Illeity and Prophetism

March 6, 2012

Illeity

The concept of illeity stresses how God is absolutely Other than human beings. God is non-comprehensible; and if we have an idea of God in our minds, that idea is not God. This concept stresses that God’s transcendence can never be totally contained; God is always ahead of us and we can never catch up. Levinas, in stressing transcendence, is showing that God is majestic and absolutely different from us. But although he is distant and different he is non-indifferent to us.

To stress the transcendence of God is to stress that God is not an idol.  An idol is something that one can command, manipulate, or predict. We cannot expect God to do the things we want.  When atheists say “God does not exist”, they have in mind certain ideas of God which, upon critical reflection, must really be killed. Nietzsche was correct when he said certain ‘ideas’ of God must be smashed. Sometimes it is as if God is absent, but perhaps we only have a pre-judgement of how God should manifest.We make God conform to our image, instead of us coming closer to God. This is not the God of illeity. God’s presence is not usually manifested in ways we want or expect.

Though God is not a phenomenon and he is not perceived nor does he hide himself. Because He is always ahead He only leaves behind a ‘trace.’ God shows himself in our responsibility and our genuine relationship with Others. Because God cannot be seen or perceived, it is through the witnesses that he makes himself felt. The glory of the infinite is revealed in what it changes in the witness. Illeity is almost considered absent in order to bring about the creativity of the human being.

This presence is one which retreats to create space so that the human being can be responsible for the Other. The glory of the infinite consists in our creativity for the Other. The infinite is also in me because I am inspired by the Other. Ethics is not just external impositions, but it something that is inside me, disturbs me, and pushes me out to testify.

Prophetism

(Notes on Interview number 10)

Every human being is called to be prophet or witness. The fact that one can be responsible means that one can be a prophet.

Levinas says that responsibility is beyond knowledge and should not remain within knowledge; however, one must go through knowledge. Levinas cannot make us responsible, he can only speak of responsibility. Prophetism is the moment of the human condition itself; every human being assuming responsibility for the Other is assuming responsibility for the Infinite.

Ethics and religion go together. Ethics is the responsibility for the Other. Levinas is showing that the love of God is not the love of God without love of Other.

This responsibility is spelled out in more complete rules and norms in religion. Sometimes people console themselves by following the letter of these rules but are not really following its spirit. When people just confine themselves to fulfilling those rules, they may be ‘religious’ but they are not practicing religion. Religion is the good you do to the Other. There is a difference between a ‘religious’ person and an ethical person.

 

Illeity, Testimony, and Unsaying

March 1, 2012

There is a certain ambiguity in Levinas when he says ‘Other’. By ‘Other’ he means the human Other although what he says also applies to the Infinite Other (God). There is an absolutely Infinite Other who is other than the human Other, however the two are so intimately related that the Infinite Other (God) is also in the human Other. The infinite Other (God) is not fully captured in the human Other because the human Other cannot imprison the Infinite. The Absolute Infinite (God) is not like a topic or theme which one can grasp and completely understand, but is instead a certain trace, of which we can only glimpse.

God’s trace is not an appearance or a phenomenon, in the sense that it is an uncovering or disclosure because it’s not just something given to perception nor is it a matter of knowledge. God’s presence is not a total manifestation, but only a glimpse or a trace. It is through us and through the human Other that God makes ‘manifest’. The infinite is ‘felt’ when, in the presence of the Other, the I says “Me-here-for-you.”The more I become just and responsible, the more I show the presence of God. God is invisible to the senses, we don’t see apparitions. However, we see people comforting and being responsible to Others.

When one does good, he cannot say “I have done all my duty.” Like the exigency for holiness and excellence, the ethical demand cannot be completed or finished. Emphasized here is difference between satis (from satis-fied) and magis. We are all called to be magis and therefore the person who does good knows that there is more good to be done.

 

Illeity

Certain Jewish prayers start addressing God using the personal ‘you’ or ‘thou.’ However, as the prayer progresses, the address to God becomes more distant and the prayer begins to refer to God as “ille,” which is the third person. Ille is the Latin form for the third person.

