The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas 9780823293018

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The Intrigue of Ethics

PERSPECTIVES IN CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

John D. Caputo, series editor l. John D. Caputo, ed., Df'construction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with jacques Derrida. 2. Michael Strawser, Both/And: Reading Kierkegaard-From Irony to Edification. 3. Michael Barber, Ethical Hermeneutics: Rationality in Enrique Dussel's PhilosojJhy of Liberation. 4. James H. Olthuis, ed., Knowing Other-wise: Philoso·phy at the Threshold of Spirituality. 5. James Swindal, Rf'jlntion Rroisited:jiirgen Habennas's Discursive Themy of Truth. 6. Richard Kearney, Poetics of Imagining: Modem and Post modem. Second

edition. 7. Thomas W. Busch, Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorporation-Essays on Late Existentialism. 8. Edith Wyschogrod, Emmanuel Lroinas: The Problem ofEthical 1\JetajJhysics. Second edition. 9. Francis J. Ambrosio, ed., The Question of Christian PhilosojJh~v Today. 10. Jeffrey Bloechl, ed., The Face of the Other and the Tract' of God: Essays on the PhilosojJhy of Emmanuel Levinas. 11. liseN. Bulhof and Laurens ten Kate, eds., Flight of the Gods: PhilosojJhical PersjJf'ctives on Negative Theology. 12. Trish Glazebrook, Heidegger's Philosophy of Science. 13. Kevin Hart, Thf' Trespass of the Sign. Second edition. 14. Mat:k C. Taylor, Journeys to Seljlwod: Hegel and Kierkegaard. Second edition. 15. Dominique Janicaud, Jean-Fran~ois Courtine, Jean-Louis Chretien, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur, Phenomenology and the "Theological Turn": The French Debate. 16. Karl Jaspers, The Question ofGennan Guilt. Introduction by Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. 17. Jean-Luc Marion, The Idol and Distance: Five Studies. Translated with an introduction by Thomas A. Carlson.

THE INTRIGUE OF ETHICS A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought ofEmmanuel Levinas

jEFFREY DUDIAK

Fordham University Press New York

2001

Copyright© 2001 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, photocopy. recording, or any other--except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy, No. 18 ISSN 1089-3938

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dudiak, Jeffrey. The intrigue of ethics : a reading of the idea of discourse in the thought of Emmanuel Levin as I Jeffrey Dudiak. p. cm.-(Perspectives in continental philosophy; no. 18) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8232-2092-3 (hardcover)-ISBN 0-8232-2093-1 (pbk.) l. Levinas, Emmanuel-Contributions in philosophy of language and languages. 2. Language and languages-Philosophy-History-20th century. 3. Ethics. I. Title. II. Series. B2430.L484 D83 194-dc21

2001 00-048468

Printed in the United States of America 01 02 03 04 05 5 4 3 2

For Ruth, my mother. "Love is love in this antecedence."

CONTENTS Acknowledgments

IX

Preface: Dialogue and Peace

XI

PART

1:

THE IDEA OF DISCOURSE

1. The Impasse of Dialogue I. Dialogue as Dia-logos: The Ontological Model II. Dialogue Problematized

3 5 27

2. Original Plurality: The Terms of Discourse I. Allergy and Separation II. The Ethical Transcendence of the Other III. The Separation of the Same as Enjoyment

57 59 62 79

3. Discourse as the Condition of Possibility for Dialogue I. The Relation of Discourse II. Discourse Produces the Logos III. The Economy of the Same and the Logos IV. Discourse Founds Dialogue PART

II:

109 109 118 128 140

THE PossiBLE IMPOSSIBILITY

Introduction to Part II I. Conditions of Possibility and Impossibility II. From "Discourse" to "The Saying"

167 167 169

4. The Two Aspects of Language: The Saying and the Said I. Language As the Said II. Language As the Saying

178 1 78 193

5. The Two Directions in Language: The Reductive and the Re-constructive I. From the Said to the Saying: Reduction II. Intermezzo: Between Movements III. From the Saying to the Said: Re-construction

224 224 230 233

viii

CONTENTS

IV. The Saying in Justice: Inspiration and Betrayal V. Discourse: A Possible Impossibility 6. The Moment of Responsibility: Time and Eternity I. From Simultaneity to Postponement II. From Postponement to Recurrence III. A Temporary Conclusion IV. At This Very Moment V. The Moment of Responsibility PART

III:

