Richard I. Sugarman – författare

The Promise of Phenomenology: Posthumous Papers of John Wild includes articles that remained unpublished during Wild's lifetime, a journal, wherein he recorded conversations with major British and Continental philosophers during 1957-8, as well as a masterful exposition and commentary on Emmanuel Levinas's book Totality and Infinity. It also contains a complete bibliography of all of Wild's unpublished writings open for research at the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University. More personal and less reserved than Wild's published scholarship, yet containing Wild's characteristic clarity and rigor, the writings in this book cover such subjects as a phenomenological approach to moral relativism, an exploration of lived time, and reflections on the other and religious transcendence. The Promise of Phenomenology gives a lively picture of a master philosopher at work conveying the vitality and importance of philosophy to everyday life.

The Promise of Phenomenology: Posthumous Papers of John Wild includes articles that remained unpublished during Wild's lifetime, a journal, wherein he recorded conversations with major British and Continental philosophers during 1957-8, as well as a masterful exposition and commentary on Emmanuel Levinas's book Totality and Infinity. It also contains a complete bibliography of all of Wild's unpublished writings open for research at the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University. More personal and less reserved than Wild's published scholarship, yet containing Wild's characteristic clarity and rigor, the writings in this book cover such subjects as a phenomenological approach to moral relativism, an exploration of lived time, and reflections on the other and religious transcendence. The Promise of Phenomenology gives a lively picture of a master philosopher at work conveying the vitality and importance of philosophy to everyday life.

Presents an overview of what the authors see as the roots of Western traditional thought: Homer, the tragedians, Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible. Each section of the book offers lucid intepretations of a major figure through discussion of seminal texts.

A Levinasian commentary on the Torah.The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95) was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. This book interprets the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Levinas's religious philosophy. Richard I. Sugarman examines the Pentateuch using a phenomenological approach, drawing on both Levinas's philosophical and Jewish writings. Sugarman puts Levinas in conversation with biblical commentators both classical and modern, including Rashi, Maimonides, Sforno, Hirsch, and Soloveitchik. He particularly highlights Levinas's work on the Talmud and the Holocaust. Levinas's reading is situated against the background of a renewed understanding of such phenomena as covenant, promise, different modalities of time, and justice. The volume is organized to reflect the fifty-four portions of the Torah read during the Jewish liturgical year. A preface provides an overview of Levinas's life, approach, and place in contemporary Jewish thought. The reader emerges with a deeper understanding of both the Torah and the philosophy of a key Jewish thinker.