Emmanuel Levinas – the Favoured Philosopher

Abstract

It is a fact, that John Paul II – who may be justly called a philosopher-Pope – in his book Przekroczyć próg nadziei (To cross the threshold of hope) singles out the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. The present article that consists of two parts shows the reasons for this.

John Paul II, like the French philosopher, considers that a complete confinement within the bounds of reason – the culture of immanence – results in sick democracies, and ultimately in totalitarianisms (part I).

The experience of our century and millennium, coming to their ends, points to the fact that reason needs faith. The Peter of our times thinks that contemporary culture needs the God of the Bible, it needs personalism stemming from the Bible, whose distinguished representative is E. Lévinas (part 2).