240 24 7 263 265 279 289 291 300

DISCOURSE, PHILOSOPHY, AND PEACE

7. Levinas's Philosophical Discourse I. Levinas's Philosophy As Discourse II. Levinas's Discourse As Philosophy

317 320 352

8. The 1m/possibility of Peace I. Incredulities II. Offerings III. Testimonies

403

B-ibliography

421

Index

433

403 404 408

ACI{NOWLEDGMENTS To Prof. James Olthuis, mentor and friend, for his patient and enthusiastic encouragement, for his singular gift of being-with me throughout this long, sometimes trying, but always enriching writing process ... To Prof. Theo de Boer of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, whose readings of Levinas and comments upon my own text have been a consistent challenge and inspiration to me ... To the intellectual and spiritual community at the Institute for Christian Studies, to all of its members, for the innumerable nourishments I have received ... To the members of the faculty of the Institute, present and past, and particularly, in my case, Professors Hendrik Hart, Calvin Seerveld, and William Rowe (now of Scranton University, and who introduced me to the work ofLevinas), for the many things they have taught me ... To my former student colleagues at the I.C.S., for the invaluable contributions they have made to my life and work, and above all to the closest among these, Ronald Kuipers (who made anumber of wise suggestions regarding this text), :-.J"ik Ansell, Janet Wesselius, and Shane Cudney ... To other special teachet·s and supporters, Professors Robert Gibbs of the University of Toronto (who generously read this work and has encouraged and challenged me to take it further), David Goicoechea of Brock University, and John D. Caputo of Villanova University ... To The King's University College, Edmonton, an undergraduate institution devoted to both teaching and faculty research, for providing me with an academic environment conducive to the final preparations of this text for publication ... To my editor Anthony Chiffolo at Fordham University Press and my copyeditor David Anderson for their efficient and generous help ...

X

ACKNOWI.EDGMENTS

To my parents, Michael and Ruth Dudiak, for continuing to give me life ... To my wife, Julie Robinson, for teaching me what redemption means ... To many others, special friends, and special Friends, who know who they are, for the lightness and grace they have brought to my life and work ... And, finally, to Emmanuel Levinas himself, whose graciousness to me in our too brief acquaintance, and the inspiration left across a life's work, have been a marvelous testimony to me of the intrigue of ethics ... . . . my sincerest and deepest gratitude.

PREFACE DIALOGUE AND PEACE

From the macro-cosmic levels of international relations, through national, democratic politics, down through labor-management negotiations, to the micro-levels of marital and even personal therapies, twentieth-century humanity places a great deal of faith and hope in dialogue as a way of peacefully settling conflicts and resolving tensions that threaten to devolve, or have already devolved, into violence. 1 There would, moreover, appear to be some warrant for this faith: Sometimes, treaties are signed, the transition of power is smoothly accomplished, work sites are productive, and marriages and persons are healed. But dialogue also, sometimes, fails-either in breaking down or in failing to get underway at all: There are wars, revolutions, strikes, divorces, and enduring personal brokenness. Need it be argued, or could it even be argued, 2 that peacethat is, genuine peace, 3 and not some or other form of violence parading under that name (and despite a certain and seemingly natural human proclivity for romanticizing bellicosity)-is better than war? And if, as we (many? most?) Westerners believe, dialogue can be a boon to the prospects for peace, might it not serve us to seek to understand why dialogue is seemingly4 so efficacious in some instances, and not at all so in others? Might we identify the conditions of possibility of dialogue, and thereby promote (at least a deeper understanding of the workings of) dialogue, and thereby contribute to the promotion of peace? This work has as its ultimate motivation the hope of making some modest contribution to this project, with a trust (however tempered by the "harsh reality" that being as war imposes "at the very moment of its fulguration when the drapings of illusion burn" (TI 21 [IX])) in the blessing promised to those, and by those, who undertake

XII

PREFACE

peacemaking, a trust that can, nevertheless, perhaps only take the form of a testimony5 with dirt under its fingernails. More specifically, we 6 come to this work with the hope of making some progress in thinking through what we shall refer to as "the problem of interparadigmatic dialogue"-that is, the possibility of dialogue between those whose fundamental understandings of and approaches to the world are sufficiently divergent that the potential interlocutors are incapable of finding a common point of appeal that would serve to mediate between, and effectively sort out, their differences, and where these differences create a conflict with respect to some or other aspect of the ongoing fullness of life for those involved. 7 The problem of interparadigmatic dialogue, we shall argue, creates a particular problem for dialogue as this term is conceived of in the philosophical tradition, in that with the problem of interparadigmatic dialogue the very status of the logos upon which dia-logos is built is called into question; that is, in the problem of interparadigmatic dialogue, the "difference" between interlocutors that it is precisely the role of the logos of dia-logos to reduce or eliminate imposes itself precisely as incapable of being reduced, at least insofar as the interlocutors retain their difference, that is, remain themselves. 8 Our question, then, is this: How is dialogue between those holding to divergent paradigm positions possible? Or, again: What are the conditions of possibility for interparadigmatic dialogue? Our thesis, following upon the work of Emmanuel Levinas, and in opposition to the predominant part of the Western philosophical tradition, is that the fundamental condition of possibility for dialogue is not, as the tradition maintains, that I be "more rational" (that is, more attentive to the logos that, as we shall see, governs dia-logos), but that I be "more good," ethically better (that is, more attentive to the other to whom the logos of dia-logos is spoken). That is, we shall argue, following Levinas, that the condition of possibility of dialogue, including interparadigmatic dialogue, is not a more robust logos (reason), but "a non-allergic, ethical relationship with the other," a relationship that Levinas will call "discourse," and much of this work will therefore unfold as an exposition and examination of this relationship, and its relationship to the possibility of dialogue. We shall argue, in effect, that dialogue is only possible to the extent that I undertake a

