Descartes’ Idea of the Infinite

The appreciation of going out to the Other is also appreciated by other philosophers, and not just Levinas. For Plato, philosophy is not just an monologue but is a gradual ascent to the beyond where the gods are. Philosophy is a dialogue with the gods. We also find this sentiment echoed in Descartes, especially when he discusses the Idea of the Infinite.

Descartes noted that philosophy did not make any progress at all because philosophers disagreed about everything. He thought philosophy did not have the right method. He wanted to try to find the indubitable truth, the truth that cannot be doubted, and once it is found, it will be the foundation where he will deduce other truths of philosophy.

He begins by doubting everything. He cleared the table and started with a clean slate. He began with what he calls the universal methodic doubt. He begins to doubt everything: the world, the body, and God. He did not really believe that there was no God, world, or body. It means that he provisionally put world, God, and body in brackets and set it aside. He concluded the methodic doubt by saying that he can doubt everything, but in doubting I know I exist. This is the famous ‘ I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes ended up simply as a thinking something. I can doubt everything but there is one thing I cannot doubt: that I am, and I have ideas.

Descartes is certain that he has ideas: the idea of himself, other people, and God. But he is not yet sure if these ideas correspond to an external reality. Where do these ideas come from? All these ideas, except for the idea of myself and of God, I could have made up myself. Where did I get the idea of God? He described this idea of God as an infinite substance, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, and all-powerful.  This idea of God in Descartes is the traditional idea in metaphysics.

Descartes concludes that the idea of the Infinite could only have been put in him. It couldn’t have been produced by him because the human being is a limited being, and as a limited being it cannot think of something greater than itself. The effect (the infinite) cannot be greater than the cause (finite human being). The infinite here must be a positive infinite, it is because of this positive idea of the infinite that I realize that I am imperfect.

Descartes idea of God is that God is perfect. If one does not say that God exists, then I’m not really thinking about God because God should have the perfection of perfections—that is, existence. This idea of God is unique because if I think of this idea, I think of something greater than the idea in my head. If one thinks God, it explodes the mind. There is a content which cannot be contained and it cannot stay completely in the mind.

What is the essence of a triangle? Its essence is to have three angles, but I cannot immediately conclude that the triangle exists because its essence does not necessarily include existence. But with the idea of God, his essence necessarily includes existence. Descartes is saying that of all these ideas, the idea of God is the unique idea because its essence necessarily includes existence. This is how he proves that God exists. Knowing that the all-powerful and all-good God exists assures me that he will not deceive me.

Levinas

Levinas is not interested in the traditional idea of God; but he is interested in the container-contained schema. To know is to have ideas which correspond to external reality.  Levinas is making the analogy that just as the idea of God cannot be reduced to the container-content, the experience of the Other is also an experience of the infinite because when I experience the Other, the Other escapes my grasp and therefore he overflows, and he cannot be contained simply in my mind. Therefore, the other is somehow infinite.

Part of self-knowledge is knowledge that one is related to one higher than oneself. But this relation is forgotten. To know oneself as related to another. Levinas is trying to show that if you only reflect upon yourself, you already have the mark of others in you. Everybody else that came before me. Why should I be responsible? Because others have already responded for me.

Descartes’ argument have similarities to St. Anselm’s ontological argument. Here’s a link that could help you understand why existence is in the essence of God. Press ENTER to proceed to the next ‘slide’. 🙂

Totality and Infinity

Lecture on January 26, 2012

 

There are two ways of doing philosophy, so far as we can tell. The first one is learning, and just keeping things in your head. But the second way of doing philosophy is to really experience the surprises in life. It’s important to note how Levinas speaks of experience.

The Law of the Other: Surprise and Experience

For Levinas, experience is something that takes you out of yourself. He compares ‘prise’ (to grasp or to take) and ‘sur-prise’. There’s a difference between being surprised, and being controlling and mastering what is before me. There are realities that resist the grasping of the I. Maybe experience is not the comfortable possession of the truth but the other thing as the constant journeying, openness, or hospitality and reception of what is different. It’s important therefore to distinguish the way of thinking that goes out, takes something back to my mind and it rests; and there is a different way where the I is taken out.

When we talk about experience, we are speaking of the otherness of reality, and this experience of otherness cannot be reduced to my mind. There is a reality that faces me as if it was really higher than me, and above me—in the sense that it is demanding something from me, commanding me and it’s a command I cannot escape. Maybe the experience of the Other is the experience of what is different, of what does not physically command me but which nevertheless appeals to me. To be ethical is to have a revolution within oneself where one gives priority to the other, and not to oneself.

The Law of the I: Totalization and Domination

Totality is a way of thinking that reduces the Other to the same; it is the law of the I. This seems to be the prevalent way of being in the world. Is domination, totalization and war the most original or natural situation? However, Levinas claims that we have to look at a more fundamental state. War or totalization is not the most original or natural situation.

He is using the transcendental method. Before and behind the war, there is a fundamental openness to the Other. He claims that behind this totalization there is a glimpse of infinity. If you accept that the law of being is war, then it will lead to a contradiction. If everything is war, then it will lead to a situation where everybody is finally killed because war self-destroys.

