This research intends to show that the concept of Ethics, according with the
philosophical thought of Emmanuel Lévinas, consists of a rupture with Being. Along
our exposition, we will show that the concept of Ethics as understood by the author in
focus is the same as his definition of humanism, concerning the responsible
relationship between Oneself and the Other. In this relationship, the Other, unique in
its alterity, addresses Oneself in its unicity, taking in consideration the fact that
Oneself is irreplaceable in its responsibility to Other. From this relationship as the
starting point, the human conscience is built and therefore, a meaning to Being,
because through it Oneself breaks with its conatus, with the persistence of being,
present in all beings and consisting in a nonsense due to the fact that all will perish.
The invocation and interpellation made by Other, which, being unique, is infinitely
Other, therefore impossible to be taken as theme or content to the conscience builds
a language which is primarily answer and not transfer of knowledge, as sustained by
the Ontology incorporated by the actual streams of thought which integrate
contemporary anti-humanism, that puts the relationship between Being and thought
like primordial and not the relationship between Oneself and Other. Based on this,
we will show that, against the contemporary anti-humanism, Lévinas states Ethics or
humanism as First Philosophy, this is Metaphysics, taking in account the rupture of
Being by the humanity of man.
KEY WORDS: Ethics; humanism; language; Metaphysics; Ontology.