PREFACE

Xlll

dialogue, in Levinas's phrase, as the "one-for-the-other" of responsibility, that is, as an asymmetrical exposure/vulnerabilityI sacrifice to a meaning that originates in-that is-the other in his or her alterity, rather than as the securing of myself in the selfcertainty of my own (rational) meanings, and attempting to proceed toward the other from there. For Levinas, communication, eidetically, "is possible only in sacrifice, which is the approach of the other for which one is responsible. Communication with the other can be transcendent only as a dangerous life, a fine risk to run" (OTB 120 [154]). Here, then, the possibility of dialogue will be revealed as a risk, a supreme risk to the egoity of the ego-but, as Levinas writes, as a beautiful risk to run, a risk that, as the condition of possibility for dialogue, opens up upon the possibility of peace, or that, as we shall see in the final chapter, is itself the very gesture of peace. We shall begin, then, in part I ("The Idea of Discourse"), by analyzing the idea of discourse (and, specifically, this idea as it pertains to the questions surrounding the possibilities for dialogue and peace we have here set out to address) as this idea comes to expression in Levinas's 1961 study Totality and Infinity, arguing our first thesis-that discourse is the condition of possibility for dialogue-across three chapters: first, by indicating, by way of a Levinasian analysis, the impasse into which the philosophical tradition of the West runs when faced with the problem of interparadigmatic dialogue (chapter 1: "The Impasse of Dialogue"); second, by setting out the terms-the same and the other-that as separated would be capable of sustaining the relationship of discourse (chapter 2: "Original Plurality: The Terms of Discourse"); and finally by following Levinas in his description of how the logos of dia-logos, and thus dialogue itself, depends for its meaning (and for its very possibility as meaningful) upon the ethical relationship of discourse (chapter 3: "Discourse as the Condition of Possibility of Dialogue"). Then, in part II ("A Possible Impossibility") we will attempt to deepen these analyses by reading the idea of discourse as it emerges in Totality and Infinity through the modified vocabulary and problematics of Levinas's 1974 text Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, arguing a second thesis-that the idea of discourse in Levinas is well thought as a possible impossibility-across three

XIV

PREFACE

chapters: first, by analyzing the "new" terms in terms of which "discourse" is said otherwise (chapter 4: "The Two Aspects of Language: The Saying and the Said"); second, by bringing these terms and the question of their complex interrelationships to bear upon the question of the possibility /impossibility of discourse (chapter 5: "The Two Directions in Language: The Reductive and the Re-constructive"); and, finally, by showing how this possible impossibility that is discourse is illuminated and deepened in Levinas's analysis of temporality (chapter 6: "The Moment of Responsibility: Time and Eternity"). It is in these three chapters that what we shall call "the intrigue of ethics," while foreshadowed in the opening three chapters, will begin to take shape as the non-ontological, religio-familial "horizon" in terms of which discourse itself will be shown to be im/possible as a nonallergic relationship with the other. In part III ("Discourse, Philosophy, and Peace"), we shall argue (in chapter 7: "Levinas's Philosophical Discourse") that Levinas's philosophical discourse is well read as itself a performative example of discourse, as itself a non-allergic, ethical relationship with the other (in the form of testimony and prophecy to the intrigue of ethics in which this thought finds itself implicated). In this chapter we shall further argue that the particular radicalization of transcendental philosophy practiced by Levinas is precisely in the service of this ethical performative. Finally, we shall conclude (in chapter 8: "The 1m/possibility of Peace") by revisiting the question of peace, the issue with which we begin and that guides the research-however far afield it appears at times to go-and suggest that peace itself is well described, on Levinas's accounting, as a possible impossibility. There we shall venture to follow out this thought and examine its implications with respect to our hopes for, and calling to, peace, and to the possibility of a dialogue that-we pray-opens us up upon the intrigue of ethics that is its very condition.

