Levinas's Reception of the Mythic

The article examines the primacy of the ethical relationship in the works of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas claims that ethics begins with the movement away from the elemental, which is associated with participatory modes of being, including myth. In this sense, Levinas is promoting a “from … to” thesis, where myth is seen as prerational and horrific. Nonetheless, myth yet plays a powerful, if fugitive, role within Levinas's text, mediating the ethical relationship with the Other, a relationship that is portrayed by Levinas mythically.