This violent reality presupposes a fundamental openness. I could not possibly be here if Others are not responsible for me. The reason why I am here is because there are many others who nourished, protected, and took of me.

He evokes what he calls the experience of being a creature. But he does not mean creature in a theological sense. It means that I did not produce myself. I am given to myself. My being is given to me by others. This is the first experience before the violence and war, this is what is forgotten. If I realize what has been given to me, then I must pass on that gift of to others. If you look at how you come to be, others have given much to you. You are all everybody has given to you, and perhaps that is forgotten.

 

What good is philosophy if it only has ideas that stay only in the mind? To do philosophy is to expose oneself to the surprises of one’s experience. There is a contrast therefore in these two approaches: philosophy as being pulled out of myself to experience something radically other and different, being taken out of myself in a reality which other, and the peaceful possession of ideas in my head. There is a contrast when we see the stress of Levinas on surprises. There is a distinction being made by the surprise.

Filiality

January 17, 2012 Lecture

The second concrete example of the law of the Other is called Filiality—the relation of the parent with the child..

“I am my child and I am not my child.”  The parent can see himself or herself in the child, but the child is different from the parent. The parent must respect otherness of the child. The possibilities of the son are not the possibilities of the father. In other words, Levinas is trying to oppose a conception whereby the children are seen merely as extensions of the parent.

Sometimes there is the dramatic conflict because the parent is trying to treat himself as the source of creativity; but part of being creative is standing back and letting the other person be creative in turn. The possibility of the son becomes the impossibility of the father, and the parent should rejoice. This is the meaning of fathering, mothering or teaching. It is not to occupy the stage, but to create space.

The main idea here is the idea of parenting as receding in the background. There is a point in a person’s life where the apron strings are cut off. Your mother carried you inside her womb. The whole of life is about not getting back into that womb, it is an ever going out of it. It is about exodus, exteriority and transcendence. The cutting of the umbilical cord is the first sign of independence; you set the other free. One is free but related.

This is also about letting go of the person who does not desire you; but you have to accept it because the other is separate and different. This is part of loving; you have to respect the desire of the Other. We are talking about relations that do not depend on projection.

t doesn’t mean that those who have no children are not capable of this relation. Biological filiality is not just the only kind; you can be a parent to someone who is not related to you. One can have a paternal relation to the other if you establish relation beyond the possible—not by making them extensions of your ego.

This is related to the idea of time, which is not seen as a continuous time, but time as emphasized as an instant, a pulse and a beat where I begin anew in another being. I am there but in a new way. Infinite time is not continuous duration, but it is in novelty and beginning anew in the Other. And therefore, there is something better in growing old and beginning anew. He is talking here about transcendence; he really have gone out of myself by having a child but that word ‘having’ is not purely adequate because the child is not fully possession. I ‘am’ the child but in a pluralistic notion.

Levinas also says that each child is unique, that each child will be the chosen one. Each child will be loved in a unique way, and he or she is irreplaceable. One should not put hierarchy to love. All love must strive to resemble this kind of parental love, which strives to love the loved one as unique.

Feminine

In the history of Western philosophy, the I is always considered male; the emphasis was on virility, power and activity. Women, who were generally invisible in history, were seen as passive and weak. Levinas wants to show that qualities historically associated with femininity are also important.

The subject has always been interpreted as male and as in control. Modernity has always seen the subject, the cogito, and as placed on top of the pedestal. He is the reference and everything goes back to him. But perhaps the meaning of being a subject is to be subject, to be a base, to carry the other, to respond to the call of the Other.

The Law of the I (autonomy) is a way of being that places the I at the center. The alternate way of thinking is heteronomy, which is a thinking where the I goes out but does not come back. This is a thinking that starts with the familiar and goes towards the unfamiliar. There are two figures that exemplify the two ways of thinking. Autonomy is exemplified by Ulysses who left his home Ithaca to go to the war in Troy and then eventually return to Ithaca. The exemplar of heteronomy is Abraham who was called by God to go forth to a new land; he did not return to the place of his birth.

The success of Western civilization and culture can perhaps be attributed to their general way of thinking—autonomy. The Western civilization is a history of colonization and their philosophy reflected this: the I is always the center. There’s a horror or an allergy of the Other. In autonomy, the I gives the meaning of the other, and breaks down the other to reduce it to itself. The rule is the Darwinian survival of the fittest. If you have to preserve your being at all cost, then it is alright to crush the other.

The feminine is the reality which escapes the grasp of the I. Levinas has revalorize the attributes traditionally associated to woman like passivity and gentleness. We have to broaden the idea of the subject to being gentle, supportive, passive. Sexual difference is only next to the primary relation, the relation between persons. You don’t relate to a person because she is a woman or he is a man, but because that person is a human being.

Is there way of thinking that does justice to the Other? Can we think of difference not as opposition to the I? Can we think of difference in a positive way?  Levinas employs the woman as the metaphor or the feminine as the metaphor to stress the positive otherness.