NOTES

l. An obvious example of this faith in action at the macro-level is the institution of the United Nations. The idea of a "government of

PREFACE

XV

governments" is, of course, not limited to the twentieth century, and the notion of dialogue as the way to peace (through truth) runs as deeply as the roots of Western rationalism. Plato already gives us Socratic dialogue as the way to truth, and peace (for almost the whole of the subsequent tradition-although the exceptions to this truth-peace progression, of which Levinas finds an indication in Plato himself, will be of considerable importance to Levinas) is grounded in this "truth," a movement we will be at some pains to trace here. We shall argue in this work, however, and ironically, that the rationalism that inspired this faith (or at least the rationalist articulation of this faith whose inspiration comes from "elsewhere") is not, in itself, up to making it work, is not up to delivering upon its promise of peace. That this has been recognized, increasingly, in our century (in the work, e.g., of Rosenzweig, Buber, Marcel) is, Levinas claims, testified to by a "new orientation" for dialogue in philosophy (and elsewhere), indeed, for a "philosophy of dialogue" that is opposed to "the philosophical tradition of the unity of the Ego or of the system and of the self-sufficience of immanence." (Wherein truth is thought of as subordinate to the relationship of dialogue, as its product, rather than as productive of it?) Levinas provides a possible historical explanation for the ubiquity, in academic circles and elsewhere, of this "new orientation": "The value that an entire series of philosophers, theologians and moralists, politicians, and even the general public attaches to the notion, the practice, and, in each case, to the word 'dialogue,' to the face-to-face discourse that people undertake, calling upon one another and exchanging pronouncements and objections, questions and responses, attests a new orientation of the idea that, perhaps following the trials of the twentieth century since the First World War, occidental society makes of the essence of the meaningful and the spiritual" (Emmanuel Levinas, "Le dialogue," in De dieu qui vient d !'idee [Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1986], p. 211, our translation; hereafter, references to this work will be indicated by the short form DVl, and citations from this text-untranslated at the time of writing-will appear in French in our text, with our translation provided in the notes). Perhaps. Perhaps it is the horror of our century's technical and moral capacity for large-scale violence that has driven us to seek in dialogue, in an unprecedented manner (increasingly, and with a revised manner of thinking of dialogue), a way to peace, a recourse to dialogue driven by a commitment-"Never again" (and after each relapse: "Again, never again")-a commitment the exigency of which has been augmented, one would have to think, by the ominous specter of nuclear war, an unthinkable possibility that, paradoxically, may have put an end to any large-scale war, forcing us to seek nonviolent

XVI

PREFACE

ways to settle our conflicts. (Or, has it simply driven us to have recourse to other, more subtle forms of violence?) 2. We shall later argue, following Levinas, that such an argument cannot be made, that one cannot (sensibly) give reasons for that which provides the condition of possibility for reason itself, even though it has been the obsession of Western philosophy to do so, and which, in so doing, has buried the (pre) origin of meaning beneath a superstructure of derivative meanings. 3. By "peace" we mean not simply that positivity implied by the doubly negative term "nonviolence," a certain laissez-faire "live and let live" (a hardly credible idea given the global implications of our contemporary environmental/ economic interconnectedness), but rather peace as a double positive, entailing both nonviolence and positive "curative help." (This latter phrase is taken from Emmanuel Levinas, "Useless Suffering," trans. R. Cohen, in The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other, ed. R. Bernasconi and D. Wood [New York: Routledge, 1988], p. 158.) That is to say that peace in the fullest sense, what Levinas will refer to as "messianic peace" (Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979], p. 22 [Emmanuel Levinas, Totalite et infini: essai sur l'exterimite (La Haye: Martin us Nijhoff, 1961), p. X]; hereafter, references to this text will be indicated with the short form TI followed by page references to the English u·anslation, and references to the French text in square brackets), is not merely the absence of war ("Peace ... cannot be identified with the end of combats that cease for want of combatants, by the defeat of some and the victory of the others, that is, with cemeteries or future universal empires" (TI 306 [283])), but implies the ideas of reconciliation and a community of those living in mutually supportive ways, notions that we will argue-against an "individualistic" readingare central to Levinas's whole project. 4. It is also possible that even in those instances where it has seemed to succeed, where recourse to dialogue has put an end to or averted a violent outbreak, that it has simply been-by threat, by ruse, or by rhetoric-the imposition of another form of violence, where "interlocutors" have been forced to accept the terms of an "agreement" against their wishes and best interests. Levinas refers to such a "peace" as the peace founded upon war-e.g., "The peace of empires issued from war rests on war. It does not restore to the alienated beings their lost identity" (TI 22 [X] )-and, while he admits that such "peace" is better than war, it is not to be confused with genuine, or messianic, peace, which, indeed, inspires or animates whatever peacefulness "the peace of empires" is capable of delivering: "Commerce is better than war, for in

