"This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change his bed. "
(C. Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris, Any WHERE Out of the worild) The duty we have received is to briefly present the life of Emmanuel Levinas and outline his thoughts through his work Totality and Infinity. A biographical presentation and a gloss of some specifically Levinasian vocabulary will be provided by my partner. The present work is a detailed summary of the first and last chapter of this masterpiece, mixed with some commentary and explanation or indication of staff, followed by a modest prentendrai epilogue in which I situate the purpose of this work in the changing panorama of Levinas's philosophy, and highlight its elements "theological" or "religious" .
The summary is structured according to the scheme given in the book, and consists essentially of extracts of the text, but I try to present a more explicit while remaining faithful to the integrity of the idea of text . Metaphysics and Transcendence
I. Desire of the invisible
"Real life is absent," We are in the world.
[1] The "Being," the abysmal bottom of our existence, is "absent", the man or Dasein, who is staying in this "world" (Dasein), seeks out thus metaphysics arises and persists in this alibi. It is oriented'ailleurs', and 'other' and the 'other'. The metaphysical desire tends towards anything, towards the absolutely other. A desire for ever, not a reminiscence (as this desire does not come from a nostalgia for a lost homeland), and can not be satisfied, completed (because it is not necessary). "It is like goodness, the desire does not fill, but hollow. "
Desire is absolute if desiring being is mortal and the Desired, invisible. Desire without satisfaction ... means the distance, about otherness and exteriority of the Other. For Desire, this otherness, inadequate to the idea, makes sense. It is understood as the otherness of others and like the Most High (the otherness of the Other is the Superiority of the Other). The dimension of height is opened by the metaphysical desire. That this height is no longer the sky, but the Invisible (seizure of the Other) is the elevation of the same height and nobility.
Dying for the invisible (or, for the invisible life which is the other) - that's metaphysics. Thus, Levinas whole philosophy is built on this desire to leave oneself, a desire that could be my place after a distance (separation) abysmal, in another, and because of this desire metaphysics, The Other I have always and forever, otherwise, outside and above.
II. Out of all
The term refers to a metaphysical absolute exteriority, the transcendent word demonstrates the irreducibility of movement within a game, a mere presence of oneself to oneself. The movement is transcendental metaphysics and transcendence as desire and inadequacy, is necessarily a transcendence. the metaphysician and the Other does not add up.
Transcendence ... ... desorb in the system unit (aggregation) to destroy the radical otherness of the Other. The otherness, heterogeneity (disparity, dissimilarity) radical of the Other, is possible only if the Other is different from a term whose essence is to remain at the point of initially serve as an entrance to a relationship, to be the same ... absolutely ... I like. The Me ... is not a being that is always the same, but the being whose existence is to identify ... Self is identical down to its alteration. The universal identity: one person, Me.
metaphysical Desire is absolute, hence irreducible, transcendent, be interested (the ego) and the other desires does not add up. If desired the Other is absolute, then the same is as absolute, is identified as "I" universal identity, the starting point of a relationship (alteration). So Again, does not mean "immutable", but "being whose existence is to identify '.
The "I" is in the world, the world itself is the "other", but it is free in this world: "I'm home, everything is his, he may have, suspend otherness ( total) is the way of the Same. The identification of the same is the real selfishness. (So the world does me no further, because I totalizable)
otherness between me and the inhabited world is a formal non-metaphysical otherness, it is not between the Same and the Other because the power I will not cross the distance indicated by the otherness of the Other. The Other is other metaphysical otherness of non-formal (including absolute), prior to any initiative, any imperialism of the Same. (The distance impassable, so the irreducible alterity, absolute, makes a relationship metaphysical, transcendent possible.)
The is absolutely Even I, the other is totally Other. The absence of a common homeland of the Other is the Stranger, which also means "free" on him the "I" can not power.
