Translated by Bettina Bergo Stanford University Press Stanford California 2000 GOD, DEATH, AND TIME Emmanuel Levinas Support for the translation was provided by the French Ministry of Culture. Originally published in French in 1993 under the title Dieu, la mort et le temps © Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1993 Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2000 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levinas, Emmanuel. [Dieu, la mort et le temps. English] God, death, and time / Emmanuel Levinas ; translated by Bettina Bergo. p. cm. — (Meridian) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8047-3665-0 (hardcover ; alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8047-3666-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy. 2. Death. 3. Time. 4. God. I. Title. II. Meridian (Stanford, Calif.) B2430.L483 D5413 2000 194—dc2i 00-059523 Original printing 2000 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Typeset by James P. Brommer in 10.9/13 Garamond and Lithos display Contents Translator's Foreword Foreword by Jacques Rolland PART I. DEATH AND TIME Initial Questions —Friday, November 7, 197$ What Do We Know of Death? —Friday, November 14, 197$ The Death of the Other [D'Autrui] —Friday November 21; 197$ An Obligatory Passage: Heidegger —Friday, November 28, 197$ The Analytic of Dasein —Friday, December 5, 197$ Dasein and Death —Friday, December 12, 197$ The Death and Totality of Dasein —Friday, December 19, 1975 Vlll Contents Being-Toward-Death as the Origin of Time —Friday, January 9, 1976 42 Death, Anxiety, and Fear —Friday, January 16, 1976 46 Time Considered on the Basis of Death —Friday, January 23, 1976 50 Inside Heidegger: Bergson —Friday, January 30, 1976 54 The Radical Question: Kant Against Heidegger —Friday, February 6, 1976 57 A Reading of Kant (Continued) —Friday, February 13, 1976 62 How to Think Nothingness? —Friday, February 20, 1976 66 Hegel's Response: The Science of Logic —Friday, February 27, 1976 71 Reading Hegel's Science of Logic (Continued) —Friday, March 5, 1976 76 From the Science of Logic to the Phenomenology —Friday, March 12, 1976 79 Reading Hegels Phenomenology (Continued) —Friday, March ip, 1976 84 The Scandal of Death: From Hegel to Fink —Friday, April p, 1976 88 Another Thinking of Death: Starting from Bloch —Friday, April 23, ip76 92 A Reading of Bloch (Continued) —Friday, April 30, IP76 97 A Reading of Bloch: Toward a Conclusion —Friday, May 7, 1P76 101 Contents Thinking About Death on the Basis of Time —Friday, May 14, 1976 To Conclude: Questioning Again —Friday, May 21, 1976 PART II. GOD AND ONTO-THEO-LOGY Beginning with Heidegger —Friday, November 7, 197$ Being and Meaning —Friday, November 14,1975 Being and World —Friday, November 21, 1975 To Think God on the Basis of Ethics —Friday, December $, 197s The Same and the Other —Friday, December 12, 197$ The Subject-Object Correlation —Friday, December 19, 197$ The Question of Subjectivity —Friday, January 9, 1976 Kant and the Transcendental Ideal —Friday, January 16, 1976 Signification as Saying —Friday, January 23, 1976 Ethical Subjectivity —Friday, January 30, 1976 Transcendence, Idolatry, and Secularization —Friday, February 6, 1976 Don Quixote: Bewitchment and Hunger —Friday, February 13, 1976 X Contents Subjectivity as An-Archy —Friday, February 20, 1976 172 Freedom and Responsibility —Friday, February 27, 1976 176 The Ethical Relationship as a Departure from Ontology —Friday, March $, 1976 180 The Extra-Ordinary Subjectivity of Responsibility —Friday, March 12, 1976 185 The Sincerity of the Saying —Friday, March 19, 1976 190 Glory of the Infinite and Witnessing —Friday, April 9,1976 195 Witnessing and Ethics —Friday, April 23, 1976 198 From Consciousness to Prophetism —Friday, April 30, 1976 202 In Praise of Insomnia —Friday, May 7, 1976 207 Outside of Experience: The Cartesian Idea of the Infinite —Friday, May 14, 1976 213 A God "Transcendent to the Point of Absence" —Friday May 21, 1976 219 Postscript by Jacques Rolland 225 Notes 243 Translator s Foreword The two lecture courses published here—"Death and Time" and "God and Onto-theo-logy"—were edited and annotated by Jacques Rolland, who was a student of Emmanuel Levinass at the Univer sity of Paris, Sorbonne. Under Levinass direction, Rolland wrote his master's thesis on Dostoevsky (1974). The thesis was later published as Dostoievski et la question de VAutre (Lagrasse: Editions Verdier, 1983). In the 1980s, he became both friend and companion to Le- vinas. Rolland has edited and introduced numerous works on and by Levinas. In 1984, the third issue of the journal Les Cahiers de la nuit surveillee, entitled Emmanuel Levinas, appeared, edited and in troduced by Rolland. In the same year, he coauthored, with Silvano Petrosino, a monograph on Levinass work entitled La verite no- made: Introduction h Emmanuel Levinas (Paris: Editions la Decou- verte). He edited Levinass first original philosophical work (1932), entitled De Vevasion (Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1982). With Jean Greisch, of the faculty of theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris, Rolland edited the proceedings of the colloquium at Cerisy- la-Salle (1986) devoted to Levinas. It was published under the title Emmanuel Levinas: Lethique comme philosophic premiere (Paris: Edi tions du Cerf, 1993). Most recently, Rolland published a long study of Levinass philosophy, Parcours de VAutrement: Lecture dEmmanuel Levinas (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000). In the present volume, Rolland is the author of all notes in his XI xn Translator's Foreword foreword and in the lectures, aside from those notes and portions of notes indicated as mine by square brackets and the abbreviation "—Trans." In general, I have augmented his notes silently (with out the use of brackets) only in regard to citations. English quotations cited from foreign-language editions identi fied in the notes are my translations. Quotations cited from English editions are the work of those translators unless otherwise indicated. I wish to extend grateful thanks to Robert Bernasconi, Carolyn Bonacci, The Center for the Humanities of Loyola College, Andre-Pierre Colombat, Inge Hoffmann, Lisa Hochstein, Claire Mathews-McGinnis, Michael Naas, Robert Gibbs, Adriaan Peper- zak, Jean-Michel Rabate, Gary Shapiro, Marion Wielgosz, and Edith Wyschogrod. —Bettina Bergo