Abstract

Most attempts to articulate the relevance of Levinas’ philosophy to the project of rethinking nature, ecology and ‘the environment‘ in view of the perceived impending planetary crisis, focus on his key ethical concepts such as the face-to-face, transcendence, absolute alterity and Infinity. The implicit anthropocentrism of this dimension of his schema is often found to be a decisive impasse regarding the question of the ethical status of the non-human. This chapter explains why recurrent focus on the ethical relation and ‘the beyond’ should balanced by attention to his philosophy of existence; his empiricism, his analyses of individuation, immanence and Totality, in order to uncover Levinasian resources for rethinking nature, ecology the environment such that their relevance to the human/ non-human relation might be revealed. Through a reading Existents and Existence and Totality and Infinity focussing on the ‘dark side’ of the face-to-face, the chapter finds Levinas’ notion of the milieu to be the key to this possibility.