DE Weekly: Levinas, First Philosophy, & the Ethical Infinite
Below is an archived email originally sent on July 6, 2026.
Levinas, First Philosophy, & the Ethical Infinite
In Existentialism, the Self and the Other are two major focuses, accounting for one of the most important areas of study of the philosophy. The Self represents one’s own consciousness and being, the most fundamental way a being-in-the-world exists apart from others. The Other represents another free consciousness, totally separate from yours, that disturbs the subjectivity of your existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for birthing the phrase “Hell is––other people!” in his iconic play No Exit, and elaborating on the intricacies of the Self and the Other in Being and Nothingness.
What did he mean, however, when he said Hell is other people? Was he simply sharing his disdain for everyone around him? No, despite how many employ this quote; Sartre was highlighting the agony one might feel knowing that your identity is perpetually tied to the way someone else perceives you.
Let us try and understand it from this perspective: we all want to feel as though we are fully in control of our own person, our own existence––our Self.
But, when we introduce the Other into the equation, the perceptions that they have about our Self and the way they choose to exercise their own subjectivity reduces us to an object in their world. And, for Sartre, that’s all we can ever be to the Other: an object.
This happens mainly because when a Self interacts with the Other, the illusion of absolute subjective control over one’s existence is shattered.
This encounter with the Other Sartre coined as “The Look,” the moment you realize someone is gazing at you. When you realize someone’s gaze is fixed on you, you realize you are stripped of your freedom: you have become an object, feeling a profound sense of loss of subjectivity.
This is why Sartre called such a look an adversarial gaze.
When you are alone, you can imagine yourself as the subject in your own existence, your own perception ruling your being. However, when you encounter the Other and undergo the Look, you become an object of their experience and of their perception.
Simone de Beauvoir explained that this experience accounts for objectification in the sexual and political sense, particularly as it applies to women throughout history.
As is true and I have tried to emphasize in newsletters past, though, not all Existentialists think alike, and one notable one I will write about today famously broke from the Heideggerian and Sartrean line of thinking: Emmanuel Levinas.
Levinas was also French, of Jewish descent, and wrote about Existentialism and philosophy as well as metaphysics and ontology.
For Levinas, ethics was “first philosophy.” To him, this meant that, above all (or perhaps, under all, fundamentally underpinning) other philosophy was ethical responsibility.
In other words, before anything else, we are first of all called into existence to be unconditionally obligated to serve others. Our first act as a Self, then, should be to consider the Other.
One of Levinas’s concepts he invented to explain this obligation was le Visage, or the Face. Not the physical face, per se; more so in the same way that Sartre meant the Look.
When you encounter the Other, Levinas wrote, their Face issues a silent command to the Self that is universally understood, as it is “asymmetrical and infinite,” as he explained. This Face is telling you: you are responsible for the needs of the Other, responsible for their suffering and aloneness, whether or not they meet the same responsibility toward you.
For Sartre, the philosophical oppression of the Other was one of knowledge: the Other cannot fully know the Self and the Self cannot fully know the Other, because two subjects are bound to reduce each other to objects, limiting the freedom of each other and causing existential nausea.
For Levinas, knowledge of the Other is not the primary relationship. Instead, it is one of ethical obligation.
He agrees, in fact, with Sartre in that the Other is fundamentally unknowable. And yet, this particular vulnerability is exactly what commands infinite responsibility from us toward them.
In a roundabout way, Sartre and Levinas find themselves at the same conclusion, albeit with differing takeaways: the Self is held hostage by the Other.
But while for Sartre, this leads to a loss of subjectivity and freedom and culminates in existential despair, Levinas argues for an altogether different lesson: you are infinitely, inescapably responsible for the care of the Other.
Levinas was not blind to the way this makes us feel, however. In On Escape, he acknowledged the same nausea and shame that come with this obligation that Sartre did, noting that a dominating characteristic of existence is defined by our innate desire to escape our radical freedom and responsibility.
But, his recommendation in light of that feeling was not to escape it, but instead to embrace it.
If ethics truly is first philosophy, then that much makes sense, and we would do well not to despair at this level of obligation. Before we can confront other unknowns about our own existence, Levinas wrote, we must first confront our ethical obligation to care for the Other.
For someone who did not explicitly acknowledge the existence of God, Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy is evocative of Catholic social teaching. Catholic doctrine teaches that the absolute highest form of love we can enact, above all other forms of love, is to will the good of the Other.
“Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.” –– Emmanuel Levinas
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
Willing the good of the Other as I celebrate the Fourth of July.
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