Overcoming relativism? Emmanuel Levinas's return to Platonism

Emmanuel Levinas' concept of "the face of the Other" involves an ethical ma ndate that is presumably transcultural or, in his terms, "precultural". His essay "Meaning and Sense" provides his most explicit defense of the idea t hat the face has a meaning that is not culturally relative, though it is al ways encountered within some particular culture. Levinas identifies his pos ition there as a "return to Platonism". Through a careful reading of that e ssay, exploring Levinas' use of religious terminology and the (sometimes im plicit) relationships of the essay to the work of other phenomenologists an d of Saussure, the author seeks to clarify (1) what levinas retains and wha t he rejects in returning to Platonism "in a new way", (2) the sense in whi ch this return constitutes an "overcoming" of relativism, and (3) the natur e of the phenomenological warrant that he offers for his position.