The report of the Same and the Other is language. The language, fulfilling a report, its words are not contiguous (they are not neighbors, because of the separation distance ...) in this report, the Other despite the relationship with the transcendent Even still the same. The relationship of the Same and the Other (the metaphysical relation), originally played as a discourse (language), where even picked up his selfhood (its self, that it is not the other) "I", leaves home. (Later the author tells the subjectivity of the ego makes it possible my home of the Other, the ego, the subject is a host and one that I still absolutely another, made us think about God, and the report which is language, speech is possible location of a religion ...)
A relationship whose terms do not form a totality (one does not sum to another) can occur in the general economy of being that as a matter of me to the Other as face to face, as drawing a distance in depth (alterity) - one of kindness, Desire ... discourse maintains the distance between me and the Other, the radical separation which prevents the reconstruction of all, can not renounce the selfishness of its existence, but the very fact of being in a speech to another is to recognize a right this selfishness, and so to justify. The apology which the self both affirmed and bows to the transcendent is the essence of the speech.
The author proposes to call religion the link established between the Same and the Other (language, speech), without constituting a totality.
III. Transcendence is not negativity
Metaphysics does not coincide with the negativity (Desire is not a metaphysical discontent existential condition), because otherness is not a refusal, the Stranger does is not denied. Resistance is internal to the Same, the denier and denied arise together form system: that is all.
In Baudelaire's text ("This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change his bed.") The patient will never be content in the incessant change of bed because the desire to possess it is the desire of go outside the hospital that is the metaphor for this world, the metaphysical desire.
The negation of imperfection is not enough in the design of otherness, but perfection is beyond the design, it is the distance, and published the passage to the limit, the transition to the Other's transcendence. The idea of the perfect is the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity (the perfect) is a height, a nobility, it is not limited to the denial of the imperfect, it means something infinitely remote from mine. But distance does not destroy the relationship (but she says), the ego does not sum to the Other, and it will not be alienated.
(Transcendence is not negativity: the absoluteness the Other can not be qualified, the Other to me, always and forever separated, so if you will, it is holy , holy ...)
IV. Metaphysics precedes ontology
The theoretical relationship is the preferred scheme of metaphysical relationship (the relationship is expressed in relation to metaphysical theory). Theory means that the knowing being allowed to be seen manifested respecting its otherness and without marking by the relationship of knowledge. The metaphysical desire is the essence of the theory.
But the theory means intellect (logos of being), that is one way to approach this be known that his otherness to be compared knowing faints (loses). This way of being known to deprive its otherness, can only be accomplished if it is referred through a third term, which itself is not a being of sensation, which merge quality objective and subjective affection. It can manifest itself as distinguished from the being: being without thickness is, where is the light beings become intelligible. The theory is called ontology, it reduces the other to the same, which promotes freedom is the identification of the Same, which does not allow himself alienated by the Other. Here the theory (ontology) embark on a path that renounces metaphysical Desire, to exteriority whose lives Desire. (The path of ontology is the way of knowledge, in which the being has a lien on the circumstances, it is the light that reveals the being, and thus is losing its uniqueness, its independence, it can not be the Other in the Levinasian sense, and becomes comprehensible ...) But
ontology as respect for exteriority draws another essential structure of metaphysics, which is concerned with criticism in the ontology, which calls into question the freedom and spontaneity of exercise ontological (the freedom and spontaneity of being in front of the being. Freedom ontological makes even able to aggregate by reducing the Other, the Same performs aggregation by "being" which is the generality of any being, and thus suppresses its uniqueness.). So its critical intention leads beyond the ontology (to infinity), the criticism does not reduce the other to the same as ontology, but is the exercise of the Same in question. This called into question by the presence of others, it's called ethics. The strangeness of the Other is its irreducibility to me, she accomplished as ethics, metaphysics, transcendence, the welcoming of the Other by the Same, the Other by Me occurs as ethics. (So it's ethical criticism that makes the otherness and the separation between the same and the other infinitely radical, being itself the metaphysical desire, the source of the relationship between these two, a transcendent relation.)
