HIDDENNESS AND ALTERITY:

A PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE NON-MANIFEST

James Richard Mensch

yuch'" peivrata ijw;n oujk a]n ejxeuvpoio, pa'san ejpiporeuovmeno"

ojdovn: ou{tw baqu;n lovgon e[cei. Heraclitus, Fr. 45.

Contents:
Introduction

Chapter I: Temporalization as the Trace of the Subject

18

Chapter II: The Alterity of Time

33

Chapter III: Logic and Alterity

52

Chapter IV: Imagination and Others

67

Chapter V: Givenness and Alterity

76

Chapter VI: Selfhood and Politics

85

Chapter VII: Shame and Guilt

103

Chapter VIII: Benito Cerino: Freud and the Breakdown of Politics

119

Chapter IX: Literature and Evil

146

Chapter X: Rescue and the Face to Face

161

Chapter XI: Abraham and Isaac: A question of Theodicy

174

Chapter XII: What Should We Pray For?

198

ChapterXIII:MetaphysicsandAlterity

209

Bibliography

223

Endnotes

233

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Some of the chapters appearing in this volume are reworked versions of previously published
articles. Acknowledgment is made to the following publishing houses, periodicals and
persons for their kind permission to republish all or part of the following articles:
Temporalization as the Trace of the Subject,in Kant und die Berliner Aufklrung, Akten des
IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001; Real and Ideal
Determination in Husserls Logical Investigations, in Husserls Logical Investigations
Reconsidered, ed. Denis Fisette, Dordrecht: Kluwer Press, 2003; Alterity and Givenness,
Idealistic Studies 2003; Benito Cereno: Freud and the Breakdown of the Collective Self,
Symposium, Journal of the Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought
2003, Selfhood and Politics, Symposium, Journal of the Canadian Society for
Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought, 6:1 (2002); Literature and Evil in Ethics and
Literature, ed. Dorothee Gelhard, Berlin: Galda and Wilch, 2002; Rescue and the Face to
Face: Ethics and the Holocaust in New Europe at the Crossroads II, ed. U. Beitter, New
York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2001, Abraham and Isaac: A question of Theodicy, Studies in
Practical Philosophy, Humanities Press, 2003; and What Should We Pray For? The
Phenomenology of Prayer, ed. Bruce Benson, Fordham University Press, 2003. I wish to
express my gratitude to Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, the Director, Department for the Righteous, for
permission to quote from the material at the Archives at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Without
Dr. Paldiels assistance and encouragement, Chapter X could not have been written. I also
wish to thank the director of the Husserl Archives in Louvain, Professor Rudolph Bernet, for
extending me the hospitality of the Archives and granting me permission to quote from the
Nachlass. Finally, grateful acknowledgment is due to the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada for a grant supporting the research that made this volume
possible.

INTRODUCTION

The injunction of the oracle at Delphi, know yourself, has long been a goal of
philosophy. Understood in a practical sense, it has been taken as a condition for a moral life.
When, for example, Socrates asserted that the unexamined life is not worth living, his claim
was that self-knowledge is required for the practice of the virtues that define human
goodness. Self-knowledge has also been the preoccupation of a host of theoretical
disciplines, most notably epistemology and philosophy of mind. Here, it is understood as a
knowledge of how the mind works. Its goal is a knowledge of the selfs capacities for
knowledge. The very wording of this statement points to the special quality shared by the
practical and theoretical inquiries into the self: they are all reflexive. By this I mean that the
self that is their object is also the self that engages in them. The inquiries, thus, rely on its
nature. Their success depends on its being transparent to itself.
How transparent is the self? What are our capacities for self-knowledge? In raising
these questions, we seem to face a dilemma. If the self is self-transparent, then it can know
itself as such. If, however, it is not, then this self-knowledge will be concealed. As a result,
the self may be deceived into thinking that it is self-transparent, that it does know itself, when
such is not the case. How then can we decide which is correct? How can we know that we
dont know? The question is actually about how our lack of knowledge can show itself as
such. It is about how we grasp that something is not given, not manifest. Practically
speaking, we do this all the time. We recognize that there are things hidden from us. The
non-manifest does reveal itself as such. This implies, to put it somewhat paradoxically, that
it gives itself as not given. The same point holds for the self. We do recognize that we are

2
not completely transparent to ourselves. We realize that we often act from motives that are
obscure to ourselves. Our privileged access to our memories and intentions is, we admit, not
such that we can with confidence close the gap between how we appear to ourselves and the
reality underlying this. Such an admission points to the fact that we do grasp ourselves as not
completely graspable. This indicates that the hidden aspect of ourselves does manifest itself
as such. But, how does it do this? This is the first question that animates this book. The
second is: what does this self-hiddenness reveal about our selfhood? Thus, I shall be looking
at not just the ways we apprehend our self-concealment, but also at the nature of the self that
is self-concealing. The key assertion here is that the hidden is the other. Self-hiddenness
thus results from the others inclusion within the self. It is by virtue of the other that we
have the inner alterity that characterizes our selfhood. The inquiry into our hiddenness will
inform a corresponding inquiry into this alterity.
Types of Hiddenness
Amoreconcretesenseofthisexaminationofhiddennessandalteritycanbegained
byconsideringthequestionsthatarisewhenweconsiderthenotionofhiddenness.Its
elementarysensecanbeexpressedintermsoftheobjectsaboutus.Theirfacingsideappears
tousandtheirbacksideishidden.Ofcourse,wecaneitherturnthemaboutorchangeour
ownpositiontoviewtheirhiddensides.Doingso,however,resultsintheformerlyvisible
sidenowbeinghidden.Thisispartofthesenseofourrelationtothreedimensionalobjects.
Wealwaysviewthemfromsomegivenposition,whichresultsinonesideappearingandthe
otherbeinghidden.Here,hiddennessisinherentinappearing.Whatishiddeniscorrelated
towhatappearsandcanitselfappearthroughachangeinorientation.Itmanifestsitsnon
appearinginthesenseofappearingitself.Whatappearsconcealswhatdoesnotappear;it

3
alsopointstoitaswhatcanappear.Thissenseofthehiddenasthepotentiallyapparentis
presentevenwithregardtoobjectsthat,practicallyspeaking,cannotappear.Aringlostina
lakeispracticallyirretrievable.Yetwecanstillpicturetoourselveswhatitwouldlooklike
werewetodiveinandhappenuponit.Wecaneventrytoimaginehowobjectsmight
appearthatareabsolutelyimpossibletoviewforexample,theinteriorofthesun.
A more complex sense of hiddenness occurs when we speak of the mental life of
others. To actually grasp this, I would have to apprehend how the world appeared to another
person. The experiences, memories and anticipations that structure such appearing would
also have to be present to me; so would the emotional life, the habits of mind and everything
else that goes into a persons self-presence. They would have to be open to my immediate
apprehension. Needless to say, such an ideal is impossible. This is not a practical
impossibility. The problem is not that of attaining some optimal spatial position from which
to view a hidden side or even of imagining a viewpoint that, practically speaking, is
impossible to attain. Rather, in this case, to obtain the goal is to lose it. The others mental
life, if made fully present to me, would merge with my own. In reaching the goal, I would
not obtain knowledge of the other, but rather self-knowledge. Thus, the others mental life or
consciousness is essentially hidden from me. It manifests an alterity that cannot be
overcome. Given this, why do I assume it? What is the evidence I have for this hidden
realm? In other words, how does the distinction between the appearing and the hidden show
itself in this case? The question, phenomenologically speaking, is: how does the other show
me that there is something there that I cannot apprehend? How does the person give himself
as essentially not given?

4
A related sense of the hidden involves the others role in positing the real, objective
world. If we ask what characterizes the reality of the real world, we find that we cannot
point to any of its sensible features. We cannot distinguish the real from the imaginary in
terms of some color, shape, etc. Even vividness is not a sure criterion, since dreams, as long
as they last, often have a superior vividness to waking life.1 Quantitative analysis is also no
help. As Kant pointed out, one hundred imaginary dollars have the same number of pennies
as one hundred real ones. Of course, you cannot spend the imaginary dollars. This is
because while they may be there for you, they are not there for the person who has something
to sell. The money that you can spend must be present to you both. This implies that
existence, rather than indicating some feature of the object, actually points to intersubjective
agreement. What is real is what is present to both self and others.2 Thus, when we wonder
whether what we are seeing or hearing is imaginary or real, we generally resolve this by
asking others if they also share our experiences. In doing so, we assume that their mental life
is, in this instance, similar to our own. Such life, however, is hidden from us. We thus posit
what cannot appear (in the sense of being some sensible feature) on the basis of what, itself,
cannot appear. Thus, the hiddenness of the reality of the world is correlated to the
hiddenness of our others. It is as little perceivable as their mental life. What we have here is
a sense of the hidden as intersubjectively constituted by our others. The questions that will
occupy us in this regard concern the manifestation of this sense of hiddenness. How does the
role of others in our positing reality exhibit itself? How does it affect the givenness (and
hiddenness) of the real world? What does it imply with regard to the ways we apprehend the
world and its possibilities? At issue here is the alterity of the world itselfthat is, the ways
in which it manifests itself as other than what we can predict or assume.

5
Self-hiddenness
When we look at the role played by others in our lives, we find it to be all-pervasive.
Each of us has been born of others. Each has initially depended on caregivers for almost all
of lifes needs. As we grow, we gain from them our initial life-projects. They teach us how
to control our bowels, eat at the table, walk upright, etc. As they do so, they talk to us. They
give us a constant verbal commentary on the activities in question. Thus, from them we learn
not just how to make our way in the world, but also how to speak about this, i.e.,
communicate to others the understanding that we have gained. This process continues
throughout childhood and extends far into later life as we learn from others new projects and
new skills. As we internalize these projects and the language accompanying them, our others
are also internalized. The awareness of their presence can be as intricate as trying to figure
out how they may respond to what we do or say and what our response to this should be. It
can also be as simple as the chatter in our heads as we try to fall asleep at night. Who speaks
and who listens in the interior monologues that we carry on with ourselves? The very split
between speaker and auditor points to the presence of our others. We experience their alterity
as a self-alterity that is also a self-distancing. This alterity is experienced as an ability to take
up standpoints distinct from our own and question ourselves from alternate perspectives.
Two points flow from these reflections. Both have a bearing on the assertion that the
hidden is the other. The first is that to the point that my mental life is intersubjectively
determined, it also has a hidden component. This follows from the hiddenness of the others
who determine me. Thus, to the degree that the other is in me as other than me, that is, as
beyond what I can grasp and know, the other represents what is concealed from me. To the
extent that I internalize this other, I experience a certain self-concealment. There are aspects

6
of myself that surprise me, that are not apparent to me. I act in certain ways, but the reasons
for this are not clear to me. The second point is that such aspects are gradually built up. I
acquired them as I acquired my culturei.e., learned from others how to make my way in
the world. Doing so, I picked up patterns of behaviorways of thinking and actingwhose
motives may be as hidden to me as the mental life of the caregivers from whom I learned
them. Thus, from them I gradually acquired the culturally required forms of repression
regarding things like sex, race, etc. I picked up their prejudices and attitudes, without
necessarily acquiring the reasons for such. The self-concealment brought about by others
also informs my being in the world, my reality as a person there for others. The others
who position me as a public person are as hidden as those that formed me. Thus, I cannot
really know the motives that may be at work in their assigning me some specific public
persona. The question here is how does this self-hiddenness appear to us? How, for
example, does our lack of self-transparency manifest itself in our relations with others? How,
for example, do our actions show themselves as symptoms of the repressions that we have
internalized. These are the questions that we will explore through a reading of Melvilles
Benito Cerino.
The Constitution of Hiddenness
The assumption behind these reflections has been that the mental life of others is
hidden from us. From this, I have argued that the mental life of each of us, to the degree that
it is intersubjectively constituted, is not self-transparent. Because those who constituted it
are hidden, the mental life they constitute has an interior hiddenness. Can we reverse this
and say that there is an element of intersubjective constitution involved in the hiddenness of
others from us? Certainly, insofar as their mental lives are intersubjectively constituted, they

7
too must have a certain lack of self-transparency. They would thus have a measure of
hiddenness based on their lack of self-knowledge. Not knowing themselves, they would not
be able to fully reveal themselves to us. My question about the intersubjective constitution of
their hiddenness has, however, a deeper level. To uncover it, I have to ask: how do I know
that the other has a hidden life? Certainly, hiddenness is implied when I say that I do not
know what the other is thinking. Thinking, however, depends on language, which is
intersubjectively constituted. Given this, why cannot the other simply tell me what he is
thinking? We do, in fact, inform others of our mental lives through language. Yet, when the
other does this, there is still a hiddenness; there is still an alterity that cannot be overcome. It
shows itself in the fact that I can doubt the others words. This is because to possess a
language is to be able to dissemble. It is to be able not to do what ones words promise. This
implies that the saying that results in the said exceeds this. It can take back the said; it
can overturn it.
The question here is whether this exceeding is, itself, intersubjectively constituted. Is
it the result of those others who think and act differently? There are reasons to believe that
this is the case. The most compelling comes from the fact that each of us appropriates the
possibilities of others. This happens not just when we learn from our caregivers, childhood
companions and schoolmates different ways of being and behaving. As adults, whatever we
see our others do tends to be regarded (whether favorably or unfavorably) as a human
capacity. As such, we regard it as one of our own possibilities. Even though we might never
choose to actualize it, it still forms part of what we could be capable of. Given this, the
possibilities open to us are more than can be predicted from what we have done or said. Just
as our language always affords us possibilities of expressing ourselves which exceed what we

8
have previously expressed, so also the possibilities of being and behavior available to us
exceed those of our history. This inability to exhibit all that we are capable ofi.e., to
reduce the saying to the saidresults in the necessary concealment of each self to its others.
The result, then, is a hiddenness that cannot be overcome by sincerity or goodwill since it
concerns our inability as finite beings to do all or say all that, thanks to our others, forms the
range of our possibilities.3 Here others are in us in a sense that goes beyond our being able
to separate ourselves from ourselves and take up different perspectives. They are present in
our self-exceeding and consequent hiddenness to the very others who collectively constitute
such self-exceeding. Part of our endeavor will be to further define and explore the
consequences of the hiddenness that stems from this excessive character of our selfhood.
Hiddenness and Morality
These consequences concern first of all our moral relations to the other. To have a
moral relation, I must recognize that the other is a person and not, say, a thing. Similarity
helps me to do this. The other is similar to me and is recognized as such. Not only does she
look like me, in the general sense of being a member of my species; she also acts the way I
would in similar circumstances. Thus, I grant her the personhood that I ascribe to myself.
There is, however, a limit to this. The other who looked just like me and whose every move
could be predicted as what I would do in the same situation, would not be an other, but would
rather be myself reduplicated. Thus, the other, as other, must exceed me. She must have the
self-exceeding and consequent hiddenness defined above. Given this, how do I recognize
her? How do I intend the other in her self-exceeding?
The answer we will explore involves the intending that assumes its own surpassing.
In intending to grasp a thing, our aim is to understand each of its features. The ideal is an

9
understanding that leaves nothing out. By contrast, to intend a person is to intend an object
whose givenness exceeds what we intend. This can be put in terms of the fact that to intend
is to interpret. What we intend to see is set by our categories, by our interpretation of the
world. Thus, intending to see some object, we interpret what we see accordingly. This
interpretation shapes our expectations. If, for example, I believe I am seeing a cat crouching
in the shadows under a bush, then as I move to get a closer look, I expect that one shadow
will turn out to be its tail, another its head, etc. As long as these expectations are confirmed,
I continue to maintain my perceptual thesismy judgment that I am, indeed, seeing a cat.
Closer inspection will, I assume, offer me more detail, more intuitive confirmation of my
intention. When it does not, I simply change my thesis. I say, for example, what I am seeing
is not a cat but the flickering play of light and shadow under the bush. To intend a person is,
however, to expect that not all of my expectations will be confirmed. The intuitive
confirmation of my intention must, in fact, be provided by a givenness that exceeds my
interpretation. The excess consists of the others interpretation of the situation we share.
This is always somewhat different from my own. Guided by it, the other always behaves
differently than I would. There is a margin of difference between us based on the difference
of our apprehensions. Thus, insofar as I intend the others excessive givenness, I must at a
certain point suspend my interpretation till the other gives the lead. Her exceeding me is her
interpretation, the very interpretation that, in motivating her behavior, meets mine and calls
on me to respond. Thus, my intending the other involves a responding to her and her
interpretation. It is a form of responsibility whose relation to morality will be a constant
theme in what follows.

10
People do not have to engage in such responsibility. They can, in fact, shut off the
recognition of the other who waits till the other gives the lead. When they do, they generally
engage in stereotyping. They reduce the other to a ready set of categories and allow no
contrary evidence to undermine these. Stereotyping, then, is the opposite of the recognition
confirmed by the others excessive givenness. In denying that the other can differ from its
conceptions, it reduces the other to an object that has no hiddenness. In the extreme case, the
other becomes a mere thing and, hence, can be treated as such. The disastrous consequences
of such stereotyping were evident during the holocaust. They are an important reason that so
few people aided the Jews on the run. In the Polish stereotype, for example, the Jew was
considered to have exploited Poland for years. During the war, it was assumed that he or she
was hoarding gold. In the Ukraine, the Jew was regarded as a Bolshevik and, hence, as
responsible for the Stalinist terror. In both cases, Jews were seen as deserving their fate.
If the recognition of the other as other is our entrance into morality, such stereotyping
is the opposite. Regarding it, we confront the peculiar givenness of evil. In a certain sense
this is a nongivenness. Because stereotyping prevented the recognition of the humanity of
the Jews, the evil done to them was also not recognized. This nonrecognition was not tout
court, but rather part of a process. Thus, in Germany, the stereotyping of the Jews was
accomplished in the 1930s through an increasingly virulent propaganda. Each phase of the
campaign increased their isolation. Such isolation, in limiting any evidence to the contrary,
permitted further stereotyping. This downward spiral was also one of an increasing
concealment. Thus, each action against the Jews reduced the ability of their humanity to
show itself and, thus, increased their exposure (as mere things) to a violence whose
inhumanity was less and less recognized.

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The resulting self-concealment of evil gives us yet another sense of hiddenness. The
reduction of the other to an object having no hiddenness is a concealment of hiddenness.
What we have here is a hiddenness of hiddenness. This concealment of hiddenness can occur
through the unconscious racial stereotyping that we will explore in our reading of Benito
Cerino. It can be the object of an explicit government policy as it was in Nazi Germany. It
can also take the form of the violence that uses mutilation as an instrument of war. Here
what is concealed is not just the hiddenness that arises from our appropriating the
possibilities of othersi.e., the hiddenness that springs from the exceeding quality of our
selfhood. In mutilating the body, the attempt is made to obliterate this hiddenness by striking
at its root. The goal of such action is apparent in the photographs of the mutilated victims of
the recent conflicts in Africa. Men trying to get about without a foot and a hand, women
trying to care for infants with stumps instead of hands bear witness to the aim of such acts:
that of reducing the victims body to a nonfunctioning object. To the point that it succeeds, it
cuts off the individual from the possibilities of its others. It prevents people from enacting
them by undercutting their bodily I can.
Theroleofthebodyinappropriatingthepossibilitiesofothersissoobviousasto
hardlyneedcomment.Everythingfromlearningtoeatatthetabletolearninghowtowrite
presupposesafunctioningbody.Thesameholdsforourinitiallearningofourlanguage.I
acquired,forexample,themeaningofsuchwordsasknifeandforkwhenIlearnedtoeat
atthetable.Theywerenottaughttomeinisolation,butratheraspartofapatternofbodily
behavior,onewhichdisclosedwhatknivesandforkswerefor.Similarly,inappropriating
theprojectsofothersIlearned,forexample,thatpapercanbeusedasasurfacetodrawand
writeonorasmaterialtostartafireortomakeapaperairplane,andsoon.Doingso,I

12
gainedmysenseofwhatwasmeantbytheword,paper.Suchexamplespointtothefact
thatthedisclosureoftheusesofobjectsgivesmywordstheirmeanings.Suchdisclosure,
however,requiresthebodilyIcan.Withoutthis,mywordslosetheirlivedsense.Theloss
ofthisIcanisnot,then,justthereductionofthebodytoanonfunctioningobject.Itisalso
thelossofthevictimsabilitytoenactand,hence,uncoverforhimselfthesensesthatmake
upthehumanworldheshareswithhisothers.Theresultisaconcealmentofhishumanityin
adoublesense.Notonlydoeshenot,inhismutilation,appearfullyhuman;heisalsocutoff
fromenactingthesensesthathumanityshares.Heis,asitwere,placedatadistanceboth
fromthepossibilitiesthatgiveourfinitehumanityitsexceedingqualityandfromthelived
senseofthelanguageherequirestoexpresshisplight.
Whether the denial of the humanity of the other occurs through unconscious racial
stereotyping or explicit government policy or the undercutting of the victims functioning
body, the danger of a downward spiral remains the same. There can arise that process of selfreinforcing causation that characterizes the peculiar virulence of evil. In concealing the
humanity of its victims, evil generates a lack of recognition of the nature of its actions. This,
in turn, generates a lack of restraint in carrying them out, which generates a further
nonrecognition, and so on in a continuing process. In its very ability to escape recognition,
i.e., to conceal itself, evil thus seems to be capable of an indefinite expansion.
The practical and moral question here is: how do we combat this?
How do we break through the self-concealment of evil? One of the avenues of exploration
involves examining the different roles shame and guilt play in alerting us to the trespass of
evil. As we shall see, behind our feeling bodily shame is a sense of the privacy and
inviolability of the flesh that embodies our I can. The bodily hiddenness that underpins

13
this privacy will turn out to be uniquely unspeakable. The shame that stands watch over it
serves as a silent guard against its violation. Another path that will be examined will be the
use of literature to sensitize us to the fact of evils concealment. Metaphorically speaking,
the joins of reality where something has been left out or censored often do not fit together
well. A certain inappropriateness remains as the trace of what has been concealed. In
exploring how literature makes us aware of this, I shall examine Conrads account of evil in
his Heart of Darkness. A third avenue will appear in the stories of those who risked their
lives to rescue Jews during the Second World War. What prompted them to act in the face of
the coercion and propaganda of the Nazi state was usually a direct encounter with fleeing
Jews. Using the evidence of the accounts of rescue stored at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I
shall explore how this face-to-face encounter triggered the recognition of the humanity of the
other. My question will be: What was it in this encounter that revealed the exceeding quality
of the other, thus breaking through the stereotypes that dominated society?
The Question of Rights
Those who were faced by the Jews seeking refuge were, willy nilly, put in the
position of playing God. The lives of those who appealed to them were in their hands.
Normally, of course, this is not the case. Society is supposed to guard against such
situationss arising. It does this through codes of rights that the state through its constitution
is bound to respect. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, these rights are based on an implicit
contract between citizens and their government. Originally endowed with such rights,
individuals cede the defense of them to the state in exchange for its guarantees to defend their
security. Thus, the state gains a monopoly on the instruments of violence, but is supposed to
use this to defend the innate rights of its citizens. Central to this conception is a kind of

