Lévinas, disinterest and enthusiasm

Abstract

Lévinas revives the tradition of disinterest and redefines the classical search for a disinterested subject as a radical dis-interest of the subject by and for the other. He both redefines and reinhabits the traditional grounds of disinterest. While he rejects the sympathetic imagination as a synthesis, he retains the link between disinterest and rationality. He repeats the classical opposition between disinterest and enthusiasm and, at the same time, gestures to a rational enthusiasm or inspiration. Lévinas's remarkable reworking of disinterest relies ultimately both on an idea of God and an ethical, rational and inspired Judaism. It is a dis-interest without good conscience: a harsh transc..