Being, Again, by his intelligence, his reason and his liberty, still claims "total" the stranger he encounters: the Other, by knowing, but his desire metaphysical form of ethics is always already and calls into question his intention of adding his freedom, his exercise , so: metaphysics (the relationship between the Same and the Other is always already there: while I am, the other is already there before me, relationship, face-to-face is still preliminary, so transcendent ... ) Precedes ontology. (The above is to be). The author criticizes
while Western philosophy has been, since Socrates, often an ontology: a reduction of the Other to the Same, a philosophy based on the sufficiency of essentially the same (selfishness), conceptualizes an individual (the beings), not in her individuality but in its generality, removing all otherness.
For phenomenology of the 20th century, the being of being is the medium of truth. The being is includes the extent of thought transcends, for measuring the horizon where it is emerging. The idea of the horizon plays a role equivalent to that of the classical concept of idealism. Addressing being from the being is both let it be (exist) and understand (grasp it, depriving it of its independence, so the total) by the void of existence (the be), reason (intelligibility) seizes (type) of existing (to be). The being is seized by its silhouette (his being, the generality), but he lost his face (his individuality, his uniqueness).
Ontology Heidegger affirms the priority of being compared to being ("to know the being must have understood the being of being"). Thus, the relationship with someone who is being (personal relationships, ethics) is subject to a relationship with the being of being (the generality) that impersonal, permits the domination of being by the be (a relationship of knowledge); justice is subordinated to freedom (spontaneity capricious, the ability to ...). The relationship with the being is to neutralize is to understand (grasp the total ...), it is, as ontology, a reduction of the Other to the Same. The Freedom is here defined as: to maintain against the other, despite any relationship with each other, and ensure self-sufficiency of an ego. The theming and conceptualization are deleting or possession of the Other. Possession in fact says the Other in a negation of its independence.
Ontology as first philosophy is a philosophy of power (a philosophy of power ...), the truth which should reconcile the people present here anonymously; universality as impersonal, there is an inhumanity. (Human, each individual's uniqueness, each is unique unity in diversity occurs, the loss of uniqueness is a sale.)
According to the author, to build a relationship with otherness nonallergic (a relationship that supports and condones otherness) must Desire, in which power is killer becomes the Other of the Other account or justice should be kept anonymous in the community, the partnership with the Other Me, language and goodness (goodness, then ethics After the metaphysical desire, the source of the relationship that occurs in language, speech ...).
V. The idea of transcendence as
The Infinite Even the relationship with the Other, the transcendence of the relationship could not cut ties involved in the relationship, neither these ties unite into a whole (a Totality) the same and the other is fixed in position described by Descartes, where "I think" relationship with the Infinite it can hold and which it is separated, a relationship called "idea of infinity." (For Descartes's "I think, for Levinas," I wish »...)
The Cartesian notion of the idea of the Infinite designates a relationship with someone who keeps his total externality (ie, otherness absolute) relative one who thinks so. The infinite within the finite accomplished by the idea of the Infinite Desire occurs as a perfectly disinterested Desire (goodness, therefore unable to aggregation). Desire and goodness implies a relationship where desire stops the "negativity" of ego functioning in the same, power, influence (aggregation). And as a gift, I offer his presence in front of a face (the way the Others are present). And my orientation towards the Other can not lose the greed of the gaze that mutating into generosity (goodness). This relationship is the relationship of discourse.
Face of Others destroyed at any time adequate idea (the idea of aggregation). He speaks. The face brings a notion of truth, an expression. The condition of truth is the word of the Other. But the primary content of the expression is the very expression. Addressing the others in his speech is to welcome its expression (while his face).
Receive the Other beyond the capacity of the ego is to have the idea of infinity. The relation with the Other is a speech or ethical relationship, this speech is allowed an education. "He comes from outside and gives me more than I can contain, in its transitivity is nonviolent produces the same epiphany of the face. "
The notion of the face reveals the philosophical anticipation of being on being, an exteriority that can not be reduced to the interiority of recollection (recollection Platonic) and saves it to me that the hosts (the self is always free and independent).
