Death as Boundary: On a Key Question of Emmanuel Levinas

In contrast to idealistic denial and Heidegger’s absolutization of death Levinas tries to interpret death on the background of the ethical relation towards fellow men. The boundary which death presents to life he interprets as the experience of passivity of subject in front of the absolute otherness of death. The subject also experiences such passivity in ethical relation towards other people whose otherness and difference nevertheless invert into ethical non-indifference and responsibility of the subject. In this ethical relating Levinas finds the source of meaning, which is alienated from Being, and starting from which he tries to derive new meaning for his own death as well as for the death of my fellow man.