Levinas as a Negative Theologian?


There is an odd, but I suppose understandable, tendency to  “theologize” negative dialectics.  Both Adorno and Levinas are often read from a negative theological standpoint. For Adorno, such a view is tempting, but ultimately (and problematically) assimilates a view of Adorno as the other-wordly, potentially conservative metaphysician/aesthete, who, having been disillusioned by politics, sought refuge in the beyond. I’ve recently read through Michael Fagenblat’s A Covenant of Creatures: Levinas’s Philosophy of Judaism with interest.  Really, how can one not want to read on after this opening sentence: “Another book on Emmanuel Levinas?”  However, I’m not sure how convinced I am of his claim in the second half of the book that Otherwise than Being is best understood as a work of negative theology, or rather, as  a Judaic ethical negative theology.  Continue reading