Contestation of Western Ontology

Levinas and Kierkegaard share a suspicion of the Western ontological trradition.If is not entirely wrong to say that what Levinas found so problematic in Heidegger echoes what Kierkegaard found so problematic in Hegel.Interestingly,their critiques of each respective philosophical forerunner are made in the name of ethics.For Kierkegaard,Hegels totalizing system was unable to account for the singularity of the individual.For Levinas,the all-encompassing way in which Heidegger understood the ontological difference never allowed for the possibility of alterity.Even though Levinas claimed that Kierkegaard asserted the singularity of the I while he,Levinas,assertedd the singularity of the Other,they sing with own voice when it comes to resistance to totality,thematization,and systematicity.Thus, they jointly contest the absorption of the Other into the Same./from "Kierkegaard and Levinas'',2008,edited by J.Aaron Simmons and David Wood/.