Husserl and Levinas: The Ethical Structure of a Philosophical Debt

The article examines Levinas’s evolving relationship with Husserl. It shows how the critical dialogue with Husserl and, specifically, the transfiguration of Husserl’s key notion of “intentionality,” grounds the maturation of Levinas’s ethical thinking. It does so by unpacking the manner in which the Levinasian critique of Husserl is tied to a concept of “debt” through which Levinas understands his long-lasting relationship with the founder of phenomenology.