The relationship of the Self with the Other, the ethical relationship, and is exercised in the form of speech is the same metaphysics.
The "Conclusion" of the book
[2] I. More of the Same
The identity of the individual is not to be like itself and to identify let outside, but to be the same, to be oneself, to identify from within. The transition logic to the same thing: the singularity arises from the logical sphere, exposed to the eyes and organized entirely by the reversal of this inner sphere of the ego: the reversal of the convexity concavity.
II. Being is exteriority
Being is exteriority (or if one prefers, otherness): the exercise of his being is in the exterior, and thought to be obeyed allowing themselves to be dominated by this externality. The externality is true in a face-to-face, which reads from a separate point of exteriority and stands for itself: "me." the true essence of man comes in his face. Being located in a subjective field that distorts vision but allows the externality to say, this curvature of space that is entirely false superiority does not be possible but makes its truth. The curvature of space expresses the relationship between human beings. Man as Other comes to us from outside: it is separated from us (so qadash, St) appears as a face. Its exterior, which is its appeal to me, is his truth and my truth filed his response (its "views" on me does not abolish). The curvature of space means for divine truth, it is, perhaps, the very presence of God. (Here we see the presence of God as a supreme good).
Face-to-face relationship last and irreducible, makes possible the pluralism of society. (If we can understand this: the company is formed by the elementary relation: face-to-face, but not individual, it said the company is not Any individual of similar, anonymous, but the whole "me" and "others" who are face to face ...)
III. The finite and the infinite exteriority
The essence of being as does the resistance of multiple social logic which accounts for the multiple. The multiplicity is not a deprivation of one or the Infinite. Being as exteriority is seen as the infinite desire of the infinite, but this desire is not a nostalgia for the infinite nor a tendency to return: the finish is still in its own being . The externality (otherness) is not a negation, but marvel.
IV. Creating
In dealing ontological terms the idea of God-creature relation, theology presupposes the privilege of all logic that denies transcendence. But the notion of transcendence puts us beyond the categories of being if the concepts of totality and to be overlap. And here one encounters the Platonic idea of the Good beyond Being.
Others, by its meaning, before my initiative, like God. The Decalogue
absolute (ethics) that transcendence (Good) implies could mean the end of creation: both affirms kinship beings (beings, the creature) between them and also their radical heterogeneity, their mutual externality (otherness) from nothing. In the face-to-face, me neither the privileged position of the subject, or position of the thing defined by its place in the system, he is apologetic self: speech justification before others, and that This is the first intelligible, since it is able to justify my freedom instead of waiting for a meaning. The face now demands justice.
V. Exteriority and language
The externality of being does not mean that the multiplicity is irrelevant, only the relation that links the multiplicity does not fill the abyss of separation but he confirms. In this report, the language that occurs only in face-to-face is recognized as teaching.
The exteriority of discourse does not convert into interiority, the caller is never out because the relationship between separate beings do not add up.
The externality of being is its very existence: endless infinite exteriority. This externality opens in Others, refuses to theming, as it occurs in a being that is expressed. In his speech, demonstration and expressed coincide, the manifested attend his own event, he remains outside any image that you would select. A presentation is to say, "I, I" and nothing else what one is tempted to assimilate, we call it "face." The relationship with the face that appears in the word desire is described as: kindness and justice.
Exteriority exercised and unfolds in the language, which is overrun by the incessant "Sinngebung" (the interpretation, meaning) by the service, his presence far beyond me, does not resolve in my vision. The overflow of externality is the dimension of height or the divinity of the externality. Speech is speech with God.