14
atomistic view of the self. Rights are considered to inhere in the self prior to society. The
self to which they accrue is, thus, independent of society. It can be conceived of apart from
its others. The position I have outlined, however, is the opposite of this. Its fundamental
premise is that selfhood is intersubjectively constituted. Given this, it cannot avail itself of
the atomistic conception of the self. The thought that the self could be defined or have rights
apart from society is not possible for it. Neither is the thought that the defense of rights can
be understood in terms of an assumed contract. The question that thus faces us is how to
regard such rights. If they are not an inherent, innate part of our selfhoodand, hence,
inalienablehow are they to be understood? Part of the task of our inquiry will be to
answer this question. We shall try to understand rights in terms of the freedom that has its
roots in the excessive quality of our selfhood. Such freedom is intersubjectively constituted.
It depends upon others making their possibilities available to the self. Our goal will be to
understand how rights can function as guides to this constitution.
Metaphysical and Theological Questions
The final set of implications of the hiddenness that stems from the excessive character
of our selfhood returns us to the point I earlier touched on. This is that such hiddenness
founds the hiddenness of the real or true being of the world. The fact that the worlds
reality is not apparent (is not reducible to some sensibly appearing predicate) is traceable to
the nonappearing of othersthe very others whom I must assume to be positing the world
along with me if I am to take it as real. This dependence of reality on others has certain
metaphysical and theological implications. According to Heidegger, metaphysical thinking
rests on the distinction between what truly is and what, measured against this, constitutes all
that is not truly in being.4 Traditionally, this distinction has been interpreted as that between

15
reality and appearance. The real or true world has been assumed to be intelligible, yet
nonappearing, while the appearing world has been taken to be the world to which our
sensible predicates apply. Kants view that reality is not a real (or sensuous) predicate is
one expression of this position. Another is the view of modern mathematical physics that the
reality of the world is only caught by the mathematical formulas used to describe it. Such
formulas express the intelligibility of the world, an intelligibility that is reached only by
abstracting from the worlds sensuous features. I shall argue that behind this division of the
real and the apparent is the role of others in the positing of the real world. Their
nonappearing is correlated to the real worlds nonappearing. The intelligibility ascribed to
this world is traceable to the intelligibility of the linguistic symbols that put each of us in
contact with the nonappearing mental life of our others. With regard to the theological
implications of our hiddenness, I shall examine how far a parallel argument can be made
about the highest (most true, most real) being: God. In what sense is the hidden god a
function of othersi.e., of the excessive quality of their selfhood? How does the divinity
manifest this hiddennessthat is, show us its excessive quality? How does God, as the
radically other, show himself as other than us in and through us? Such questions will be
addressed in the context in which Gods hiddenness was most readily apparent. In examining
the question of theodicy, I will consider how God showed himself in the holocaust. The
silence of God during this period will be taken as the occasion to raise the question of the
purpose and object of prayer.
Kant
TheroleKantwillplayinthechaptersthatfollowisasubstantialone.Thethemesof
othernessandhiddennesshavetheirrootsinhiswritings.ItwasKantwholinkedthe

16
positingoftherealworldtoitspositingbyothers.ItwasalsoKantwhofirstadvanceda
radicalsenseofourselfhiddenness.Thisisthesensethatwecangraspourselvesonlyaswe
appear,notasweareinourselves.Inourselves,wearecompletelyhidden.ForKant,this
hiddennessstemsfromthefactthattimeisnothinginitself,butisratherourproduct.
Reducedtoitsbarebones,hisargumentforthisisrelativelystraightforward.Itbeginswith
theinsightthateverythingweexperienceisextendedintime.Ifthiswerenotthecase,i.e.,if
eachimpressionwehaveofanobjectweretovanishthemomentafteritsapprehension,then
wewouldneverhavemorethanafleetingconsciousnessofit.Toavoidthis,wemust
preservewhatweexperience.Butthis,accordingtoKant,meansthatwemustreproduceour
impressionofit,i.e.,bringitbackagainafteritsinitialgivennesssothatitcanremain
present.Thisreproducedpresenceisthepresenceofourpast.ForKant,temporalizationis
thisveryprocess.Itisourgeneratingthepastthroughtheactofreproduction.Engagingin
it,weinserteachmomentaryimpressionwehaveofsomeobjectintotheextendedtimethat
stretchesbeyondthemomentarypresentintothepast.Weourselvesgeneratethistime
throughouractofreproducingandhencepreservingwhatweexperience.Amoredetailed
accountofthisprocesswillbetakenupinthefirstchapter.Forthepresent,allweneednote
isthatifweacceptKantsargument,thentheselfsgenerationoftimeisessentiallyaself
concealingact.Thisfollowsbecausetheselfthattemporalizescannotbeintime.Sincetime
isasubjectiveconstruct,weretheselfintime,itwouldbesuchaconstruct;butthiswould
implythattherewasanotherselfbehinditwhowouldberesponsibleforitsbeingintime.
Theimplicationofplacingthetimeconstitutingselfintimeisthusaninfiniteregressof
selvesbehindselves.Tobeintime,however,isanabsolutelynecessaryconditionforthe

17
appearingthatextendsbeyondthemomentaryimpression.Giventhis,wehavetosaythat
theselfthatappears,i.e.,thetemporallyextendedself,isnotthereal,timeconstitutingself.
Togeneratetimeis,then,tohidethelattersinceweinevitablytaketheappearing,temporally
extendedselfasourreality.
For Kant, then, we have two forms of hiddenness, one implicit, the other explicit. The
first is the hiddenness of the reality of the world, which, not being a real predicate, points
to the hiddenness of our others. The second is the hiddenness of each subject to itself by
virtue of its act of temporalization. The immediate task in the chapters that follow will be to
link these two forms. Doing so will transform Kants position. From a theory emphasizing
the individuals constitution of time and his or her consequent hiddenness, an account will
arise that acknowledges that time in its unending wholeness is grounded on the ongoing
intersubjective community. It, thus, has the same basis as the thesis of the reality of the
world. The ultimate implication here is that our hiddenness has an intersubjective rather
than an individual ground. The chapters that follow will draw out the implications of this for
our selfhood. As indicated, these will range from morality and politics to metaphysics and
theology. The breadth of our inquiry indicates the depths concealed by its subject, namely,
ourselves in our hiddenness and alterity.5

18

CHAPTERI
TEMPORALIZATION AS THE TRACE OF THE SUBJECT

Many readers will find it curious, if not paradoxical, to begin a work on the
phenomenology of hiddenness and alterity with a chapter on Kants philosophy. The
phenomenological examination of alterity has been a theme of recent French philosophy.
Kants critical philosophy, however, in both its methods and spirit, seems to be at its opposite
pole. In its deductive approach, Kants Critique of Pure Reason exemplifies a severe
rationality; its structures of argument and proof often abstract from our lived experience. The
philosophies of Derrida and Levinas, however, attend to such experience. In particular, they
are sensitive to precisely those aspects of it that seem to exceed our conceptual abilities.
Thus, for Levinas the face of the other manifests an inabsorbable alterity. It cannot be
integrated into our categories. Similarly, Derridas account of differance is an account of
how the world exceeds any closed rational structure. Phenomenologically, such exceeding
manifests itself in the trace. This is an appearing that is simultaneously a concealing. Such
thoughts, I am going to argue, are not entirely foreign to Kants position. In fact, a basis for
such a conception can be found in Kants account of temporalization. Closely read, the
account shows that temporalization is a self-concealing process. In fact, the syntheses that
generate time generate their own concealment. In doing so, they exhibit the subject as a
being that gives itself as not being able to be given. As we shall see, they give it the status of
Derridas trace.

19
TheRegressiveMethod
Any consideration of the nongivenness of the Kantian subject must begin with a
mention of his regressive method. For many critics, this method undermines the possibility
of making the subject intuitively given. Husserl, for example, writes that Kants great
discovery of the understanding and its functions could never be actually grounded or
even be fully comprehensible ... as the result of his purely regressive method.6 This is
because this method, in seeking to uncover the conditions of the possibility of experience,
ultimately moves us beyond experience. Initially, the method, in its search for such
conditions, can be conceived as a regression to the phenomenal subject. As such, it brings us
to the realm of inner sense, that is, to what seems to be a direct inspection of our subjective
functions and faculties. Here, many of Kants results, particularly with regard to the
syntheses of the imagination, are strikingly similar to those of Husserls phenomenology.
The regressive method, however, undermines these results by passing beyond this realm to
ask for its conditions. It does so when it inquires into the conditions of the possibility of time
itself. Since the relations of inner sense are temporal, to ask for a ground of time is to pass
beyond such relations. It is to regress from the phenomenally functioning subject to a subject
whose functioning is essentially hidden. In Husserls words, the regressive method ends with
a mode of the subjective which we, in principle, cannot make intuitive to ourselves either by
factual examples or by genuine analogy.7
This objection can be expressed in terms of Kants position that inner sense presents
even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves
(KdrV, B 152-53; Ak. III, 120). This means that the functioning that we observe through
inner sense is only the functioning of the appearing subject. The subject who functions to

20
make appearance possible, however, is not itself observed. For Kant, the distinction between
the two follows from the notion of the subject as the combiner (or synthesizer) of the
manifold (or multiplicity) of its successive intuitions. When Kant writes that all combination
points back to the subjective activity of combining, he takes the actual combiner to be the
subject itself.8 The subject makes the appearance of an object possible by combining its
intuitions. It is only by virtue of such combination that the subject can have a temporally
extended apprehension of the object. Without it, it would be limited to an instantaneous
apprehension based on a single fleeting intuition. This necessity applies to the subjects own
appearance. As an acting combiner, it combines its momentary self-intuitions. Its
appearance to itself, however, is determined by the result of this action. As temporally
extended, it appears in and through its combination. Thus, for Kant, while I do have an
immediate (if fleeting) consciousness of myself as the combiner, if I want to intuitively grasp
myself or my extended activity of combining, I must do so in terms of the manifold I have
combined. This is the manifold of inner sense, which consists of temporal relations.
Therefore, I have to grasp combination as a temporal process. The same holds for myself as
the actor engaging in this process. I must also be taken as temporal.9
Inherently, however, the I that combines is not temporal. It is not something extended
in time. This follows from Kants position that temporal extension is the result of the action
of combination. Given this, the actor which produces this result cannot be itself combined.
Since all combination demands a subjective combiner, if the combiner were itself combined,
we would face a regress. We would have to presuppose another combining subject behind
this combined subject, which, if itself combined, would demand yet another such subject, and
so on indefinitely. Insofar as the acting subject does not presuppose the action of

21
combination, its unity is thus that of an uncombined combiner.10 It has the unity of a
nonappearing, noumenal subject. In summary, since all appearing requires combination of
the manifold, as uncombined, the acting subject cannot appear. Combination is its function;
yet, as a combiner, it falls outside of the categories of appearance.
Given the above, it seems, in Husserls words, that we cannot make intuitive to
ourselves either by factual examples or by genuine analogy the nature of this combinatory
function. This is the basis of Husserls complaint about the obscurity of the Kantian
philosophy, about the incomprehensibility of the evidences of his regressive method, of its
transcendental-subjective faculties, functions, formations, about the difficulty of
understanding what transcendental subjectivity actually is, how its functioning, its
accomplishment comes about ... .11 In Husserls view, the fact that we cannot make
intuitive to ourselves the nature of this function means that Kant falls into his own type of
mythic speech in describing it. It is mythic because we have no evidence to judge such
descriptions. We inherently lack the required evidence since Kants regressive method has
undercut the very possibility of providing it.
As is obvious, the basis of this objection is the distinction between the appearing and
the nonappearing I. This is a distinction that Kant makes in terms of the function of
temporalization. To see how far this objection actually holds, we must examine Kants
portrayal of this function. In keeping with Husserls critique, our examination will be
phenomenological rather than analytical. We will, in other words, take the realm of inner
sense as a phenomenologically accessible field. The main source for our approach will be
the A edition.
Temporalization and the Synthesis of the Imagination

22
Kants description of the generation of time appears primarily in his account of the
syntheses of the imagination. Such syntheses are required if we are to grasp any temporally
extended object. For such a grasp several conditions must be met. The first comes from the
fact that the apprehension of this object involves a multiplicity of temporally distinct
impressions. Such an apprehension, Kant writes, would be impossible if the mind did not
distinguish time in the succession of impressions (Eindrcke) following one another (KdrV,
A 99; Ak. IV, 77). The impressions must be given distinct temporal locations. They must, we
can say, be inserted into definite, unchanging positions in an objective, successively given
time. The second condition is that of reproduction. As Kant writes, ... if I were to lose from
my thought the preceding [presentationsVorstellungen] ... and not reproduce them when I
advance to those which follow, a complete presentation (Vorstellung) would never arise ...
(KdrV, A 102; Ak. IV, 79).12 The requirement, then, is that of making co-present the
impressions or presentations which, according to the first condition, we must distinguish
according to successive temporal positions. If we did not distinguish them, we might take
what we have reproduced as something new. So regarded, it would not be recognized as the
same as what we earlier experienced. Reproduction, then, can fulfill its function of bringing
the past up to the present only if we are capable of recognizing that the reproduced content is
the same as the content originally given in the past. In Kants words, Without the
consciousness that what we think is, in fact, the same as what we thought a moment before,
all reproduction in the series of presentations would be useless (KdrV, A 103; Ak. IV, 79).
This is because without this consciousness, the reproduced would appear as something new.
As such, it would not be temporally distinguished from the impressions which we are
presently experiencing. Now, the consciousness that a reproduction is not a new presentation

23
is a consciousness that what it reproducesi.e., its contentis something past.
Reproduction, then, must not just reproduce. It must also modify. Reproduction must add
not-newness or pastness to the content it reproduces. This modification is reproductions
generation of time for it allows time to be distinguished in the succession of impressions
following one another.
The requirements just listed can be met if we think of reproduction as a serial action.
This does not just mean that each advance to a subsequent impression involves a
reproduction of the preceding impression. It also signifies that, in the next advance, this
reproduction will itself be reproduced along with the preceding impression. The same
necessity governs both the reproduction of this reproduction and that of the preceding
impression. Without reproduction, both would be lost as I advanced towards the next
impression. In other words, in order for the result of my reproductive act not to be lost, this
reproduction must itself be reproduced as I advance. Similarly, this reproduction of the
reproduction of my original content must, in turn, be reproduced if it is not to be lost in a
further advance. Thus, as long as I keep the original content as part of a complete
presentation, the serial process of reproduction must continue.13
This process, in which impressions are reproduced and these reproductions are
themselves reproduced, marks a given impression as increasingly not new or past. With the
increase of the reproductions of reproductions ... of its original content, the impression is
experienced as shoved further and further back into the past even as it is brought up to the
present by the reproductive act. This shoving back or expiration is just enough to keep it in
its original temporal position. With each advance, the content is reproduced. Each
reproduction marks it as reproduced, that is, as not original or not new. Thus, each advance

24
to a subsequent impression is matched by a shoving back of a previous impression. This
action keeps the impression in a distinct, if receding place in time even as it keeps it in
consciousness.
Thesameserialprocess,whenappliedtoanumberofsuccessivelygivenimpressions,
yieldsthesuccessionofimpressionsfollowingoneanother.Eachoftheseoccupiesits
ownplaceindepartingtime.Asreproduced,allarecopresentinourconsciousness.Allare
partofourapprehensionofacompletepresentation.Since,however,theyareall
experiencedasexpiring,thispresentationisofanextendedtemporalevent.Anextended
event,forexample,theflightofabirdthroughagarden,isgraspedthroughamultitudeof
temporallydistinctimpressions,eachofwhichisgraspedasexpiring.Wethusgraspthe
birdsmotionthroughacopresentsuccession.Itstemporallydistinctmembersmaintain
theirinternalorderasnewimpressionsareaddedtothem.Eachnewadditionistheoccasion
oftheirbeingcollectivelyshovedbackastheyareretainedbybeingreproduced.
To grasp this flight, it is, of course, not enough to view together a multitude of
temporally distinct, expiring impressions. Such impressions must be taken as impressions of
a distinct entitynamely, the bird. This condition is an example of what Kant calls the
synthesis of recognition in a concept (KdrV, A103; Ak. IV, 79). In this case, the concept is
that of substance, defined as that which abides while its empirical determination in time
changes (KdrV, A143; Ak. IV, 102). The flying bird, as the real in time, is thought of as
remaining the same through its changing positions. Now, to recognize the bird as the same
bird as it flies, I have to grasp it as the identical referent of a multitude of perceptions. Each
of the momentary perceptions must be seen as a perception of one and the same object. Each
presents it. Yet, what each presents is not itself one of these presentations. In itself, this

25
object is an x, an empty referent point. In Kants words, this object must be thought of only
as something in general = x ... (KdrV, A104; Ak. IV, 80). When we posit it, we assume an
external determinant of our presentations, one which prevents them from being haphazard
or arbitrary in their composition and arrangement. Beyond this, however, the distinction of
the object = x from all our representations, empties it of empirical content.
Phenomenologically regarded, the x simply designates the common referent for a multitude
of perceptions. As the same for all, it is distinguished from each of them.14 Insofar as the
bird is taken as such an x, it is thus distinguished from the temporal positions of the
perceptions that present it. Just as each perception is of it, so each temporal position refers
to it. It itself, however, is not limited to any one of them. As a common referent, its sense,
rather, is that of something enduring through them. What the synthesis of recognition in a
concept generates when we posit the real in time is, then, the sense of time as enduring.
Concretely, this sense comes about only with the synthesis that allows us to recognize an
object as the same in a multitude of changing perceptions.15
The Underlying Ambiguity of Kants Description
In spite of all its conceptual and technical brilliance, Kants account contains a basic
ambiguity. On the one hand, it implies that reproduction is necessary to grasp a sequence.
According to Kant, were we to lose the preceding elements of the sequence as we advanced
to those that follow, we would never be able to get a complete presentation. Such a
presentation, however, is required if we are to view together the elements that form the
sequence. Thus, I can apprehend the sequence only through a synopsis of the manifold;
and this synopsis requires my reproducing expired moments (KdrV, A97; Ak. IV, 76). The
same argument applies to the being of successive time: it also requires my reproducing

26
expired moments. This follows because times being is its appearing. Successive time, in
other words, only exists in my consciousness. Outside of my apprehension, there are no
expired moments; there is no past. Given this, I have to say that in reproducing such
moments I generate successive time. On the other hand, Kants account of reproduction
presupposes the notion of a sequence. In doing so, it assumes that successive time already
exists. This assumption is implied in the thought of an advance to a subsequent
impression, the advance being the occasion of the reproduction that preserves the
preceding impression. In such a conception, we are already thinking of impressions as
being sequentially given. Thus, in Kants account, the notion that I reproduce the previous
impression at the moment of the next impression assumes that the previous impression would
expire or be lost if I did not reproduce it. But this is to assume that time already exists as a
succession of previous and later moments. Kant, however, insists that time is nothing in
itself. It is, rather, the result of my action, in particular my act of reproduction. Thus, it is
the constant I-act-to-reproduce that generates time in the distinction of its moments.16
How can a description of the generation of time in its successive character presuppose
such a character? Is Kant, here, caught in a circularity that makes his account fundamentally
ambiguous? While the thought of avoiding this charge may have motivated Kant in the B
edition to drop the A editions phenomenological account of the threefold synthesis, this does
not, in fact, eliminate the difficulty. The ambiguity in question is inherent in the logic of
Kants position.17 It follows from his distinction of the phenomenal from the noumenal. This
distinction rests on two assertions. The first is that time does not apply to things in
themselves, but is rather something I add to make experience possible. This implies that time
is my product, that I generate time through my activity. The second is that all appearing is

27
appearing in time. As we stated earlier, all appearing requires a combination of the manifold
of intuitions. It thus requires a grasp of the object through a synthesis of its temporally
distinct perceptions. The resulting appearance is thus spread out in time. When we combine
these two, we have to say that in generating time, the subject generates the medium through
which things appear. This applies to the appearance of its own act of generating time. This
act, then, can only appear as a temporal process. Hence, it must appear as something that
presupposes time as already given in its sequential character. The same holds for the
descriptions of this act. To the point that they make it intuitively evident, they get caught in
the circularity described above.
Kants account of the unity of the manifold of intuitions is a good illustration of this
point. According to Kant in the B edition, what unifies this manifold is the sense I have that
all the intuitions composing it are mine. They are mine because I combine them.18 How do I
know this? Kants answer is that I have an immediate sense of my I act. In his words, I
exist as an intelligence which is conscious solely of its power of combination (KdrV, B158;
Ak. III, 124). This self-consciousness is, then, an immediate sense of the basic act of
combining. By virtue of this sense, I take what I combine as belonging to me. The
manifolds unity thus rests on its having a single owner. Now, to make the above
phenomenologically evident, we have to turn to the A editions account of the reproductive
synthesis. It is only in terms of this that we can see how we can have an immediate sense of
the I act. In the B edition, we are merely told that we intuit ourselves only as we are
inwardly affected by ourselves (KdrV, B153; Ak. III, 120). We are not told how the inward
affection of our act of combining the manifold arises. The same holds with regard to how

28
this act actually gives rise to the idea that the intuitions combined belong to the combiner
that is, how the sense of I combine makes the combined mine.
When we do turn to the A edition, we see the I combine as the I reproduce. Each
act of reproduction adds or combines the reproduced to the originally given impressional
material. It does this again and again as I advance to new impressions. Because of this,
reproduction is the core act of synthesis or putting together. It is what must be
presupposed in my attainment of a complete presentation. Now, what I reproduce is, in each
case, my being-affected by an impression. Reproduction thus presents to the self its beingaffected. Given that this presentation itself has an affective quality, the presentation to itself
of its being-affected is a process by which the self affects itself. In reproduction, then, we
have the primitive germ of the auto-affection of consciousness. I am present to my self in my
affecting myself. This self-presence includes the presence of my act of reproduction. This
follows because the immediate focus of the act is, after the first instance, not an impression
but a reproduction of an impression. Thus, as I advance to a complete presentation, I
reproduce the reproductions of the reproductions ... of my original impressions. Insofar as
the focus of reproduction is reproduction itself, self-reference is inherent in it. This selfreference is the self-presence of the act. With this, however, I also have the sense that the
impressions that affect me are mine. They are mine because, without me, they would not be
there. As reproduced, they are mine because they continually depend on my action of
reproduction. Summing up, we can say that the auto-affection of consciousness, which arises
from reproduction, has two results. It gives me a sense of immediate self-presence as based
on my self-affection. It also yields that sense that everything affecting me is mine insofar as
it is correlated to my power of combination. I, thus, grasp simultaneously the unity of my

29
action and the unity of the manifold of intuitions, the latter being the sense that each of the
intuitions composing it is mine.
The above account is drawn from the A edition. In its attempt to make the selfaffection of consciousness phenomenologically evident, it assumes that I can actually grasp
myself in my power of combination. Yet, as Kant remarks in the B edition, the subjects
consciousness of itself is very far from being a knowledge of the self ... (KdrV, B158; Ak.
III, 123). In fact, he adds, I have no knowledge of myself as I am but merely as I appear to
myself (ibid.). The admission follows from the fact that I can only appear to myself in
terms of the appearance that I, in my action, make possible. This is implied by the above
account. Yet, once we grant it, it immediately undermines this account. It does so by
reminding us that the reproductive act presupposes in its descriptions the results that it itself
makes possible. As we have seen, such descriptions implicitly assume that the sequence of
time is already given. Insofar as they do, they imply that the effect of reproduction is simply
that of making the members of an already existent temporal sequence co-present and, hence,
available to introspection. In doing so, however, they undercut Kants point in describing
this act, namely, that time is our product. Without our action there would, for Kant, be no
temporal sequences. The same holds for the appearance of the self when it is thought of in
terms of the act of combination. My immediate sense of myself is, according to the above
account, a sense of this act. Since, however, time is my product, I can make this intuitive to
myself only in terms of the results of this act. This sense, then, is limited to myself as I
appear, not myself as I am.

