Emmanuel Levinas’ Renewal and Transformation of Plato’s Desire
Part of the legacy of Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity lies in the
prominent distinction, although already made in Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star of
Redemption, between the Same and the Other. The Same is defined by an intellectual
cognition of entities in terms of their being. In contrast to this, Levinas
phenomenologically describes the other in terms of a face that is never present,
“knowable” only in the trace. By the trace, the realms of the Other and the Same
“interact”.
Even though critiques of Western Philosophy in terms of the Same are prominent
within Totality and Infinity, Emmanuel Levinas wrote the book as an attempt to “return to
Platonism” .1 In fact, when summarizing the content of Totality and Infinity for the
Annales de l’Université de Paris, Levinas stated that “To show that the first signification
emerges in morality . . . is to restrict the understanding of the reality on the basis of
history; it is a return to Platonism” (121). Far from simply breaking from the
philosophical tradition, Levinas contends that Totality and Infinity is a return to morality
as first philosophy. To accomplish this feat, Levinas needed to restrict philosophy based
in historical investigation. This move naturally lead him toward Plato’s ahistorical
idealism. However, Levinas was not content to merely renew an ancient philosophical
tradition. He sought to both renew and transform the Platonic tradition.
This opens a quagmire. How can Levinas both break from the philosophical
tradition while at the same time describe his philosophy as a return to its foundation, i.e.
Platonism? Totality and Infinity, in Levinas’ own words, is a “return to Platonism”. Yet
1
Reprinted and Translated in Peperzak, Adriaan. Platonic Transformations: With and after Hegel,
Heidegger, and Levinas. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997, p.121.
2
at the same time, it is one of the most severe critiques of the philosophical tradition. So
how can Totality and Infinity simultaneously break from the philosophical tradition while
“return[ing] to Platonism”?
Both Levinas’ break with the philosophical tradition and his return to Platonism
can be seen in a close reading of Totality and Infinity. The book reveals both the break
with philosophy and the return to Platonism primarily in two specific issues. First is
Levinas’ renewal and transformation of Plato’s doctrine of the Same and the Other. Far
from simply adopting Plato’s doctrine in renewed form, Levinas radically transforms it
into the basis of an entirely new argument. Second is Levinas’ renewal and
transformation of Plato’s analyses of desire found in the Symposium. Again, far from
simply adopting desire as the need to fulfill something that is lacking, Levinas
incorporates this concept into his own idea of an insatiable desire for the Other. By
examining both Levinas’ renewal and transformation of the Platonic tradition we better
understand how Levinas both breaks with the philosophical tradition while at the same
time renewing and transforming its Platonic foundation.
The Same and the Other
At the heart of Totality and Infinity is the distinction between the Same and the
Other. This distinction provides the structural basis for Levinas’ argument. 2 On the one
hand, the Same is the realm of the philosophical tradition. It seeks to reduce everything
2
One need only to glance the table of contents of Totality and Infinity to see that its argumentation is
structured around the doctrines of the Same and the Other. The Same is the realm of philosophy inspired
by Plato. The Other is the realm of radical exteriority. Philosophy is the movement of the reduction of all
objectivity to subjectivity, all exteriority to interiority. That which is different or other than the ego is
assimilated, digested, and reused in the name of the ego. In this way, the ego becomes master over all
things, subjecting all things to itself. This consumption of the exterior by the ego is the enjoyment of the
world that characterizes the state of humanity.
3
exterior into the interior realm of cognition. Descartes’ famous statement in his second
meditation, “Cogito ergo sum”, perfectly summarizes this movement. For Descartes, the
subject exists as interior thought. Only on the basis of thought can a “bridge” of the
exterior be crossed. This “bridge” is not a way for the interior to become exterior. Quite
the opposite, the “bridge” allows for the exterior to be interiorized in terms of human
cognition. Thus, in Descartes’ Meditations we see the assimilation of the exterior into the
interior of human cognition. On the other hand, the Other is that which is ontologically
different from the Same. The Other is not a realm, space, place, time, or object that can
be reduced to human cognition. The Other defies any attempts at assimilation. It differs
radically from anything the Cartesian subject can cognize. Although the distinction
between the Same and the Other is integral to his argument, it is by no means original to
Levinas. The distinction between the Same and the Other finds its first systematic
exposition in the philosophy of Plato. Aware of this origin, Levinas purposely renews
and transforms Plato’s distinction, making it the basis of his own philosophy.
