Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity

Emmanuel Levinas is the most fascinating, powerful, and profound critic of philosophy and politics. Heidegger and Marx are both implicated by everything he does here. Consider his magnum opus, Totality and Infinity, the ethical expansion pack to Being and Time. In this work, Levinas uses the tools of phenomenology against itself to show that the ethical relation is prior to everything else we take for granted. David McKerracher teaches this work as a fundamental critique of both Marx and Heidegger, as well as all totalizing ways of thinking about history. Whereas Judith Butler and Simon Critchley politicize Levinas, McKerracher insists that we must tarry with the negative, i.e. to give Levinas his due, we must sit with his critique of politics and philosophy.

There are two ways to get involved: Enroll via one of the tiers, or become a Tier 3 or 4 subscriber to TU – either via the app (available on Apple and Android app stores) or right here on the site.

Tier 1: AUDIT: Access to the lecture Zoom calls + 6 months of access to the lecture recordings and the forum. 

Tier 2: LONG-TERM BUY-IN: Everything from Tier 1 + Long-term buy-in and access to the course, forum, and lectures.

Tier 3: CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Everything from Tiers 1 & 2 + Direct constructive critical feedback from Dave (via voice messages and/or marked up reviews of your assignments). This includes the writer’s workshop and office hours package.

Tier 4: ASSESSMENT & ACCOUNTABILITY: Everything from Tiers 1-3 + (1) Access to any of the live and recorded exegetical reading sessions of this text that Dave will do + (2) Two 1-on-1 Zoom calls with Dave. The first is to be scheduled while the course is ongoing, and the second is to be conducted after the course is over, for a constructive criticism session dealing with your final project.

David McKerracher (M.A.)

David McKerracher (M.A.) is the organizer for, and founder of, Theory Underground, a course-based social media site and app by and for people who don’t belong anywhere: drop outs, blue collar intellectuals, and renegade PMCs. McKerracher’s background is in critical theory, political philosophy, existentialism and phenomenology. All of McKerracher’s work revolves around a single question: What is the Good Life? His questioning into the conditions of possibility for living the Good Life led McKerracher to an M.A. thesis on “Timenergy, the existential basis of labor power.” This work draws heavily from Marx and Heidegger. McKerracher develops this concept further in his first book called Waypoint: Timenergy, Critical Media Theory, and Social Change, and Timenergy (coming out Fall 2023). Because “Timenergy Theory” requires a more robust theory of libidinal economy and ideology, McKerracher has spent the last few years learning Žižekian and Lacanian theory from his compatriot Michael Downs. Theory Underground is McKerracher’s vehicle for cultivating the kind of research and conversation necessary to take this project to the next level, the long-term goal of which is to overcome the current culture war deadlocks by inquiry into their conditions of possibility. The goal of this work is to pave a way forward for humanity to maintain the conditions of a robust cultural plurality, harness automation-for-all, and ultimately, explore the universe, but without creating indefinite civil war with those who try to “stay natural” and remain on Earth.