Inter-subjective time: Emmanuel Levinas's interpretation of time

Focusing on the writings of Emmanuel Levinas, the dissertation examines Levinas's understanding of time as inter-subjective. A discussion of Levinas's interpretation of time is needed since he does not provide a systematic theory of the subject, and his views are scattered throughout his works. The thesis explored and defended in the dissertation is that even though we find in different periods of Levinas's writings apparently inconsistent views of time, a coherent and consistent structure of time can be extracted from his thought. Examining Levinas's views against the background of two of his most influential predecessors, Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger, leads to conclusions not only concerning the nature of Levinas's understanding of time, evolutionary rather than contradictory, but also concerning Levinas's unique views concerning the relation between time and ethics. Levinas presents an innovative interpretation of time, which can be considered as an attempt to overcome the dissatisfaction with the egological interpretations offered by Bergson and Heidegger. Levinas accepts the relevance of time to the human structure of existence, but at the same time does not consider the time pertinent to our existence among other people as a degradation of inner-time. Since Levinasian time occurs in the framework of intersubjective relations, it has an ethical meaning, which is manifested in the relation between responsibility and time, as well as in the relation between time and the formation of the self.