PREFACE

xvii

peace the Good has already reigned" (Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981], p. 5 [Emmanuel Levinas, Autrernent qu'etre ou audelii de l'essence (LaHaye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), p. 5]; hereafter, references to this text will be indicated by the short form OTB, followed by the page number of the English translation and the page number of the French edition in square brackets). And this confusion need be avoided, perhaps, because this "peace as commerce" is, at least in a certain aspect, still war-not the violence of war waged, but the tyranny of war won. We shall have to address these problems. 5. We shall be preparing throughout this work for a description of the import, both ethical and philosophical, of this testimony, a description that will attain explicit expression only in our chapter 7 wherein its structure, and a tracing of that to which it testifies, will be revealed across the thesis that the whole of Levinas's philosophical discourse needs be read as testimonial/prophetic. 6. In this work I, Jeffrey Dudiak, shall adopt the convention of using the too formal, editorial "we" when I mean "me," the one writing this piece, despite the fact that this convention contravenes much of what is argued for in the work itself. The reason for this adoption is technical: the desire to save "I" for the I of Levinas's discourse. Problems surrounding Levinas's employment of the personal pronoun "I" will be discussed at some length in our chapter 7. 7. That is to say, we are interested specifically in the dilemma surrounding those cases where one is not able simply to say "live and let live," "let be," since the point of contention bears upon the very life of the opposing parties (e.g., diverse peoples who "share" a holy city or ancestral land that, according to the tenets of the different ethnoreligio-ideological traditions, can be possessed only by its own followers, like the situation of the Jews and Palestinians with respect to Jerusalem, or that of the Catholics and Protestants regarding Northern Ireland). Whether these differences be religious, ethnic, political, "philosophical" in the broad sense, or what have you, we are thinking for the most part of differences in what is most commonly today referred to as ideology. We shall argue, however, that, contrary to the "rational-liberal" viewpoint, seeking a reduction of ideologies is no way to proceed here, since this viewpoint imposes its own, even if more subtle (in denying that it is an ideology), ideology-ultimately adding to, rather than reducing, the problem of conflicting ideological viewpoints. 8. As we shall see, it is, and from the perspective of the tradition paradoxically, precisely this difference-that which for the tradition impedes the success of dialogue and must therefore be overcome-that for Levinas opens up the very possibility of dialogue.

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PART I

The Idea of Discourse

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l

The Impasse of Dialogue DIALOGUE, as the transmission of meaningful thought contents between interlocutors, is, etymologically, dia-logos, a transmission mediated dia ("through") the logos ("word," or "reason"). As such, the very notion of dialogue presupposes an a priori commonality of access to a shared logos for all prospective participants in the desired dialogue. The logos, if it is to effectively perform its mediatory function, must be shared, must be the same logos accessible to each. If dialogue, after its etymological sense, is to be possible, I must be able to speak a word (a logos) whose meaning for me corresponds to the meaning that that same word evokes in the other, that is to say, that I and my interlocutor must share both a lexicon of same-signifying signs, and the faculty, namely reason (logos), for the processing of such signs into thought contents and back, the faculty whereby such signs are linked to thoughts, and thoughts one to another. That in Greek, the language philosophy speaks, 1 the same word, logos, signifies at once "the word by which the inward thought is expressed," and "the inward thought or reason itself," 2 need be given some attention, for it is in the alibi of this ambiguity that, traditionally, language has been made subordinate to thought. 3 Nor can we ignore the presence of this word at the root of the word 'dialogue', itself the progeny of Greek language/thought. Logos inhabits the very word, and our notion, of dialogue, founds its possibility, is the lifeblood of dia-logos. A shared language, mutual recourse to a series of signs that signify identically across the range of potential interlocutors by providing the external medium for linking up shared, inward thoughts, and the common means of processing such signs, are the conditions of possibility for dialogue as dialogos. But does dialogue not also require a difference between the interlocutors, in that dialogue, the very necessity of dialogue, makes sense only where one of the interlocutors lacks that which

