Contemporary philosophy has reasserted the belief that philosophy has practical tasks. This turn reflects an understanding that the life of the individual and the community is not molded merely by personal needs and fortunes but also by the strength of dominant ideas. For Nicolai Hartmann, ideas are spiritual powers belonging to the realm of thought, but thought has its own strict discipline an…
Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, first published in 1974, is the second of Levinas's mature philosophical works, the first being Totality and Infinity (first published in 1961). Otherwise than Being is essentially the sequel to Totality and Infinity, further elaborating the rich and comprehensive philosophy of ethical metaphysics that Levinas had introduced in the earlier work. At the h…