Reading Totality and Infinity, within the first chapter titled "Desire for Invisible", I encountered one of the first of many stumbling blocks. The page seemed to flow steadily in waves of critical thought, but it was there at the end of the chapter, in the decent, that I most resisted the currents force.
Levinas begins the chapter with a focused account of desire and what it means in the relation to the Other. Desire in itself is never complete. As was the case in Diotima's speech in the Symposium, to obtain one's love is to no longer desire them. We must be without. We cannot possess yet the lover must always seek closeness to the beloved. Love is a bitter sweet. One is unfulfilled by the separation away, but so grateful for the hope that love provides for the future. Applied to an account of metaphysics, the desire for a radical exteriority of the self, the absolutely Other, is one that is never complete. While things in the world are not necessarily excluded from it, material things can not completed it either. What is important to note about all this talk of desire is that metaphysics does not signifies something that is non-relational or an illusion of sorts, it is a real experience of the relation to what is invisible/non-present and incalculable.
Where I began to get caught up is in the translation of this desire for the invisible into an ethical philosophy. While this desire is to remain fundamentally without satisfaction and cannot exhaust the understanding of "the remoteness, the alterity, and the exteriority of the other", how is this a genuine regard for the particular Other in proximity to me? Every Other is unique and a potentiality that I cannot account for. I can never exhaust my responsibility to the other, nor can I be assured that the other will regard me as I regard the other. Rather than a set of rule or laws, as is typical of most ethical systems, Levinas provides no "ought" that will compel us to act and no way to separate ourselves from ethics. We simply exist always in an ethical relation to the other without our choosing to be. By recognizing these limitations of knowing the Other, to regard the Other is to take it away from its Otherness, it is to attempt to make visible what is invisible. Moreover, I am not responsible for the regard of the Other which I cannot satisfy, but it is the Other who encounters me in proximity. Only when we experience the closeness of the Other, the one who we can never know in a desire that only deepens, is the condition for ethical responsibility. We cannot satisfy our responsibility to the Other. My regard for and the response to the Other are always in question. This notion of ethics seems reminicent to the Kantian categorical imperative that understands ethics that is anything but categorical. In the Grounding of the Metaphysic of Morals Kant emphasizes the role of a disinterested ethics where the acting subject is not to regard the "means" but rather the "end" in itself that has not or may not be fully disclosed. In being disinterested, avoiding the error of restricting the Other to a concept is seen as the point where a pure ethics, what Kant calls the good, becomes discernible.
As an example of ethics, Levinas' description is far removed from any system that has typically represented ethics. Perhaps my confusion is a predictable response. The Other is never an answer for me - as close or finite totality - but rather I must continue infinitely to ask the question of my relation to the Other.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
PHIL 3476 - Nietzsche - Nihilism as Possibility
In the lecture today, the word "Nihilism" was described as the one word which encapsulate Nietzsche's entire philosophy. But as Professor Jowett reassured us, Nietzsche himself was not "prescribing Nihilism but diagnosing it".
I considered this interpretation seriously and turned to the passages that were said to illustrate the point. In the famous aphorism 125 titled "The Madman" from the Gay Science, Nihilism only came to light when light went out. This cryptic answer of my own hand is in part a reference to the lantern that was broken by the madman. Let me first explain what brought me there. In my experience in university, and the countless reading and rereading of this same passage, I have never once heard a professor remark about how passively the people were spoken about. While this may run contrary to the "herd mentatily" and the superiority or elitism of the Übermensch morality, the people's view of God was as evident as finding one's way. As far as they were concerned, their beliefs in God were decided and the matter was settled. Nihilism is only introduced during the silence that followed the madman's speech about the death of God. The people did not witness that death themselves. They did not hear the sound of a struggle or the cry of agony as God died. Their silence was one of many possible reactions and one that the madman had come to terms with long ago. After the piercing glares and grilling questions such as "How did we do this?", "How shall we comfort ourselves?", and "Who will wipe this blood off us?", silence was the only response the people gave. It was at that moment that the madman dropped the lantern that had revealed so much. It was then that the people were cast into darkness. It was then that impossibility of God's death became possible.
