2 The Unsaying of Levinas

Foran, Lisa

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-57758-0_3

Lisa Foran²

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Abstract

On his own account, the “opening of Heidegger’s questions” may have made Derrida’s work possible, but it is with Levinas that he claims to be in absolute agreement. Even once stating that he was “ready to subscribe to everything that [Levinas] says.” In subsequent chapters we will discover that this claim is both true and false, in the sense that while Derrida accepts much of Levinas’s thinking, he does so on the basis of supplementing it. Before examining the manner in which Derrida does this, I want to outline Levinas’s account of alterity and the role language plays therein.

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Notes

1.
1. Derrida Altérités (Paris: Éditions Osiris, 1986) p. 74.
2.
2. Bettina Bergo ‘The Face in Levinas: Toward a Phenomenology of Substitution’ in Angelaki, Journal of the Theoretical Humanities Vol. 16 no. 1 (2011) pp. 17–39.
3.
3. Adieu, p. 49, pp. 105–6.
4.
4. AQE p. 37/trans. p. 19 [translation modified].
5.
5. Emmanuel Levinas, De l’évasion (Paris, Biblio Essais: 1998) Trans. by Bettina Bergo, On Escape (Stanford, Stanford University Press: 2003).
6.
6. Emmanuel Levinas, De l ’ existence a l ’ existant (Paris, Vrin: 2000) Trans. by Alphonso Lingis Existence and Existents (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Press: 1995).
7.
7. Bettina Bergo, ‘Inscribing the “Sites” of Desire in Levinas’ in Hugh J. Silverman (Ed.) Philosophy and Desire (New York, Routledge: 2000) pp. 63–82 Hereafter Bergo.
8.
8. TI p. 53 /trans. p. 59 (Italics at source).
9.
9. Jacques Derrida, ED p. 164 /trans. p. 138. Derrida, Adieu p. 15: ‘Yes, an ethics before and beyond ontology, the State or the political, but ethics also beyond ethics’ (my translation).
10.
10. Ezekiel 3:20 (New International Version), my emphasis. Lingis uses a different translation of the Bible but I believe the NIV translation is closer to the French version that Levinas employs, particularly in the last line ‘I will hold you accountable for his blood’ which in the French is ‘mais de son sang, je te demanderai compte.’ See also for example Ezekiel 33:6 (NIV): ‘that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’
11.
11. AQE p. 8 /trans. p. vii.
12.
12. Catherine Chalier ‘The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and the Hebraic Tradition’, in Adriaan T. Peperzak (Ed.) Ethics as First Philosophy: The Significance of Emmanuel Levinas for Philosophy, Literature and Religion (New York: Routledge, 1995) pp. 3–12 [hereafter Chalier].
13.
13. Chalier also notes the etymological link in Hebrew between ‘responsibility’ (ahariout), ‘other’ (aher) and the temporal sense of ‘after’ (aharei) (op.cit.p. 8).
14.
14. Chalier p. 10.
15.
15. Raphael Zagury-Orly ‘On Election: Levinas and the Question of First Philosophy’ in International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol.20 no.3 (2012) pp. 349–61 [hereafter Zagury-Orly] p. 353. Zagury-Orly also notes that ‘election’ in the Judaic tradition indicates a radical alterity that precedes and interrupts any and every unified identity. This notion of election as interruption, disjunction and heteronomy is further contrasted with the Christian notion of love, which Zagury-Orly describes as ‘economical’ in its movement of reciprocity. ‘Election’ through the figure of Ezekiel operates, argues Zagury-Orly, as that which constantly interrupts the ‘involvement in the ontological sphere or order of cause and effect, of calling and response, of autonomy and necessity in order to open towards a dia-chronical movement by which response for the other is always both too late on the calling of the other and already preceding the call of the other’ (op.cit. p. 361).