Plato employs the distinction between the Same and the Other as the basis of his
own philosophy. However, he spells out this distinction in very few places. It is
primarily found in his later dialogues, specifically, the Timaeus3 and the Theaetetus.4
In the Timaeus, Plato contextualizes the distinction between the Same and the
Other within a dialogue regarding the creation of the universe. In that discussion, Plato
3
Plato. "Timaeus." In Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, edited by Mark C. Cohen, Patricia Curd,
C.D.C. Reeve, 546-76. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000.
4
Plato. Theaetetus. Translated by M.J. Levett. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1992.
4
describes that the universe was made from a “mixture of the Same, and then one of the
Different, in between their indivisible and their corporeal parts, divisible counterparts”
(35ab). Of these three elements that comprise the universe, the Same, The Different or
Other, and the mixture of the two, it is the Same that serves as the paradigm for universal
ordering. In fact, Plato goes on to describe how the mixtures were made into a “uniform
mixture” by “forcing the Different . . . into conformity with the Same” (35ab). At the
cosmic level, the distinction between the Same and the Other was transgressed when the
Other was forced into conformity with the Same. The Other, as non-ordered, was forced
into the rational ordering of the Same. In the Timaeus, Plato describes the distinction
between the Other and the Same in an account of creation. In this account, the Other was
forced to conform to the ordering of the Same.
Emmanuel Levinas adopts Plato’s assimilation of the Other to the Same. But
instead of using the reduction at the cosmic level, he employs the reduction at the micro
level. For Plato, the reduction ultimately meant that chaos would be conquered by
rational human cognition. The Different was reduced to something that human beings
could comprehend through reason. However, for Levinas, the Same describes the
philosophical traditional insofar as it was characterized by the reduction of all exteriority
to the interiority of the subject.5 Even though he adopts the Platonic assimilation of the
Other to the Same, Levinas employs assimilation as characteristic of the Same. Levinas
would transform the distinction between the Same and the Other by arguing that within
the realm of the Same, the reduction of exteriority to interiority happens
phenomenologically prior to human cognition.
5
Levinas characterizes the Same as the inner psychic life of the subject. The Same is separated from
everything else insofar as everything exterior is reduced to the interior life of the subject. As Levinas states,
“The separation of the Same is produced in the form of an inner life, a psychism” (54).
5
In Totality and Infinity, Emmanuel Levinas argues against Martin Heidegger that
the primary means of knowing is not utility, but enjoyment. As where the philosophical
tradition from Plato through Descartes up to Husserl, emphasized objective rational
cognition as the means for arriving at truth, Martin Heidegger deviated from this standard
in Being and Time6 by arguing that the primary means of arriving at the truth was
utilizing objects in accordance with their function. Using the tool in accordance with its
proscribed function brought humanity closer to its truth than objective reasoning.
Levinas agreed that objective cognition is a deviation from a more primal understanding
of the world, but he did not accept Heidegger’s analysis wholesale. Instead, Levinas
argued that Heidegger was mistaken in his emphasis upon utility. Addressing Heidegger
head on Levinas states the following:
The things we ‘live from’ are not tools, or even implements, in the Heideggerian
sense of the term . . . they are always in a certain measure – and even the
hammers, needles, and machines are—objects of enjoyment . . . ‘living from . . .
“ delineates independence itself, the independence of enjoyment and of its
happiness, which is the original pattern of all independence (110).
Human beings do not use objects simply because they are suited for particular functions.
The ultimate purpose for using those objects is to attain happiness. Humans use tools
because they enjoy them. For Levinas, enjoyment is more primal than utility. The
subject does not simply use the world, the subject enjoys it. Through enjoyment the
subject establishes itself as separate not only from anonymous being but also other egos. 7
6
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time: A Translation of Sein Und Zeit. Translated by John Macquarrie and
Edward Robinson. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, A Division of Harper Collins Publishers, 1962.
7
Levinas’ extremely interesting article “On Escape” addresses this issue more fully. In it he argues that
Western Philosophy is wrong to seek a fusion with beings. Instead the point is to escape the clutches of
anonymous being. Levinas, Emmanuel. On Escape. Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2003.
