 Emmanuel Levinas’ (1905–1995) intellectual project was to develop a first philosophy. Whereas traditionally first philosophy denoted either metaphysics or theology, only to be reconceived by Heidegger as fundamental ontology, Levinas argued that it is ethics that should be so conceived. But rather than formulating an ethical theory, Levinas developed his philosophy in opposition to both these aforementioned approaches. It takes the form of a description and interpretation of the event of encountering another  person.[1]  Giving rise to spontaneous acts of responsibility for others, the encounter unfolds, according to Levinas, at a precognitive level, thanks to what he called our embodied  “sensibility”.[2]  That is why a phenomenology of intersubjective responsibility would be ‘first’ philosophy; viz., in the sense of interpretively reconstructing a level of experience precursive to both reflective activity and practical interests. 