Totality and Infinity is Levinas’s foundational philosophical work and one of the central ethical texts of the twentieth century.

Written in the shadow of war, genocide, and totalising political systems, it proposes a radical shift, that Meaning does not begin with the self or with systems of knowledge, but with the irreducible presence of the Other. The Other being a relation that cannot be fully contained, mastered, or absorbed.

The book operates against closed systems of thought, whether philosophical, political, or metaphysical. Its influence runs across continental philosophy, theology, political theory, and contemporary ethics, but it remains resistant to easy summary.

This is a demanding book, best approached slowly, and it rewards readers interested in responsibility, alterity, and the limits of reason itself.