30
TemporalityasTheTraceoftheSelf
This analysis returns us to Husserls objection that Kant, through his method, subverts
his own position. Is this correct? Does his account undermine the possibility of
phenomenological evidence for its assertions? Kants elimination of the description of the
threefold synthesis certainly points in this direction. Does not the descriptions absence in
the B edition imply Kant suspected its conclusions undercut it? The assumption that they do
is behind the objection that sees Kants description as a type of mythic speech. This
accusation, however, ignores the real necessities invoked by Kants account. There seems to
be no other way to grasp a temporally enduring object than to distinguish time in its
moments. Such distinct moments must be kept in mind as we progressively view a given
object. But this requires that we apprehend the past impressional moments as past and not as
new impressions. All these requirements point to the reproductive act. Without it, our
apprehension of time seems impossible. This holds, even though the results of the
reproductive act limit our account of it to the realm of appearance. In fact, this limitation
seems as necessary as the act itself. We are thus lead to the assumption that in reproduction
we face the necessity of an act that conceals itself.
In making this assumption, we must distinguish the nonappearing subject from the
appearing one. The necessity for this noumenal-phenomenal distinction is, in fact, the same
as the necessity that drives us to posit the self-concealing reproductive act. Engaging in it,
the actual, acting self does not just generate appearance. Precisely in this action, it escapes
appearance. As such, the acting self, or subject, itself generates the distinction between what
appears and what escapes appearance. Now, if its appearance is to be genuine and not mere
illusion, this self must give itself as grounding this distinction. This implies that, in giving

31
itself in appearance, it must give itself as not being able to be given. Its appearing is through
reproduction, the act by which it generates time. Thus, the implication is that in generating
time, it must present itself in its temporal appearances as not temporal, i.e., as escaping time.
If we take these statements not as statements of a paradox (as Husserl apparently did), what
is pointed to is a new form of giving, a giving that manifests the concealment of its origin.
Correspondingly, there is a new form of the given, a new phenomenal presence, that is
indicated here. This is a presence that refers beyond itself to the origin that is not given.
The phenomenon I am pointing to is what Derrida calls the trace. In his
description, The trace is not a presence, but is rather the simulacrum of a presence that
dislocates, displaces and refers beyond itself. This reference to what lies beyond itself is
inherent in it. In fact, as Derrida immediately adds, the trace has, properly speaking, no
place, for effacement belongs to the very structure of the trace. This is because ... from the
start, effacement constitutes [the trace] as a tracemakes it disappear in its appearing, makes
it issue forth from itself in its very position.19 From a Kantian perspective, temporality is
the trace of the subject. It is a simulacrum of presence insofar as it reveals the subject
only to conceal it. Its revealing the subject is one with its referring beyond itself to the
nontemporal self (the self as the uncombined combiner). For Derrida, the trace manifests
itself as a trace in its ceaseless movement, in the fact that it disappears in its appearing, in
the fact that this disappearance is an issuing forth from itself in its very position. From a
Kantian perspective, all of these descriptions can be applied to time in the restless movement
of the succession of its moments. Each moment disappears in its appearing. This
disappearance is the issuing forth of a new appearance, a new moment that occupies the
position of being now.

32
At the origin of this restless movement is the self-affection of consciousness. It is
consciousness to itself as a self that cannot be given. This giving of itself as not being able
to be given occurs through the given (the momentary appearance) referring beyond itself to a
new appearance. Each new appearing is a manifestation of the self.20 The reference and
displacement of this is a sign of its inadequacy as an appearance an inadequacy that needs
to be supplemented by yet another appearance. The subject, then, gives itself as not being
able to be given in this constant need for further appearances. To grasp this process, the
unending nature of time, the inadequacy of its moments as appearances, and the noumenal
character of the self that affects itself must all be thought together. We do so when we realize
that nothing less that the totality of time would be an adequate representation of the subject
in its status as the origin of time.
Canwegraspsuchatotality?Canwethinkittogetherwiththeselfthatisitsground
toseewhyeverymomentdemandsanext?Theendeavorrequiresitsownchapter.

33

CHAPTERII
THE ALTERITY OF TIME

There is a certain paradoxical quality in the claim that when we take the self to be the
origin of time, its manifestation requires the whole of time. What is meant by such a whole?
If we mean time in its unending infinity, then the individual self does not correspond to it.
Individual selves do not last forever; they are born and they die. How could one of these
finite selves require all of time to manifest itself? If, however, the self referred to is not
individual, how are we to understand it? Such questions indicate that to clarify this claim, we
need a deeper insight into the selfhood that functions as the ground of time. We also need a
greater understanding of time in its unending wholeness. To gain this, we shall consider
Kants, Husserls, and Levinass thoughts on the infinity of time. I shall then give my own
views. My goal will be to clarify the nature of this infinity and the selfhood that corresponds
to it. The result will be a different sense of the noumenal quality of the self. For Kant, it was
the individual selfs position as the ground of time (and hence of appearance), that made it
nonappearing. The divide between the appearing and the nonappearing self thus determined
for Kant the fundamental alterity or otherness of selfhood. The divide was within the
individual self. When we gain a new sense of selfhood that corresponds to time, we will shift
the meaning of this alterity. The new divide will be between self and others. Alterity and
nonappearing will turn out to pertain primarily to our others in their functioning as cogrounders of time.

34

KantsAccountoftheWholenessofTime
Why do we have to posit the unlimited wholeness of time? Is it not possible simply
to restrict ourselves to thinking of time in terms of finite stretches? Kants answer to these
questions in the Critique is brief enough. In his Metaphysical Exposition of the Concept of
Time, he writes: The infinitude of time signifies nothing more than that every determinate
magnitude of time is possible only through the limitations of one single time that underlies it.
The original presentation, time, must therefore be given as unlimited (KdrV, B47-8; Ak. III,
58). We can understand the point Kant is making by analyzing the idea of something being
in time. For something to be in time, it must have time surrounding it. A temporal
magnitude must, therefore, be surrounded by temporal magnitudes. But, these, to be in
time, also require surrounding temporal magnitudes. The same holds for their surrounding
magnitudes and so on indefinitely. We thus have a chain of dependencies where the
possibility of any determinate magnitude of time is ultimately dependent on all the
magnitudes surrounding it. Thus, the latter must be possible for the former to be possible.
The totality of such magnitudes is, however, the infinity of time, i.e., time in its unending
wholeness. This means that the possibility of any determinate magnitude of time is
ultimately dependent on that of the whole of time, the part being necessarily represented as a
limitation of the unlimited whole. In other words, every determinate magnitude of time is,
qua limited, dependent; but the one single time that underlies it, understood as unlimited, is
independent. Its independence follows since there is, by definition, no time outside of the
wholeness of time on which such wholeness could depend.

35
With this, we have two further characterizations of the whole of time. Since there is
no time outside of the single time that makes up the totality of its interdependent moments,
we have to say that time ... is unchanging and abiding. To say that it abides means that
time does not flow away (verluft sich nicht). The point follows analytically since there is
no time outside of this totality of interdependent temporal magnitudes into which it could
flow (KdrV, B 183; Ak. III, 137). Now, if we ask what sort of whole this totality is, we find
that it is not just a single time, it is also unique. In other words, the whole of time can be
characterized as a unique singular. Non-unique singulars exist as one of many similar
things. For example, given that there are many humans, every human being is a non-unique
singular insofar as there are other individuals that share the characteristics that define
humanity. By contrast, a unique singular exists simply as one. It is the only example of its
kind. This characterization applies to the wholeness of time, since, by definition, there is no
time outside of it.
How does this metaphysical exposition of the concept of time fit in with Kants
transcendental exposition of the concept? The latter takes time as a condition for the
possibility of experience. Concretely, it sends us back to the I reproduce, the act by which
we make experience possible by reproducing and, hence preserving, the impressions we have
of the object so as to gain a complete presentation of it. The link that Kant draws between
the two expositions is set in the context of his argument that time is not an empirical concept
that has been derived from experience (KdrV, B46; Ak. III, 57). Were time such a concept,
then, having been drawn from our experience of objects, it would pertain to them. This,
however, would invalidate the transcendental exposition of time, for the latter takes time as
pertaining not to such objects, but rather to what we do to make our experience of them

36
possible. Kants argument against time being a concept takes the form of a reductio ad
absurdum. If time were an empirical concept, this would imply that first we would
experience objects and then, as a generalization of their common features, we would obtain
the concept of time. Since time involves such things as coexistence and succession, this
would imply that we could first experience objects without apprehending their coexistence
and succession. This, however, is impossible. In Kants words, Only on the presupposition
of time can we present to ourselves a number of things as existing at one and the same time
(simultaneously) or different times (successively) (ibid.).
If time is not a concept, what is it? Kants answer is that it must be the object of an
intuition. A concept, as common to many objects, has the status of a one-in-many. It is
grasped through abstraction. Single objects, by contrast, are apprehended through intuition.
With this, we have the link to the metaphysical exposition of the one single time that
underlies all finite times. Kant insists on the singular nature of time because, as he notes,
the presentation which can be given only through a single object is intuition and not
conceptualization (KdrV, B47; Ak. III, 58). In other words, only if time is immediately
apprehended by intuition can he complete his argument that time is not an empirical concept
and hence not drawn from empirical experience. Now, if we ask what we do see when we
intuit time, Kants answer is that our object is no definite thing, but rather the singular form
(or structure) of intuition itself. The way we intuit (and posit) objects is through preserving
the impressions we have of them. The mode of such preservation is that of our self-affection.
In Kants words, Since this form [of intuition] does not represent anything save insofar as
something is posited in the mind, it can be nothing but the mode in which the mind is
affected through its own activity (namely, through this positing of its presentation), and so is

37
affected by itself (KdrV, B67-8; Ak. III, 70). This self-affection is, then, the minds being
affected by its activity of positing the presentation of something. As the last chapter showed,
the activity in question is that of the I reproduce. Thus, to posit a complete presentation of
some object, each successive impression I have of it is preserved by being reproduced; these
successive reproduction are, in turn, preserved by being reproduced, and so on. In
reproducing the reproductions, I reproduce the results of my activity (the activity of the I
reproduce). My being affected by these reproductions is, then, my being affected by this
activity. It is a self-affection. I experience this in the co-presence of the reproduced
moments that make up the complete presentation of what I am representing. Intuiting such
moments, understood as the results of my activity, I intuit time. Intuiting their relations, i.e.,
their coexistence and succession, I intuit the form of time taken as a form of intuition.
Theconnectionjustmadebetweenthemetaphysicalandthetranscendentalexposition
oftime,whileingenious,stillleavestheexactnatureoftheirrelationproblematical.Granted
thatthesingularityoftimeimpliesthatouraccesstoitisthroughintuitionandnot
conceptualization,itisstillnotclearhowthemodeofselfaffectionwedointuitrelatesto
suchsingularity.Metaphysicallyregarded,timeistheuniquelysingularwholeof
interdependentmagnitudes.Itneverrunsout.Transcendentallyregarded,itistheresultof
theIreproduce.ButtheIreproduceisnotunending.Astheactoflimitedsubject,itis
finite.ThispointcanbeexpressedintermsofthefactthattheIreproduceisnota
sufficientconditionforthegenerationoftime.Theactreproducesimpressionswiththeir
nowness.Itdoesnot,however,generatethem.Atranscendentaffectionisrequired.This
providestheimpressionsthattheindividualpreservesbyreproducingthem.Thedeathand
dissolutionoftheindividual,however,seemstobetheendofallsuchimpressions.Thus,

38
unlessanindividualselfwerelinkedtothosewhoselivesextendedbeyonditsown,
temporalizationwouldseemtostopwithit.Inotherwords,onlyiftheindividual
temporalizationsofanongoingsuccessionofsubjectswereconnectedcouldwetalkaboutan
unbrokenwholeofinterconnectedtime.
PrimalNownessandTemporalization
Husserl,inthelastyearsofhislife,maybeseenasattemptingjustsuchalinkingof
thetimeconstitutingselftoitsothers.Inthelatemanuscriptsfromthe1930s,heexpresses
theconnectionoftheirtemporalizationsthroughadoubleclaim.Ontheonehand,heasserts,
Iam.Itisfrommethattimeisconstituted(Ms.CI,Sept.2223,1934;Husserl1973a,p.
667).Temporalizationishereregardedasthefunctionoftheindividual.Ontheother,he
alsoclaimsthattheoriginoftemporalizationispreegological.Inhiswords,
temporalizationpossessesitslayers...thelayersbeneaththeego(unterichliche
Schichte)andtheegologicallayers(Ms.BII9,Oct.Dec.1931,p.10).Ashealsoputs
this,firstthereistheprimalbeing,theinherentlyselftemporalizingabsolute...thenthe
primalbeingas[an]ego...(Ms.C5,1931,p.5a).Thetwoclaimsfittogetherbecause,in
Husserlsview,eachegoconstitutestimebybeingincoincidencewiththepreegological
originoftemporalization.Thelatteristheselftemporalizingabsolute.Husserldescribes
itsrelationtothemonadsi.e.,thetimeconstitutingegosbywriting:
The absolute is nothing other than absolute temporalization; and even its
interpretation as the absolute which I directly encounter as my stationary streaming
primordiality is a temporalization, a temporalization of this into something primally
existing (zur Urseienden). Therefore, the absolute totality of monadsi.e., the

39
primordiality of all the monads (allmonadische Urtmlichkeit)only exists by virtue
of temporalization (Ms. C I; Husserl 1973a., p. 670).
The stationary streaming primordiality that this passage refers to is my being in its
nowness. Such nowness is stationary since, from my perspective, it is always now for me. I
act only in the now; and it is from my central nowness that I view both the past and the
future. My primordiality is also described as streaming because, in its remaining now, its
position constantly shifts with regard to the moments that advance from the future and depart
into pastness. Viewed from their perspective, my now is ever new, ever occupying a different
position in the series of individual moments as each successively becomes now. Thus, the
now, which from my perspective is regarded as stationary, can also be described as streaming
from the perspective of such moments. Husserl in this passage is asserting that this
stationary streaming nowness, insofar as it can be called mine, is actually a function of an
absolute temporalization. It is, in other words, only because of the latter that I can speak of
myself and, hence, of my temporalization as something primally existing. The same point
holds for the totality of monads. Each, in Husserls words, can say, I am. It is from me that
time is constituted, only because each, pre-egologically, shares in this absolute.
What we all share in is, according to Husserl, a primal present. He writes, We can,
therefore, speak of a single, stationary, primal aliveness (Lebendigkeit)that of the primal
present which is not a modality of time. We can speak of it as the aliveness of the totality of
monads. The absolute itself is this universal, primordial present. Within it lie all time and
world in every sense (Ms. C I; Husserl 1973a, p. 668). To relate this primal present to the
action of the ego that does temporalize, we have to note that the object of the I reproduce is
not just the impression. It is the nowness that is the impressions primal or original presence.
This is the nowness I occupy as I receive my impressions. It is not the nowness that departs
with the moment, but rather one that constantly remains. As prior to the multiplicity of

40
moments, this stationary nowness is both singular and unique. It becomes multiple when I
generate the past through reproducing it. The reproductive act in generating the past gives
this nowness the appearance of streaming. Through my iterative reproduction of the nowness
of impressions (what Husserl calls my retention of my retentions of this nowness), the
reproduced (or retained) nowness become increasingly past.21 As a result, the primal
nowness appears to shift its position in the order of time, thus making it seem to be a
stationary streaming. In itself, however, it remains stationary. It remains, what Husserl in the
Latin calls the nunc stansliterally, the stationary now.
Touncoverthisstationarynow,wehavetoperformavariantofthe
phenomenologicalreduction.Inthereduction,wesuspendorbrackettheconnectionsof
experiencethroughwhichwepositsomethingandregardtheunderlyingexperiences
themselves.Totakeasimpleexample,wepositathreedimensionalobjectwhenour
experiencesofitareconnectedinperspectivalseriesi.e.,theseriesthatallowsustosee
firstonesideandthenanotheroftheobject.Whenwebrackettheseconnections,weregard
simplytheunderlyingexperiencesthathavebeensoordered.Husserlcallsthevariantof
thisthatuncoversthegroundoftemporalizationareductionwithinthetranscendental
reduction.22Thisreductionsuspendstheconnectionsthatgiveusthefixedorderoftime
i.e.,thoseobtainingbetweenourretentionsandanticipationsoftheprimalnownessofour
impressions.Whenwenolongerpositthisfixedorder,theprimalnownessunderlying
appearsbyitself.AsHusserldescribesthisresult,Theregressiveinquiry,whichbegins
withtheepochleadstothenuncstans,thestationarypresent.Properlyspeaking,the
wordpresentisunsuitableinthiscontextinsofarasitalreadyindicatesamodalityoftime
(Ms.C7I,JuneJuly1932,pp.301).Husserlspointhereisthatwhenweviewthis

41
stationarypresentinitselfbyabstractingitfromthetemporalconstitutionitgrounds,thenit
cannotbeamodalityoftime.Thisfollowssince,soconsidered,itisnotyetintime.
Whenwedorelatethenuncstanstothecontextoftheconstitutedmoments,itcanbe
describedasalivingstreamingpresent.Husserlalsocallsitsubjectivity.Hewrites,for
example,
Thereductiontothelivingpresentisthemostradicalizedreductiontothat
subjectivityinwhicheverythingisaccomplishedwhichisvalidformei.e.,tothat
subjectivityinwhichallontologicalsense(Seinssinn)issenseformeas
experientiallyapprehended,obtainingsense.Itisareductiontothesphereofprimal
temporalizationinwhichthefirstandoriginary(urquellenmssige)senseoftime
comesforwardtimeastheliving,streamingpresent.Allfurthertemporalitybeit
subjectiveorobjective,whateverbethesensewhichthesewordsmighttakeon
receivesitsontologicalsenseandvalidityfromthispresent(Ms.C3I,1930,p.4a).
OnereasonforHusserlscallingthelivingpresentsubjectivityisthatitis,asweearlier
citedhim,thealivenessofthetotalityofmonads.Eachofusisanactorofthenuncstans
insofarasweactonlyinthenow.23Allconstitutioni.e.,allactivitythatresultsinthe
presentationofobjectsdependsonprimalororiginalnowness.Itmustbeginwiththe
nownessofimpressions,sincethisiswhatitretains(orreproduces)whenitpresentsuswith
enduringobjects.Thus,thelivingpresentiscalledsubjectivityinsofarasitisatthecoreof
oursubjectivelife.
Becauseitispriortothemultiplicityofmoments,thispresentsnowness,considered
initself,isuniquelysingular.Prioreventothetemporalizationthatallowsmetoregard
myselfasadistinctindividual,itcannotevenbeclaimedasmine.AsHusserlputsthis,
When,inselfmeditation,Ireturntomylivingpresentinitsfullconcreteness,theliving

42
presentastheprimalgroundandsourceofeverythingwhichpresentlyandactuallyobtains
formeasabeing,thenIfindthatthispresentisnotmineasopposedtothatofotherhuman
beings(Ms.C3I,p.3b).Infact,whatthispresentexpressesismycoincidencewithOthers
inHusserlswords,mycoincidence(Deckung)withothersontheoriginallevelof
constitution,mycoincidence,sotospeak,beforethereisconstitutedaworldformyselfand
others(Ms.C17V,1931,p.84a).Sincethiscoincidenceobtainsbeforetheconstitutionof
theworldwithitsobjectsandothers,itimpliesalackofdistancebetweenselfandothers.
Onceconstitutionbegins,everything,Husserlwrites,hasaunityofappearance[andhence]
atemporalunity,aduration.This,however,doesnotapplytotheegopole,understoodas
theprimalnownessoutofwhicheachegoacts.Thismeans,Husserlconcludes,thattheego
asapoledoesnotendure.Therefore,alsomyegoandtheotheregodonothaveany
extensivedistanceinthecommunityofourbeingwitheachother.Butalsomylife,my
temporalization,hasnodistancefromthatoftheOther.24Ifweacceptthisconclusion,then
whatthetemporalreductionactuallyuncoversistheunderlyingunityofworldconstitution.
InHusserlswords,itdiscoversthateverythingisone.Performingit,weseethethe
absoluteinitsunity:theunityofanabsoluteselftemporalization,theabsoluteinits
temporalmodalitiestemporalizingitselfintheabsolutestream,thestationaryalivenessof
theprimalpresent,oftheabsoluteinitsunitytheunityofeverything!whichinitself
temporalizesandhastemporalizedeverythingthatisanything(Ms.CI,Sept.2122,1934;
Husserl1973a,p.669).
Husserlassertsthatthehumantotalityofmonadsisoneofthelevelsofthe
absolute(ibid.).Howisthisclaimtobeunderstood?Ifindividuals,asopposedtomere

43
egopoles,existintheapartnessoftime,i.e.,inthetimethathasdistinctmoments,how
canweunderstandthisapartnessintermsofthenownessinwhichtheyarecoincident?
Whatroledoestheircoincidenceplaywhentheabsolutemanifestsitselfinthedifferent
momentsoftime?Husserl,inthemanuscriptswehavebeenconsidering,givesnoprecise
answerstothesequestions.Wecan,however,speculateonapossibleHusserlianresponse
onewhichalsohasacertainLevinasiancast.Tobeginwith,wecansaythatiftheotherwith
whomIamincoincidenceisnottobetotallymergedintome,theremustexistacertain
alterityintheprimalpresent.Thisimpliesthatintheprimalnownessofourpretemporal
coincidence,heispresentasalterity:heispresentinmyprimalnownessasanowthatis
implicitlyother.Whatisimplicitbecomesmanifestwhenthisnownessisexhibitedinthe
successivemomentsoftime.Atthispoint,thenowthatisintheprimalnowasother
becomesexplicitasthenextsuccessivenow.Thus,myreproducingthisoriginalnow
reproducesitspretemporalalterityinsofarasitpresentssuchnownessasamomentthat
cannotbethelast.Inotherwords,thealterityofourpretemporalcoincidencemanifests
itselfinthesensethateveryindividualmomentthatisfixedthroughthereproductive(or
retentional)actdemandsyetanothersuchmoment.
Tounderstandthissolution,severalpointsneedtobemade.Thefirstisthatittakes
nonoticeofspace.Itthusdoesnotconsiderthesimultaneityofnowssince,forthis,one
needstodistinguishnowsthroughtheirdifferentspatiallocations.Itsfocusisonalterity
simplyonapurelytemporallevel.Thisisthealteritythatismanifestedintheapartnessof
successivetime.Tospeakofcontemporaneousnows,wehavetoconsidernotjustthe
nownessofourimpressions,butalsotheirsensuouscontents.Whenthesecontentsforma

