Knowledge reflects “the freedom of the satisfied man,” which “takes no interest in the other qua other” (Levinas, 1984/1996, p. 153). In “seizing the Other through comprehension” one is “assuming all the wars that this comprehension presupposes” (Levinas, 1962/1996, p. 17). Freedom is that which needs to be grounded in the welcoming of the Other, which is forgotten if knowledge is seen as foundational: “To identify the problem of foundation with the knowledge of knowledge is to forget the arbitrariness of freedom, which is precisely what has to be grounded. . . . To welcome the Other is to put in question my freedom” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 85).
Violence is associated with the ego exerting its freedom on its own: the I “by itself . . . is only freedom, that is, arbitrary and unjustified, and in this sense detestable; it is I, egoism” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 88). The ego on its own is characterized by “interest,” in the sense of having a stake or claim in something, which leads to violence: “Being’s interest takes dramatic form in egoisms struggling with one another, each against all, in the multiplicity of allergic egoisms which are at war with one another and thus together” (Levinas, 1978/1991, p. 4).