Ille is a form of address that shows that the person is tries to show that God has already passed on, and is already ahead. One cannot catch up with him and therefore God cannot be boxed. Because God is transcendent, already ahead, and is only a trace, the way he is manifested is through the testimony of human beings who do the good. When the subject says “Me here for you,” the person is giving witness and is thus testifying to the Infinite. The Greek word for witness is the same word from which we get the word martyr. The martyr gives witness to God and shows witness to God because he is willing to die for that which he believes in. The glory of God consists in retreating and so making the human being an image of his creativity.

 

Saying and Unsaying

We are doing something very paradoxical. The whole philosophy 102 venture has thus been an indiscretion with regard to the unsayable. The real essence of Levinas’ philosophy is not to remain as content in the mind, but to be lived out in action.  Through Levinas we learn many terms and concepts and we will perhaps forget all of these. It’s important to talk about ethics just as, from time to time, you must say to your loved ones “Mahal kita.” But love is not just in the uttering of the words, but in the doing.  Philosophy must be unsaid; that is, philosophy should not only remain on the conceptual level. When you are helping someone you do not think of Levinasian terms, you simply help the other.

The unsaying would be like this: “How do we make God come through us?” This is the very creativity of God, that precisely he uses me, a crooked instrument, to write straight, because I have the capacity of letting him through. This is testimony and witnessing.  Even if one does not believe in God, one can still do the good.

Third Party

Previously we discussed responsibility as radical passivity: even before we decide, act, and think there is already a passivity in us which relates us to the Other. It is a passivity whereby the Other has already sort of invaded us and sort of claimed us.

Responsibility as Economic

Now we discuss responsibility as economic.  It is hypocritical to go to the Other with empty hands. My responsibility consists in giving food for the hungry and giving shelter to those who have no homes.

We must have a good appreciation of the material. The material and the spiritual are linked. You can do a lot of things with resources. We must stress being-in-the-world and embodiment. Because I am embodied, I can open the door for someone. I can donate blood. Responsibility must be embodied and it must pass through my body and my hands.

Levinas discussed the sociality of money. Money is a beautiful invention because it is the fastest way to help others. People who are enterprising are asked to cultivate their skills, to give work to those who have no jobs. Economy includes time, talent, skills, capabilities. You must share your talent and whatever you are capable of doing with your insight and skills.

 

Responsibility Implies a Conversion

Responsibility implies a conversion. Why did Levinas describe jouissance? He spoke of things that we really enjoy. When we give something, it must be something that we really appreciate. It is as if you are about to eat your sandwich but you happen to see someone who needs it more, and you give it away. He speaks therefore of self-emptying or kenosis. I really made a sacrifice in order to be responsible. He uses the word dis-inter-ested-ness which shows that you are tearing yourself away from yourself. The hyphen is supposed to visualize that.

 

The Third Party

The experience of the face is not just the experience of hearing the command of “Thou shall not kill” but also to understand social justice. This is because there are many Others beside the Other. There are Third Parties.

It’s wrong to interpret his philosophy as if there are only two people. When we do something, we have to be aware that there are others. Levinas is trying to establish the presence of the third party, a distinction between the closed society of two people who have only eyes for each other and the open society who are open to all see. Without our knowing it, when we do something to the Other, it has an effect on Others and we may not be aware of the hurt that we do to the Others.

He shows the universality of the Other. If I am responsible not just to a particular Other but to the universal Other. We are dealing with the Other not on the basis of particular characteristics relative to her but according to that universal essence which is found in all human beings. When I respect this particular Other I also respect what is present in all the Others.

I am responsible for the Other. The universal Other includes all the Others and also myself. Part of my responsibility is self development. How can I be responsible if I do not develop myself? There is a distinction between self-development which is just for oneself and ethical self-development, which is self-development in view of Others.

Since the two people are always in a particular society, we have to discern our responsibility to each person. This is why we have law. In society, we will have to make laws and rules, to make the Others conform to what is good for everybody. On the level of just institutions, justice is important: that each one gets what is due to him.