The enlightenment operated under the supposition that things are discovered and brought to light. But when light is eliminated all together, when the will that seeks resigns for the night, that is when Nihilism is present. Though we might come to describe Nihilism as the belief in nothing, it is not nothing itself. It is a form of critical thinking that questions all of what we call "things" It observes how we value and categorize things. How we find a place in our lives. Nihilism simply asks questions of pragmatics and what can be said to be in existence. But we may then ask the Nihilist, is existence everything that is worth considering?
In pointing to the death of God, Nietzsche reductively suggests just how unpragmatic and dependant the faithful are. How does one, in the absence of God, begin to speak again about the enormous task of constructing the world again? How could we live without the assurance of daily reminders that God's eyes are watching from above? What are we to do with the penance and sacrifice that are offered but no longer offer redemption? It seems that with the death of God a vast possibility of being would be lost. With the death of God all have been forced to face the burden of being accountable to themselves. Would this have come to pass without the small gad flies like Nietzsche whose pestering stirred humanity out of its idleness and into another direction? Shall we crown him "anti-Christ" over all that had followed before and those to follow after him?
While I am somewhat dismissive of the death of God and Nietzsche's responsibility for it, I am compelled to at least admit that Nihilism is one way to truth among others. While Nietzsche is critical of tradition and religion he failed to recognize that the conventional knowledge he strongly opposed both supports and applies force to his own ideas - the belief in God is a mode of being that is otherworldy oriented. Moreover, not all individuals who are receptive to convention knowledge are at every moment fully committed to it and one cannot expect to be separated complete from the same patrimony that permeates many aspects of our lives.
Both Dogma and Nihilism are not absolutes.
Nietzsche himself would say that the belief in God is already a form of Nihilism, a claim that is for him absolute. And yet it is still quite profound to make the claim that "God is dead" for in doing so one opens up the possibility for it to be considered. What other God or gods will take its place? How will we fill the silence that remains? All of these questions and more can be entertained.
The only limitation to thought is having none at all.
I considered this interpretation seriously and turned to the passages that were said to illustrate the point. In the famous aphorism 125 titled "The Madman" from the Gay Science, Nihilism only came to light when light went out. This cryptic answer of my own hand is in part a reference to the lantern that was broken by the madman. Let me first explain what brought me there. In my experience in university, and the countless reading and rereading of this same passage, I have never once heard a professor remark about how passively the people were spoken about. While this may run contrary to the "herd mentatily" and the superiority or elitism of the Übermensch morality, the people's view of God was as evident as finding one's way. As far as they were concerned, their beliefs in God were decided and the matter was settled. Nihilism is only introduced during the silence that followed the madman's speech about the death of God. The people did not witness that death themselves. They did not hear the sound of a struggle or the cry of agony as God died. Their silence was one of many possible reactions and one that the madman had come to terms with long ago. After the piercing glares and grilling questions such as "How did we do this?", "How shall we comfort ourselves?", and "Who will wipe this blood off us?", silence was the only response the people gave. It was at that moment that the madman dropped the lantern that had revealed so much. It was then that the people were cast into darkness. It was then that impossibility of God's death became possible.
The enlightenment operated under the supposition that things are discovered and brought to light. But when light is eliminated all together, when the will that seeks resigns for the night, that is when Nihilism is present. Though we might come to describe Nihilism as the belief in nothing, it is not nothing itself. It is a form of critical thinking that questions all of what we call "things" It observes how we value and categorize things. How we find a place in our lives. Nihilism simply asks questions of pragmatics and what can be said to be in existence. But we may then ask the Nihilist, is existence everything that is worth considering?