16.
16. EPP p. 68 /trans. p. 76.
17.
17. AQE p. 51 /trans. p. 29.
18.
18. EPP p. 71 /trans. p. 77.
19.
19. TdA, pp. 187–188 (my translation).
20.
20. EPP 72–3 /trans. p. 78.
21.
21. AQE p. 25 /trans. (modified) p. 11.
22.
22. EPP p. 67 /trans. p. 78.
23.
23. EPP p. 77 /trans. p. 78.
24.
24. Husserl §43 Ideas I pp. 79–80 /trans. p. 93.
25.
25. EPP p. 80 /trans. p. 79.
26.
26. Jacques Rolland, Preface to EPP, p. 26 (my translation).
27.
27. TdA, p. 191.
28.
28. EPP p. 82 /trans. p. 80.
29.
29. AQE p. 266 /trans. (modified) p. 171.
30.
30. AQE p. 261 /trans. (modified) p. 168.
31.
31. EPP p. 88 /trans. p. 81.
32.
32. EPP p. 86 /trans. p. 80.
33.
33. AQE p. 88 /trans. p. 52ff.
34.
34. EPP p. 88 /trans. p. 81.
35.
35. AQE p. 163 /trans. p. 103.
36.
36. TdA, p. 195.
37.
37. EPP pp. 90–91 /trans. p. 82.
38.
38. EPP p. 94 /trans. p. 82.
39.
39. EPP pp. 107–109 /trans. p. 86.
40.
40. Emmanuel Levinas De Dieu qui vient à l’idée (Paris: Vrin, 1998) trans. by Bettina Bergo, Of a God Who Comes to Mind (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998) p. 95 /trans. p. 56: ‘the history of Western philosophy has been the destruction of transcendence’. See also Adrian Peperzak ‘Beyond Being’ in Research in Phenomenology 8 (1978), pp. 239–261 Hereafter, Peperzak.
41.
41. AQE pp. 13–14. /trans. p. 3.
42.
42. AQE pp. 14–15/trans. (modified) p. 4.
43.
43. AQE p. 15 /trans. (modified) p. 4.
44.
44. AQE pp. 15–16 /trans. pp. 4–5.
45.
45. Kathleen Davis Deconstruction and Translation (Manchester: St. Jerome, 2001) p. 51 [hereafter Davis].
46.
46. TI p. 5 /trans. p. 21.
47.
47. TI pp. 8–9 /trans. p. 24.
48.
48. Adieu, p. 196ff.
49.
49. Simon Critchley, ‘Five Problems in Levinas’s View of Politics and the Sketch of a Solution to them’, Political Theory, 2004, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 172–185 [hereafter Critchley]. In this article Critchley raises five problems—fraternity, monotheism, androcentrism, filiality & the family, and Israel—that he feels provokes a certain ‘disquietude’ in the Levinasian notion of the political. The centrality of ‘fraternity’ and the family conceived on the model of ‘filiation’ or the son (fils), notably in Totality and Infinity, raises feminist concerns. The call of God which forces responsibility onto man in Levinas leads to a tie, argues Critchley, between fraternity and monotheism where the universal secular state would be a ‘translation’ of that tie—leading to obvious problems for those who do not subscribe to monotheistic laws. These concerns combined with Levinas’ troubling relation to the political state of Israel lead Critchley to propose a way of holding on to Levinas’ form of ethics while discarding the political content. This move, found, as Critchley notes, in Derrida’s Adieu, leads to the possibility of salvaging a non-foundational politics that respects alterity while remaining open to thinking beyond a totalitarian universalism. A full discussion of the political in Levinas is unfortunately beyond the scope of the current work. Here I wish to simply show the manner in which politics can be viewed as a translation of the infinite ethical responsibility for the other, and the manner in which this translation must be constantly interrogated—unsaid or re-translated—in order to open beyond itself to the possibility of justice.
50.
50. Critchley p. 177.
51.
51. Fabio Ciaramelli ‘The Riddle of the Pre-original’ in Adrian T. Peperzak (ed.) Ethics as First Philosophy the Significance of Emmanual Levinas for Philosophy, Literature and Religion (Routledge, New York & London: 1995) pp. 87–94. [Hereafter Ciaramelli] pp. 90–91.
