Leading Chinese and Western philosophers work alongside one another to explore the writings of one of the twentieth century's most perplexing and original ethical and metaphysical thinkers. For Chinese philosophers there are special reasons to pursue an interest in Lévinas, centering on his regard for ethics, rather than Husserlian epistemology or Heideggerian ontology, as first philosophy, a perspective that can be compared to the priority of a moral metaphysics for major figures in contemporary Neo-Confucianism. The thirteen outstanding contributors explain and assess other crucial features of Lévinas's philosophy with clarity, elegance and powerful insight.