4

THE IDEA OF DISCOURSE

the other is capable of providing, necessitating the transmission that dialogue names? Identical terms would have nothing to offer to each other. If we were all the same, if our inward thoughts were identical, dialogue would be rendered superfluous. Is this not what Husserl saw when he denied that the experience of internal dialogue was anything more than a semblance? In the intimacy of the self-same philosophical subject, in "solitary mental life," thought is, according to Husserl, immediately self-present to itself, and no signs-signs, for Husserl, being that by which inward thought is externalized-are therefore required. 4 The same need not communicate with the same. Consequently, would not dialogue, insofar as it were real communication-a transmission of meanings between interlocutors-and not the semblance of language that, according to Husserl, is soliloquy, require, at once, both identity in the logos, and a difference among the terms in dialogue, that is to say, an identity in difference, or a difference in identity? What might such a locution mean? What might this at least seemingly oxymoronic exigency reflect? 5 According to Emmanuel Levinas, the Western philosophical tradition has predominantly and overwhelmingly emphasized the identity aspect of this dual exigency for dialogue, emphasizing the common logos explicit in dia-logos at the expense of the implicit (but no less necessary) difference. 6 For the tradition, the difference requisite for dialogue is taken be a function of-either as a fall away from or as a step in the movement toward-a more primordial or originary7 identity, resulting in a view of dialogue that Levinas, as we shall shortly see, refers to as the "dialogue of immanence," that is, a view whereby dialogue is part and parcel of the process of reducing all difference to identity, of reducing all transcendence to immanence, or of reducing the other to the same. This process, Levinas claims, endemic to philosophy as ontology, the overwhelmingly predominant mode in which Western philosophy has been transacted, is accomplished precisely by recourse to a term independent of the terms in relation but common to each, such as, for instance, the mediatory logos of dialogos, that, we have been so far suggesting, is the condition of possibility for dialogue. As such, we shall argue, the conception of dialogue as dia-logos (by which we shall mean dialogue as predicated upon the a priori commonality of the logos for all potential

THE IMPASSE OF DIALOGUE

5

interlocutors, as the condition of possibility for dialogue) is but one manifestation of the Western philosophical/ on to logical project. It is the purpose of this opening chapter to trace Levinas's account of dialogue after this philosophically predominant conception, and to indicate the impasse into which this model leads regarding the possibility of giving an adequate account of dialogue, and, in particular, the possibility of giving an adequate account of the possibility of interparadigmatic dialogue. In this chapter the problem of interparadigmatic dialogue will be presented precisely as problematic (that is, problematic for dialogue after the ontological model) in presenting us with a dialogical situation (or at least a situation that calls for dialogue) where the a priori commonality of the logos that dialogue as dia-logos presupposes is precisely that which is in question, where the conceptual presuppositions of the ontological conception of dialogue are disturbed insofar as the requisite common logos, at least for practical purposes, cannot be effectively located, and is thus rendered incapable of performing its mediatory function. For ifwe are, even in practice, incapable of locating the logos as our common point of appeal, what becomes of the possibility of dia-logos? That is to say that the challenge of interparadigmatic dialogue brings to the fore the difference between interlocutors that, even while required for dialogue, has, according to Levinas, been suppressed by the tradition. The practical, theoretical, and ethical problems with this suppression will, in this chapter, be addressed in turn. It is, moreover, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, precisely to this difference that Levinas will turn as a starting point for his alternative account of dialogue. But first, we turn to the tradition out of which dialogue as dia-logos draws its conceptual resources.

I.

DIALOGUE AS

DIA-Locos: THE

ONTOLOGICAL MoDEL

Levinas gives his reading of dialogue on the model of the philosophical tradition most concisely in a relatively late ( 1980) article entitled "Le Dialogue," 8 wherein he describes such a view as "le dialogue de I' immanence." In order to understand what drives an understanding of dialogue conceived after this fashion, it is

6

THE IDEA OF DISCOURSE

necessary to take a few pages9 to introduce and summarize Levinas's reading of what he takes to be the major motif of the Western philosophical tradition, the tradition from which such a view of dialogue emerges, namely, the reduction of the other to the same.

1.1. Ontology as a Reduction of the Other to the Same

According to Levinas, "Western philosophy has most often been an ontology: a reduction of the other to the same by interposition of a middle and neutral term that ensures the comprehension of being" (TI 43 [ 13]). 10 As this quotation indicates, it is Levinas's thesis that philosophy as it has been predominantly practiced in the West has been, in its deepest spirit and in terms of its dominant motifs (despite a number of significant 11 "lapses"), a reduction of the other to the same, 12 or, which is to say the same (because of Levinas's linking of ethics with respect and responsibility for the dignity of the other qua other-a thesis to be developed in due course), a reduction of ethics to ontology. To read the history of Occidental philosophy as fundamentally an ontology, and to recognize in this history the reduction of alterity as its systematic result, is to see in ontology a complex of terms and ideas whose interrelations form a matrix of thought whose regime internally promotes this reduction. For Levinas, then, ontology is not only the application of the logos to the ontos, or the logicizing of the ontos (onto-logos) in order that being might become intelligible-although it is that. It is also the complicity of logos and ontos in an attempt to exclude being's "other," 13 that is, by limiting in advance that which is permitted to have the status of meaning or truth to that which fits into the "theoretical" correlation between the (logos endowed) knower and the known (the ontos) . 14 Continuing this quotation, Levinas traces this "reduction" 15 of the other to the same, this primacy of ontology in Western intellectual discourse, to the onset of the classical period of our philosophical tradition-to Socratic maleutics: 16 This primacy of the same was Socrates's teaching: to receive nothing of the Other but what is in me, as though from all eternity I