In pointing to the death of God, Nietzsche reductively suggests just how unpragmatic and dependant the faithful are. How does one, in the absence of God, begin to speak again about the enormous task of constructing the world again? How could we live without the assurance of daily reminders that God's eyes are watching from above? What are we to do with the penance and sacrifice that are offered but no longer offer redemption? It seems that with the death of God a vast possibility of being would be lost. With the death of God all have been forced to face the burden of being accountable to themselves. Would this have come to pass without the small gad flies like Nietzsche whose pestering stirred humanity out of its idleness and into another direction? Shall we crown him "anti-Christ" over all that had followed before and those to follow after him?
While I am somewhat dismissive of the death of God and Nietzsche's responsibility for it, I am compelled to at least admit that Nihilism is one way to truth among others. While Nietzsche is critical of tradition and religion he failed to recognize that the conventional knowledge he strongly opposed both supports and applies force to his own ideas - the belief in God is a mode of being that is otherworldy oriented. Moreover, not all individuals who are receptive to convention knowledge are at every moment fully committed to it and one cannot expect to be separated complete from the same patrimony that permeates many aspects of our lives.
Both Dogma and Nihilism are not absolutes.
Nietzsche himself would say that the belief in God is already a form of Nihilism, a claim that is for him absolute. And yet it is still quite profound to make the claim that "God is dead" for in doing so one opens up the possibility for it to be considered. What other God or gods will take its place? How will we fill the silence that remains? All of these questions and more can be entertained.
The only limitation to thought is having none at all.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
PHIL4205 - Emanual Levinas: The Difficulty in Letting Other Be Other
In reading Totality and Infinity it is often necessary to remind oneself the impossibility of defining infinity. One could easily be tempted to follow the short handed analogies of the infinite that may come to mind like wide open spaces or of length numerical values but these are merely diversion. A reader must read then re-read the word "infinite" where ever it appears on the page rather than attempting to solve it conceptually. But while this may be a more faithful reading of Levinas (something that he is mindful of and the paradox that writing on the subject of infinity introduces) it remains ultimately unsatisfying to never arrive at any definitive answer.
This dissatisfaction, as we are told, can be attributed to the preference in the philosophic cannon towards totality. Totality is a mode of being that is based in the act of "disclosing". This emphasis on totality goes back to the Greek understanding of "logos" but it is in modern philosophy with the introduction of Cartisian subjectivism that consciousness for-itself takes on the role as the arbiter of truth in its domination of externality. Individuals from this perspective become the "bearers of forces that command them" and do not realize the extent that the self referential "I" is only possible by the Other that is given. Levinas' description of the preference for totality is not to overstate its influence but to regard it as only one possibility among other possible modes of being.
In contrast to totality, Levinas affirms that subjects are much more passive in their experience of the world, a condition he calls infinity. Rather than an active subject who discloses exteriority, Levinas understands infinity as the relational condition wherein the unintentional subject is encountered by a preexisting and irreducible Other. By describing infinity, Levinas is trying to break the subject/object binary and return to a place of origin where such divisions of the world become strange and unfamiliar again. Infinity represents that which is "signification without a context" (p.23). In describing his method, Levinas explains that phenomenologically "we can proceed from the experience of totality back to a situation where totality breaks up, a situation that conditions totality itself. Such a situation is the gleam of exteriority or of transcendence in the face of the Other." (p.24)
After struggling with the concept of infinity or the attempt to force it into a concept, it soon became apparent the error that was being made - an error that is faultless on my part but one that nonetheless betrays the Other. When using the term Other to refer to what opens me to the infinite I am in a sense employing the category of the Other to totalize that experience. From what I have heard this same criticism was offered by Derrida and was answered by Levinas' "Otherwise than Being" that attempted to avoid all forms of the verb "to be". But can we see this ambition to reconcile the infinite fated to failure before it starts? Should we just reserve ourselves to this radical skepticism and be satisfied with admitting our limitations?
In reading Totality and Infinity I do not believe that this is at all Levinas' intention. While recognizing that the Other is irreducible, it nonetheless interrupts us. The Other in its being-there responds and demands a response. This relation to the Other is the point where ethics is both possible and inevitable. Any form of relation is a communication with the Other, we are not "duped by morality" into thinking that relational being is an after-thought of consciousness but points towards an origin (p.21). Levinas claims "ethics is an optics" because of the condition of our relation to exteriority in the percieving of the Other.
