La traduction politique. A propos de certains enjeux du “s’exposer en grec” d’Emmanuel Levinas

Translation characterized Levinas’s works since his formation, when he was a young translator of Husserl. But it is also the topic discussed by the philosopher in some talmudic readings, where he wonders about the possibility and about what is at stake of the “s’exposer en grec”. The thesis sustained is that this exposition is, first of all, a translation, surely different from a purely linguistic one, which is characterized by its political value. “S’exposer en grec” means to declare to the Greek world, or to philosophy, new ideas and it means, most of all, to translate the original sociability that causes the impossibility for every man to be without the other. Therefore, writing in Greek, Levinas tried to find a way to transfer to everybody this truth for the man which is neglected by the Western social and political system as model of “pure” Humanism.