Levinas was deeply influenced by [[Edmund Husserl]] & [[Martin Heidegger]], whom he met at the university of [[Freiburg]], as well as by [[Judaism|Jewish religion]]. He was one of the first intellectuals to introduce to France the work of Heidegger and Husserl, producing both translations of their work (e.g., Husserl's ''Cartesian Meditations'') and original philosophical tracts.
==War experiences==
During the German invasion of France in [[1940]], Levinas was reactivated with his military unit, which was quickly surrounded and forced to surrender. Initially sent to a prisoner of war camp in France, he was soon transferred to a camp on German soil near Hannover, where he remained until the end of the war.
Although protected by the [[Third Geneva Convention]] from deportation to a [[concentration camp]], Levinas was segregated in special barracks for Jewish prisoners, who were forbidden any forms of religious worship. Life in the camp was as difficult as might be expected, with Levinas often forced into wood-chopping duties.
Other prisoners report seeing him make frequent jottings in a notebook, which would later be shaped into his breakthrough treatises "De l'Existence à l'Existant," a landmark appreciation and criticism of the philosophy of Heidegger, and "Le Temps et l'Autre" (both 1948).
In the meantime, his wife was shielded from deportation through the efforts of the philosopher [[Maurice Blanchot]] who also risked his own well-being seeing to it that Levinas was able to keep in contact with his immediate family through letters and other messages. Other family members were not so lucky: his mother-in-law was deported and never heard from again, while his father and brothers were murdered in Lithuania by the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]].
==Philosophy==
* [http://espacethique.free.fr Espacethique : Emmanuel Levinas and the ethic of responsibility]
[[Category:1906 births|Levinas, Emmanuel]][[Category:1995 deaths|Levinas, Emmanuel]][[Category:20th century philosophers|Levinas, Emmanuel]][[Category:Continental philosophers|Levinas, Emmanuel]][[Category:French philosophers|Levinas, Emmanuel]][[Category:Phenomenology|Levinas, Emmanuel]][[Category:Postmodern theory|Levinas, EmmanuelEthics]][[Category:Social philosophy|Levinas, EmmanuelPhilosophy]]
[[Category:People]]