6
Unlike Descartes,8 who establishes subjectivity on objective thinking, Levinas argues
that the ipseity of the subject is established on the basis of its assimilation of the exterior
into the interior through enjoyment. Instead of a being a “thinking thing”, the subject is
established primarily by enjoying its world.
In the Theaetetus,9 Plato describes the difference between the Same and the Other
as relative to the difference between the materiality and immateriality. As materiality has
one type of determination, immateriality has another. Likewise, the Same has its own
determination that differs from the Other. Unlike the Timaeus, where the Other was
brought into conformity with the Same, here Plato allows the Same and the Other to rest
in a dialectical tension. Neither the Same is reduced to the Other nor the Other to the
Same. Instead, they are related to each other through their differentiation. As Plato has
Theaetetus say:
You mean being and not-being, likeness and unlikeness, same and different; also
one, and any other number applied to them. And obviously too your question is
about odd and even, and all that that involved with these attributes; and you want
to know through what bodily instruments we perceive all these with soul (185c)
Socrates responds further down:
. . . while the soul considers some things through the bodily powers, there are
others which it considers alone and through itself (186a).
Even though the material and immaterial are related in difference, the immaterial is
higher in ontological reality. The immaterial can function both independent of the
material and also within its confines. But the material is dependent upon the immaterial.
That is why Socrates tells Theaetetus that some things are known by the soul through the
8
Contra Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, thinking is not the foundation of subjectivity. Instead,
Levinas argues that “it is not knowing but enjoyment, and, as we shall say, the very egoism of life” (112).
Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Donald A
Cress. 4th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1998.
9
Plato. Theaetetus. Translated by M.J. Levett. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1992.
7
powers of both the body and the soul but others are by the soul alone. The soul, as
immaterial, can know things that body by itself cannot (185c). Even though the Same
and the Other have different ontological determinations, they are related to each other in
their differentiation.10
Emmanuel Levinas both renews and transforms the distinction between the Same
and the Other found in Plato. Levinas renews the Platonic emphasis upon the reduction
of the Other to the Same. He renews the idea of the reduction of the Other to the Same
but employs it as the reduction of the exterior to the interior, an event that characterizes
the philosophical tradition as the realm of the Same. In the Same, everything exterior is
reduced to the interiority of the subject. Levinas also transforms the distinction by
claiming an absolute alterity of the Other in respect to the Same.
The Other remains infinitely transcendent, infinitely foreign, his face in which his
epiphany is produced and which appeals to me breaks with the world that can be
common to us, whose virtualities are inscribed in our nature and developed by our
existence. Speech [the relation between the Other and the Same] proceeds from
absolute difference (194).
The Other is irreducible to human cognition; it cannot be known objectively. It is not a
thing to be assimilated into the subject’s interior cognition. In Sensibility and
Singularity: The Problem of Phenomenology in Levinas, John Drabinski argues that here
also Levinas is drawing from the Platonic tradition. He argues that in the relation
between the Same to the Other described in terms of intentionality, the subject intends
10
In the Sophist (254b-256d), the Other and the Same are irreducible. The categories of the Same and the
Other are discussed in while debating the properties of motion. The Same and the Other are never reduced
nor related to each other. Unlike the Theaetetus, the distinction between the Same and the Other designate
ontological categories that are neither linked dialectically nor coupled “to[gether] as straightforward
contradiction” (Peperzak, 114). The only “link” that the Same might have with the Other consists in their
absolute separation (Peperzak, 114). The Sophist describes the distinction between the Same and the Other
as irreducible unrelated ontological categories.
8
toward an exterior that surpasses “the boundaries of possible cognition” (112).11 Levinas
renews Plato’s distinction between the Same and the Other by making the reductive
aspects characteristic of the Same. He transforms Plato’s distinction by making each
category exist in an absolute separation of alterity. Levinas recontextualizes Plato’s
distinctions within his own philosophy.
The renewed and transformed doctrine of the Same and the Other demonstrates
Levinas’ claim that Totality and Infinity is a “return to Platonism”. In Totality and
Infinity Levinas both renews the Platonic doctrine of the Same and the Other but at the
same time transforms it into his own philosophy. For Plato, the Same was the privileged
realm which the Other was made to conform in the Timaeus. The Theaetetus used the
Same and the Other to describe different ontological determinations related in their
differences. Levinas renews this tradition by making the distinction between the Same
and the Other the organizing principle of his philosophy. The Same is characterized by
the reduction of all exteriority to interiority. The Other is characterized by an absolute
alterity from the Same. In Totality and Infinity, Emmanuel Levinas both renews and
transforms Plato’s distinction between the Same and the Other.
