An-Archy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas’s Political Thought

Emmanuel Levinas’s phenomenologies of the face of the Other have opened new vistas for contemporary ethical thought, but their implications for political thought have remained largely unexplored. In An-Archy and Justice, William Simmons systematically examines Levinas’s political thought from its foundations to its implications to fill this theoretical void. Levinas worked against the predominant egocentric traditions in Western philosophy, claiming that in order to respond concretely to all Others the ego must rely on political institutions, yet these institutions must always be held in check by the original ethical relationship with the Other. In his penetrating and insightful analysis of Levinas’s work, Simmons argues that Levinas’s philosophy provides a new foundation for political thought by grounding the liberal state on an anarchical ethics. An-Archy and Justice is a ground-breaking and thought-provoking analysis of a profoundly creative thinker.