This text served as the introduction to my Master thesis on Emmanuel Lévinas and Jacques Derrida, written in 2008.

Both these styles of thought could be criticized. This critique would in both cases be directed to the created image. We provide critique to make clear in what respect the image is not accurate. An important trait of critique is that it acts by definition against a mental condition of the original thinker, who – as we have said – is governed by attraction or repulsion, lust or nausea, mania or depression. The critic provides a complementary judgment: she urges the idealist to accept reality more as it is, but also warns the aesthete that not all that glitters is gold. With their inner necessity as their motivation, all thinkers are first of all representatives of themselves. Against the background of the emphasis of contemporary continental thinkers on questions of alterity, we are left challenged. What moment did the Philosopher decide that the Other became necessary to articulate? Was it a feeling attraction or repulsion that prompted this? Or is also the philosophy of alterity ultimately in a sense motivated by a hidden narcissism, a concealed attempt to articulate herself?