ABSTRACT
Chapter 6, Totality and Infinity: Order and Ordination, continues the examination and presentation of Totality and Infinity. It does so by following the broad itinerary of the text itself, first focusing on the Egoic “I” or the “same,” whereafter, the “other” and the “face” introduces the central Levinasian concern of ethics as first philosophy. The chapter makes the point that inasmuch as psychology is most attracted to this text, Totality and Infinity, it has nonetheless given shorter shrift to the exposition of the egoic I in the world. It consequently spends some time examining precisely those aspects of enjoyment, the elemental, the dwelling, labor and possession, and the feminine before it turns to the other and infinity. Here Levinas’s propositions of the face, freedom and responsibility, ethical resistance, language and discourse, as well as justice are presented and explained. Questions of or from psychology are interspersed throughout the chapter, as are practical or “real-world” examples with which to illustrate and/or “clarify” the philosophical.
