Possible and infinite

Annotation

If usual dichotomous thinking leads us to meditate the Possible in contrast to the notion of the Real, this course aims to understand the Possible under the light of its difference with the concept of Infinity (the Real being already devoid of its traditional meaning through phenomenology).

From the moment Infinity cease to be understood as something negative, incomplete and purely potential, simple adjective that with a lot of imagination we could just preach about some hardly countable events, from that moment on Infinity requires a positive definitional effort. We thus find -and this is the basis of our course- the notion of Infinity stated by Emmanuel Levinas as one of the few positive definitions of this term: Infinity is the new system of meaning that constitutes the "otherwise than being." Infinity is the movement that goes beyond being, its phenomenon and all possible experience.

But then we must ask: Is this a legitimate use of the term? Is Levinas turning Infinity into a technical language decipherable only inside his thinking? We will try to answer by tracking back the Possible and the Infinite, making at least three basic stops before reaching Levinas: Aristotle, Kant and German Idealism, and Husserl’s phenomenology.

This extension at the level of content will be balanced by a narrow bibliography and the accurate analysis of key fragments from each of our authors.