This dissatisfaction, as we are told, can be attributed to the preference in the philosophic cannon towards totality. Totality is a mode of being that is based in the act of "disclosing". This emphasis on totality goes back to the Greek understanding of "logos" but it is in modern philosophy with the introduction of Cartisian subjectivism that consciousness for-itself takes on the role as the arbiter of truth in its domination of externality. Individuals from this perspective become the "bearers of forces that command them" and do not realize the extent that the self referential "I" is only possible by the Other that is given. Levinas' description of the preference for totality is not to overstate its influence but to regard it as only one possibility among other possible modes of being.
In contrast to totality, Levinas affirms that subjects are much more passive in their experience of the world, a condition he calls infinity. Rather than an active subject who discloses exteriority, Levinas understands infinity as the relational condition wherein the unintentional subject is encountered by a preexisting and irreducible Other. By describing infinity, Levinas is trying to break the subject/object binary and return to a place of origin where such divisions of the world become strange and unfamiliar again. Infinity represents that which is "signification without a context" (p.23). In describing his method, Levinas explains that phenomenologically "we can proceed from the experience of totality back to a situation where totality breaks up, a situation that conditions totality itself. Such a situation is the gleam of exteriority or of transcendence in the face of the Other." (p.24)
After struggling with the concept of infinity or the attempt to force it into a concept, it soon became apparent the error that was being made - an error that is faultless on my part but one that nonetheless betrays the Other. When using the term Other to refer to what opens me to the infinite I am in a sense employing the category of the Other to totalize that experience. From what I have heard this same criticism was offered by Derrida and was answered by Levinas' "Otherwise than Being" that attempted to avoid all forms of the verb "to be". But can we see this ambition to reconcile the infinite fated to failure before it starts? Should we just reserve ourselves to this radical skepticism and be satisfied with admitting our limitations?
In reading Totality and Infinity I do not believe that this is at all Levinas' intention. While recognizing that the Other is irreducible, it nonetheless interrupts us. The Other in its being-there responds and demands a response. This relation to the Other is the point where ethics is both possible and inevitable. Any form of relation is a communication with the Other, we are not "duped by morality" into thinking that relational being is an after-thought of consciousness but points towards an origin (p.21). Levinas claims "ethics is an optics" because of the condition of our relation to exteriority in the percieving of the Other.
Monday, January 12, 2009
PHIL 3476 - Subjectivism as Truth
At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, I am constantly being misunderstood. I get this impression from others when I receive blank stares, grimacing expressions, and awkward silence in response to one of my usually elaborate rants.
Today was quite typical of that. In a class on existentialism taught by Professor Jowett, I made a number of attempts to illustrate the risk of faith that Kierkegaard describes as emerging from a concern for one's individual salvation/existence that is quite contrary to a system of beliefs and practices normally associated with Christianity. Kierkegaard does not run from the paradox of faith but relies on it as a basic principle that informs one's individual orientation. In my understanding, unlike God who can be understood through reason, Kierkegaard offers a view of God that is infinitely inestimable. Rather than limit everything to the proof, which is not the basis of “faith” and limits God to a finite concept, one must try to come to terms with what is unaccounted for whether one perceives it or not. It is this condition that one is fated to an existence that is irreconcilable and it is from this condition that any existential system is impossible. For Kierkegaard limiting an infinite God to a general concept is simply a "comical" abstraction which does not relate to the individual’s relation to God in his/her existence. But for some reason as I attempted to use Kierkegaard's own justification of his faith, the comments made after mine always followed a refutation of Christianity which was not at all what I was emphasizing.
Despite my best efforts to raise the argument of Kierkegaard's unstructured Christianity, the frequent digressions occurring throughout the discussion seemed to reinforce his emphasis on subjectivity as truth. While all seemed to agree with Kierkegaard's criticism against the potential for conformity inherent in a system of beliefs, most spoke as if they were removed from such bias. As they compared the disparities of thinking in the "Western" and "underdeveloped" world, to demanding critical thinking in academia while speaking in highly technical language with non-analogous examples, the class seemed like an orgiastic assembly of biases demanding to be noticed.
