Pathos of Ethics : Examining the Concept of Desire in Emmanuel Levinas' Totality and Infinity

In this essay, I examine the conception of metaphysical desire as understood by Emmanuel Levinas within his work Totality and Infinity. The main problematic of the work is whether a relationship with an absolute Other, understood as a positive infinity, that is posited beyond the realm of the I, is possible, or whether the totality of the same is inevitable. I present metaphysical desire to the Other as a crucial point in Totality and Infinity, which in its endless-growing hunger beyond satisfaction becomes an infinity within a finite subject, therefore sets up the relationship between the I and the infinite Other, as a concretization of the idea of infinity. In addition, I construe, in the light of the critique of Levinas by Jacques Derrida and other research, an understanding of metaphysical desire as a pathos of ethics that interrupts the spatio-temporality of the same by being a spatio-temporality which opens the I and directs it toward the Other without abolishing their distance. In this neverending movement the egoism of the I is discontinued and peace becomes possible without resulting in totality. Instead, the movement toward the infinite Other is a movement toward an uncharted future, a movement which consists of an infinite dialogue with the Other