THE IMPASSE OF DIALOGUE

7

was in possession of what comes to me from the outside-to receive nothing, or to be free. Freedom does not resemble the capricious spontaneity of free will; its ultimate meaning lies in this permanence in the same, which is reason. Cognition is the deployment of this liberty; it is freedom. That reason in the last analysis would be the manifestation of a freedom, neutralizing the other and encompassing him, can come as no surprise once it was laid down that sovereign reason knows only itself, that nothing other limits it. The neutralization of the other who becomes a theme or an object-appearing, that is, taking its place in the light-is precisely his reduction to the same. To know ontologically is to surprise in an existent et;mfronted that by which it is not this existent, this stranger, that by which it is somehow betrayed, surrenders, is given in the horizon in which it loses itself and appears, lays itself open to grasp, becomes a concept. (TI 43-44 [13-14])

In this passage several key pillars of the ontological edifice are indicated, elements whose parallel and mutually supportive constructions will constitute what Levinas calls "l'imperialisme ontologique" (TI 44 [15]). We shall organize our discussion of Levinas's characterization of Western thought around three of these, showing their interconnections, and the part that each plays in philosophy as ontology, in philosophy as a reduction of the other to the same: ontology as an expression of freedom, ontology as the unity of Reason, and ontology as the ultimate identity of the free psychism and Reason. 1.1. i. Ontology as an Expression of Freedom As an expression of freedom, or perhaps better, as an expression of the will to freedom (because, for Levinas, the thinking subject never does, despite its ontological "strivings," achieve such autonomy), ontological thought is constituted in such a manner as to permit the thinking subject to assert its independence with respect to anything exterior that might serve to limit it, such that the thinking subject "n'est limitrophe de rien" (TI 61 [32]). This will to freedom that, according to Levinas, is the driving spirit of both Western thought and of Western culture in generaP 7 is defined by Levinas as the will "to maintain oneself against the other, despite every relation with the other to ensure the autarchy of an I" (TI 46 [16]). Levinas argues that this will to freedom, this will to

8

THE IDEA OF DISCOURSE

autonomy, as reflected in Socratic maleutics, has served as the guiding motif for the greater part of Western thought, and it is this aspiration that determines the way in which the free being relates to exterior being. Not surprisingly, the form that this relation takes in philosophy is the theoretical relation, the theoretical relation as a relation between the autonomous agent and exteriority, but this in a way that harbors an irony. For the theoretical relationship with being is, according to Levinas, "first" ( d'abord) a relationship that would leave the exterior being "unmarked," that is to say, genuinely exterior, and thus able to be known as it is "in itself"-that which precisely provides it with its metaphysical privilege (where "metaphysics" names that relationship where the other is related to as other, as over against the relationship that reduces the other to the same that Levinas names "ontology")but ends by being a relationship through which exterior being will be subsumed by the free psyche, through which the alterity of the other as other, as other absolutely, is suppressed in so far as it is brought into a relationship of correlation with the knowing I, into correlation in its being "known," in much the same manner in which, for Plato of the Pannenides, "the relation with the Absolute would render the Absolute relative" (TI 50 [21]). For theory is, at one and the same time, not only an expression of metaphysical desire (where "desire" desires to encounter exteriority as genuinely exterior), IR but also functions as "intelligence" (which, Levinas argues, compromises the exteriority of being insofar as what it is taken to "be," what is permitted to have being as its essential attribute, is taken as a function of its being known, as if it fulfilled a "need'' or "lack" in the knower) .19 It is not by chance that the theoretical relation has been the preferred schema of the metaphysical relation. Knowledge or theory designates first a relation with being such that the knowing being lets the known being manifest itself while respecting its alterity and without marking it in any way whatever by this cognitive relation. In this sense metaphysical desire would be the essence of theory. But theory also designates comprehension [intelligence]-the logos of being-that is, a way of approaching the known being such that its alterity with regard to the knowing being vanishes. The process of cognition is at this stage identified