 

Radical passivity

Previous philosophies put freedom and autonomy before responsibility. When you’ve done something, you’re responsible for what you have done. However, Levinas puts this into question; He says you have responsibility first and then freedom. The subject is not free first but is responsible first. Subjectivity is responsibility.

In Levinas’ two great books Totality and infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, one notices that the description of the subject shifts. In Totality and Infinity, the subject emerges from il y a and experiences jouissance. He is a needy subject and is happy for these needs. In Otherwise than Being, he stressed on radical passivity. Before I can think, choose, act, or begin anything, there is this radical passivity to the Other.

Levinas uses the terms ‘responsibility’ ‘substitution,’ ‘obsession,’ ‘hostage,’ ‘persecution,’ ‘accusation,’ ‘saying,’ and ‘proximity’.  Before I actually act, the Other is experienced as if he was accusing me. The Other, before I can claim the Other has already chosen me and imprisoned me. This is what is meant by hostage. These are actually very difficult terms and they will be called hyperbolical and exaggerated. What does it mean to say that before I think, use or act, I am already a hostage and I am responsible for the Other? It is not a temporal priority, it is a conceptual priority. Levinas wants to show that radical passivity is the transcendental condition for the things that I do. It is the condition for human social existence.

This passivity is vulnerability. It’s not the solitary I that wants to relate with the Other, but even before the actual relation, the I is already related to all the Others.

We may be different and separated, but there is a relation. From the very beginning, there is already that basic responsibility and it is that basic responsibility that emerges in those senseless acts of kindness. The Other has already invaded me and charged me. It is a structure that does not resemble the intentional relation, which, in knowledge, attaches us to the subject. Proximity and nearness is not about intentionality or knowledge.

 

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’. 🙂

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.

Jouissance

Jouissance as the First Moment of Emergence

What is the experience of emerging from this indeterminacy to difference?  What happens when a being emerges, what happens in the first moment of separation? This moment is jouissance, or naive, innocent enjoyment. This is the experience of living from… I become individualized by the experience of my needs. The way for me to become independent is to become dependent on the things outside me, which are good. This dependence is not experienced as a lack.

Living from . . . is not as means to an end

What do we say when we say we ‘live from. . .’? This is not living as means, but living immediately from. When we eat our favourite food, we don’t think of it as a means to an end but we just enjoy it.  He describes a way of living that is more than means-end. You talk to someone not because you need information, but because you enjoy talking to the person. You visit someone not because you need a favour, but that it is just good to be with that person. In the morning, just the scent of brewed coffee rouses you not because it’s a means to an end but because it’s good to drink and to smell coffee.

This is different from what Heidegger says; Heidegger thinks of things as tools and implements. For him, it’s always a means and a relation. Sometimes, we conduct things in our lives merely as means to an end.

Need here is not experienced as a lack. Levinas does not refer to someone in the desert who will die if he does not eat—bread in that situation really becomes a lack. Levinas speaks of the goodness of things, and the happiness of having needs.  It is good to have needs. The human being is happy for his needs.

In jouissance, there is no reflexivity yet, neither is it conceptualized or thought-out. One does not have a goal yet. It’s something that always natural.

There are two things which come up. First, there are good terrestrial nourishments. It’s good to be alive; we have to depend on the earth. There are fruits of the earth that is very good, but this is limited because you cannot just appropriate everything. Our needs will have to be limited.

Second, we see that while it is good to take things, people are not nourishments. I mean, I do not go to somebody just to take something, then I am making use of the other—I am cannibalizing the other. I am only treating the other merely as a means to an end. It’s not a naive and innocent enjoyment.

Sharing the good things

It is good to nourish oneself and it is good to feel alive. If it is really good to experience that, maybe there is even a greater good when you share it with other people. We are not told to abstain from the good things of the Earth; but that the good things of the earth must be shared. You try to share your blessings with other people. This will come when you become aware that the I is not just for itself, but for the Other. This is the idea that this being is fundamentally a being for the Other.