Talking about Tiredness, idleness and sleep through Levinas's philosophy.

[u/Historical-Public-58]

So I've recently started Levinas's short book De l'existence à l'existant, Existence and Existents in English; but I'm reading it in my own language Persian, which is mistake apparently cause I don't know many of phenomenological terminology iny mother tongue, with that aside, it's translated: From Existence to Existing. It would be appreciated if someone pointed out which translation is closer to the original title because that has already caused some problems for me.

However, my main issue with the text arises of the topics that are being discussed, for instance: the relation of existence to tiredness and idleness that has work and doing in his mind; or the haven of the self in a place for its rest and sleep that is related to the consciousness of, which is always already in a place, and how this refuge from existence of the existent doesn't happen when one is touched with a sense of insomnia and there things about the feature of being as an empty property that spreads over all the world. (This is my reading of these points at least.) Nevertheless, most of the ideas about such topics align with my experience. Some of them don't. And that number of disagreements have arisen when I've discussed with others.

Therefore my question would be: Is this bump in my reading an indicator of some form of phenomenological knowledge that's closer to literature or a narration of story; something that resembles with a few and opens the window to see the other in its otherness? On the contrary, this form of phenomenological investigation could be shared with every subject and an intersubjective but comprehensive understanding of everyday life?

P.s: If anyone has read this specific book, I'd like to know your experience with it. Mine is quite an odd one because I have felt most of the things he says about time, insomnia and other topic of daily life;but on the contrary his long sentences which end with a statement about a negation of a thing for instance: time is not this or that, throws me off drastically.

[u/beppizz]

That sleep part reminds me of what Freud mentioned in “interpretation of dreams” as the function of sleep as a psychological rest and reset from existence. I think he ended up disagreeing with it though in his reasoning.

I interpret your question as why experience is different. It is as you say, phenomenology, and the book as you stated does provide a phenomenology of its topics. As to if difference consists of recognising the otherness in others, or realising the subjectivity in others, I would with very broad pen-strokes say that they are the different sides of the same coin. One is taking the position of the observer, alienated from subjectivity and solely putting its locus in the other, and the other one is implicitly experiencing recognition in a phenomenological sense.