Plato, Levinas and Desire
Using the distinction between the Same and the Other as their basis, both Plato
and Levinas make desire the focal point of their philosophy. Desire is the medium
through which the subject transcends the realm of materiality (Plato) and the Same
11
Drabinski, John E. Sensibility and Singularity: The Problem of Phenomenology in Levinas. Edited by
Dennis J. Schmidt, Suny Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 2001.
9
(Levinas) into the immaterial (Plato) and the Other (Levinas). In the Symposium12,
Aristophanes details how desire arises from the lack of one’s soul mate. In Totality and
Infinity, Levinas describes how desire is operative in both the realm of the Same and in
the transcending movement the subject to the Other. A close reading of the Symposium
reveals the nature of desire in Plato’s philosophy of transcendence. It also reveals that
nature of desire as arising from an unfulfilled need. Plato’s desire is renewed and
transformed by Levinas’ philosophy of transcendence as a movement from the Same to
the Other.
The Symposium describes desire as emerging from an unfulfilled need. The
speech of Aristophanes explains that humans were originally attached to each other.
However, after an unsuccessful attack upon the gods, they were punished by being split
in half (190b). Out of this split “the innate desire for human beings for each other
started” (191c). Humans began innately desiring each other in order to “make one out of
two and to heal the wound of human nature” (191c). The split of humans into two
separate beings created a need for something that was lacking. Edith Wyschogrod
describes this split as the boundary between the immanent and the transcendent.13 The
soul mate, the other half of the immanent being remains transcendent from the subject.
Humans desire to complete themselves by bringing the transcendent back into
immanence. On account of this, it is not surprising to see Plato describing human life as
characterized by desire seeking to fulfill its most innate need. Desire seeks to fill what is
needed. As Socrates remarks to Agathon:
12
Plato. The Symposium, Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Group, 1999.
Wyschogrod, Edith. Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics. New York: Fordham
University Press, 2000, p.127.
13
10
So this and every other case of desire is desire for what isn’t available and
actually there. Desire and love are directed at what you don’t have, what isn’t
there, and what you need (200e1-3).
Even though it first appears in the speech of Aristophanes, Socrates embraces the idea
that desire arises out of a lack of fulfillment. Desire seeks was it not actually there but is
available. Plato’s philosophy of desire begins with desire emerging from an unfulfilled
need within humanity.
Through an analogy of a staircase, Plato explains that the ultimate fulfillment of
human desire occurs in the transcendence of the soul into the Good. Building on the idea
that desire seeks to fulfill what it lacks, Plato describes a staircase of desire in which the
fulfillment of one desire directly leads to another. These desires continue to increase
until the soul transcends the material into the Good. The staircase begins with desire for
other human beings then moves to ontologically higher objects ending in a desire for the
good itself. As Diotima14 tells Socrates:
Like someone using a staircase, he should go from one to two and from two to all
beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices, and from
practices to beautiful forms of learning which is of nothing other than that beauty
itself so that he can complete the process of learning what beauty really is (211c).
The desire became innate to humanity when humans were split fails to find its ultimate
fulfillment in another human being. Instead, it moves past that human onto ontologically
higher and more beautiful objects. This movement continues until the soul sees beauty
itself. But notice the role of learning plays in this movement.
Learning as a cognitive event marks the transition from one step to another that
ultimately leads to transcendence. As mentioned earlier, desire seeks to fulfill a need. In
For an excellent discussion of the role of Diotima in Symposium with reference to Plato’s influence upon
Levinas’ doctrine of materinity see: Sanford, Stella. "Masculine Mothers? Maternity in Levinas and Plato."
In Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas, edited by Tina Chanter, 180-202. University Park:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001, p. 191-195.
14
11
the case of a human being, its ultimate need is its return to the Good. The memory of the
soul’s prior vision of the Good, which Plato describes in the Pheadrus15, remains within
the human soul. Thus, when the soul sees a beautiful body it desires to make that body
its own. But making an external object a part of the soul is a cognitive activity (211c).