52.
52. Ciaramelli p. 91.
53.
53. Ciaramelli, p. 91 See also Joseph Cohen ‘La mort de l’autre et la démesure ethique du sacrifice’, in Joseph Cohen, Alternance de la métaphysique Essais sur Emmanuel Levinas (Paris, Galilée: 2009) pp. 73–87.
54.
54. Emmanuel Levinas, L’au-delà du verset (Editions de Minuit, Paris: 1982) p. 222 (my translation).
55.
55. Ibid. p. 228.
56.
56. AQE pp. 17–18 /trans. (modified) p. 6 The French verb traduire (se) is translated by Alphonso Lingis quite consistently as conveyed/covey oneself which is certainly part of its meaning. But it also means translate or interpret; I will therefore use this word in my own translations of Levinas in order to establish a richer understanding of the English word ‘translate’. Coming from a Latin root the verb literally translated from Latin would mean a ‘carrying-over’. This would seem most relevant here in terms of Levinas’s discussion of the Otherwise than being, which is carried over from the beyond to manifest itself in some way before us, in the immanence of being. ‘Translate’ also implies a process of change; the otherwise than being which is in some way ‘conveyed’ or ‘translated’ before us. However, we must also understand that this is not the change of otherwise than being into being but rather change as manifestation; the relation between being and otherwise than being is, for Levinas, in a constant flux. If we think of them as two languages that are both, and at the same time, totally translatable and yet totally untranslatable; they are in a relation that is absolutely de-negated and torn apart; a non-relationary relation.
57.
57. AQE p. 18 /trans. p. 6.
58.
58. AQE p. 19 /trans. (modified) p. 7.
59.
59. This notion of an ‘unsaying’ was already introduced in the preface to TI p. 16 /tans. p. 30.
60.
60. See for example AQE pp. 228–253 /trans. pp. 145–162.
61.
61. AQE p. 20 /trans. p. 7.
62.
62. AQE p. 278 /trans. p. 181.
63.
63. AQE p. 21 /trans. (modified) p. 8.
64.
64. AQE p. 21 /trans. p. 8.
65.
65. AQE p. 22 /trans. p. 9.
66.
66. AQE p. 22 /trans. (modified) p. 9.
67.
67. AQE p. 23 /trans. p. 9.
68.
68. AQE p. 23 /trans. p. 9.
69.
69. AQE p. 23 /trans. (modified) p. 10.
70.
70. AQE pp. 24–5 /trans. pp. 10–11.
71.
71. Ciaramelli, p. 87.
72.
72. Ciaramelli p. 88 Critchley also describes the third as ‘the realm of legality, justice, the institution of the state’ (Critchley p. 173).
73.
73. Ciaramelli p. 88.
74.
74. AQE p. 25 /trans. (modified) p. 11.
75.
75. Chalier p. 11.
76.
76. AQE p. 26/trans. (modified). P. 11.
77.
77. AQE p. 26 /trans. pp. 11–12.
78.
78. AQE p. 26 /trans. p. 12.
79.
79. Plotinus, trans. by MacKenna & Page, The Enneads (London: Penguin Books, 1991). See also Jean Grondin (trans. by Lukas Soderstrom) Introduction to Metaphysics From Parmenides to Levinas (New York, Columbia University Press: 2012) p. 71.
80.
80. TdA p. 189 (my translation) Grondin, however, notes that while Plotinus would take the epekeina in Plato literally as ‘beyond’, as ‘transcendent’; the word in Plato may, in fact, not refer to an ontological transcendence: ‘The Good’s epekeina thus connotes [in Plato] less an ontologically transcendent being than some qualitative excellence or superiority. The idea of the Good surpasses the level of ousia by its dignity and power.’ (Grondin, Introduction to Metaphysics, op.cit. p. 47).
81.
81. TdA, p. 201 (my translation) The quotation here is from the French translation of Plotinus’s Enneads (V,5) by Bréhier and differs slightly from the standard English translation by MacKenna & Page which reads: ‘the trace of The One establishes reality: existence is a trace of The One.’ (op.cit. p. 391).
82.
82. TdA, p. 199.
83.
83. TdA, p. 200.
84.
