For Emmanuel Levinas objectivity is intersubjectively constituted. But this
intersubjectivity is not, as in Merleau-Ponty, the intercorporeality of pe
rceivers nor, as in Heidegger, the active correlation of practical agents.
It has an ethical structure; it is the presence, to each cognitive subject,
of others who contest and judge him. But does not the exposure of each cog
nitive subject to the wants and needs of others result in the constitution
of a common practical field, which is not yet the objective world of scient
ific cognition? For Levinas, the constitution of a world common to all is g
overned by the practice of justice. Justice begins when above the self and
the other there intervenes a third party, who contests and judges both. But
whether this third party is a representative of humanity, or a figure of G
od, would not his justice be but the name of higher egoism?