44
perspectivalseries,weexperiencespaceinitsthreedimensionalcharacter.Itisatthispoint
thatwecanspeakofsimultaneousnowsofoccurrencesindifferentlocationsand,hence,of
simultaneouslyexistingsubjects.Oursecondpointisthatthealterityimplicitintheprimal
presentcanonlybemanifestedbythetotalityofsuccessivetime.Thepointfollowsbecause
suchalteritypreventsanyreproductionofthispresentfrombeingthelast.
Husserl,inthepassagequotedabove,speaksoftheabsolutehumantotalityof
monadsasaleveloftheabsolute.Intheabsolute,understoodasprimalnowness,this
totalityappearsasthecoincidenceofnows.Inthesuccessivetemporalitythatmanifeststhis
coincidence,thetotalityofmonadsappearsasthetotalityofsubjectsthattemporalizeby
reproducingthisprimalnowness.Sinceeachsubjecthasrecoursetothesamenowness,their
temporalizationsareconnected.Becauseofthis,suchtemporalizationscanresultinan
unbrokenwholeofinterconnectedtime.Theresultingtimeisobjective.BythisImean
thatitistherenotjustformyselfbutalsoformyothers.Itis,inotherwords,an
intersubjectivetime.Thus,aslongasthereexistdifferentsubjectslinkedinagenerative
chain,timecontinues.Thetimethatisunendingisnecessarilyintersubjectiveand,hence,
objective.Thislastpointis,infact,themainresultofourreflectionsonHusserlslate
manuscriptsontime:theunendingtimethatisthesubjectofKantsmetaphysical
expositionisintersubjective.Intermsofthetranscendentalexpositionthatfocuseson
timeastheselfsproduct,theconclusionisthatthetemporalizingselfnecessarilyincludesits
others.Theyareinitasother,i.e.,asanalteritywithinthenownessthatformsthecoreofits
being.
TemporalizationandSelfAlterity

45
Thephilosopherwhoputstheselfsinclusionoftheotheratthecenterofhisthought
is,ofcourse,Levinas.Thebestwaytoapproachhispositionisthroughaconceptionof
selfhoodthatheshareswithSartre.Itsfundamentalinsightisthattobeaselfistopossessa
certaininnerdistance.BythisImeanacertainremovethatallowsonetostandbackand
viewoneself.Thewordsdistanceandremovearenotmeantspatially.Ratherthey
signifyourselfalterity.Theyindicatethatourselfhoodisnotasimpleblockofselfidentity,
butisrathersplit.Standingoutsideofoneselfwithinoneself,onehasthestatusofafor
itself.Thisstatusisthatofaselfwhocanviewitselfi.e.,reflectonitselfandbeself
aware.25
TheuniquenessofLevinassthoughtcomesinhisaccountofhowthisselfalterity
arises.ForLevinas,itisthepresenceoftheotherinmethatallowsmetobeformyself.
Thus,whatsplitsmeistheothersalterityanalteritythatiswithinme.Suchalterityis
temporal.Itexpressesitselfintheothersdiachronytheinabsorbabilityofhis
temporalityintomyown.26Usingtheexpressionthesametodesignateallthatasubject
canpositandknow,LevinasdescribestherelationwiththeDifferentasonewherethe
diachronyisliketheinoftheotherinthesamewithouttheOther(lAutre)beingableto
enterintothesame(Levinas1993,p.28).Theothercannotenterintothesamesinceall
thatIcanknowandpositarisesformethroughmytemporalization.Theother,however,
sinceheisdiachronouswithme,isnotsynchronizablewithmytemporality.Myrelationto
himisthusarelationwiththisotherinthesame...whocannotbetogetherwiththesame,
whocannotbesynchronizedwithit(ibid.,p.29).Thislackofsynchronizationresultsinthe
otherescapingmyattempts,throughmytemporalization,torepresenthim.WhatIconfront

46
hereis,thus,thedisturbanceorinquietudeoftheSamebytheOther,withoutthesamebeing
everabletocomprehendtheOther,toencompassit(ibid.).
Thisinquietudehasadoubleeffect.Itresultsintheselfseparationthatallowsmeto
beformyself.InLevinasswords,theeffectistheawakeningoftheforitself(veildu
poursoi)...bytheinabsorbablealterityoftheother(Levinas1993,p.32).Italsogivesrise
tothesenseoftheinfinityoftime.Theassertionhereisthatmyexperienceoftheotherisan
experienceoftimeinitsunendingquality.Levinasintroducesthisclaimbyasking
rhetoricallywhetherthenonreposeorinquietudeoftimedoesnotsignifyadisquieting
ofthesamebytheother,adisquietingthattakesnothingfromthediscernibleandthe
qualitative?(ibid.,p.126).Tograntthisistosaythatwhatdisquietsisnotsome
discernablecontentorqualitativefeatureoftheother,butrathersomethingelse,anelement
thatcannotberepresentedasacontentorquality.Arepresentablequalitycanbepresentto
consciousnessaspartofitscontents.Here,however,asLevinasremarks,
itisnecessarytothinktheotherinthesameasafirstcategoryandtodosowhile
thinkingtheinotherwisethanapresence.Theotherisnotanothersame;theindoes
notsignifyanassimilation.Thesituation[isratherone]wheretheotherdisquiets
thesame.Thesameisnotatrest.Theidentityofthesameisnotthattowhichall
itsmeaningisreduced.Thesamecontainingmorethanitcancontainthisisthe
lengthoftime(p.133).
Whatthispassagepointstoistimeastheburstingofthemoreintheless(ibid.).The
disturbingexcesshereistimeitself,timeinitsdistinctionfromcontent.27
Concretely,whatdisturbsmyalreadyconstitutedworldisthenonsynchronizabletime
oftheother.Theotherisinmytimeasotherthanit.IexperiencethisalteritywhenItryto

47
assimilatetheotheri.e.reducetheothertoasetofcontentsthatallowsmetopositaperson
assomethingknown.Actingoutofadiachronoustemporalization,theotheralwaysescapes
thiseffort.ThepersonisalwaysexperiencedasexceedingtheprojectionsImakeonthe
basisofwhatIhaveexperiencedandknown.Mycontinuousfailureinthisattempt,my
sensethatthereisalwayssomethingmoretoapprehend,makeseverymomentofmy
experienceoftheotherdemandstillanothermoment.Itresultsinmysenseoftheinfinityor,
touseLevinassterm,thealwaysoftime.Inhiswords,thealwaysoftime[springsfrom]
theimpossibilityoftheidentificationoftheIandtheother(deMoietdelAutre),the
impossiblesynthesisoftheIandtheother(Levinas1993,p.128).28Asjustindicated,the
continuousexcessoftheotherthatpreventsidentificationandsynthesisisnotsomegiven
contentpossessedbytheother.Itisrathertheexcessofthediachronoustimethatappearsin
thegivingofnewcontent.Iexperiencethisgivingintheimpossibilityofrepresentingthe
other.Theexperienceofsuchimpossibilityistimeitselfinitsnonfiniteness,itsinabilityto
bebroughttoanend.AsLevinasputsthis,Time,ratherthantheflowofthecontentsof
consciousness,istheturningoftheSametowardstheother.Itisaturningtowardstheother
who,asother,wouldjealouslypreservetemporaldiachronyinthisinassimilateableturningto
representation(ibid.).
Myfailureatrepresentingtheotherleavesacertainvoid,anemptyspaninwhatIcan
knowandposit.Thissplitinthesameisalsoasplitinmyselfhoodasknownandposited.
Insofarasmyselfhood,initsqualityofbeingaforitself,requiressuchaspan,itisnotprior
tomyexperienceoftheotherandthealwaysoftime.Thethreeelementsoccurtogether.
Thethoughtofallthreeis,infact,implicitinLevinassconceptionoftime.Inhiswords,

48
Thissplitofthesamebythenonpossessibleotherattheheartofmyself...thisis
temporality(Levinas1993,p.128).Temporality,then,isnecessarilyintersubjective.It
makespossiblemyownsubjectivityandisgroundedinmyencounterswithothersubjects.
Suchencounters,byvirtueoftheirexcess,exhibititsinfinity.ForHusserl,aswehaveseen,
theinfinityoftimeisalsointersubjective.WhereLevinasdepartsfromhimisinseeingthe
inabsorbablealterityoftheotherasthegroundofthisinfinity.Theotherwhofunctionsas
acogrounderoftimeis,byvirtueofsuchalterity,nonrepresentable.Suchanotheriswhat
Kantwouldcallanoumenalself.

ThePhenomenologyoftheNoumenal
Canwegiveaphenomenologicalsensetothisnonrepresentableother?Froma
Levinasianstandpoint,thisisimpossible.Theotherisexperiencedastheruptureof
phenomenology.29Hisalterityissuchthatitrepulsesallattemptsatphenomenological
description.Inspiteofthesestrictures,wecandescribeit.Doingso,however,transformsits
originalLevinasianconcept.Theexhibitionofitsphenomenologicalgroundshowsthatthe
rootofalterityliesnotintheotherslackofsynchronicitywithourselves,butratherinour
inabilitytooutwardlyintuittime.
Thebestwaytounderstandthisconclusionistogivemyownaccountoftheinfinity
oftime.Itsbasicpremiseisthatthisinfinityrequiresothersascopositorsoftimes
moments.Suchothersarenotjustcontemporaneouswithmytimeconstitutingego.They

49
alsoprecedeandsucceedme.Eachsuchothercansay,withHusserl,Iam.Itisfromme
thattimeisconstituted.Time,initssubjectivepresence,comesintotheworldwitheach
subject.Each,however,mustalsoadmitthatitsabilitytoconstitutetimeimpliesothersin
thesamewaythateveryconstitutedtemporalsegment,initsbeingintime,impliesan
earlierandalaterconstitutedsegment.Inotherwords,insofarItakethemomentsIpositas
intime,i.e.,asnecessarilyimplyingabeforeandanafterthatstretchestoinfinity,I
necessarilycopositothersascogroundersoftime.Thisisbecause,overlaidontheI
reproducethatpositionsmomentsinthefixedorderoftime,asecondactisatwork.This
actinterpretsthisfixedorderastherenotjustformebutalsoformyothers.Indoingso,it
takessuchothersasinvolvedinthesameactivityoftemporalconstitution.Thus,each
momentthatispositedinthisintersubjectivetimeimpliesyetanothersuchmomentsince
whatpositsitisnevertakentobeasinglesubject.Interpretedascopositedbyothers,the
momenttakesitsplaceintheongoingtimegeneratedbyanongoingmultitudeofdifferent
subjects.
TheaccountIampresentingwouldthusagreewithHusserlandLevinasthat
unendingtimeisintersubjective.Theaccount,however,takesthistomeanthatitsmoments
aretherenotjustformebutalsoformyothers.ItisherethatitpartscompanywithLevinas
sinceforthesametimetobepresenttomeandmyothers,ourtemporalizationsmustbe
synchronizable.Onlyifthetemporalizationsofindividualsmergewhentheyoverlapcan
theyformone,unendinginterconnectedwhole.Thus,contrarytoLevinas,myaccountdoes
notmaintainthatthealwaysoftimeisafunctionofthedisturbanceofthesamebythe
asynchronousother.Rather,itunderstandstimesinfinityasacorrelateofthenonlimited

50
pluralityoftheotherswho,togetherwithme,generatetime.Whilethenumberofsuchothers
isatanytimefinite,nolimitcanbedrawnintheirgenerationalcontinuity.Thisfollows
sincethereisnothinginherentintheconceptionofsubjectivitythatdemandsthatsomegiven
groupofsubjectsbethelast.
ForLevinas,thenonrepresentablequalityoftheotherfollowsfromthefactthathe
cannotbesynchronized.Doesourassertionofsuchsynchronicitymeanthattheothersthat
areimpliedbytheunendingcharacteroftimeshouldbetakenasphenomenalor
representablesubjects?No,suchothers,understoodascogroundersoftime,arenot,infact,
representable.This,however,isnotforthereasonsthatLevinasgives.Intheirfunctionas
cogrounderstheyhaveanalteritywhosephenomenologicalgroundscanbedescribed.
ThealterityinquestionresultsfromafactfirstnotedbyKant.Thisisthattime
cannotbeoutwardlyintuited,anymorethanspacecanbeintuitedassomethinginus(KdrV,
B;Ak.III,B37,NKS68).Kant,inthisstatement,ismakingadoubleobservation.In
assertingthattimecannotbeoutwardlyintuited,heisclaimingthatitisonlypresentwhen
weinwardlyintuitourmemoriesandanticipations.Thus,forKant,ifweabstractfromour
modeofinwardlyintuitingourselves...thentimeisnothing(KdrV,B51;Ak.III,60).This
isbecauseintheworldthatisoutwardlyintuited,itisalwaysnow.Whathaspasthas
vanishedandthefutureisnotyetpresent.Thus,atanygivenmoment,Iseeonlyspatial
relations.Ofcourse,Icanrecallpreviousspatialpositionsandcananticipateothers.Todo
so,however,Imustturninward.Mymemoriesandanticipationsarenotpresentasobjects
outthere.30Inassertingthatspacecannotbeintuitedassomethinginus,Kantismakinga
secondobservation.Thisisthatthereisnospace,properlyspeaking,intherepresentationsI

51
haveinmymind.Icannotsaythattheyareofacertainsizeorthatoneisagivendistance
fromanother.Asopposedtothehouseitself,forexample,Icannotsaymypresentationofit
issomanymetershighorthatitissomanymetersdistantfrommypresentationofthenext
house.Kantspoint,then,isthatspaceasameasurablequalityisafeatureofobjectsout
there.Outerperception,ratherthaninwardreflection,putsusincontactwithit.
Theseratherstraightforwardobservationsimmediatelypositionothersubjectsas
nonrepresentable.Thisisbecausesubjectivityassuchisafieldoftemporalrelations,but
suchrelationsareonlyaccessibletoinnersense.31They,thus,cannotbeoutwardlyintuited.
Ican,ofcourse,haveaccesstomyownsubjectivityi.e.,tothememories,perceptionsand
anticipationsthatmakeitafieldoftemporalrelations.Suchitems,insofarastheyformthe
subjectivityoftheother,are,however,inaccessibletome.Icanseetheothersbeingin
spacebutnothismind.IcanhaveaccesstomyIreproduce,i.e.,totheretained
momentsthatareitsresult.Nosuchaccess,however,isgiventomewithregardtotheother.
Thisholdseventhoughmyintentiontotimeasunendingcointendstheother,theotherasa
copositoroftime.ThefactthatIcannotintuitthisotherandyetmustassumehimmeans
thatIamactuallytakinghimasahiddengroundoftheinfinityoftime.
TheresulthereisarathersurprisingtransformationofKantsargumentfortheself
concealingnatureoftemporalconstitution.ForKant,itwasthefactthattheindividual
subjectwasthegroundoftime(andhenceofappearance)thatmadeitnoumenalor
nonrepresentable.Yetwhenwepursuewhatisimpliedbythemetaphysicalexpositionof
timenamelyitsunendingqualityasanobjectivewhole,wefindthatitsnonappearing
groundisactuallytheother.OthersubjectsmustbepresupposedwhenIintendthetimethat

52
transcendsmyindividualIreproduce.Indeed,theyareapresuppositionforallobjectivity,
forallpresencethatiscommontomeandothers.Yetsuchsubjects,understoodasrealmsof
temporalrelations,cannotappearintheobjectiveworldi.e.,intheworldIaccessthrough
outerintuition.Theverythingthatmakestheenduringpresenceofobjectspossibleforthem
theirindividualIreproduceishiddenfromme.
Becauseofthishiddenness,Inormallydonottakeaccountofthem.LikeKant,Ido
notmakeexplicittheirroleinmyexpositionoftheunendingqualityoftime.Similarly,I
overlookmyimplicitassumptionoftheminmypositingoftheelementsoftheobjective
world.Suchothers,however,arepresentinthisworld.Theyleavetheirtraceinallofits
structures.Thisincludestheobjectivityofidealmeanings.Suchobjectivity,asthenext
chaptershows,isafunctionoftheintersubjectivecharacterofourminds.Thischaracter
yields,asweshallnowsee,auniquewayofunderstandingthemindsrelationtothebody.

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CHAPTER III
LOGIC AND ALTERITY

One of the permanent factors driving philosophy is the puzzle presented by our
embodiment. Our consciousness is embodied. We are its embodiment; we are that curious
amalgam that we try to describe in terms of mind and body. Philosophy has sought again and
again to describe their relation. Yet each time it attempts this from one of these aspects, the
other hides itself. From the perspective of mind, everything appears as a content of
consciousness. Yet, from the perspective of the body, there are no conscious contents. There
are only neural pathways and chemical processes. As thinkers as early as Locke and Leibniz
realized, we may search the brain as thoroughly as we wish; within its material structure, we
will never find a conscious content.32 Both perspectives are obviously one-sided. We are
both mind and body; we are determined by our conscious contents and our physical makeup.
Husserls Logical Investigations takes account of this fact in speaking of the real and ideal
determination of the subject. As embodied beings, we are subjected to real causal laws.
Such laws, insofar as they relate to our mental contents, take these as determined by the
contents temporally preceding them.33 As engaged in mind, we are also subject to the ideal
laws of authentic thought. These are nontemporal, logical laws governing the
compatibility or incompatibility of mentally realizable contents. In the Investigations, the
problem of the minds relation to the body comes to a head in these two determinations.
How can the same set of mental acts be subject to both causal and logical laws? How can a
causally determined subject grasp an apodictically certain set of logical relations? As
Theodor DeBoer puts this question: on the one hand, these acts are empirically necessary

54
and determined; on the other hand, an idea realizes itself in them through which they claim
apodictic validity. How can both these views be combined?34
To answer this question, I shall pursue a somewhat unusual path. My response will
conjoin the early and the latest stages of Husserls career. Thus, having raised the problem of
the dual determination of consciousness in the context of the Logical Investigations, I shall
look to his Origin of Geometry to find a solution. Between the two works, there is, of course,
a turn in Husserls thinkinga turn marked by his introduction of the phenomenological
reduction. The reduction opens up the question of the constitution of the ideal and real.
Pursuing it, we are tempted to see these categories, not as determining factors of
consciousness, but rather as determined by consciousness. We take them as structures that
consciousness, itself, constitutes through its various acts. Consciousness, thus, appears as
independent, rather than as determined, while the real and the ideal appear as correlates to its
unconditioned acts of positing. Such a view, when pursued to the end, would take the whole
question of the ideal and real determination of consciousness as an example of the nave,
natural attitudean attitude towards the world that the reduction suspends. This view, I
think, ignores two points. The first is that Husserls career can be understood as a motivated
path. By this I mean that it is guided or motivated by certain persisting problemschief of
which is that of understanding how objectively valid knowledge can be possible.35 Both the
Logical Investigations positing of the ideal determination of consciousness and the Origin of
Geometrys account of the constitution of ideality are stages along this path. The movement
to a latter stage is motivated when an earlier solution is seen as one-sided or partial. This
occurs when the solution raises problems that it cannot answer in its own terms. The ensuing
movement does not involve a rejection of the earlier solution. It results, rather, in an increase

55
in our understanding of what it involved.36 It is precisely such a transformed understanding
of the real and the ideal that I want to relate by turning to the Origin of Geometry. My
second point is that the phenomenological reduction, unless we give it an inappropriate
idealistic interpretation, does not imply that consciousness has somehow lost its reality. As
Husserls manuscripts on embodiment indicate, consciousness remains engaged in the world,
vulnerable to all its necessities and pleasures. Thus, the problem of its dual determination
remains. What changes is how we understand this determination. As I hope to show
Husserls conception of it at the end of his career is in terms of the intersubjective
constitution of mind. His final position exhibits the place of mind as within us in an
intersubjective sense. It is within us in, determining us through its ideal forms, by being
determined by others outside of us. Such others, then, leave their trace on our minds through
the meanings we use. They efface themselves and their role in the constitution of such
meanings. Yet this effacement leaves a trace in the ideal objectivity that we claim for
meanings.
I
The notion of the dual determination of consciousness is first introduced in the
context of the Investigations critique of psychologism. According to Husserl, psychologism
attempts to see our mental life as subject to a single real-causal determination. Applied to
logic, it implies the reduction of ideal-logical necessity to a real-causal necessity. This
involves a threefold identification. First of all, psychologism identifies the propositional
contents forming a syllogism with the real mental contents of some subject. Since the latter
are empirical matters of fact, it then sees the logical law as an empirical law. The second
identification thus takes the logical law to be an inductive generalization drawn from the

56
observations of our actual mental processes. The third identification occurs when we see
these mental processes as depending on our physical makeup. As Husserl observes, such a
dependence will and can only be thought of as causal. With this, the logical law becomes
identified as a caused facticity. Its truth, Husserl writes, supposedly depends on the
constitution of the species homo and the laws which govern this species (Husserl 1970, p.
143). Now, the species homo is the contingent result of one of many possible lines of
evolutionary development. Since it is contingent, so is the truth of the logical law that
depends on its real constitution. At the end of this line of reasoning, we thus have the
assertion that even logic alters with the development of the brain (ibid., p. 162). The
problem here, as Husserl realized, is that we cannot maintain this conclusion. Since the
reasoning that led to it is itself logical, that is, makes use of the laws of inference, it itself is
undermined. Thus, the reasoning that leads to the conclusion may hold for us and our
constitution. We cannot, however, assert this for a differently constituted reasoner. The
result, then, is simply a self-undermining skepticism, one where reason loses all claims to
objective validity.37
Husserls response to this impasse is to deny the identifications upon which it is
based. The contents related by logical judgment cannot, without absurdity be regarded as
a part or side of a mental experience, and so as something real (Husserl 1970, p. 180; see
also pp. 183-84, 325). Thus, the laws relating them are not inductive generalizations based
upon observing real events. Their truth, in fact, has nothing to with our real makeup. Once
we admit this, then we accept Husserls assertion that logical impossibility, as the
inconsistency of the ideal contents of judgment, and psychological impossibility, as the nonperformability of the corresponding acts of judgment, are heterogeneous notions (ibid., p.

57
158). The two types of impossibility relate to two different types of contents. In Husserls
words, the same experience has a content in a twofold sense. Alongside its inherent
actual content, there is an ideal, intentional content.38 The latter does not have the type of
being that could allow it to be subject to real causal determination. Thus, on the one side, we
have the individual, real act of judgment. On the other, we have the judgment qua
content of judgment, i.e., as the ideal unity. Once we distinguish the two, we can see that
the judgments truth pertains to this content. We thus can claim with Husserl, My act of
judging 2 x 2 = 4 is no doubt causally determined, but this is not true of the truth 2 x 2 = 4
(p. 142). This point follows because the ideal relation between contents of judgment on
which this truth depends is not the real relation between the act of judgment and its lawbound conditions (p. 156). The latter may cause me to judge incorrectly, but this does not
undermine the objective validity of the laws I violate in making my incorrect assertion.39
This distinction between ideal and real contents of judgment might lead us to suspect
that the two corresponding sets of laws are totally unrelated. Given, however, that they both
apply to us, i.e., to our being as an embodied consciousness, this cannot be the case. As
Mohanty notes, the ideal contents of a judgment stand internally related to the mental life
(thoughts, feelings and intentions) of the persons participating in them.40 The laws
governing these contents must, then, apply to this mental life. Its empirical possibilities,
which, as pertaining to a real individual, are causally determined, should also be subject to an
ideal determination. This implies, as Husserl expresses it, that each genuine pure law,
which expresses a compatibility or incompatibility grounded in the nature of particular
species, limits, when it relates to a species of mentally realizable contents, the empirical
possibilities of psychological (phenomenological) coexistence and succession (p. 829).