THE IMPASSE OF DIALOGUE

9

with the freedom of the knowing being encountering nothing that, other with respect to it, could limit it (TI 42 [12]). The original, "metaphysical" side of this relation (where metaphysics designates the desire to enter into relation with exteriority as genuinely exterior, or other), has, Levinas claims, been largely betrayed by philosophy as ontology20 in favor of that side of the relation that is here characterized as intelligence, a relation ("ontological" as opposed to "metaphysical") that attains exteriority by means of bringing it into correlation with the knowing psyche, which, as the quotation above indicates, is an expression of the freedom of the knowing subject. Levinas argues that it is precisely this "intelligence" that overwhelmingly marks, in Western thought, the relationship of the psyche to exteriority, such that "the psychism conceived as knowledge" underlies and dominates all of the psyche's modes of consciousness (up to, and terminating in, consciousness of itself), all of its experience, everything that it "lives": C'est dans le psychisme cont;:u comme savoir-allantjusqu'9 Marcel, Gabriel. xv Marx. Karl, 45, 56 maternity, 138, 161-62,204. 221,240. 258 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 356, 400 messianic, the, xvi, 54. 263, 265. 278. 290-91,300,303.396 metaphysics. 8-9. 4 7-48, 70, 100-10 I. 211, :~54, 373. 4H moment, this very/the. xiv. 14, 28, 32, 34, 93, 161. 168. 172. 176, 182. 213, 218,240,250-51, 2:>3, 260-61.26465,270,291-303.312.317.339,373. 397. 419 mother. 138. 161,213. 221. 239 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 16, 50-51. 56, 157,417

peace, xi-xvii. 17. 21, 27-28. 30, 3537,42.53-54.56,59,67.104,14852.163. 169.2D.251,259,310,328, 332-33, 34fi, 349-52, 369, 394. 396, 403-4,408-12,417-19 Peperzak, Aclriaan, 45, 46, 47, 172, 174-76 phenomenology. 13, 46, 48-49, 55, 62, 97. 163,212.281. 307, 355-57,371, 378, 405. 414 Plato, xv, 8, 14. 16. 22, 26, 32. 33, 45. 46, 49. 88, 89. 100, 113. 151. 153, 173,176,214.226.255,404 Plotinus, 45 plurality. xiii, 57, 60-61, 80-81. 83, 85-1\6, 94-95, 99, 104-5. 129, 145, 413 politics, 18. 46, 50, :i·!. 80, I 04. 149, 242-43, 245. 258-59. 262. 398. 403. 408-9 power, 13, 17-19.35,42,60-61, fi3, 65-66, 97-98. 105-G. 116, 119. 140, 158, 292. 303-6, 351' 408-10. 415-16 prophecy/prophetic. xiv. xvii, 153. 163-64, 302. 320, 32·1-26, 329-33, 344-47,349, 351-52,355,392, ~\9596.398,418-19 proximity, 4:l. 53. 56. 150. 155, LiS59, 171, 175-76,197-202,205. 207-9, 211. 214-16, 222-23. 227, 229, 233-36, 239-H, 248-49, 255, 258, 260-62, 286. 291, 303. 310, 323, 326. :D8, :H2. 348, 395, 406, 415 Quintilian, 88

objectivity. 78. 85. 120-22, 124-25. 128-30. 134. 140, 142. 14~ 153, 176. 407, -W8 Odysseus. 11. 19 Olthuis.James H., 260 Parmenides, 4 7 Pascal, Blaise. 258

rationality, xii, xv-wii, 13. 16-17, 2526,48-49. 53. 101, 121. 142-43. 196, 238. 257, 327. 355. 403, 405. 407 reason, 3. 7. 15. 24.28-31, 36. 31\-40, 42-43,49-50,52-55,69,97,99, 101, 105, 126-27, 150-51, 157. 196-

INDEX

97,199,224,234,255,266,301.305. 371,387,404.407-8,413,415,417 recurrence, 208, 217, 221. 223, 248, 285,287-91,294,296-97.299,30912,373 reduction, 6-7, 20, 27, 46-47, 59. 62. 67, 79, 83, 93. 97. 110. 113. 115, 141, 144,151,215.224.226-27.230-32, 245-46.254,284,287.308-9.340, 357, 396 religion, 60, 157, 262, 346, 348 responsibility, 6. 58-60, 67. 80, 82, 101,109-11,113,115,118-19,124, 128-29, 138-39, 141, 144-46, 14954, 158, 160-61, 163. 171-72. 175, 180, 193, 195-96, 199-203, 206, 208-9.211,215-19.221-23,225, 229-31. 233-40, 242-46, 250, 253. 255-57, 259-61, 273, 275. 285-89. 291,295-300,303, 30~ 308-9,313. 319,321,323-51,371-72,374,37980. 382. 387. 389-91. 393-96, 398, 406-12, 415. 417 Ric