Time and the Other: An Investigation of Early Levinas's Thought of Time

Levinas argues that there is no time within the solitude of existing. The instant when the subject burdened with itself is an atomic present, not yet time. The future which is revealed by death is also merely an element of time. The movement of temporalization begins in the event of the preservation of the ego in transcendence, which is defined by Levinas "the encounter with the Other." Therefore, time is no longer the internal time-consciousness, but the openness to the Other. In this article, by investigating Levinas' early works On Escape, Existence and Existents and Time and the Other, we try to clarify the basic logic of Levinas's discourse on time and discuss the presuppositions behind it.