Why is the woman associated with dwelling? Levinas alludes to the situation where the male goes out to hunt and then comes back to the dwelling. The woman, because she keeps the house, is able to make the hunter recollect and to become reflective in the home. The woman is the condition for recollection, the interiority of the home. The presence of the other is discreetly an absence; the woman’s presence—she might not be physically there but there is her presence because the house is in order. The Other’s absence is discreetly a presence.

The feminine is compared to a dwelling, home, interiority, gentleness, kindness, modesty, essential discretion and finally ‘delicious weakness’.

Eros

Chapter 5 is titled Love and Filiation. Love or Eros is the relation between man and woman. Filiation is the relation between parent and child.

Law of the I and Law of the Other

Levinas shows concrete experiences to illustrate a particular way of thinking, which is called the law of the Other. There are two ways of thinking: first, the law of the I (autonomy) and the law of the Other (heteronomy). The Law of the I is to go out towards the Other, but to come back to oneself. It is the law of nourishment. The food is other but you make it part of yourself by consuming it. But the relation of persons is not on that level; if you assimilate the Other like you do food, you are guilty of cannibalizing the Other. When you go to the other simply as a source of nourishment, simply as for you.

The second law would be the law of Ethics. The Law of the Other is to go out of oneself for the Other’s sake. We are interested in going out not because for our own interest but for the interest of the Other, it is dis-interestedness. There is a shift in interest. The law of the Other  is seen in eros, the relation between man and woman, and filiation, the relation between parent and child.

Eros

In the relation of Eros, it’s not a matter of different attribute of another; but the attribute of otherness in the other. It’s not a matter of possessing certain organs. When he speaks of the feminine, he does not refer exclusively to women. He uses the word feminine to stand for the otherness of the Other, which is not only true of every woman but of every human being. He is using the feminine as a metaphor for the Other. Every human being has otherness in him or her. The feminine is what slips away; it is a reality which you cannot pin down and one must accept that.

Levinas goes against the Platonic myth that sees the man and woman as originally one being that had two sides. The gods punished this original human being for their arrogance by cleaving them in half. The two sides—the male and the female—are halves are forever searching for each other. This is the idea that I am only one half, and I can only be whole by getting another half. He says that the difference of sex is not two complementary terms that presupposes a pre-existing whole. This means that love is a fusion. Levinas disagrees with this and says that to be created is to be separated. We are already whole, and we need no parts.  Our relation is not one of fusion or assimilation, but it is one of responsibility.

Otherness, alterity and duality will not disappear in the loving relationship. In love, there are always two separate beings. The idea of love as a confusion or fusion of two beings is a false romantic idea.  If time is a pulse and a beat, then every relation with the other must be renewed with every beat and pulse.  To love is not because you need the other, and not because you have a lack to be filled up but because there is a desire for the Other. The relation does not neutralize otherness, but exalts it, promotes it, and highlights it.

Jouissance and Time

Review of Jouissance

Once the umbilical cord is cut, I am independent and I experience needs that are not always reflexively approached. To experience separation is to experience needs, which one has to fulfil by taking things from the outside. In jouissance, Levinas speaks of the relationship of the human being with the world. Nourishments are good for us; it is when we feel really alive. Because we are separated beings, we are happy to be dependent. It is good to be alive. We are not fully utilitarian, things that we do are not necessarily a means to an end. These are things that we take in, and we assimilate them. He is describing a pre-moral experience; you are not yet aware of the other persons.

The experience of dependence on things might change when we speak of a radical lack, when what we need becomes missing. For instance, if we are in the desert, water becomes a need, a means for survival. This is when the lack is no longer enjoyable, because we see it as a real lack, it becomes a need to an end. But there are needs which are not reflexively thought about, and that is our experience of jouissance.

Time

Husserl looked at time as like a continuous line: the past is retained in the present and the future is also present as anticipated in the present. He speaks of anticipation of the future as protention. He talks about a present that includes the past and future through protention and retention. The past is always carried in the present;

Instead of a continuous line, Levinas says that time is not a line but that time is a pulse. It is a heartbeat, or like breathing wherein every instant is a new beginning. There is a discontinuity, where everything that was past is taken up again, but in a very new way. What he emphasizes is not the threat of the future, but the promise of the future. If it is an instant, if it is a pause, then while you live, there is still a chance for renewal. He is trying to stress that because every instance is a new beginning, there is hope for you because there will always be a promise for a pardon. While I breathe, I hope .

There is always a moment for renewal, and there is always the promise of pardon. What does that mean? It means that if I am living here and I have done something, I have to take up what is past and take it up in a new way. While I am living and time, and while I am breathing, there is still hope.

Levinas view also stresses that there are real surprises in the future. Other people will come into our lives and we do not yet know who they are.

Once you let the other into your life, time will no longer be synchronic but diachronic. Once you admit somebody into your world, you cannot live any longer on one time. My time is not always the time of the other. The other is different, but although the other is different, I am not indifferent to the other’s difference. It is in time that we actually meet others, who will be surprises in our lives. He is trying therefore to show that it’s because of time that we grow as persons. Levinas makes us understand a particular way of looking at time.