Levinas counterpoises totality to infinity. Totality reveals the objectivity of war as the condition of being.

"The visage of being that shows itself in war is fixed in the concept of totality, which dominates Western philosophy. Individuals are reduced to being bearers of forces that command them unbeknown to themselves. The meaning of individuals (invisible outside of this totality) is derived from the totality. The unicity of each present is incessantly sacrificed to a future appealed to to bring forth its objective being" (p.22).

Infinity is more primoridal and foundational than totality, although infinity is experienced within this or that totality. Totality is linked to eschatology, the ever going beyond on which the objective totality can be known through what it is to become to be. This eschatological impulse, loosely eluded to a political form, is close to the presence of infinity. Infinity is the premise of both thought and action, it conditions them both.

Infinity is a metaphysical drive, a desire for the outside, not so that it can be internalised, for it cannot; it is the desire for something unsatisfiable.