Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate the central philosophical importance of the notion of subjectivity to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Whereas Levinas scholarship has focused predominantly on Levinas's recognition of the extent to which philosophy has left alterity unthought, it is the primary interpretive claim of this dissertation that this focus has come at the expense of Levinas's analysis of the substance of subjectivity, what Levinas calls "saintliness." The dissertation seeks to correct this oversight with readings of Levinas's two major works, Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than being or Beyond Essence, which reveal the importance of saintliness to Levinas's ethical renewal of metaphysics. These readings are supplemented by an evaluation of the moral significance of the saint from the perspectives of both contemporary moral theory and contemporary continental philosophy. This evaluation includes discussion of the work of David Heyd, Susan Wolf, and Edith Wyschogrod, among others. Grounded in the phenomenological horizons of Levinas's thinking, the thesis aims to establish a framework able to explain and defend the internal movement of that thought, while shedding light on its significance for contemporary philosophy and society