Unforeseen History

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-95) placed ethics at the foundation of philosophy; during his life, which spanned almost the entire twentieth century, he witnessed devastating events that could not have been more demanding of that philosophical stance. *Unforeseen History* covers the years 1929-92, providing a wide overview of Levinas's work--especially his views on aesthetics and Judaism--offering examples of his precise thinking at work in small essays, long essays, and interviews. The earliest essays in *Unforeseen History* discuss phenomenology, a subject Levinas introduced to a great many French thinkers, including Jean-Paul Sartre. In his prescient 1934 essay "Some Thoughts on the Philosophy of Hitlerism," moreover, he confronted a philosophy that had yet to manifest itself fully in cataclysm.