But doesn't this all sounds so characteristic of a philosophy class? The intellectualism with an abundance of references with the minutest of relevance to one's practacle life is what should be expected from a room full of pulsating high-flown philosophic minds?
And yet despite my own reservations, I trudged through the fecal matter that surrounded me - its depth an inconvenience more than an impediment - trying to form some sort of relevance to bear witness to my own existence.. a "life" reflecting on philosophic study. It was at that moment that I abandoned all hope of meeting a teacher or finding an audience. They are all so full of shit in some quantity or another that one always runs the danger of being caught off guard by some stench if strolling within too close a proximity.
Perhaps I am just bitter about being misunderstood, but then again aren't we all? The effort to capture and express to others in concrete terms what is experienced subjectively seems to me to be an absurd project from its inception. And yet it is the only means of communication we have outside ourselves. The impossibility of communication is the existential condition of what has been given and that which is closest to us in the everyday facticity of life. It is not so much that we can't assemble the world into systems of understanding that make it accessible to us and others authentically or inauthentically, it is by virtue of our relation to the world that opens up onto this possibility.
Today was quite typical of that. In a class on existentialism taught by Professor Jowett, I made a number of attempts to illustrate the risk of faith that Kierkegaard describes as emerging from a concern for one's individual salvation/existence that is quite contrary to a system of beliefs and practices normally associated with Christianity. Kierkegaard does not run from the paradox of faith but relies on it as a basic principle that informs one's individual orientation. In my understanding, unlike God who can be understood through reason, Kierkegaard offers a view of God that is infinitely inestimable. Rather than limit everything to the proof, which is not the basis of “faith” and limits God to a finite concept, one must try to come to terms with what is unaccounted for whether one perceives it or not. It is this condition that one is fated to an existence that is irreconcilable and it is from this condition that any existential system is impossible. For Kierkegaard limiting an infinite God to a general concept is simply a "comical" abstraction which does not relate to the individual’s relation to God in his/her existence. But for some reason as I attempted to use Kierkegaard's own justification of his faith, the comments made after mine always followed a refutation of Christianity which was not at all what I was emphasizing.
Despite my best efforts to raise the argument of Kierkegaard's unstructured Christianity, the frequent digressions occurring throughout the discussion seemed to reinforce his emphasis on subjectivity as truth. While all seemed to agree with Kierkegaard's criticism against the potential for conformity inherent in a system of beliefs, most spoke as if they were removed from such bias. As they compared the disparities of thinking in the "Western" and "underdeveloped" world, to demanding critical thinking in academia while speaking in highly technical language with non-analogous examples, the class seemed like an orgiastic assembly of biases demanding to be noticed.
But doesn't this all sounds so characteristic of a philosophy class? The intellectualism with an abundance of references with the minutest of relevance to one's practacle life is what should be expected from a room full of pulsating high-flown philosophic minds?
And yet despite my own reservations, I trudged through the fecal matter that surrounded me - its depth an inconvenience more than an impediment - trying to form some sort of relevance to bear witness to my own existence.. a "life" reflecting on philosophic study. It was at that moment that I abandoned all hope of meeting a teacher or finding an audience. They are all so full of shit in some quantity or another that one always runs the danger of being caught off guard by some stench if strolling within too close a proximity.
Perhaps I am just bitter about being misunderstood, but then again aren't we all? The effort to capture and express to others in concrete terms what is experienced subjectively seems to me to be an absurd project from its inception. And yet it is the only means of communication we have outside ourselves. The impossibility of communication is the existential condition of what has been given and that which is closest to us in the everyday facticity of life. It is not so much that we can't assemble the world into systems of understanding that make it accessible to us and others authentically or inauthentically, it is by virtue of our relation to the world that opens up onto this possibility.
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