Abstract

The paper analyses the concept of sensibility from the philosophical perspective of Levinas, with particular reference to Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, wherein he develops a kind of “transcendental aesthetics”, namely a conception of sensibility quite different from that which is found in previous work. Through a comparison with Husserl’s analysis of temporality, Levinas proposes a notion of temporality as “diachrony”, placing the sensibility beyond time, in a past that was never present – only in this way the subject is able to feel the responsibility for the “other”. Levinas also describes the self as a subjectivity “of flesh and blood”, which is affected by the other and therefore characterized by passivity – more passive than the “passive synthesis” mentioned by Husserl – and vulnerability.