對列維納斯生前未刊稿中聲音現象學的發現有助於我們理解他在《總體與無限》以及《異於存在或超逾本質》這兩本大書中的思路。在四十年代的未刊講座稿中，聲音現象學是不可見的他者向我呈示的方式：聲音讓他者被「聽見」。在此意義上，出版於十多年後的《總體與無限》中的面容概念，既是對聲音現象學的繼承和發展，也是聲音現象學的形而上旨歸。七十年代，聲音現象學在《異於存在或超逾本質》中再次出現並有了新的演繹：外在的聲音成為我的聲音。此時，聲音作為氣息的震動和交換，使聲音現象學演化為呼吸現象學。這不僅更充分地描述了他者如何經由對我的啟迪而在場，亦更充分地描述了我回應他者時的主體性特徵及其心靈結構：他人在我之中，我是他人的替代。

The discovery of the phenomenology of voice in Emmanuel Levinas's posthumous manuscripts helps us to understand the ideas in his two great books: Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. In his unpublished lecture notes from the 1940's, voice is the way in which the invisible other is presented to me: it makes the other ＂heard＂. In this sense, the concept of ＂face＂ in Totality and Infinity, published more than ten years later, is not only the continuation and development of the concept of the phenomenology of voice, but also the exposition of its metaphysical principle. Face and voice complement each other in describing the unique way in which the invisible other is present. In the 1970's, the phenomenology of voice reappears in Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence with a new development: the external voice turns into my voice, and, as the vibration and exchange of breath, the phenomenology of voice evolves into the phenomenology of respiration. It not only describes more fully how the other is present as an inspiration to me, but also describes more deeply my subjectivity and spiritual structure when I respond to the other: the other is in me, and I am the substitute of the other.