Discovering the Other with Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas, a French-Jewish philosopher born in Lithuania, considered ethics as the first philosophy. The only book by Levinas translated into Persian is ‘Time and the Other,’ which was translated from German to Persian by Maryam Hayatshahi. In the book’s introduction, Hayatshahi mentions, ‘I chose this book as the first translated work of Levinas for Persian readers to introduce them not only to the type and style of his philosophy but also to his precision in discussing and analyzing important philosophical issues.’ Masoud Alia, an Iranian scholar specializing in Levinas’s thought, wrote his doctoral dissertation titled ‘The Condition of the Possibility of Ethics in Levinas’s Thought’ under the supervision of Abdolkarim Rashidian and Shahin Avani. He has written this book on Levinas to provide further insights into this great philosopher. Masoud Alia (born 1975) is an Iranian philosopher, translator, and assistant professor of the Philosophy of Art at Art University. Alia’s translation of ‘The Phenomenology Movement’ won the Book of the Year Award. He has a BA in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran and an MA in Philosophy from Shahid Beheshti University. Alia has conducted research on topics such as the scope of mystery and its reduction to issues in Gabriel Marcel’s philosophy, the originality of experience, and transformation in the metaphysical sources of Marcel’s philosophy. In July 2008, he completed his PhD in Philosophy with a dissertation titled ‘The Condition of the Possibility of Ethics in Levinas’s Thought’ at the Institute of Philosophy and Wisdom under the guidance of Abdolkarim Rashidian.