84. TdA, p. 200 (my translation).
85.
85. TdA, p. 200.
86.
86. AQE p. 255 /trans. p. 164.
87.
87. TdA, p. 201 see also Derrida ‘Différance’ in Margins of Philosophy in particular: M pp. 13–14 /trans. p. 13.
88.
88. AQE pp. 158–9 /trans. pp. 100–101 (my emphasis).
89.
89. TdA, p. 198.
90.
90. TdA, p. 190.
91.
91. TdA, p. 198 (my translation).
92.
92. TdA, p. 201.
93.
93. TdA, p. 202.
94.
94. TdA, pp. 201–202 (my translation).
95.
95. AQE p. 28 /trans. p. 13.
96.
96. AQE p. 27 /trans. (modified) p. 12.
97.
97. The main part of Chapter Four was first published in La Revue philosophique de Louvain (October, 1968) under the same title (‘La Substitution’) and Levinas notes that it is the work’s ‘centrepiece’ (AQE p. 9/trans. p. xli).
98.
98. Peperzak p. 242.
99.
99. AQE p. 29 /trans. (modified) p. 13.
100.
100. Heidegger, SZ §46-§54 pp. 235–270 /trans. pp. 279–315.
101.
101. AQE pp. 156–157 /trans. p. 99.
102.
102. G.M.A. Grube Plato’s Thought (Norwich, Methuen: 1935) p. 150.
103.
103. AQE p. 180 /trans. p. 113–114.
104.
104. AQE p. 161 /trans. p. 101.
105.
105. AQE p. 180 /trans. p. 114.
106.
106. AQE pp.186–188 /trans. pp. 117–118.
107.
107. AQE p. 182 /trans. p. 115.
108.
108. AQE p. 30 /trans. p. 14.
109.
109. TI p. 263/trans. p. 236.
110.
110. TdA, p. 192 (my translation).
111.
111. AQE p. 30 /trans. p. 14.
112.
112. AQE pp. 29–30 /trans. (modified) p. 14.
113.
113. AQE p. 31 /trans. p. 15.
114.
114. AQE p. 31 /trans. (modified) p. 15.
115.
115. AQE p. 185 /trans. p. 117.
116.
116. Cohen, p. 79.
117.
117. Cohen, pp. 84–87. For more on the question of sacrifice in Levinas and in particular this notion of ‘infinition’ see also Joseph Cohen ‘L’infiniton éthique du sacrifice’ (in Alternances de la métaphysique, op.cit. pp. 159–175).
118.
118. AQE p. 32 /trans. p. 16.
119.
119. See in particular Heidegger, SZ §23 pp. 104–110 /trans. pp. 138–144.
120.
120. AQE p. 32 /trans. (modified) p. 16.
121.
121. AQE p. 181 /trans. p. 115.
122.
122. AQE p. 33 /trans. (modified) p. 16.
123.
123. AQE p. 33 /trans. (modified) p. 16.
124.
124. AQE p. 35 /trans. (modified) p. 18.
125.
125. SZ p. 22 /trans. p. 43.
126.
126. See Heidegger, BH which deals explicitly with these questions.
127.
127. AQE p. 34 /trans. p. 17.
128.
128. AQE p. 222 /trans. p. 142. See also AQE pp. 180–181 /trans. p. 114: ‘The word I means here I am, answering for everything and everyone.’
129.
129. AQE p. 60 /trans. p. 34.
130.
130. AQE p. 73 /trans. (modified) p. 42.
131.
131. AQE p. 65 /trans. p. 37.
132.
132. AQE p. 69 /trans. (modified) p. 39.
133.
133. AQE p. 72 /trans. p. 41.
134.
134. AQE p. 61 /trans. p. 35 (italics at source).
135.
135. AQE p. 75 /trans. p. 44.
136.
136. AQE p. 77 /trans. p. 45 This idea of the subject as being without a place (u-topos) or homeless was already explored in TI (see in particular TI pp. 162–90 /trans. pp. 152–174). There the question of home was offered as both an opening and a closing-off. The question of placelessness of course ties with the Levinasian project of offering an exiled Abraham as a counterpoint to the European tradition of the homeward bound Odysseus.
137.
137. AQE p. 78/tans p. 46.
138.
138. AQE p. 83 /trans. p. 49.
139.
139. AQE p. 92 /trans. p. 54.
140.
140. Edmund Husserl (trans. by J.N. Findlay) ‘Expression and Meaning’ (First Investigation), Logical Investigations, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970) pp. 269–333 [Here after Husserl LI 1] §2 p. 270.
141.
141. In Husserl’s later work, from Ideas on, the intentional act is renamed noesis and the content of an intention noema—Levinas occasionally uses these terms although they were not yet operative in Husserl’s work at the time of the Logical Investigations.
142.
142. Husserl LI 1§14 p. 290.
143.
