Tag, Nacht, Zwielicht. Eine Annäherung an Fink und Levinas

Abstract

Day, Night, Twilight. An Approach to Fink and Levinas This contribution presents Eugen Fink’s and Emmanuel Levinas’s thought along the metaphors of day and night. Both Fink’s cosmology and the philosophy Levinas developed in Totality and Infinity are read as locating the human being between day (light) and night. The present discussion of their philosophies is guided by the question of how Fink and Levinas, who share the criticism of the metaphysics of light, try to overcome it. Special emphasis is put on the notions of unity and difference as well as the notion of totality. Further, both try to break the totalizing tendency of light by radically thinking the infinite. First, Fink’s cosmology is presented. In a second step, Levinas’s thinking from Totality and Infinity is discussed. A juxtaposition of both attempts marks the conclusion of the paper.

Keywords

• ontology
• difference
• alterity
• infinity
• cosmology
• metaphysics