The good as beyond being : the Platonic inspirations of Lévinas ’s ethics

In the twentieth century Emmanuel Lévinas rediscovered Plato’s idea of the good as beyond being. This idea, which became fundamental in his philosophy, provided him with something that could give ethics a metaphysical dimension. For Lévinas the good is completely transcendent, and being is identified with radical immanence. If the good is beyond being, then ethics must take place between two poles: the immanence of being and the transcendence of the good. For Lévinas being is synonymous with a life directed to satisfying the ego. His ethics is an appeal to overcome this horizon to discover the good as responsibility for another person. The good as beyond being is thus the deepest and the ultimate rule of the ethics of responsibility. Furthermore, Lévinas’s idea of substitution, which gives responsibility primacy over the good, has its roots in a radical interpretation of Plato’s idea of "epekeina tes ousias".