Quest for the holy - ethics as an optics in the philosophical writings of Emmanuel Levinas

februar 2020–februar 2024

Veiledere

• Knut Alfsvåg, VID

• Magdalene Thomassen, VID

About the project

Throughout time immemorial, groups and individuals have marveled over the major questions of human existence and its complexity. The metaphysical thinking of the Western world has to a large extent been characterized by ontology and by Hamlets great question, but Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) gives a “solution”, contrast or maybe its extension with another possibility. The philosophy of Levinas is not merely about “to be or not to be”, but more about being other than and beyond existence. The challenging authorship of Emmanuel Levinas also tries to answer questions about the possibilities of ethics and how a subject must be constructed for an ethics to be possible altogether. Ethics is a first-philosophy, but also the optic whereby/wherein existence, subjectivity, intersubjective encounters etc. gets a clearer vision. Ethics is thus the foci where the quest for meaning and the holy – the absolute secluded – begins. Levinas interest in “the holy” and “the holiness of the holy” has impact on modern day philosophy of religion, with its focus on subject, transcendence, ethics, religion and God.

Does Levinas succeed in his efforts to show “the holy” through ethics as an optics in a meaningful way? Does he provide us with resources that help us “see”, “focus”, and maybe even find God through the same “Levinasian optic” in our present day?

Educational background

MA in Diakonia, VID Oslo, 2012

MA in Theology and Mission, FIUC Oslo, 2010