58
With this, we return to the question: how are these determinations to be combined? How are
we to think of one and the same individual as subject to both? In DeBoers words, How can
one combine the postulation of eternal norms [accessible to a subject] with a naturalistic
interpretation of consciousness?41
II
To answer these questions, we need a more precise sense of what Husserl means by
the ideal contents of a propositional judgment. As Mohanty observes, the claim that
meanings are ideal entities attempts to capture an essential moment of our experience of
meanings. Three things, he writes, characterize it: first, discourse, and more so logical
discourse requires that meanings retain an identity in the midst of varying contexts; secondly,
meanings can be communicated from one person to another, and in that sense can be shared;
further, in different speech acts and in different contexts, the same speaker or different
speakers can always return to the same meaning (Mohanty 1977, p. 76, italics added).
According to Husserl, this identity that we can communicate, share, and return to in differing
contexts is a one-in-many. Its ideal being is that of species. He writes, As a species, and
only as a species, can [the propositional meaning] embrace in unity ... the dispersed
multiplicity of individual singulars. These individual singulars are, Husserl adds, the actmoments of meaning, the meaning-intentions of the varied acts of meaning (Husserl 1970,
p. 330). This last remark is crucial. It implies that propositional meanings are not, strictly
speaking, objects of reference. They are, rather, mediums of reference. As Mohanty puts
this, When in an act of reflection [meanings] are made objects, they cease to function as
meanings. At this point they are referred to through some other meanings (Mohanty
1977, p. 78). This follows because meaning, in the first instance, names a function. This,

59
according to Husserl, is the referring function carried out by the various acts of meaning
through their meaning-intentions. The ideality of meaning is, then, an ideality of this
referring function. This function can remain the same in the shifting contexts of linguistic
expressions. Preserving its identity, it can be communicated. The act of reference or
intentional experience that exemplifies it can be continually reactivated allowing us to
return to the same reference as communicated through the same content of judgment.42
Husserl in the Investigations does not realize the full implications of this view. The
fact that meanings are functions rather than objects implies that we cannot treat them as the
same sort of idealities as, say, color species. Thus, in the Investigations, Husserl claims,
meaning is related to varied acts of meaning just as Redness in specie is [related] to the
slips of paper that lie here, and which all have the same redness (Husserl 1970, p. 330).
Such a view, he later admits, ignores the different ways in which species and meanings are
given. As he writes in Experience and Judgment: We grasp a color species or eidos only
because, having been given several individual moments of color, we bring the colored objects
into overlapping coincidence by comparison and then apprehend the universal, which is
given in the coincidence, as what is common to them.43 We do not grasp propositional
meanings in this way. Considered as referring functions, meanings do not have the sensuous
content that would serve as a basis for the intuitive (schauende) process of abstraction that
grasps a color species. The basis of such an abstraction is our apprehension of real
particulars, that is, individual colored objects. But, as Husserl observes, there are no real
particulars that serve as instances of the propositional meaning. The content through which it
refers is, he asserts, from the first irreal or ideal (Husserl 1973b, p. 263). It is a one-inmany, something identical in an infinite number of propositional acts in which it is precisely

60
what is intended (ibid., p. 262). But this identical sense does not become particular in
individuals. It does not have [real] particulars under it like a color species does (p. 263).
It exists in the act of judgment as ideal. We grasp it by identifying it as one and the same
ideality.44
ThisstatementrecallstheInvestigationsassertionthatanidealintentionalcontent
dwellsalongsidetherealimmanentcontentofourexperience.Suchacontent,Husserl
asserts,isfromthefirstideal.Toseewhythismustbeso,wemustnotewhatisimpliedin
seeingpropositionalmeaningsasreferringfunctions.Sincesuchmeaningsarelinguistic
entitiesandlanguageisintersubjective,theirfunctioningisfromthefirstintersubjective.
Itnecessarilyoccursinthecontextofmultiplespeakersandauditors.Togiveaunitary
referenceinthemultiplecontextsoflinguisticusage,themeaningmustbesuchthatitcanbe
sharedandreturnedtoasthesameagainandagain.Thecontentthroughwhichitrefers
must,inotherwords,alreadybeidealinthesenseofbeinganidenticalcorrelateofrepeated
actsofidentification.Ifitwerenot,thefunctioningthatdefinesitwouldbeimpossible.
Twopointsfollowfromthisinsight.Thefirstisthatsincepropositionalmeaningsare
inherentlyintersubjective,theirconstitutionmustitselfbeintersubjective.Thefullsenseof
theiridealitymustrequireothers.45Insofarasthissenseimpliesanidealdeterminationof
consciousness,thisalsomustbetheresultofintersubjectiveconstitution.Mysecondpoint,
then,isthatsincetheidealityofpropositionalmeaningsisintersubjective,soisthe
determinationofourthoughtprocessesthroughthem.
III.
In The Origin of Geometry, Husserl sketches in the basic structures of the
intersubjective constitution of the ideality of meanings. The constitution begins with an

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individual intentional experience. As a real act, the experience with its self-evidence
passes. It thus results in no persisting acquisition at all. One can, of course, recall the
experience and compare it with a present experience having the same reference. When we
do, there can arise, in Husserls words, the self-evidence of identity: what has now been
realized in original fashion is [identified as] the same as what was previously self-evident
(Husserl 1962, p. 360). This identification can occur again and again with new acts of
intuition and recollection. The ideality that is here grasped is, however, only intrasubjective.
It is not yet ideal as a functioning propositional meaning. To move to ideality in the full
sense of a super-temporal structure that is there for everyone, we need a linguistic
community. In the reciprocal linguistic understanding that defines such a community, the
product of one subject can be actively understood by the others (ibid.). Such others can take
a persons words and re-enact the intentional experience they express. One person can
experience the same self-evidence that another claims for her act.46 With this, a new
experience of identity is constituted. By virtue of our mutual understanding, there arises the
self-evident consciousness of the identity of the mental structure in the productions of
auditor and speaker. This can happen repeatedly between different individuals. In the
resulting chain of understanding, ... what is self-evident turns up as the same again and
again (ibid.). It achieves, in other words, the status of an ideality. As Husserl writes, it
becomes an object of consciousness, not as a [individual, mental] likeness, but as the one
structure common to all (ibid.). The final stage in the constitution of the ideality of this
structure comes through its expression in written language. Writing, Husserl notes, makes
communication possible without immediate or mediate personal address. Freed from the
presence of the original author or auditor, a written text is, in Husserls phrase,

62
communication become virtual (p. 361). All that it requires is the capacity to reactivate the
intention that its words express. For Husserl, this capacity belongs originally to every
human being as a speaking being (ibid.). Given this capacity and given the persistence of
the written text, the meaning structures it expresses achieve the persisting existence of the
ideal objectsan existence that transcends individual speakers and knowers (ibid.). They
have the super-temporal availability of a text waiting to be read and reactivated in an
individual mind.
IV
If the ideality of meaning is something that is intersubjectively constituted, then the
determination exercised by such ideality must also be intersubjective. It must, in other
words, be a determination exercised on us by the others that form our linguistic community.
What they determine are not the real contentsthe actual images, feelings, etc.of our
minds. It is rather what transcends this. It is, in a very precise sense, an outside-ofourselves-within-us. It is language as the presence within us of our others. To see this, we
have to note the abstractions through which language functions. The first of these appears in
our ability to use the same word to name a given objectsay a boxas we view it first
from one side and then another. Each side yields a new perceptual experience with a distinct
real content within us. The name, however, in remaining the same, points to that which is
common to such experiences. In using the same name, we take it as standing for the one
object of which we are having multiple perceptions.47 The word, in fact, stands as the
intersubjective sign of the box. The parent, who taught us the word, viewed the box from a
different side than we did. In his naming it as the same for himself and the child, the word
takes on the status of a one-in-manyi.e., of a one and the same referent for both the childs

63
and the parents perceptions. Its indicative function is thus established as that which stands
in the place of the unitary intersubjective referent of the different perceptions. A further level
of abstraction occurs when the child learns to use the word for boxes of different shapes and
sizes. At this point, the word stands as a sign for an object that can appear in different
intersubjective contexts. There are boxes for moving, Christmas boxes, shoeboxes, and so
on. Aside from having eight corners, the content of the word is left indeterminate. As
Berkeley and Hume have shown, there is no mental image appropriate to an abstract name.48
This very lack of real content is, however, what is required for logical inference. We work
such inferences by abstracting from the specific contents of assertions and concentrating on
the identities that link propositions together. Thus, identifying the contents A, B, and C, and
recognizing the prepositional structures, All As are Bs and All Bs are Cs, we can draw the
conclusion that all As are Cs. The law of inference we follow holds independently of the
particular content of A, B, and C. To employ it, we must, in fact, abstract from this content.
As Husserl recognized, we have here a clear demarcation of the logical law from the
psychological law of association. Association works by the pairing of specific mental
contents. One image reminds me of another. The taste of a cookie calls up the memory of a
childhood experience. The sight of Peter brings the image of his friend to mind. Such
associations are private and dependent on a persons specific past experience. As such, the
laws that describe their working are empirical laws. They are inductive generalizations based
on the observation of actual mental processes. Insofar as they claim to be real causal laws,
they take the presence of the contents called to mind as determined by the presence of the
contents that temporally preceded them. Since these laws concern real events, one can also
say that what lies at their basis is probably our real constitutionthat is, our individual

64
physical makeup. Logical inference, however, abstracts from all particular real content. Its
laws claim a necessity that transcends such content. In other words, they claim to hold
independently of the particular circumstances that generate a particular persons experience.
In this, their necessity is intersubjective. Transcending the private worlds of our temporally
determinate personal experience, logical necessity is based on the abstractions that put us in
contact with others on the level of language.
Each of us, even in our most private, reflective moments is a part of an
intersubjective, linguistic community. This becomes apparent when we ask: who speaks,
who is spoken to in the interior monologue that we often experience simply as the chatter
in our heads. To make this inner distinction between speaker and auditor, I must already,
within myself, be outside-of-myself. I must already be at the place of mind. Questioning
myself, demanding that I respond, that I be consistent, I am at the place of the
intersubjectively constituted abstractions that transcend me and hence give me a perspective
to confront myself. At such a place, I suffer not a real, but an ideal determination. I am at
the necessarily intersubjective place of mind.
V
Husserls point in introducing the notion of ideal being and ideal determination in the
Logical Investigations is that to understand this place, this being outside-of-ourselves-within
ourselves, a new ontology is needed. What suffers ideal determination is precisely what
remains hidden so long as we remain within the ontology of real being and real causal
explanation. To its origin, we must transcend this. As the Origin of Geometry suggests,
we have to take account of others and the ideality constituted through our communicative
acts. It is only then that we can uncover the place of mind.

65
From a phenomenological perspective, to describe the functioning of mind in terms of
our real makeup is rather like examining the transistors and wiring of a radio and attempting
to discover its functioning from its structure alone. The orchestra it receives is no more in
the radio, than mind is in the brain. The functioning of both involves their being in the
world. It starts from this. Thus, radios were developed to pick up voices and orchestras.
Similarly, our brains evolved as part of our ongoing accommodation to the external world.
They thus share in the aboutness, the intentionality of all living organisms that have evolved
by taking account of their world. Insofar as this functioning cannot be understood apart from
the world, its interpretive context always involves terms that exceed it taken as an isolated
individual. The same holds for us in our being in a specifically human world. Our realcausal makeup has evolved to take account of others as speakers and auditors. Husserls
account of ideality and ideal determination is an attempt to give their determining presence
within us an appropriate ontological foundation. It is an attempt to determine minds place
within being.
The notion of the within implicit in this attempt is, of course, not spatial. In fact,
insofar as mind is inherently intersubjective, it has no definite place. Those intersubjectively
constituted abstractions that put me in contact with others work only insofar as they
transcend place. What, then, is the sense of within? What does it mean to say that within
me, understood as physical organism, there is something transcending me, something other
than what I am taken in my real, spatial-temporal being? The ultimate referent of this
question is being itself. Given that this within, insofar as it involves others, has an inherent
alterity, we have to say that within being there is a split in being. The distinctions between
the real and the ideal or, alternately, between the body and the mind are expressions of this

66
split. As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, from the perspective of the one side, the
other appears impossible. Hence, the endless arguments between those who declare that
there are no conscious contents (that everything is real causal determination) and those who
opposed this by noting that from the first person perspective of our immediate experience
everything is a content of consciousness, everything partakes of mind. What is generally left
out of the debate is the role of others in what constitutes a mind. This role does not bridge
the split in being, but rather explains why there is such a split. Chapter XII will take up this
point with particular reference to Heideggers ontological difference.
For the present, however, there is more descriptive work to be done on the
intersubjective character of mind. Ordinarily we do not attend to this character. Thus, ideal
expressions, such as those of mathematics, simply state objective relations. They are silent
about the speakers and auditors of their propositions. The intersubjectivity that constituted
them has vanished from their content, leaving nothing behind except for the otherwise
inexplicable fact of its ideality. We can abstract from the role of others because, on one level,
they are hidden from us. As the last chapter noted, we cannot outwardly intuit time and,
hence, cannot directly come into contact with the interior life of others (see above, p. ). We
thus live in a curious paradox. Our mental life is intersubjective, yet the only consciousness
we immediately experience is our own. The result is that our mental life has to be
understood by what exceeds it. Its features must be taken as tracesindications of an alterity
that is within it as other than it. The ideality and objectivity of concepts may be considered
as such traces, pointing to the others that their presences presupposes. The same holds for
what is usually opposed to thisthe shifting world of the imagination. As we shall now see,

67
they also presuppose the workings of our others. Without others, in fact, the imagination
would not be possible.

68

CHAPTER IV
IMAGINATIONANDOTHERS

The question of the imagination seems straightforward. We all seem to know what it
involves. Yet when we try to define it, we find depths that are difficult to penetrate. For
Descartes, the imagination was simply our faculty for producing a mental image. He
distinguished it from the understanding by noting that while the notion of a thousand sided
figure was comprehensiblethat is, was sufficiently clear and distinct to be differentiated
from a thousand and one sided figurethe figure could not be clearly pictured in our mind.
The representation of its sides exceeded our powers of imagination.49 This view of the
imagination as our ability to produce a mental image fails, however, to distinguish it from
remembering. Let us say that I see an object and then I close my eyes, maintaining the image
of the object. Is this imagining or short term memory? What about the case when I recall
this image an hour later? Am I imagining or remembering it? Such examples make it clear
that imagination, as distinct from memory, implies something more than the ability to
produce a mental image. It involves, as Sartre pointed out, a certain attitude towards what
this image depicts. Engaging in it, we deny the latters reality. In Sartres words,
imagination carries within it a double negation; first, it is the nihilation of the world (since
the world is not offering the imagined object as an actual object of perception), secondly, the
nihilation of the object of the image (it is posited as not actual) ... (BN, p. 62). Imagination,
then, represents the imagined as non-actual.
This sense of the imagination will be the focus of the present chapter. Specifically, it
will explore how we make the thesis of the non-reality of what we imagine. As already

69
indicated, such non-reality is yet another trace of the workings of our others. It is through
them that we both advance and withdraw the thesis of an objects reality.
I
The role of others in our asserting the reality or existence of what we see shows itself
in the special quality of existence. As Kant observed, existence is not a real predicate. It is
nothing we can see or touch. I can see the red of an object, but not its being-red. I feel its
smoothness, but not its being-smooth. Given this, what causes us to posit something as real?
What do we intend, in addition to its sensible predicates, when we affirm that an object is
real or existent? The answer can be put in terms of the distinction Kant draws between a
judgment of perception and a judgment of experience. The first judgment expresses the
claim simply to see something. Its referent is what is there for a subject at this moment. The
second, however, goes beyond this and claims that the referent that exists for it is not simply
a perceptual experience, but the object of this experience. In asserting that there is such an
object, it claims that there is something there which I am experiencing and which others
could also experience.50 The role here of others in the positing of the real is crucial. As
Eugen Fink expresses it, when we assume that others can experience the same objects, we
implicitly define ... the objectivity of objects by the characterif one willof
intersubjectivity. This means, he adds, that their connection is such that one cannot
establish between objectivity and intersubjectivity a relationship such that one or the other is
prior; rather, objectivity and intersubjectivity are indeed co-original.51 We assume such cooriginality, whenever we settle the doubts we have about what we see by asking others, Do
you see what I see? When they do, we take the object as real. The thesis of the reality of an
object is not a thesis about some perceptual feature or aspect of it. The assertion, it exists,

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does not concern the ascription of a real predicate. Its referent is rather my others. What
the thesis adds to an objects perceptual presence is the thought that others are seeing what I
see. This thought does not involve any real predicate, since already noted, their mental life
cannot be directly intuited.
II
Does this mean that the judgment of perception, since it lacks this thought, has only
an image as its correlate? The answer to this question depends on how we understand the
term image. If we take this as referring to something imaginary in the sense of not
objectively real, then the answer is no. To assert that something lacks objective reality is
to take it as not being able to be confirmed by others. The direct perceptual experience that I
affirm in my judgment of perception is, however, potentially confirmable. When, in fact, I
give it a reference to an object, I can find that others confirm what I see.52 When they do,
they ascribe the same perceptual predicates as I do to the object. This implies that the
perceptual image that I experience is, as potentially verifiable, pre-real. It does not yet
have the sense of objective reality that is denied when we call something imaginary.
What this points to is the fact that imagination in Sartres sense involves a twofold
move. You must first make the thesis that the object is there, then you must deny this. This
means that to posit the object of the image as not actual, but merely imaginary, you have to
deny that others see it as you do. The thought of such others, however, does not vanish. If it
were eliminated entirely, then you would be back on the level of a judgment of perception.
Your object would be a pre-real perceptual experience. To avoid this, others must remain
correlated to the imaginary object. They are, however, taken not as real, but rather as
imaginary others. A simple example will make my point clear. Let us say I want to move my

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sofa. Since it is heavy, before I attempt to do so, I imagine its being in a number of different
places. There is a twofold denial involved in this exercise of the imagination. There is, first
of all, the denial involved in my imagining these alternatives. As Sartre points out, they are,
as imagined, taken as not actual. I do not multiply my real sofa by imagining it first in one
place and then another. The second denial involves our ranging the real sofa among these
imagined alternatives. Doing so we take its existence in its present position as nonnecessary. In imagining the sofa as not there, but rather elsewhere, we take its existence in
its present place as simply one more possibility, one that could, given a change in
circumstances, not obtain. Both denials apply to the others that are required to posit the sofa
as real. Such others are in each case possible sets of others, each set correlated to a possible
position of the sofa. One set is thought of as actualizedthat corresponding to its present
position. All the rest are simply the sets of those imagined others who would see the sofa
were it to be differently located. More complicated examples of imagining also follow this
process. In each case, we have the thought of a different group of others, which, as a
possible intersubjectivity, is correlated to an alternative reality.
III
How is it possible for us to do this? How are we able to image alternate realities,
each with its corresponding intersubjective context? The experiential basis for this ability
seems to be provided by life itself. In its course, we are always encountering different
intersubjective contexts with different life practices and corresponding ways of expression.
The correlation between such practices and their expression was noted by William James. As
he observed, in daily, practical life, the object generally shows the aspect of itself that suits
our purposes. Thus, if my purpose is to write, then this paper appears to me as what you

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write upon. If it is to start a fire, then it appears as combustible. In each case, the objects
sense is its instrumental character; it is its function as a means for the accomplishment of my
projects.53 In fact, as Heidegger stresses, it is only in terms of such projects that the world
appears at all, i.e., as articulated into objects with disclosed properties.54 Given that our
language expresses these properties, it is also correlated to our projects.
Heideggers defense of this position is instructive. He starts off with our being in the
world. We are in the world because we need it. We cannot live without the things it provides
us. Thus, the goal of our various practical projects is to obtain these. Our doing so, however,
determines our apprehension of the world. Each project, when successful, exhibits those
aspects of its objects that are required for our purposes. Wind, for example, is seen as wind
to fill my sails when I use it for this purpose. As I gain more and more skill in making my
way in the world, the world itself becomes more practically meaningful. I understand it in
the sense of knowing the purpose of its elements. Now, for Heidegger, interpretation, defined
as the considering ... of something as something articulates this understanding.
Interpretation makes explicit the purposes of the objects I encounter. It expresses what one
does with them. Such interpretations form the core of a language. They constitute the
significance of its expressions.55 In being correlated to the particular life projects that
characterize my intersubjective context, a language can become specialized to the point of
becoming a proper language game. Calling it such, however, does not mean that its
expressions are arbitraryi.e., are, like the rules of some board game, a matter of convention
with no reference to the world. The opposite is the case. Heideggers account is designed to
overcome the dichotomy between language and world. Situated by my needs and projects, I
am always being-in-the-world. Since I cannot accomplish my goals alone, this being is a

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being-with-others. Language is founded on our being-in-the-world along with our others. It
articulates how we interpret things as we use them for our mutual projects.56
Carefully regarded, what we have here are several interlocking correlations. The first
is between our projects and our interpretations of objects. The second is between such
interpretations and the language that articulates them. Both of these are correlated to our
intersubjective contexts. Each such context can be thought of as a course of life that is set by
its dominant projects. One set of such projects, for example, characterizes the business world
of the office, another the nursery, yet another the world of the sports enthusiasts. The
language of the fans in a soccer club is not that of the nursery. Generally, the richness of an
individual life is measured by the number of intersubjective contexts available to it. The
experience of multiple contexts with their varying projects exposes us to the multiple
possibilities (and corresponding senses) of objects. We look at things differently in different
contexts. They show different aspects of themselves. We thus become richer in our
experiences of these alternatives. A similar point can be made about the common language
into which all these contexts feed. The multiplicity and complexity of such contexts give the
common language a corresponding richness and ambiguity. As a result, to get the meaning of
an expression, we have to understand how it is used. This, however, requires that we have
some experience of the context that generated it. Such experience provides the basis for our
imagination. Our very being-in-the-world, involving as it does, the experience of multiple
contexts, serves, then, as a condition for our considering our present situation in terms of its
alternatives. So regarded, the situation becomes just one possibility among others that could
be realized. In the multiplicity of its meanings, the common language we use to express our
apprehension of it already contains the possibility of expressing and imagining it differently.

