Abstract

This article focuses on the subject of cultural diversity within and throughout the works of Emmanuel Levinas, especially those he devoted to the matter of the nature of meaning and sense. Indeed, for Levinas the essence of every expression and every work which can be classified as «cultural» may be understood only by referring it to the wider question of sense in its relation to being. This original perspective allows Levinas to make suggestive reflexions on the nature of cultural dissemination, a phenomenon which is strictly inherent to the manifestation of being and, at the same time, a typical pathology of our days. Levinas suggests in his works to move beyond the notion of «cultural difference» – which is eventually meant to disappear into the ontological indifference – to approach the dimension of «ethical difference», which only is capable to offer the ultimate meaning, as well as the essential guide in human existence because only the «naked face of the Other» actually exists regardless of every possible cultural influence. This overcoming by Levinas’ thought is examined in this paper in the light of the relationship between culture and ethics, which perhaps should be considered in terms of complementarity rather than opposition