Toward a Phenomenology of Fatigue in the Early Levinas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25247/P1982-999X.2026.v26n1.p%25pKeywords:
fatigue, hypostasis, subjectivity, timeAbstract
This article revisits the phenomenological analysis of laziness and fatigue in the early work of Emmanuel Levinas, treating them as decisive philosophical phenomena for understanding his initial ontology. Far from being interpreted as psychological states or empirical dispositions, laziness and fatigue are examined as modes of refusal of existence, in which a lassitude is directed not toward particular objects but toward existence itself. Situated within the horizon of the il y athese experiences reveal a rupture with the continuity of temporal flow and bring the instant to the fore as an originary event. The article argues that, by instituting a delay in relation to the future, fatigue makes possible the emergence of the present and prepares the appearance of hypostasis, that is, of an existent that assumes existence. In this way, the analysis shows how these phenomena contribute to a non-causal genealogy of subjectivity in Levinas’s thought.
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