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IV
A number of implications follow from these reflections. They concern the relation of
the imagination to freedom, to reason, and to our recognition of others. Freedom is related to
the imagination because the ability to imagine is essential for freedom. This point can be put
in terms of the separation occasioned by imagination. When I imagine a different world, I
separate myself from my present situation and place myself in an alternative context where
things appear differently. For Sartre, this possibility of withdrawal is that of freedom. He
writes, For man to put a particular existent out of circuit is to put himself out of circuit in
relation to the existent. In this case he is not subject to it; he is out of reach; it cannot act on
him, for he has retired beyond a nothingness. Descartes, following the Stoics, has given a
name to this possibility, which human reality has, to secrete a nothingness which isolates it
it is freedom.57 Imagination, in fact, is just such a detachment or secretion of nothingness.
Imagining a different situation, I place my present situation in a range of possible
alternatives. In reducing it to the status of a possibility, I place myself out of reach of it.
Taking it as a mere possibility, as something that could be otherwise, I rob it of its necessity.
I think of it as something that can be changed and, hence, as not as something necessarily
determining me. Language, of course, aids me in this endeavor. As already noted, its
multiple meanings express the multiple contexts that stock the imagination. Given this, the
impoverishment of language and that of imagination occur together. Both are correlated to
the decline of freedom. The implication here is that censorship does not just undermine
freedom of speech; it undercuts freedom itself by attacking its basis.
The separation that characterizes imagination is also essential for raising the
question of reason. By this I mean the question that asks for a reason, that asks, for

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example, why something is one way rather than another. To ask this is to inquire about the
cause or ground for a things being the way it is. When we make this a universal question,
we assume with Leibniz that nothing is without its reason or cause. Now, to raise the
question of reason, we must be able to imagine alternatives. Thus, to ask why something
exists this way is to implicitly assume that it could be otherwise. To reverse this, we can say
that it is the assumption that a state of affairs is not necessary, but rather could be otherwise,
which first raises the question of the cause of this states being as it is. It makes us inquire
into the circumstances upon which the state of affairs depends. This, however, returns us to
the twofold denial that characterizes imagination. To raise the question of reason, we have to
consider the non-real alternatives to our present situation. We must also deny the necessity of
its existence. In other words, the situation must be considered as but one of a number of
possible alternatives. If we grant this, we cannot. as some tend to do, oppose reason and the
imagination. The imagination is actually an essential condition for reasons operation. 58
The recognition of others that is at work in this grasp of alternatives has a special
quality. To describe it, I have to return to a point made earlier: each imagined alternative is
correlated to an imagined intersubjectivity. This is the intersubjectivity that, were it
actualized, would allow me to posit the alternative as actual. This reference to others
indicates that in imagining alternatives I do not simply compare my present situation with
those that I previously experienced. Imagination involves something more than recalling, for
example, I once used paper for writing, I once used paper to start a fire, and so on. I
have to take these past instances as present possibilities. I must apprehend them as
alternative ways of seeing the present piece of paper. This implies that the imagined

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intersubjectivity that is correlated to such alternatives must, in some sense, already be
present to me. How is this possible?
The answer involves our recognition of the alterity of the others we encounter. Even
though we cannot directly perceive the mental life of others, we can recognize that their
needs and projects never completely overlap our ownthat they may, in fact, be quite
different. When we do so, we place ourselves in a context distinct from the one defined by
our needs and purposes. The self-separation this engenders is the same as that which serves
as a condition for freedom. In this sense, freedom and empathy, understood as the ability to
place oneself in anothers situation, are intimately related. This relation extends to the fact
that empathy also opens us up to the possibilities that are presently available to us. Thus,
when I recognize the other as other, I take her as presently capable of projects differing from
my own. Placing myself in her situation, I apprehend as presently possible those alternative
realities that her alternative projects could disclose. Our relation, then, is such that my
freedom is provoked by her. Recognizing her alterity, I both distance myself from my
present context and confront a set of present possibilities that exceed it. Such possibilities,
taken as things I could choose to actualize, enrich the material content of my freedom. Given
that these possibilities also form the content of the imagination, her presence is the presence
of the imagined intersubjectivity that is correlated to the alternatives I imagine. Thus, the
answer to the question raised above comes from the dual aspect of the other whose alterity I
recognize. She is both my actual otherthe person I take as confirming the reality of my
worldand she is my imagined other. As the latter, she is the person I recognize as capable
of disclosing quite a different reality, one realizing an alternative set of possibilities.

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My recognition of this fact is part of the ongoing pulse of my intersubjective life.
Through others, I both make and withdraw the thesis of the objective reality of the objects
confronting me. I, thus, have both my real and my imaginary worlds. The possibility of such
withdrawal is inherent in my others alterity. It shadows, as it were, my relations to her.
Thus, working with someone, I must keep her needs and desires in mind. She is not my
double, but rather someone, who having chosen to work with me, could also choose not to.
Her participation in my situation never excludes the possibility of her shifting or even
overturning it.
This possibility of changing or annulling a situation (by refusing to participate in it)
also has a political dimension. When in 1968, French students marched under the banner,
Pouvoir limagination, and their German counterparts under the corresponding, Die
Phantasie an die Macht, they recognized this. The act of imagination is essential in every
attempt to rethink and reform our social and political circumstances. Its power to represent
our present situation as one that could be other makes it both disturbing and enlivening. Its
exercise is the first necessary step in every process of political transformation.
Tounderstandthebasisofitspowerinpoliticallife,wehavetograspmorefullythe
recognitionthatliesbehindit.Theother,whomIrecognizeasotherisbothpartofmy
presentsituationanditspossibleundoing.Shegivesherselfasconfirmingmyintentionsand
capableofoverturningthemthroughhercapacitytointendanalternatesituation.Whatisthe
natureofthisgivenness?HowdoIintenditi.e.,concretelyintendtheotherasother?How
doIexperiencethegivennessthatisthefulfillmentofthisintention?Itistothesequestions
thatthenextchapterdirectsitself.

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CHAPTERV
GIVENNESSANDALTERITY

If we trace the word phenomenon to its Greek origin, we find it is the participle of the
verb, faivnesqa, to show itself. The phenomenon is that which shows itself; it is the
manifest. As Heidegger noted, phenomenology is the study of this showing. It examines
how things show themselves to be what they are.59 One of the most difficult problems faced
by phenomenology is the mystery of our self-showing. How do we show ourselves to be
what we are? How do we manifest our selfhood to one another? To put these questions in
the Husserlian context of intention and fulfillment is to ask: What do we intend when we
direct ourselves to another person? What sort of fulfillmenti.e., what kind of givenness
satisfies this intention? Once we speak in terms of intention and fulfillment, we face a
number of possibilities. The givenness of what we intend can exactly match our intentions.
It can be other than what we intendas is the case when we are simply mistaken. The
givenness also can be less. It can, for example, not offer the detail that was part of our
intentions. Finally, givenness can exceed our intentions. In showing itself, the object offers
us more than what was intended. In this chapter, I am going to defend the claim that this
excessive givenness happens systematically when we intend another person. To intend
another person is, paradoxically, to intend the other as exceeding ones intentions. As such,
the showing which manifests the presence of the other is a kind of supersaturated
givenness. It is a givenness that makes us aware that more is being given than we can
formulate in our intentions. This awareness points to the others freedom. It is also a moral

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awareness. Here, I shall argue that our awareness of the others excessive givenness is our
entrance into morality.60
I
InthephilosophicaltraditionthatstretchesfromKant,thereistheimpulsetothinkof
theother,notintermsofgivenness,butratherthereversei.e.,tothinkoftheotherasnot
beingabletobegiven.Inanimmediatesense,theimpulsecomesfromthefactthatthe
othersmentallife,insofarasitconsistsoftemporalrelations,isnotaccessibletoouter
intuition.Even,however,ifweignorethis,anargumenthasbeenmadethatleadstothe
samepoint.Letussupposethatinintendingtheother,Idointendhisactualselfpresence.
Thegoalofmyintendingwouldthenbealiterallookingthroughtheotherseyes.WhatI
wouldreallywanttograspwouldbehowtheworldappearstothisperson,thatis,whathe
sees,thinksandfeels.Asisobvious,werethisgoalfulfilled,ourtwoconsciousnesseswould
merge.Aconsciousnessthatwasfullypresentwouldnotbeother,butwouldratherbepart
ofmyown.Thismeansthattheverysuccessofmyintentioninfindingacorresponding
fulfillmentwouldrobitofitsintendedobject,whichis,afterall,notmyselfbutrather
someoneelse.Giventhis,Icannotsaythatsuchselfpresenceistheobjectofmyintention.
Rather,theotherthatIintendis,asSartrehasargued,someonewhoescapesmyintentions.
TheotheristhepersonthatIcanneverbringintopresence.61Inintendingtheotherasother,
Imust,therefore,intendtheotherasanabsenceoranongivenness.62Thedifficultywiththis
viewmaybeputintermsofDerridasphrase,toutautreesttoutautre,everyotheristotally
other.Tothepointthattheotherescapesgivenness,howdoIdistinguishhim?Howisthis
otherdifferentfromanyother?63Evenmoreradically,howcantheotherappearatall?As

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Derridanotes,...itisimpossibletoencounterthealterego...ifthisother,initsalterity,
doesnotappear.Onecouldneitherspeak,norhaveanysenseofthetotallyother,ifthere
wasnotaphenomenonofthetotallyother,orevidenceofthetotallyotherassuch.64
Giventhis,whatdoweintendinintendingtheother?ForDerrida,thefactthatwecan
intendneithertheselfpresencenortheabsenceoftheother,leavesuswithanaporia.Itisan
exampleofphilosophy,withitsmetaphysicalprejudicesandlanguage,posingproblemsthat
itcanneversolve.Suchaconclusion,however,assumesthatthegivennessweintendis
actuallythatoftheconsciousnessoftheother,aconsciousnessthatcanneverbecome
present.Thereis,however,anotheralternative.WecansaythattheotherwhomIintend
manifestshimselfthroughhisbehavior.Thegivennessofthisbehaviorexceedsthatofa
merething.Italsoexceedsmyownappearingpresence.Intendingit,I,thus,intendan
excessivepresence.Inhisactions(hiscomportmentinthebroadHeideggeriansenseofthe
term),theothergiveshimselfasbothlikeandnotlikemyself.HebehavesgenerallyasIdo,
butnotinanystrictlypredictableway.Thereisalwaysacertainexcessinwhatheshows
me.HeisnotlimitedtotheprojectionsImakefromthelocusofmycomportment.To
intendtheotherasmanifestingthisqualityis,paradoxically,tointendtheinadequacyof
onesintention.Theintentiondirectsitselftowardsafulfillmentthatwillexceedit.Its
objectisanexceedinggivenness.TogiveatemporalcasttothisisnottoreturntoLevinass
conceptionofthediachronyoftheother.Itis,however,toagreewithhimthatthis
exceedingistowardsthefuture.Therealfuturethefuturethatdistinguishesitselffromthe
pastdoesnotjustrepeatit.IdonotanticipateitsimplyasaprojectionofwhatIhave
alreadyexperienced.Itispresenttomeasanopennesstothenew,asanexceedingofthe

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intentionsthatIformonthebasisofmypastexperience.Thispresenceofthefutureis,in
fact,thepresenceoftheother,i.e.,hisexceedinggivenness.Theotherwillbewhatheorshe
willbe,notsimplywhatIdetermineandanticipatefrommyperspective.
II
Thepresenceofthisgivennessis,infact,thepresenceofthefreedomoftheother
theveryfreedomthatmakeshimcapableofunderminingmyintentions.Intheexcessof
givenness,wehave,infact,thephenomenologicalgroundofthreemutuallyimplicit
concepts:alterity,freedom,andfuturity.Alterityshowsitselfinthefactthattheother
showshimselfasotherthanwhatIprojectfrommyperspective.Heorsheexceedsthe
intentionsthatarebasedonthis.AsInoted,thisveryexceedingmanifeststheopennessof
thefuture.Freedomisimplicithere,sinceasotherthanwhatIcandetermineorpredictfrom
myperspective,theothershowshimselfasfreefrommycontrol.Theopenhorizonofthe
behaviorthatIconfrontinregardinghimpointstotheotherasexercisinghisowncontrolof
hiscomportment.Themarginofhisautonomythatconstituteshisfreedomis
phenomenologicallypresenttomeintheexcessofhisgivennessi.e.,inhisexceedingthe
intentionsbywhichIattempttodeterminewhathewilldoorsay.Alterity,here,isthus
experiencedasthealterityofagency.Assuch,itisexperiencedastheveryothernessthat
opensupthefuture.65
Ifwedefinetheobjectiveworldastheworldthatisthereforallofus,thenits
givennessalsohasanexceedingquality.Thisisbecausewhenwetaketheworldaspresent
bothtoourselvesandtoothers,weintenditasfulfillingnotjustourown,butalsothe
intentionsoftheseothers.Insofarassuchintentionsexceedourown,sodothe

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correspondingfulfillments.Asaresult,thegivennessoftheobjective,intersubjectiveworld
isalwaysexcessive.Theesgibti.e.,thethereisofthisworldmanifestsnewness.It
exhibitsagivennessbeyondwhatweintend.Theeasiestwaytoseethisisintermsofthe
behaviorthatintentionsanimate.Othersactandsurpriseus.Asaresultoftheiractionsnew
situationsarise,situationswecouldnothaveanticipated.Theexceedinggivenness
manifestedbytheirbehaviorcarriesovertotheresultsofthisbehaviori.e.,totheactual
courseoftheintersubjectiveworld.Thenoveltythatconfrontsusisnottheresultofour
ignorance.Itisnotasif,werewetoincreaseourknowledgeofthenatural,nonhuman
worldevenfurther,ourpredictivepowerswouldsomehowbecomeadequatetoaccountfor
ourothers.Rather,aslongassuchothersremainother,theirgivennessmustremain
excessive.Infact,sincetheverynotionoftheobjective(asopposedtothesolipsistic)world
presupposesothers,wecannotappealtoaknowledgeofthisworldtoridourselvesofthis
excess.
AlthoughIhavebeenusingthewordotherstorefertootherpersons,theconcepts
ofalterity,freedom,andfuturityalsohaveatheologicalsense.God,asAnselmpointsout,is
notjustthatthanwhichnothinggreatercanbeconceived.TointendGodistointend
somethinggreaterthancanbethoughtorintendedbyus.66Asexceedingourintentions,
Godspresenceisexcessive.Likethatofman,thisexcessmanifestsitselfintheopennessof
hisfreedom,anopennessthatmakeshisfuturearealfuture.Whatthismeansconcretelyis
thatGodwillnotbepinneddownbyus.WhenMosesaskshisname,Godanswers
ambiguously,EhyehAsherEhyeh(Ex.3:14).ThisphrasecanmeaneitherIamwhatI
amorIshallbewhatIshallbe.Hisname,GodrepeatstoMosesisEhyehIamor

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Ishallbe.67Theimplicationisthatheiswhathewillbe.Hisbeingissuchthathewill
exceedourexpectations.Hecannotbereducedtothem.Thisexceedingisbothhisalterity
andfreedom.Thus,neitherMosesnortheIsraelitesnoranyindividualorgroupofpeople
canknowwhatthefutureholdswithregardtotheirrelationshipwithGod.Theintentionto
God,likethattoanotherperson,involvesexcess.Tothepointthatitisotherdirected,it
mustintenditsownsurpassing.68
III

There is a moral dimension to this intending the other as other. It shows itself
in the somewhat comical mistake of confusing a mannequin with a person. The
confusion can go two ways. Expecting to meet a person, you can cross a department
store to speak with what appears to be a well dressed sales woman standing near a
counter. As you approach, however, you realize your mistake. The mannequin does
not return your gaze; if spoken to, she does not respond. Thus, expecting to
encounter a person, the mannequin you do experience offers you less than you
intend. To reverse this, when you expect to experience a mannequin and encounter,
instead, a person, you are offered more than you intend. When this happens, you feel
immediately embarrassed by a lack of the appropriate intentions. You accidentally
treated the person as a thing, as incapable of independent observation or action.
Because you should have been expecting more, you behaved inappropriately.
The tie between your behavior and what you intended to see may be put in
terms of Husserls assertion that perception is interpretation. By this, Husserl

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means that every intending to see involves an interpretation of what we do see. 69 In

fact, the interpretation guides the behavior that accomplishes the perception. Thus, to
see a three dimensional object, I dont limit myself to one position, but either turn the
object or shift my location to view its other sides. By contrast, to view a photograph,
I limit my motion to attaining an appropriate viewing distance. I do not attempt to
see it from behind. As these examples indicate, there is a correlation between the
interpretative intention that animates the seeing and the disclosive behavior that it
guides. The embarrassment we feel when we mistake a person for a thing points to
the fact that there are limits to our behavior towards others that we do not have with
regard to things. These limits are inherent in the exceeding quality of the intention to
the other. The intention itself, in guiding the behavior, makes some actions
appropriate and others inappropriate. In making me limit my behavior, the intention
imposes an ethical aspect on my encounter with the other.
How does the intention accomplish this? The answer comes from the tie between
self-limitation and freedom. The excessive givenness I intend in directing myself to
the other is, as noted, the givenness of the other as free. It is in intending this
freedom that I limit my own behavior. My own freedom, however, is implied by the
self-limitation that characterizes my encounter with the other. It is, in fact, the basis
of my own claim to be morally responsible. Let me take this last point first. At its
basis is the common insight that we hold people morally responsible only to the
extent that we consider them free. People are morally responsible only for their
voluntary actions. As Kant realized, behind this insight is the fact that freedom itself

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is a ground of morality. This is because the limitations imposed by morality must be

self-limitations. To the point that they are external, i.e., consist of sanctions and
rewards, the person determined by them is not acting voluntarily. When his fear of
the sanction or hope of the reward departs, we have no reason to expect that his
moral behavior will continue. Given this, we have to say that the ground of a
persons ethical actions must lie in himself. As the author of his actions, he must
freely choose to limit his own behavior.70
The nature of this limitation vis vis others arises from the freedom we intend
in directing ourselves towards them. To intend anothers freedom is to intend him as
an author of his actions. As such, it raises the question of whether the other could
authorize your actions. Would he consent to your treating him in this way? Would
he, for example, authorize your lying to him? Can you assume that he would make
this an object of his will? If not, then to intend him as free is to limit your behavior
in this regard. Thus, to return to my example, when I suddenly discover that an
object is a person and not a mannequin, my behavior changes. In giving himself as
free, the person sets a limitation to my treatment of him. This is a limitation that I, in
recognizing my own freedom, impose upon myself. Kant expresses this limitation in
a formulation of his categorical imperative: act so that you treat humanity either in
yourself or others as an end and never simply as a means. Concretely, this means
that I cannot treat him as a thing. In those actions that the other could not authorize,
freedom sets him apart as inviolable, as not to be touched.

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Once again there is a religious parallelhere with the sacred in the sense of
the Greek root of the Latin, sacer: . The Greek word means safe, in the sense
of kept apart or reserved for the divinity.71 As consecrated to the god, the sacred
cannot be used by us. One cannot, for example, cut down and use the timber of a
sacred grove. The trees forming the grove are inviolate. One should not, in fact,
even enter the grove. Thus, as Sophocles has the stranger say to Oedipus who has
strayed into a sacred place, It is forbidden to walk on that ground It is not to be
touched.72 A similar sense of the sacred is present in Gods encounter with Moses. 73
In both cases, we have to do with the exceeding quality of the appearing of the
divine. The presence of the divinity sets limits to my behavior and, hence, to the
interpretative intentions that animate what I do and say. Facing the divine, my
intentions are controlled by a context that I do not set. I am not master of the sacred.
The sacred, here, is first. I, in my intentions, am second. It calls to me. I have to
respond.74
The ethical character of the encounter that makes me second can be seen by
recalling the example of the mannequin. The mannequin offers me less, while the
person offers me more than what I intend. I expected the mannequin that I took to be
a person to respond to me; when I took the person for the mannequin, I was surprised
that I had to respond. The difference points to the fact that in confronting a person,
the relation of intention to fulfillment suffers a reversal. Encountering the other, I am
called upon in my response to fulfill his intentions. The exceeding character of my

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intention to the other is based on this fact. Thus, the intention that intends its own
exceeding is actually an intending, a stretching forth, that awaits. Here, to intend is
not to interpret, but rather to suspend the interpretative act till the other gives the
lead. If, as Husserl asserts, perception is interpretation, then what we have here is a
waiting to perceive. In this waiting, we acknowledge the inviolability, the sacred
character of the other person. The other has authority in the sense that we accept him
as the author of his own intentions. His givenness as an author is excessive in the
sense that it exceeds the simple perceptual givenness that yields the semblance of the
lifelike mannequin. For all that, he does not give himself as an absence. He exceeds
perceptual givenness by exceeding the interpretation we place on it. The excess is
his interpretation, the very interpretation that, in animating his behavior, meets ours
and calls on us to respond.
To intend the other is then to intend to heed this very call. The intentionality that
directs itself to the other is accordingly a form of responsibility. It is a stretching forth that
responds to the authority or autonomy of the other. Engaging in it, we take responsibility for
our own behavior. We exercise our autonomy to bind ourselves to listen. What we heed over
and beyond what is said is, to use Levinass term, the saying of the other. The excessive
givenness of such saying points to the authority of the other, the other as always capable of
adding to the said, to the already interpreted, to the already accomplished. Our awareness
of this excess is, in fact, our entrance into morality.
Themoralityshapedbysuchawarenesshaspoliticalimplications.Theselfrestraint
itcommandsappliestothestateaswell.Toinvestigatethis,furtherinvestigationsare

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necessary.Weneedtointegrateoursenseoftheautonomyoftheotherwiththefactofthe
intersubjectivecharacterofourmentallife.Thelatterpointstotheintersubjective
constitutionofselfhooditselfi.e.,toitsbeingfoundedonitsrelationstoothers.Howare
wetothinkoffreedomandautonomyintheseterms?Aretheyalsointersubjectively
constituted?Toargueforsuchistoassertthattheexcessthatwehavecharacterizedas
freedomalsohasitsintersubjectiveroots.Withthis,asweshallsee,anewsenseofthe
nongivennessoftheother(anongivennessthatisgivenbyexcess)comestothefore.Itis
thenongivennessorhiddennessthatothersmakepossible.

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CHAPTER VI
SELFHOOD AND POLITICS

TheSocialandthePrivate
The political implications of the ethics of restraint can, perhaps, best be drawn by
some observations taken from the current political scene. Since the close of the cold war, a
certain constant appears in the conflicts that have marked many multi-national conferences.
Again and again, we see the smaller states opposing the efforts of the larger to determine the
structures of their relations. One of the factors of this opposition is their fear of losing their
identity. In a world increasingly determined by global interests, cultural and economic
particularity seems to be a luxury that few can afford. For many, the name of this fear is
globalization. They take the term as signifying a process that threatens to replace their
individuality with an empty universality. Benignly regarded, globalization promises a world
where we all drink the same soft-drinks, wear the same jeans, watch the same movies, and
listen to the same musicall of it, presumably American. A darker vision sees within such
homogeneity the dangers of totalitarianism. As Hannah Arendt noted, totalitarian systems
presuppose a certain uniformity to achieve their effect. The ideal they tend to is that of
reducing their subjects to a situation analogous to marbles on a table. The slightest tilt will
make the marbles roll in the same direction. When citizens lose their individuality, when
each is stripped of his particularizing relations to his neighbors, then the state gains an
unrestrained ability to apply a uniform power to produce a uniform effect. Here, the
controllability of the response is directly proportional to the reduction of each of us to
everyone else. In this less benign view, the globalization that American capitalism promotes
is actually a new form of totalitarianism. After the fascism and communism of the previous
century, its third, capitalistic wave is now upon us.

