Born in Lithuania, Levinas was based in France from 1923, apart from some years residing in Germany and studying with Husserl and Heidegger, and other years incarcerated in Germany during the Second World War. His translations and his first book Théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl (1930), played a major role in introducing Husserl and Heidegger to French philosophy. His own work explores, as far as, and perhaps beyond, the limits of intelligibility, the problem generated by the Other, whereby we encounter a different being which cannot be grasped by means of representations but only ethically, a fact which therefore shows the necessary limits on understanding and truth. Works include Totalité et infini: essai sur l’extériorité (1961) and Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (1974).