The tents of Shem and the speech of Japheth. On translation and the Other in the writing of Emmanuel Lévinas
The tents of Shem and the speech of Japheth. On translation and the Other in the writing of Emmanuel Lévinas

Summary/Abstract: We will be exploring the way in which, in the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas, the primordial Saying, as unique word, God, signifies as trace in the face of the Other. If the manifestation of the Face is the first discourse, then the infinity that reveals itself in the Face implies that, in the relation to the Other, in the primordial addressing of the Other, language is not anymore a place of the meaning, but instead it is the meeting with the Other that sets the condition of possibility of any meaning, because this meeting is not a fact of the subject, but is primarily provoked by an appellation originating from the Highness. The relation between the original Saying and the Said that introduces the meaning is analogous to the irreversible translation of the Septuagint, being in a first time a translation of the unsayable, and secondly a call to responsibility. Greek is worked from the inside by the word of the Other, that is, the word of the Hebrew, and what gets translated into Greek is merely the trace of the Infinity. The translation is a movement without return, just like the voyage of Abraham who leaves behind his homeland and his possessions in order to follow the word of God.

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