Abstract
The relationship of Jean-Paul Sartre and Emmanuel Lévinas could be described as a missed encounter. Although they were contemporaries, their meetings and references to each other are few and do not testify a comprehensive knowledge of the works of the other philosopher.
At first sight this seems surprising, since both philosophers have a lot in common, for example a common phenomenological heritage, coupled with the attempt to go beyond phenomenology. Likewise, there are many shared motifs in their philosophies, some of which bear structural proximity (for example, the phenomenon of nauseé in Sartre and the description of the il y a in Lévinas, as well as the recourse to an ontological event).
Last but not least, both demand an encounter with the other, instead of a derivation from the self or constitution through the ego, and both insist on his radical otherness. At second sight, however, their reflections seem to be marked by enormous contrasts, for example, Sartre's reflections on ethics, which ultimately remains unattainable, possessed an enormous distance to an ethics as the first philosophy in Lévinas.
Even the encounter with the other could not end more differently for both philosophers: Thus, for Sartre, the gaze of the other implies the failure of every interpersonal relationship, whereas Lévinas sees in the face of the other the beginning of his ethics. As related as the motifs may seem, they are ultimately different in their respective execution.
Both thinkers are characterized by a simultaneous thematic proximity and distance that is rarely peculiar to two philosophers. The scientific aim is thus to examine the philosophical relationship between Sartre and Lévinas and thus to facilitate a dialogue in which the proximity and distance of their respective theories can be sharpened.
The explication of the different answers given by both authors to thematically related questions reveals a tension between the two philosophies themselves. This tension is not necessarily to be read as pure contradiction.
Possibly, it allows the individual phenomena to which both philosophers devoted themselves to be viewed in a new light, so that complementarities become visible. It offers the opportunity to catch up on a dialogue that Lévinas and Sartre should have conducted but never did.