143. AQE pp. 82–3 /trans.p. 48.
144.
144. AQE p. 85 /trans. p. 50.
145.
145. TdA, p. 191.
146.
146. AQE pp. 83–4 /trans.pp. 48–9.
147.
147. AQE p. 86 /trans. p. 50.
148.
148. AQE p. 87 /trans. p. 51.
149.
149. AQE p. 88 /trans. p. 52.
150.
150. AQE p. 120 /trans. p. 75.
151.
151. See AQE pp. 111–155 /trans. pp. 69–78.
152.
152. AQE p. 124 /trans. p. 77.
153.
153. AQE p. 17 /trans. p. 6.
154.
154. AQE p. 34 /trans. p. 17.
155.
155. AQE p. 207 /trans. p. 132, AQE p. 50 /trans. p. 27.
156.
156. AQE p. 51 /trans. p. 28.
157.
157. AQE p. 110 /trans. p. 68.
158.
158. AQE p. 18 /trans. p. 6.
159.
159. AQE p. 106 /trans.p. 65.
160.
160. AQE p. 208 /trans.p. 132.
161.
161. AQE p. 208 /trans.p. 132.
162.
162. AQE p. 214 /trans. p. 136.
163.
163. AQE pp. 252–3 /trans. (modified) p. 162.
164.
164. AQE p. 278 /trans. p. 181 See also TI p. 16 /trans. p. 30.
165.
165. AQE p. 256 /trans. p. 165.
166.
166. AQE p. 256 /trans. p. 165.
167.
167. It is interesting to note here, given the earlier references to Plotinus, the manner in which he incorporates the genealogy of the Greek Gods into his philosophy. Drawing on Hesiod’s Theogony, Plotinus argues the first hypostasis is the nous or intellect—a realm governed by Kronos, son of Ouranus or the One, where Kronos (or Chronos) opens the order of time. The next hypostasis or realm is that of sensibility and anarchy and is ruled by Zeus. Hence in the Plotinean framework the overthrow of Kronos by Zeus is the betrayal of the intellect or order, by the sensible or disorder. Levinas is obviously undoing this hierarchy of understanding and sensibility. [For more on the Plotinean adaptation of Hesiod’s genealogy of the Gods see Elizabeth Palma Digeser ‘Religion, Law and the Roman Polity’ in Clifford Ando & Jörg Rüpke (eds.) Religion and Law in Classical and Christian Rome (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag: 2006) pp. 68–84 in particular pp. 76–80].
168.
168. See Fritz Graf (trans. by Thomas Marier) Greek Mythology (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press: 1996) in particular pp. 81–88 and pp. 196–7.
169.
169. AQE p. 17, p. 19, p. 158n., pp. 211–212, p. 237, p. 243, p. 246, p. 253 /trans. p. 6, p. 7, p. 194 n., p. 135, p. 151, p. 156, p. 158, p. 162, p. 165. See also Peperzak p. 17.
170.
170. AQE p. 237 /trans. (modified) p. 151.
171.
171. AQE p. 108 n /trans. p. 191.
172.
172. AQE p. 77 /trans. p. 45.
173.
173. AQE p. 204 /trans. p. 128.
174.
174. AQE p. 204 /trans. p. 128.
175.
175. AQE p. 132 /trans. p. 83, AQE p. 246 /trans. p. 158: ‘The entry of the third party is the very fact of consciousness.’
176.
176. AQE p. 204 /trans. p. 128.
177.
177. AQE p. 246 /trans. p. 158.
178.
178. AQE p. 246 /trans. p. 158, my emphasis.
179.
179. AQE p. 245 /trans. p. 157.
180.
180. AQE p. 134 /trans. p. 84.
181.
181. AQE p. 247 /trans. p. 158.
182.
182. AQE p. 250 /trans. pp. 160–1.
183.
183. AQE p. 248 /trans. p. 159.
184.
184. AQE p. 248 /trans. p. 159.
185.
185. AQE p. 135 /trans. p. 85.
186.
186. AQE p. 248 /trans. p. 159.
187.
187. AQE p. 248 /trans. p. 159.
188.
188. AQE p. 248 /trans. p. 159.
189.
189. AQE p. 250 /trans. p. 160.
190.
190. AQE p. 250 /trans. p. 160.
191.
191. AQE p. 253 /trans. p. 163.
192.
192. AQE p. 253 /trans. p. 163.
193.
193. TI p. 13 /trans. p. 28.
194.
194. AQE p. 245 /trans. p. 157.
195.
195. AQE p. 75 /trans. p. 44.
196.
196. AQE p. 75 /trans. p. 44.
197.
197. AQE p. 281 /trans. p. 183.

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Lisa Foran

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Foran, L. (2016). 2 The Unsaying of Levinas. In: Derrida, the Subject and the Other. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57758-0_3

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