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We need not accept this dark vision to feel uneasy about the emerging global
community. At the root of our current disquiet is, I think, a sense that an aspect of our
selfhood is under attack. The fear is that when we do become just like everyone else, we will
lose our privacy. The privacy that is threatened is not the privacy of the isolated self.
Isolation, in fact, is the mark of selfhood in totalitarian systems. It is the connections
between people that allow them to resist state power. Those who do resist are both social and
private. They are determined by their social situations and they retain the ability to judge
them from their individual perspectives. In doing so, they assume a standpoint both within
and outside the society they judge. Their privacy is such that it breaks up any attempt at
totalization. In Levinas words, it undermines all attempts (including those of
globalization) to reduce the other to the Same.75
Current views are not very helpful in capturing this dual sense of the social and the
private. At their extremes, they either see society as a sum of individualsas an aggregate of
essentially private selvesor they take individuals as completely formed by society. The
former view expresses itself in the consumer or market society, where the market is
determined by the aggregate of private purchasing choices. It is also found in the politics
that is driven by the latest public opinion polls. The view that sees the individual as
completely moldable by society resulted in the collectivism of communist societies. Its most
quixotic, yet telling attempt was the project of creating the new socialist man. To attempt
this is to assume that we have no inherent private content, that whatever privacy we possess
is, in fact, something infinitely accessible. If this view raises the fear of having the self
swamped by the collective, its alternative evokes the fear of having the collective swamped
by the self. Its nightmare is the destructive individualism that marks certain Western
societies.
Both views are obviously one-sided and the failures of each have been used to argue
for the other. In this, they call to mind Kants antinomies. These are pairs of apparently
contradictory positions, each of which maintains itself by refuting its alternative. As Kant

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points out, the falsity of one of these opposed assertions does not imply the truth of the other
since, in fact, both are based on an inconsistent concept.76 The same situation seems to hold
here. The failure of collectivism does not imply the individualism of an unfettered
consumerism since both presuppose a faulty concept of the self. Assuming the conventions
of science, they take the self to be an entity like a thing. They see it as locatable in our heads.
As the totality of mental stuff in our brains, it is assumed either to be causally determined
by the collective or to causally determine it. In neither case is the self grasped in its actual
social character. It is not seen in its embodied being-in-the-world. In what follows, I
propose to use this character to examine the relation between the social and the private in
order to build on the previous chapters insights about self-restraint. As we shall see, our
being socially determined can have paradoxical result. It can found what is inaccessible to
such determination. The determination can be such that our being exposed to others founds
the alterity that allows us to judge these others. Granting the truth of Platos assertion that
the state is the soul writ large, this view of the self has, I think, important implications for
political relations in our new century. It can be used as a basis for a politics of restraint.
TheHiddennessoftheOther
Thus far, the notion of the nongivenness or hiddenness of the other has been
conceived rather narrowly. It has been understood mainly in terms of Kants observation that
temporal relations, and hence the inner life of the other, cannot be outwardly intuited. The
resulting view of nongivenness is both negative and limited. It conceives of the other as the
nonaccessible; the other, however is more than this. Insofar as selfhood is intersubjectively
constituted, the other enters into its constitution. Since I am the other of my others, the
role of the other in my constitution is matched my role in my others. This implies that we are
to speak of a hidden or private sphere as essential to selfhood, this must be thought of as
intersubjectively constituted for each of us in turn. At issue here are not just the temporal
relations that are the object of our inner sense. Selfhood, in its concrete being in the

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world, is not a matter of inner representations of outer events. It involves the possibilities
that make our freedom of action in world first possible. These are also involved in our giving
ourselves as nongiven and, hence, point back to the action of the other.
The only way to make this apparent is through the phenomenological description of
our first person experiences.. How, then, do I grasp that the other person has a private
sphere? Let me begin with a simple observation: I know that the others contents of
consciousness are not similar to my own when she faces me. When we both regard a
common object, I usually assume that the sight that fills our consciousness is roughly the
same. If I doubt this, I can ask her, and adjust my viewpoint. I cannot, however, see what
she sees when she faces me. Because I cannot see myself, the content of her consciousness
seems to form a private sphere.77 When I then say to myself, I am a subject just as she is, I
assume that I also have such hiddenness. Of course, relative to this person, I do. Facing her,
I see what she cannot seenamely herself. But this realm of privateness is not really shut
off, not something apart from the public world. In such a world we both appear. What is
actually at work here is the fact that consciousness as such is inherently transcendent. Its
intentionality is such that it evacuates itself in favor of the object. In other words, what
fills a perceptual consciousness is not itself, but rather the object perceived.78 Because of
this, every act of perception hides the perceiver. Every act shoves the perceiver into the
background even as it moves the object into the foreground.
As Merleau-Ponty noted, this foreground-background structure is essential to consciousness. In fact, it is consciousness in its intentional structure.79 This is because this
structure is based on our embodied being in the world. Our bodys senses are primarily directed outward. Turning our heads, focusing our eyes, moving closer to get a better look are
all tied to bringing an object into the foreground. When we turn away from it, it sinks into
the background as another object occupies our consciousness. Given our embodied finitude,
we can only turn in one direction at a time. The other directions form its horizon. They
indicate the possibilities of our bodily I can, that is, the set of bodily abilities that relate us

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to the world. Such abilities allow us to be in the world in the sense of having bodily projects.
Inserted by our bodies into the world, we use them to manipulate its objects to achieve our
goals. Every such project involves our own hiddenness. For example, someone is knocking
and I walk to the door. Perceptually, it is not I myself but the door that fills my
consciousness. My thought runs ahead of me and sees me there at the door already reaching
with my hand to open it. Already, in intention, awaiting myself at the goal, my present
situation is thrust into the background.
Theaboveimpliesacertainreversalinthesenseofintentionality.Itimpliesthat
ratherthanbeingamovementfromanessentiallyprivatesubjecttoapublicobject,itis
actuallythereverse.Intentionalitybeginswiththeobjecttakenaswhatis(orwillbe)publicly
available.Itsoriginiswhattranscendstheprivateinitsbeingthereforeveryone.Thisis
becauseourbeingintheworldisprimordiallypublic.Thispublicqualityisimplicitinthe
senseofhiddennessjustdeveloped.Atitsbasisisthelackofanyprivatecontentintheself
evacuation(theselftranscendence)oftheperceptualact.Ifwestartwithsuchself
transcendence,wehavetosaythatfirstweareoutthereamongthethings,andthenweposit
theprivatespherefromwhichwesupposeourintentionsoriginate.Inotherwords,giventhat
ourbeingthere(ourDasein)isoriginallywiththeobjectofourintentions,itisour
withdrawalintohiddennessthatstretchesoutthistherenesstoyieldintentionalityinthe
traditionalsense.Thus,ourintentionstranscendourprivatespherebecausetheybeginoutside
ofthis.Theirstartingpointisourbeingintheworldoutsideofourselves.Theselfhoodwe
dotranscendis,inthiscontext,ahiddennessintheworldwearein,ahiddennessthatowes
itsorigintothisworld.

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Itispossibletoexpressthisrelationofselfandworldinbiologicalterms.
Biologicallyregarded,selfhoodissupposedtobeamatterofbrainfunction.Inthispound
andahalfofgraymatterlieallourmemories,intelligence,ambitionsandprojectsinshort
thetotalityofwhatisaself.Allthis,wearetold,ispresentinthebrain.Yetaslongaswe
remainwiththisreductionistaccount,thenatureofitspresenceinthebrainseems
inexplicable.Thisisbecause,biologicallyregarded,thebrainissimilartoalargesecreting
gland.Itspathways,theneurons,arelongthintubesalongwhichwavesofchemicalchange
pass....80Theeffectofthischemicalpulseiseithertoincreaseordecreasethefiring(the
sendingoffofchemicalpulses)oftheconnectedneurons.Thisisallthatseemstohappenas
longaswelimitourfocustowhatisoccurringwithinourheads.Suchalimitation,however,
ignoresthefactthatthebrainalongwiththerestofthebodyisintheworld.Having
evolvedinresponsetotheworld,itsfunctioning,asearliernoted,cannotbeunderstoodapart
fromit.When,however,weregardthebrainintermsoftheworldthatisoutsideofit,we
ceasetoregarditassimplyasecretinggland.Wehavealreadyplaceditinaninterpretative
contextthatexceedsitsstructureasaseriesofchemicalpathways.Itnowsharesinthe
aboutness,theintentionalityofanorganismwhosefunctioningmustbeunderstoodinterms
thatexceeditself.Inthis,ofcourse,itisnotunique.Allorganismsevolveintermsofthe
world.Theirfunctioningisattunedtoit.Theyfunctionwithregardtowhatisnot
themselves.Thus,whattheyareaboutastheyengageintheiractivitiestranscendstheir
physicalbeing.Inherentlytranscendentinhavingaworld,theypossessaprimitive
intentionalityinbeingengagedinit.Whenandifintheirevolutionarydevelopmentthey
becomeconscious,theirconsciousnesswillsharethisaboutness.Itwillbeintentional.Itis

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onlywhenwelocalizethebrainsfunctioningtoitsphysicalstructuresandlimitourattention
toitschemistrythatwelosetheintentionalitythatisthepointofthisfunctioning.Wedoso
becausewelosetheworld,whichiswheresuchintentionalitymustbegin.Abstractingfrom
theworld,weareinasituationanalogoustosomeoneexaminingthetransistorsofaradioand
attemptingtodiscoveritsfunctionfromitsstructurealone.Aswaspointedout,theorchestra
itreceivesisnomoreintheradio,thantheworldisinmybrain.Thefunctioningofboth
involves,rather,theirbeingintheworld.Itstartsfromthis.
TheVisibleandtheInvisible
We compensate for our self-hiddenness by relying on others. This reliance, however,
involves us in a new hiddenness. To see this, we must first note with Merleau-Ponty that to
see the others body is to see my body as an object.81 I need the other to gain an objective
sense of myself. I can see my hand, but I cannot see my backside. To complete my body image I must acquire a sense of this from the otheroriginally from my caregiver or parent.
He has a backside, I must have one too. It is, in fact, the sight of the caregiver that originally
brings a wholeness to the body that the child can only grasp in parts.82 The other does not
just allow me to grasp the integrity of my body as something that can be viewed in the round
(something that has simultaneously both a front and back). The other is also crucial for my
sense that this body is capable of objective motion. As Merleau-Ponty observes, my body is
never in movement perspektivisch, as are the other things.83 I can leave other things behind.
As I do, they become smaller. In their own change of position, they show first one
perspective and then another. I cannot, however, leave my own body behind. It remains
here, never departing in space from me. To get a sense of its having an objective motion,
of transiting in space like other objects, I must pair it with another persons body. I must
transfer to myself the sense of the others moving from one position to another in the world.
Thus, I need the other both for the sense of my being objectively out there in the world and as

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capable of objectively transiting it. Such being in the world is never solipsistic. Its sense
always presupposes the givenness of the other.
This presupposition involves me in a kind of alternating hiddenness. On the one side,
I have the immediate sense of my body as minethis is the body whose movement is not
perspectival. Broadly speaking, this is the body of the I can, the body that I directly
experience in my ability to move myself. On the other side, I have my bodys sense as there
in the world, as objectively present and moving within it. Now, the body in its first sense is
invisible with regard to the second. My bodys incapability of departing from me means that
it is incapable of the perspectival unfolding that would allow it to objectively appear.
Similarly, the body in this objective sense is invisible with regard to its first, immediate
sense. In the sphere of what Husserl calls my own (mir Eigenes), I never leave the here. A
movement from here to there in such a sphere cannot be made. The result of these two
senses is an alternating invisibility or hiddenness, one that depends on the perspective we
take. What we have, in fact, is the presence of the invisible in the visible. We are in the
objective world because we are never alone. But this being in the world is fissured. It
conceals an invisibility which is that of the body in its immediate presence. The body of I
can cannot appear within it.
It is possible to see two distinct temporalities corresponding to this fissure. As such,
they also manifest an alternating hiddenness. The first is the temporality that is given by the
I move. Its moments arise in the registering of my impressions (both bodily and optical) as
I move. Its temporal relations are given by Kants inner sense. The source of inner
sense is, in other words, the first person experiences whose sphere is that of the I can. We
also have objective time, which corresponds to my body placed in space through others. This
is the time that measures objective movement. Its moments are given by time pieces. Here,
we use spatial relations, such as those of the hands of a clock, to apply to outer objects those
relations we can only directly intuit through inner sense. The outer sense that grasps the
spatial relations of the clock hands cannot directly intuit the relations apprehended by inner

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sense with its focus on the memories and anticipations that guide the I move. The opposite
also holds, inner sense cannot apprehend spatial relations (and, hence, objective time)
directly.
Hiddenness and Causality
The distinction between these two temporalities is also one between freedom and
causality. My first person experience of my I can is an experience of my freedom. The
objective presence of the world whose movements are timed by closes is marked by
causality. The tie between causality and objective presence may be expressed by Kants
insight that being in an objective world presupposes a common temporal ordering of our
perceptions. Thus, when I assert that an objective event has occurred, I presuppose that the
sequence of perceptions by which I grasp it is the same as that experienced by others who
see it. A common sequence gives us a common, objective sense. It can be common,
however, only if its ordering is necessary rather than random (KdrV, B240). Kant, following
Hume, defines causality in just these terms. Phenomenologically speaking, the assertion that
A causes B is simply the claim that the perception of A is always followed by that of B.
Thus, to assume a common, objective world is, for Kant, to assume that its objects are
causally determined (KdrV, B246-7). An example will make his position clear. By virtue of
my bodily I can, I can turn my head to the right or the left. Here, the ordering of my
perceptions is perfectly arbitrary. The freedom implicit in my I can determines whether I
first see A and then B or the reverse as I turn my head. To assert, in this instance, that A
precedes B, is to make a judgment of perception. Its only claim concerns the subjective
ordering of my perceptions. To move from this to an objective claim is, as earlier noted, to
engage in a judgment of experience. This judgment is about the objects I experience. In
making it, I do not just assume that objects are there for myself and others. I also assume
that the perceptual series that displays these objects is necessarythat is, that it is necessarily
determined for such objects (Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, 18-19). This,

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however, places the objects judged in the realm of causality. If A always precedes B, A must
cause B (ibid., 29). The same holds for every situation I make a public claim about. The
upshot is that nothing can be without its cause in the objective world. Everything must have
its sufficient reason. Such necessity, of course, is not apprehended like a thing. It is not
some object in the world. It is rather an interpretive stance or category I assume in relating
my perceptions to a common world. Now, when I do assume it, I once again fissure my
world. On the one side, I have my self-movement and the freedom of the I canfor
example, I can move myself, turn my head, etc. On the other, I have the causal necessity that
marks the motion of objects out there. Out there, in the objective world, nothing moves
itself. This is because the freedom of the I move myself violates the interpretative stance I
must assume to enter the objective world. Freedom, in other words, becomes invisible in this
world. It cannot appear. It is, in Kants terms, strictly noumenal.
The difficulty in this Kantian dichotomy may be simply stated. Other human subjects
appear to me and they appear as free. If they did not, I would not take them as subjects like
myself. To be like me, they must be responsible for their actions. They must embody the
freedom of the I move myself. They must, as noted earlier, manifest the excessive
givenness that distinguishes a person from a thing (see above, p. 62). Now, it is precisely
such others I must presuppose in order to have an objective world. This world is common to
me and my others. But, these others must be subjects like me. The grasp of this common
world, however, is simultaneous with my grasp of myself as objectively present in the world.
It marks the transition from the I move myself to I transit space like other objects out
there. To make it, of course, I need to transfer to myself the sense of the other person as also
in space, the other as part of the objective world. Such an other, however, is not free but
rather causally determined. He is in a world whose positing as objective assumes that there
is nothing within it without its cause. The inference is that to enter the objective world, I
have to grasp the other as both caused and free. The same holds for me insofar as I enter this
world by transferring his sense to myself.

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There is, in fact, a dual transfer of sense, one which goes on simultaneously and continuously. I transfer my sense of freedom (my I can) to the other to grasp her as a subject
like myself. I also receive from her my sense of being an object in an objective world. As a
result, we take on the dual sense of being both subjective and objective. We appear as both
free and as caused, as objectively hidden and present. Thus, I take the other as vulnerable to
the assaults of the world, as capable of being crushed by it. Yet I also take her as an agent, as
able to employ its causality to accomplish her purposes. As a causal agent, she moves
objects by moving herself. While her moving objects is apparent, her self-movement is not.
Objectively, the most I can imagine is a little person within her moving her. Since this fiction
is untenable, I have to say that this appearance conceals an essential hiddenness. In this
appearing, the other gives herself as not being able to be objectively given. This giving
points to her necessary role in the constitution of the objective worldthe very world in
which she cannot be given. In this world, she is like me in being both present and hidden.
The essential point, here, is that such hiddenness is inherently intersubjective. It is not
something prior to or extraneous to the intersubjective world. It is part of its constitution.84
All this affects how we take the traditional, Kantian account of the visible-invisible
split. Reworking Kants assertions in terms of our being-in-the-world we have, in fact,
implicitly effected a transformation of this divide. From the Kantian perspective, as the first
chapter showed, I do not appear insofar as time is my product. Thus, as we heard Kant
argue, all appearance is temporally extended. Everything temporally extended requires
temporal synthesis. But that which synthesizesi.e., the subject itselfcannot be the result
of synthesis. Thus, it cannot itself be temporally extended and, hence, cannot appear (KdrV,
B156-9). The result then is the positing of the noumenal subject whose being as the ground
of time is hidden even to itself. This makes its temporalization an inherently self-concealing
act (see p. 74). If, however, temporal synthesis is originally founded in my bodily I can,
i.e., in my registering, retaining and anticipating my first person experience of being in the
world, then this ground naturally appears to my first person perspective. Its non-appearing at

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this point is simply a function of the assumptions I have to make about objective appearance.
What we have, then, is a reversal of the Kantian procedure. Kant explains appearance in
terms of the hiddenness of temporally constituting subjectivity. The reversal explains the
hiddenness of time-constituting subjectivity in terms of the intersubjective constitution of
objective appearance. Its hiddenness as an I can that originally temporalizes is a function
of the others that it must assume in order to place itself in the world. As intersubjectively
constituted, this nonappearance relates its being-in-the-world. The self-concealment of its
temporalization is, then, a matter of the objective time that it shares with its others. It is only
in terms of it, that its original temporalization along with the freedom of its I can can be
said to be concealed.
LanguageandHiddenness
No account of the intersubjective grounding of hiddenness can be complete without
mentioning the dominant feature of our common world: its linguistic structuring. Ours is a
world where we speak with each other. The objects within it are clothed with the meanings
that our common language provides. The reason for this springs from the way we learned
our language. Our initial life projectssuch as learning to eat at the tablewere
accompanied by a constant commentary from our caregivers. Each new object or activity
was introduced to us with a verbal description. Now, as the child learns to speak, a
remarkable phenomenon arises: it also learns to lie. In this, it shows itself capable of both
truth and falsity, of both openness and hiddenness. Because it can lie, its words cannot
automatically be taken as revealing what it has in mind. Thus, the very thing that opens
this mind up to methe childs learning to speakalso brings about the possibility of its
concealment. In fact, the sense of its mind as a place of hiddenness, of privacy now comes to
the fore. In adult life, I get this sense each time I begin to mistrust anothers words. The
thought that they are concealing his intentions makes me regard the latter as hidden. I say to

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myself, I dont know what he is thinking, thus making his intentions part of his interior,
hidden life.
When the suspicion of lying makes me posit an inaccessible life, I do so on the basis
of language. Language, however, is intersubjective. It is part of our being in the world along
with others. Given this, the hiddenness of intentions must be inherent in our common world.
One way to see this is to recall how we reveal the objects of the world through our intentions.
As I earlier observed, if my intention is to write, then this paper appears to me as what you
write upon. If it is to start a fire, then it appears as combustible. In each case, as William
James noted, objects only appear as correlates of the projects that reveal them.85 By virtue of
such projects, the world itself appears in its normal everyday characteri.e., as articulated
into objects with familiar senses.86 What gives this world its common cast is, then, the
interweaving of our projects. This makes the senses of its objects intersubjective and hence
capable of being expressed by language which is inherently intersubjective. Yet language
does not just express the senses of the world as given by similar sets of projects. Insofar as
the same object can be the goal of different projects, its disclosed sense can be multiplied. As
intersubjective, language itself is open to this multiplicity. In describing an object, the words
it uses are not limited to the single meaning that this object must bear. In the very
multiplicity of the meanings available to it, language, rather than being the unambiguous
recorder of intentions, has the ability to conceal.
Subjectively regarded, this concealment points back to me, to my intentions. The different senses of the object point back to the different possible projects which can disclose it.
Thus, when you doubt my words, you doubt that I shall actually engage in the behavior (the
project) which they promise. Objectively, however, the place where the different senses of
the object are hidden is the world. It is because the world affords multiple possibilities of behavior, each with its own intentions, that we can speak of its objects having different senses.
Here, the question of our hiddenness concerns these different possibilities of behavior. How

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are they inherent in our world? What is the feature of the world that in concealing multiple
possibilities allows us to conceal ourselves?
The answer is implicit in what was said above. Our being in the world is mediated by
language. The objects within it are drenched in linguistic meanings. We learned these by
participating, actually or imaginatively, in the different projects of our others. The result is
that to apprehend the world through language is to see it as implicitly containing multiple
possibilities of behavior, possibilities that are expressed by its multiple senses. Mediated by
language, the objects of my world have, in fact, a sign-like character. Like the words that express them, their primary referent is the range of possibilities they afford me. My openness
to these possibilities is my freedom. It is my having the world as a field of choices. This
freedom is not within me. It is out there in the worldi.e., in the possibilities it offers to me.
The same holds for my hiddenness. When I speak, I reveal myself as open to the possibilities
of the world that I share with my others. Their multiplicity is simultaneously contained in
the openness of my language. It is, in fact, essential for its communicative function. It is
also essential for my use of language to evaluate different choices. This openness, however,
is also a concealment since, given my finitude, I cannot simultaneously realize their
multiplicity. Speaking, then, I reveal myself as open to more than I can reveal. I give myself
as not being able to be given. This inability is my privacy; yet it follows from my being in
communication with others and their possibilities.87 So regarded, my concealment is an
inherent part of the constitution of a common world. Along with my freedom, it is a function
of the possibilities it affords me.

