Levinas made the ethical relation to the Other foundational to existence itself

Evidence

This relationship is more fundamental than the self, more fundamental than consciousness, more fundamental even than Being — and it brings an unavoidable ethical obligation. Ever since Husserl, phenomenologists and existentialists had being trying to stretch the definition of existence to incorporate our social lives and relationships. Levinas did more: he turned philosophy around entirely so that these relationships were the foundation of our existence, not an extension of it. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 628

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clearly states Levinas’s core move: the Other-relation precedes and grounds self, consciousness, and Being.
• XREF: Connects to the reading purpose of how existentialism relates to phenomenology — Levinas inverts Husserl’s project. — connects to: Levinas made the Self-Other relationship philosophy’s central concept — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 625; Levinas’s face-to-face ethics rejected Heidegger’s collective Being-with — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 627; Levinas’s life spans modern phenomenology from Husserl to ethics of the Other — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 989 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Levinasian responsibility precedes knowledge and intention unconditionally. #corroborates (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 511
• Levinas’s life spans modern phenomenology from Husserl to ethics of the Other #complicates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 989
• Hegel makes being-for-others a necessary condition of being-for-itself #corroborates (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 686
• Levinas described the ‘there is’ as emptiness that feels full #complicates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1359