The Ethical Relation and Time

Abstract

Separation, effected in the concrete as habitation and economy, makes possible the relation with the detached, absolute exteriority. This relation, metaphysics, is brought about primordially by the epiphany of the Other in the face. Separation opens up between terms that arc absolute and yet in relation, that absolve themselves from the relation they maintain, that do not abdicate in it in favor of a totality this relation would sketch out. Thus the metaphysical relation realizes a multiple existing [un exister multiple]—a pluralism. But this relation would not realize pluralism if the formal structure of relationship exhausted the essence of relationship. We must explicate the power that beings placed in relation have of absolving themselves from the relation. This power entails a different sense of absolution for each of the separated terms; the Metaphysician is not absolute in the same sense as the Metaphysical. The dimension of height from which the Metaphysical comes to the Metaphysician indicates a sort of non-homogeneity of space, such that a radical multiplicity, distinct from numerical multiplicity, can here be produced. Numerical multiplicity remains defenseless against totalization. For a multiplicity to be able to be produced in the order of being, disclosure (where being does not only manifest itself, but effectuates itself, or exerts itself, or holds sway, or reigns) is not enough; it is not enough that its production radiate in the cold splendor of truth.