The anti-odyssey of the subject : the anthropology of Emmanuel Lévinas

The Anti-Odyssey of the subject is an attempt to reconstruct and interpret Emmanuel Lévinas’s anthropology. In this work subjectivity is characterized by three fundamental figures: hypostasis, desire and substitution, which are not three separate and autonomous figures but three stages in the formation of Lévinas’s concept of subjectivity. Hypostasis is a condition for desire and desire precedes substitution. The subject must first take possession of being in order to overcome being towards what is "other than being". The Anti-Odyssey does not take place in Ithaca. Its plot is situated between the homeland and the promised land, between ontology and ethics. The egological subject is first enclosed in the realm of self-identification. The subject’s exposure to the influence of the Other is crucial for the identity of the self. In the end the deepest core of subjectivity turns out to be responsibility defined as substitution. From hypostasis to substitution, from ontology to ethics, from logos to ethos - this is the briefest summary of The Anti-Odyssey of the subject.