 Levinas’ youthful project approached transcendence secularly, in light of humans’ irreducible urge to get past the limits of their physical and social circumstances. His transcendence is less a question of cognition reaching reality or humans seeking to pass ‘beyond’ themselves (respectively he-BT: §§43, 10) than transcendence attempted through sensuous evasions. This quite materialist approach to transcendence is nevertheless motivated by the question of our mortality and finite being, but unlike Heidegger, it also examines the enigma called infinity.