no less vigorous critique. Critics such as Gillian Rose, Judith Butler, Dominique Janicaud, and Alain Badiou have argued that Lèvinas is ultimately not a philosopher for whom the rigour of conceptual or even phenomenological analysis is paramount but a religious dogmatist captivated by the authority of a revealed law that is merely posited. The fact that prominent neo-Orthodox Jewish thinkers also point to the absolute givenness of the law and likewise deny any productive relation between Judaism and philosophy does not make this view any more compelling, neither historically nor conceptually. The affinity between Martin Heidegger and a certain philosophical interpretation of Judaism transpires on two intersecting planes, that of methodical critique and that of content. There is one point, however, where Lèvinas, Judaism and Heidegger converge that Marlène Zarader does not mention, and it the most significant of all.