VI. Speech and image
the presence of others (expression, face), the source of all meaning, understood as language strives externally. The face goes beyond the images always immanent in my mind, and this overflow occurs in the measurement (or excess) of Desire and goodness as the moral asymmetry of self and other. The distance of this externality extends immediately to the height (superiority). Because of this externality, face never becomes image. The meaning irreducible to intuitions, is measured by Desire, morality, goodness.
Man is not - that embracing the phrase that it can bring its own event source (the manifested attend his own event). Justice is to make possible the expression, where in the non - reciprocity, the person presents unique. Justice is right to speak. It's "maybe" there that opens the prospect of a religion.
VII. Cons philosophy Neutral
Exaltation of Neutral can be presented as the relative priority of We Me, the situation in relation to people in situations. In the rule of Neutral, is materialism. Neutral Place to be in - the above being said, is to profess materialism.
VIII. Subjectivity
has a finite idea of infinity, here the radical separation occurs, and simultaneously, the relationship with the other. Intentionality (consciousness) is attention to the word or face home, hospitality and not theming. Consciousness expands in itself as a body, standing in its interiority, it accomplishes the separation and positive without being reduced to a negation of being it separates, and so it can accommodate. The subject is a host.
IX. Being as kind - the ego - pluralism - Peace
Metaphysics is here posited as Desire to measure the Infinite. Ask metaphysics as Desire is to interpret the output to be as kind and as beyond happiness, as being for others.
Goodness for a being who reveals himself in a face, it is to go where no thought illuminating: an absolute adventure, in a reckless paramount. Kindness is the transcendence, the transcendence of an ego. Only an ego may respond to the injunction of a face. (The face is called the Others sent to me). The ego is preserved in goodness.
Transcendence occurs as pluralism, which is fulfilled in goodness from me to the other, the absolute other.
unit of the plurality is peace, not the consistency of elements constituting the plurality. Peace must be my peace in a relationship that leaves me and one goes to the Other, in desire and goodness which the self both exists and is maintained in selfishness. Epilogue
Three essential elements deserve to be held account in the construction of Levinas's philosophy: he had set in line with the phenomenology of the 20th century (a student of Husserl and Heidegger ...) and he had survived the second World War he was a Jew, even more he himself was "Talmudic".
philosophy was born in the aspiration of the escape of Being and suffering from "an obscure brain - household of there" (in which we recognized the famous Sartre's Nausea, which is also later). The first ground of his thought is therefore the need to leave home (or are being, which is always "be there", "being in the world, Dasein), and this starting point, we find its origin in Heidegger's philosophy. And apart from that, descriptive phenomenology was always his methodological reference, and its concrete existential question. (Eg welcome the Other is hosting his face which is an expression that says his Truth ...)
In 1934, he began reflecting on national ideology - socialist, in which he acknowledged a deadly threat to humanity of man. He found the cradle of this ideology in the traditional Western philosophy, which was often ontological philosophy. In this philosophy, being transcends any individual is being totaled by the being, the claim that traditional thinking is to build an absolute totality. The exercise of political totalitarianism, in which being "other" is strictly forbidden, is regarded as a consequence of this philosophy.
Levinas, as a Jew, was raised in the tradition. Later, Talmudic work had an important place in his life. Wanted to distinguish itself clearly separable from his philosophical research, but underestimate the influence of religion in its Philosophical thought is probably a mistake. The Jewish people are God's chosen people, his whole story is centered on his relationship with God. God, it is completely different, completely separate, much higher (it is St.), then, that relationship, the man is there "for God". However, this relationship is not a relationship of dependency, but a relationship of trust, a relationship of "discourse" and "listening" (the Act is commenced by: "Hear O Israel ...", it was given under the form of teaching), then the chosen people has always been free. Here, one can easily recognize the relationship between ego and others described by Levinas. And he himself said: "Others, by its meaning, before my initiative, like God," and in a report in the form of speech, he also saw the possibility of a religion.
[1] "Real life is absent. We are not in the world. "- Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell. Delirium I
[2] The summary of this final chapter is unfortunately not complete, because of the lack of certain page in the copy I received.