The soul, as immaterial, sees the idea of the body. That idea triggers the memory of the
Good causing the soul to desire what it once possessed but now needs, the vision of the
Good. The body is assimilated into the soul through the cognition of its idea. But the
cognition of the idea does not ultimately satisfy the need for the Good. As a result the
soul pursues beautiful practices and so forth until it reaches the Good itself. But
nonetheless, the desire of the soul finds its ultimate fulfillment a cognitive transcendence
of objective reality into Goodness itself.16
Emmanuel Levinas renews Plato’s doctrine of desire as assimilation by objective
cognition in his doctrine of the Same. As mentioned earlier, the Same is the realm of
assimilation of exteriority to interiority. Also mentioned earlier was that Plato described
this assimilation taking place in objective cognition. Contra Plato, Levinas described the
assimilation of objects not as cognition but as enjoyment. It is through enjoyment that
the subject encounters the truth of the object. It is also by enjoyment that the subject
appropriates its world for its own purpose. This appropriation, assimilation is a direct
renewal of Plato’s doctrine of desire as cognitive assimilation. However, Levinas alters
15
Plato. Phaedrus. Translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Co., 1995.
16
Like Plato and Descartes, Levinas describes the good as beyond being. To reach the good one must
transcend the realm of the Same cf. Critchley, Simon. "Introduction." In The Cambridge Companion to
Levinas, edited by Simon adn Robert Bernasconi Critchley, 1-32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002.
12
the doctrine by claiming that the truth of the exterior is not encountered cognitively but as
it is enjoyed.
The transformation of Plato’s doctrine of desire occurs along a different path.
Instead of confining desire to the Same, Levinas makes desire the means of transcending
the Same. He transforms the transcending aspects of Plato’s desire from cognitive
assimilation to desire for exteriority. As Levinas states:
Metaphysics or transcendence is recognized in the work of the intellect that
aspires after exteriority, that is, Desire. But the Desire for exteriority has
appeared to us to move not in objective cognition but in Discourse . . . (82).
Desire for exteriority is the work of the intellect as it seeks the Other. The difference
between the Same and the Other mentioned previously now plays a significant role. The
radical alterity of the Other transforms desire from a simple assimilation to desire that
opens to the unknown, the radically different. Contra Plato, Levinas does not see desire
as the fulfillment of the subject’s need. Desire is not based upon a lack that humanity
feels as an innate desire. Instead, this desire is for something radically different from the
subject and its needs. Levinas transforms Plato’s desire from assimilation into a
movement toward the radically Other.
Conclusions
Levinas’ Totality and Infinity is both a renewal and transformation of the Platonic
tradition. He renews Plato’s distinction between the Same and the Other. He transforms
it by making the Same and the Other absolutely different instead of assimilating the Other
to the Same. He also renewed and transformed the Platonic emphasis upon desire as the
vehicle toward transcendence. Levinas renews that tradition by making desire the central
focus of transcendence. However, he transforms the tradition by making the Same, in the
13
subject, transcend into the Other. Levinas’ philosophy can be read as a “return to
Platonism” insofar as Levinas both renews and transforms the Platonic tradition
Even though Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy is a sharp critique of the Western
Philosophical tradition, it remains a work within the Western Philosophical tradition.
Levinas’ work is thoroughly influenced by Plato. His arguments are philosophical
arguments dealing with philosophical problems. His methodology is philosophical. And
his conclusions are philosophical. A reading of Levinas that emphasizes his critiques of
philosophy to the neglect of his debt to Plato fails to see the profound impact the
philosophical tradition plays in his philosophy.
Levinas renews and transforms the Platonic tradition in his book Totality and
Infinity. When read closely, the book reveals a significant debt to the philosophical
tradition that it sets out to critique. Even though he is one of its sharpest critics,
demonstrating Levinas’ renewal and transformation of the Platonic tradition allows us to
better appreciate Levinas’ place within Western Philosophy.
14
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Drabinski, John E. Sensibility and Singularity: The Problem of Phenomenology in
Levinas. Edited by Dennis J. Schmidt, Suny Series in Contemporary Continental
Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time: A Translation of Sein Und Zeit. Translated by John
Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, A
Division of Harper Collins Publishers, 1962.
Katz, Claire Elise. "Reinhabiting the House of Ruth: Exceeding the Limits of the
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———. Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998.
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15
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