Show notes
Why do we seek to escape from ourselves? In episode 168 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a closer look at Emmanuel Levinas’s article “On Escape.” They discuss Levinas’s claim that escape is central to the human condition and explore what exactly we try to escape from and escape to. They explain how this aspect of human existence is crystallized by our experiences of need, pleasure, and even nausea. Are we condemned to being needy beings?
Highlighted moments
he introduces a new term to sort of capture this, where he says, it's not that we want to transcend. He says we want to ex-send, which is a term that he coins to capture this escape from being that has no destination whatsoever.
“yet it does not come from outside to confine us. We are revolted from the inside. Our depths smother beneath ourselves. Our innards heave.”
“Dasein, you know, Heidegger's concept of existence, Dasein is never hungry. And instead, what Levinas gives us is a vomiting, ashamed, naked subject that is stewing in its own juices.”
Transcript
Transcript not available for this episode yet.