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Implications
Aristotle believed that the actuality of something is where it is at work, where its
activity manifests its concrete presence. Color, for example, is in the seeing eye. It is not in
the electromagnetic waves that pulse through the ether. Similarly, sound is in the ear, not in
the pressure waves of the surrounding air. The view that I have been sketching makes the
same point regarding our selfhood. To think of it as being-in-the-world is to see the world as
the place of its actualization. The world is the place where its activity manifests its concrete
presence as both intersubjective and private, that is, as both given and not-able-to-be-given.
Anumberofimplicationsfollowfromthisview.Ishallmentiononlythemost
important,beginningwithapointthathasalreadybeentoucheduponnamely,thefactthat
selfhoodrequiresanintersubjective,speakingcommunityforitsmanifestation.Thisimplies
thatitisvulnerabletotheimpoverishmentoflanguage.Inparticular,theexpressionsof
powerthatdeformcommunicationbypreventingpeoplefromspeakingtheirmindscan
diminishtheveryselfhoodthemindthatspeechissupposedtomanifest.Thisis
becausetheypreventouraccesstothepossibilitiesthatconstitutethecontentofourfreedom.
Theimplication,here,isthatthesafeguardsofselfhoodincludethehumanrightsthatdefend
speechandactionagainsttheencroachmentsofarbitrarypower.Suchrightsmaybe
consideredtheselfrestraintofastatevisvisitsinhabitants.Theiruniversalitydoesnot
pointtosubjectivityassomeuniformquantity.Itisnotinanysensetiedtotheuniformityof
cultureimpliedbyglobalization.Suchrightsare,rather,conditionsfortheprivacyof
selfhood.Theyspringfromtherecognitionthatitsinaccessibilityisafunctionofthepublic
realm.Putintermsofthefreedomthatisourselfexceeding,theycanberegardedasguides

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foritsconstitution,i.e.,fortheprocessbywhichwetakeoverthepossibilitiesofothersand,
hence,becomecapableofsurpassingourselves.
AsInotedintheIntroduction,whatIamproposingisareversalofthesituation
imaginedbysuchcontracttheoristsasLocke.Whiletheyassumedthatmansnatural
situationinthestateofnaturebeforesocietyisthatoffreedom,Iamtakingfreedomasa
goalthatisaccomplishedthroughsociety.Thisisbecausefreedomisafunctionofthe
excessivequalityofourselfhood.Asintersubjectivelyconstituted,itdependsonotherss
makingtheirpossibilitiesavailabletotheself.Impedimentstothisundermineitsfreedom.
Civiland,inthebroadsense,humanrightsarethustobedefinednegativelyasthose
restraintsonstatepowerthatkeepopenforusthevariouspossibilitiesofbeinghuman.
Thus,giventhatlanguageisthemainwayweinformeachotherofthedifferentpossibilities
ofourhumanity,theuseofstatepowertocensorordeformourcommunicationsdoesnot
justresultintheimpoverishmentoflanguage.Asjustnoted,itunderminesourfreedomby
limitingouraccesstothechoicesavailabletous.Thus,tothepointthatweassumefreedom
asthegoalofourintersubjectiveexistence,freedomofspeechisarightthatthestatemust
defend.Thisright,however,isnotabsolute.Itisnottherefromthebeginningasan
inalienablefeatureofourselfhood.Itisratherameanstowardstheattainmentoffree
selfhood.Assuch,itisrangedalongsideothersuchmeanstherighttoownproperty,to
havealivingwage,toassemble,toformvoluntarycommunitiesdefinedbyspecific
traditions,andsoon.Rights,inotherwords,arenotnonnegotiablegivens,butarerelativeto
thegoal.Theyarethemeansforthecommunalconstitutionofthefreeselfhoodofthe

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membersofthecommunity.Ratherthanbeingtreatedasabsolutes,theyaretobeadjusted
(and,ifneedbe,readjusted)amongoneanothertoreachthegoaloffreeselfhoood.
Whatisparamountisthegoalitself.Rightsinthepositivesenseconcerntheactions
thestateisrequiredtotaketoreachthisgoal.Tothepointthatitcan,itis,forexample,
obligatedtofosterbasichumangoodssuchaspublicsecurity,health,education,andthearts.
Thesearetobeaccountedpublicgoodsinsofarastheyarenecessary(andinthissensegood
for)theaccomplishmentofthegoal.Theyarerequiredforthestatetofulfilltheobligation
itentails.Takeninitsbroadestsense,thisobligationisnothinglessthanthatofpromoting
therichnessoftheintersubjectiveworld.Inmultiplyingthemutuallyenrichingpossibilities
ofourbeingintheworld,thestatesupportsthepublicconstitutionofourfreeselfhood.The
inclusionoftheartsamongthebasichumangoodsfollowsfromtheirnecessityforsuch
constitution.Innourishingourimaginativelife,theyopenusuptothecouldbeotherwise,
thatis,tothealternativesthatformthecontentofourfreedom.Theirexerciseintheir
differentforms(films,theater,music,painting,etc.)providesavenuewherethepossibilities
implicitinourotherscanbeexplicitlydepicted.Here,ofcourse,wehavetorecognizethat
nostate,whateveritsculturalrichness,candojusticetothepossibilitiesofbeinghuman.In
fact,insofarasourmutuallyenrichingpossibilitiesinvolveourlivinginlargeandsmall
stateswithallthediversitythatthisimplies,therearisesaparallelobligationontheglobal
leveltofostersuchdiversity.Inlimitingthepossibilitiesofourworld,thediminutionof
diversitylimitsourselfhood.

The important point here is that, in seeing freedom as a result of, rather than as
a given for, civil society, we recognize the vulnerability of the self. The margin
between the saying and the said can be narrowed by state power. Our ability to
take back the said or to add to it can be undermined. Thus, the very quality that

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constitutes our freedom can be lessened and, with this, our potential for political
renewal. There are failed communities. There are societies thatgiven their history
of dictatorshiphave great difficulties with freedom. Their attempts to restore it
tend to go awry. These negative examples point to the philosophical imperative of
understanding the diminishment of selfhood, i.e., seeing how it can be externalized to
the point that its powers of renewalthe very ones that give it its concealment
suffer impoverishment. Since this imperative is also political, it has a practical and
moral aspect. Its object is not some abstract selfhood, but rather our own in the
various concrete situations in which it finds itself. How do we recognize its
diminishment? What stands guard against the dismantlement of the private or the
hidden? Such questions raise the issue of a new form of hiddenness, that of evil in its
self-concealment. Insofar as evil strikes at our selfhood, it diminishes our power to
recognize it and, hence, conceals itself. As noted in the Introduction, this lack of
recognition, in allowing evil to grow unchecked, can give it a particularly virulent
quality. How do we break through its self-concealment? What resources do we
have? The next chapter begins our search for an answer by comparing our sense of
shame to that of guilt. As we shall see, the sense of bodily shame brings to the fore
yet another form of hiddenness, one that has its origin in the privacy of flesh.

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CHAPTER VII

SHAMEANDGUILT

What is the relation of shame to guilt? What are the characteristics that distinguish
the two? When we regard them phenomenologically, i.e., in the way that they directly
manifest themselves, two features stand out. Guilt and shame imply different relations to the
other person. Their relation to language is also distinct. Guilt involves the internalization of
the other, not as a specific individual, but rather as an amalgam of parents, elders, and other
social and cultural authority figures.88 This other is present to us as something more than the
set of possibilities we spoke of in the previous chapter. The amalgam of authority figures
becomes present as the inner voice of conscience. The sense of guilt arises when we violate
its strictures. This occurs even when we are alonethat is, when we act in secret. Even
then, there is a certain inner dialogue that occurs in our heads. It may be that we are trying to
excuse our conduct or justify it to this voice. It may also happen that we give way to its
demands. In either case, the presence of this voice of conscience indicates guilts
dependence on language. With language we have the possibility of the spoken and written
norms that formalize the admonitions of our internalized others. Shame, by contrast, usually
does require a face-to-face. I am ashamed before the actual other, i.e., before his or her
concrete presence. It is this presence, rather than any generalized other, that I internalize.89
There is here a primitive, immediate, pre-linguistic type of empathy at work, one where I
regard myself through the others presently regarding me. This regard is painful. I do not
want this other to see me in my present situation. In contrast to guilt, then, shame requires

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the real or, at least, the imagined presence of specific others to be activated. In the absence
of such others, I can escape its censure. As a pre-linguistic phenomenon, there is no inner
voice to keep it alive.
Since it lacks the verbal clothing that would permit its formalization into a law of
society, shame is certainly a more primitive, in the sense of being a less effective, means of
social control. Does this imply that it can be left behind? Is it something that is no longer
needed once the internalization is achieved that gives rise to the voice of conscience? On
the evidence of what is daily presented on television, the movies, and public life in general,
the phenomenon of shame has lessened. We expose ourselves to others in ways that would
have made previous generations blush. Our sense of ethics is largely linguistic, consisting of
spoken and written rules. The question is whether the decline of shame undermines this
sense. I am going to argue that it does, that shame, in fact, is the basis for having a
conscience in the sense of hearing its voice. While the sense of shame is not yet the ethics
that arises through responding to and reflecting on this voice, it is its necessary condition. It
preserves the privacy that is its bodily basis.
Shame as a Function of the Body
When we speak of shame, two related types come to mind. First of all there is the
social shame of being publicly embarrassed. This happens when we commit some social
faux pas. We say the wrong thing, wear the wrong clothes or spill the soup at a formal
dinner. Not only is the act acutely embarrassing, it also vividly remains in our memory and
continues to embarrass us as we recall it again and again. Such social shame is only
indirectly my theme. I shall return to it only after I have clarified what I take to be the more
fundamental type of shame: bodily shame. Its basic sense is implicit in a number of

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expressions. It is indicated, for example by the French word for shame, la pudeur, which
points back to the Latin pudenda,90 signifying the genitals, and the German die Scham
and die Schamteile, both of which can be used to signify the genitals. The English
euphemism for the genitals, the private parts, also points to this sense of shame. This is the
shame of bodily exposure. It has to do with keeping private what should be private, that is,
not publicly exhibiting certain body parts. If you do this, you are shameless in the bodily
sense of the word.
In the first instance, then, bodily shame has to do with nakednessparticularly the
nakedness that exhibits the sexual organs. Beyond this, however, it has a more general sense
involving the exhibition of certain bodily functions. People are ashamed when they are
exposed sitting on the toilet, when they are seen picking their nose, when they call attention
to themselves by making gases, and so on. There is a culturally relative component in the
shame that each type of exposure occasions. Yet there is also something essential. In every
case, bodily shame has to do with what is not publicly acceptable. Its censures fall on the
exhibition of what should be private. Shame, then, has as its domain the realm of the private,
understood as that which is out of place in the public area. The morality it enforces is that of
keeping the private and the public separate. Its most primitive sense has to do with the body.
The body, or certain aspects of it, are private and should be covered up. The clothing that I
must wear in public, whatever the weather, is the mark of this boundary. Under my clothing
is my flesh as what should remain private.
Is the privacy of flesh culturally relative? Certainly, the decline of shame would lead
one to think so. There are, however, good reasons for regarding the privacy of the body as
something fundamental. There is a sense in which the body escapes public disclosure and, as

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such, cannot be spoken of. The best way to express this is to recall Heideggers position that
we disclose and describe things in terms of the ways in which we are in the world. Being-inthe-world, according to Heidegger, is our basic ontological mode. It is not a matter of
choice. It is essential to us. We are in the world because we always need it. We cannot live
without the things it provides. The goal of our various practical projects is to obtain these.
Our doing so, as we said in the last chapter, determines the way the world appears.91 Thus,
each project, when successful, exhibits those aspects of the world that are required for our
purposes. The water of a stream, for example, is seen as water to drive my mill when I use it
for this purpose. Paper, as we said, can appear as a writing surface or as kindling to start a
fire depending on our particular needs. For Heidegger, we recall, this pragmatic basis of
appearing serves as the foundation of language. As we gain more and more skill in making
our way in the world, we understand it in the sense of knowing the purposes of its
elements. Heidegger, thus, defines interpretation as the considering ... of something as
something that articulates this practical understanding. In other words, interpretation
makes explicit the purposes of the objects we encounter. It expresses what one does with
them. Such interpretations form the core of a language. They constitute the significance of
its descriptive expressions (Heidegger 1985, 261). Each such expression is correlated to a
given appearing, which is itself correlated to the instrumental character of what appears, i.e.,
to the purposes to which we put particular objects. These purposes are correlated to our
specific projects.
Tothepointthatourprojectsarecommon,eachofthesecorrelatedelementswillalso
becommon.Thecommonmeaningofanexpressionwillpointbacktothecommonusageof
anobjectasmeansforagivengoal.Thus,foreveryonewhousespapertostartafire,the

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meaningofthewordpaperwillincludethefactofitsbeingcombustible.ForHeidegger,
then,thefactthatthemeaningsofourwordsarecommonrestsonthefactthatweusethings
incommonways.Thisrulesoutthepossibilityofaprivatelanguage.Foranexpressionto
beirremediablyprivate,theappearingitrelatestowouldalsohavetobeprivate.Thiswould
implytheobjectitselfwouldhavetobeuniqueinitsinstrumentalcharacter.Nothingelse
wouldbecapableofsubstitutingforaparticularobjectintheaccomplishmentofsome
particularproject.Toturnthisabout,wecansaythatthecommonalityofmeaningisbased
onsubstitutability.Notjustthissheetofpapercanbeusedtostartafire.Othersheetscan
alsohavethisuseand,hence,canbearthecommonmeaningcombustible.
If we accept this account, then the body has both a disclosable and a nondisclosable,
hidden aspect. Its disclosure is correlated to its instrumental character. Thus, its various
skills and attributes can be exhibited insofar as they show themselves as means to given
ends.92 What is disclosed is the human body as a public object. Insofar as the common
meanings of language describe it, this is also the substitutable body. Many different
individuals can, for example, tie their shoelaces or walk down the street. The ability to
perform such tasks thus enters into the general sense of body. This sense can be expressed in
the words that convey this sense. The nondisclosable, nonexpressible aspect of the body
comes from the fact that on a certain basic level one body is not substitutable for another.
Heidegger, in Being and Time, points to this level by emphasizing that death, in each case, is
ones own. Thus, no one can die for me. It is something that I must do by myself. Death, in
other words, is irremediably private. 93 Given that death is an aspect of my organic
functioning, the same point can be made with regard to other aspects of this functioning. It
is, for example, equally true that no one can take a bath for me, can eat for me, go to the

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bathroom for me, and so on. The case here is different from someone going to the bank for
you, or managing your money, or engaging in one of the host of other services that we daily
perform for each other. The fact that someone else eats dinner does not relieve my need to
eat dinner. My body projects, understood in the sense of these examples, delimit a sphere of
ownness that is radically private. This sphere of what is proper to memir Eigenes, in
Heideggers phraseis marked by nonsubstitutability. It thus constitutes the sphere of the
private that escapes linguistic expression. Its hiddenness, its nondisclosability, is essential
and irremediable.
The conclusion here may seem surprising given that our bodies are daily topics of
conversation. Yet as Aristotle long ago noted, the particular as the particular can be sensed,
but cannot be expressed in a language we share with our others. Such sharing involves
common meanings, which express the common features of objects. My body as mine,
however, cannot be common. It is the flesh that incarnates me, making me this particular
person and not anybody else. Given that the meanings we use always apply to more than one
object, this bodily particularity that we sense and daily live is always inexpressible.94
The relation of this particularity to shame can be illustrated through a couple of
examples of bodily enjoyment. There is a public and a private aspect to these. Shame
indicates the boundary. This is because it sees the private as what should not be trespassed.
As such, it guards against the violation of the border between the two. Eating, for example,
can be a public act. Yet, as already indicated, while I can share a meal with others, no one
can eat for me. The food in my mouth is private. It would be shameless to take it out of my
mouth and put it on anothers plate. Something similar can be said about sex. While I can
share sex with another, no one can have sex for me. Thus, when I share my body with

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another in the sexual act, I am normally not ashamed before this person. The case is
different, however, if my partner and I find ourselves suddenly exposed to public view. The
presence of strangers interrupts the act. It causes us to cover ourselves up. This reaction is a
mark of shame. It also indicates that the sharing of flesh between consenting partners is for
flesh and, as such, remains in the private sphere.
Whataboutthesocialfauxpasi.e.,theactcausingsocialshamethatwas
mentionedabove?Doesitalsohaveanirremediablyprivateaspect?Certainlytheshameit
occasionspointstoasenseoftheprivate,onetrespassedbytheact.Whatisunacceptableto
societyisoutofplaceforitand,hence,exiledtotheprivatesphere.Tocommitashameful
socialblunderis,then,alsotoviolatetheboundarybetweenthepublicandtheprivate.Yet,
astheanthropologistsinformus,whatcountsasasocialblundercandifferfromsocietyto
society.Thisimpliesthattheboundaryand,hence,theshameofitsviolationaresetby
society.Differentsocieties,anthropologistsreport,alsohavedifferentsensesofthebody
and,hence,differentviewsofwhatshouldbecoveredup.Doesthismeanthatthesenseof
thebodyissociallyconstructedand,withthis,thesenseofourbodilyprivacy?Againstsuch
aview,isthefactthattherearealwaysaspectsofourfleshthatcannotbeshared.Thus,
whateverthesociety,deathwillalwaysremainprivate;sowillthebodysbasicorganic
functions.Theseformtheirreduciblebasisofbodilyshame.
Thefactthatthisirrediciblebasismergeswiththebroaderareaoftheshame
determinedbythesociallyconstructedsenseofthebodyshouldnotblindustothefactthat
shameisanexperientialgiven.Moreprecisely,itisaphenomenologicaldatum,onethat
givesorexhibitstheboundarybetweenthepublicandtheprivate.Assuch,itshiftswith
theshiftingofthisboundary.Suchaboundaryobtainsevenwhenweadmitwiththe

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anthropologiststhatsocialshameisentirelyconventional.Thefactthatnothingisinherently
sociallyshameful,i.e.,outofplaceinthepublicrealm,doesnotmeanthatinanygiven
societytherearenotsocialblunders,thatthereisnothingthatispubliclyunacceptable,that
thereisnosenseofdoingsomethingshameful.Thesameholdsfortheshiftingareaof
bodilyshame.Theexperienceofsuchshamealwaysindicatesthepresenceoftheboundary
betweenthepublicandtheprivate,moreprecisely,oftrespasswithregardtoit.Inbodily
shame,thereisacoreoftheirreduciblyprivate,onewhoseinvoluntaryexhibitionisitself
exhibitedinthecorephenomenonofbodilyshame.Given,however,thefactofthe
unspeakabilityandessentialhiddennessofourbodilyparticularity,thephenomenological
descriptionoftheshameassociatedwithitsinvasionisextraordinarilydifficult.We
constantlyconfuseitwiththeshameassociatedwiththesociallyconstructedsenseofthe
body.Inacertainsense,itshiddennessissuchthatithidesbehindthelatter.Yetsuch
difficultiesstilldonotobviatetheessentialfeaturesharedbyalltheformsofshame.Insofar
astheyexhibittheboundarybetweenthepublicandtheprivate,theyallimplyothers.Itis
alwaysbeforeothersthatIamashamed.Thispointstothefactthatshamepresupposesa
certainacknowledgementoftheseothers.Itinvolvestheempathythatispresupposedbythis
acknowledgment.
ShameandEmpathy
AccordingtoitsGreekroots,empathysignifiesafeelingorexperiencinginanother
person.Tohaveitistobeabletotakeupanotherpersonsposition.ThismeansthatwhenI
engageinit,Iseetheworldand,hence,myself,throughtheotherseyes.Thereis,here,a
certainsplittingoftheself.Inmaintainingmyownposition,Iremainthesubjectwho

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regardstheotherasanobject.Intakinguptheothersposition,Iregardmyselfasobject.
Empathy,thus,addsthissecondlayertothefirst.Itmakesmebothasubjectandanobject.
Theempathythatoccasionsthissplitcaninvolvelanguage.Whenitdoes,theothertellsme
whatheorsheisexperiencing.Iimaginativelyfillthisoutandattempttoexperiencewhat
theotherdoes.Insuchcases,theobjectivityofmyselfasviewedfromtheoutside,asa
commonobjectformyselfandmyothers,ismatchedbytheobjectivityoflanguageas
thereformyselfandmyothersinitscommonmeanings.Empathy,ofcourse,canalso
functioninsilence.Alookfromtheotherisenoughtotriggerit.Whenthissilentregard
provokesshame,empathyisshowntoinvolvemorethanmytakinguptheothersposition,
morethanmysimplyregardingmyselffromanexternal,objectifyingstandpoint.Infact,the
experienceofshameissuchthatIwouldbehappytobetransformedintoanobject.Objects,
afterall,arenotjudgedashumansare.Thelookthattriggersshameisnotdirectedtothem.
Myexperienceoftheotherwhomakesmeashamedisnotthatofapersonoutsideofme.It
is,rather,ofthispersonsinvadingme.Itakeupthepersonsstandpointinmyself.Iam,
withinmyself,intimatelyregarded.Inotherwords,Ifeelthepersonsdisapprovalfromthe
vantagepointofmyownsubjectivity.Ifeelitfromwithinalmostasaphysicalpresencein
myburningshamebeforethisperson.Empathy,here,goesastepdeeperthantheempathy
thatfunctionsontheleveloflanguage.Takingupthepositionoftheother,suchempathy
internalizestheother.Theother,thus,becomestheotherinme.Theresultisasplittingof
theselfthatisexperiencedasakindofdisplacement.Inshame,Iexperiencetheinternalized
otherasdisplacingmeinmyregardofmyself.Atthelimit,thisisexperiencedastheother

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makingmehomeless.Beforehim,Iamashamed;beforehimIamdisplacedfromthesociety
whosewitnessheis.95
Thetypeofintimaterelationthisinvolvescanbeillustratedbythephenomenonof
handtouchinghand.AsHusserlandMerleauPontyhavenoted,thisphenomenonismarked
byatruereciprocity.Onehandtouchestheotherthat,inturn,touchesthefirst.Thefirst
feelsthesecondfeelingthefirst.Possessingboth,Iknowbothwhatitisliketotouchandbe
touched.Mytouchingisanactivitythatisreturnedtome.96Astouched,Ifeelitfrom
within.Thesamesortofreturncanoccurinshame.Ifeelfromwithintheothersregardof
me.Inhandtouchinghand,thereis,moreover,acertainresonatingaspecialbackand
forthaseachhandalternateswiththeother,takingupinturnthepositionoftouchingand
beingtouched.Myawarenessofeachhandincontactwiththeotherfluctuatesbetweenthe
experiencesofitasatouchingsubjectandatouchedobject.Asimilarsortofbackandforth
canoccurinshame.Thus,observingsomeoneelsedoingsomethingshameful,Iamashamed
forhim.Ilookaway.Seeingme,heisashamed.Thereisakindofmutualembarrassment,
oneinwhichhisembarrassmentfeedsmyembarrassment.Throughme,hisembarrassment
isreturnedtohiminthesamewayasonehandreturnsthesenseofbeingtouchedtotheother
thattouchesit.Thefactthattheotherfeelsshamebeforemyshamepointstothespecial
qualityoftheempathyunderlyingthisreciprocalshame.Asinthecaseofhandtouching
hand,empathyherehasthequalityofselfaffection.Theshamethatmanifestsitmanifests
theselfaffectionofsociety.Onitsbasiclevel,thisisitsselfaffectiononthelevelofflesh.
Theburningqualityofshameisaphysicalaffection.IfeelitasIfeelmyflesh.

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This account of shame as a bodily self-affection differs sharply from Sartres
description. For Sartre, what is essential in shame is objectification. Pure shame, he
writes, is not a feeling of being this or that guilty object but in general of being an object;
(Sartre 1966, p. 386). Bodily shame is simply a variation of this. In his words: Modesty and
in particular the fear of being surprised in a state of nakedness are only a symbolic
specification of original shame; the body symbolizes here our defenseless state as objects. To
put on clothes is to hide ones object-state; it is to claim the right of seeing without being
seen; that is, to be [a] pure subject (p. 384). Sartre here misses the fact that objects are not
judged as human subjects are. The regard that causes me shame has its power in the fact that
it is not external (and, hence, not objective), but rather internal. The other who engages in it
regards me as a subject from within. The shame I feel has its peculiar power by virtue of this
intimacy. Given the intersubjective nature of my selfhood, this is an intimacy that I cannot
evade.
The difference we are pointing to can best be expressed in terms of the loss of
subjectivity occasioned by shame. Sartres analysis of shame begins with a description of
himself peering through a keyhole. Suddenly seeing another regard him, he experiences the
others objectifying regard as the internal hemorrhage of the flow of my world toward the
Other. The other is now subject, and he is object. As Sartre describes the resulting loss of
both his subjectivity and the being of the world for him, the flight is without limit; it is lost
externally; the world flows out of the world and I flow outside myself (Sartre 1966, p. 350).
Such a reduction to being an object would, of course, involve the collapse of subjectivity.
Subjectivity, however, is something more than being a seeing without being seen. It is,
rather, the ability to be both seeing and seen, i.e., to span this through self-affection. The

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experience of shame presupposes such self-affection. To affect myself, my selfhood must
involve a certain inner divide between the affecting and affected self. This divide is both the
self-separation that allows me to regard myself internally, and it is my freedom. Both
presuppose others. Others provide me with the alternative standpoints that make possible the
self-separation that I assume in empathy. They are also the source of the possibilities I
appropriate. They thus ground that excess that allows me to exceed and, hence, freely step
out of the self that I have been up to now. Their role in my self-constitution indicates that
the selfs vulnerability is something more than that of a pure gaze that can be undone by the
gaze of another. Its source is the intimacy of the otheri.e., his being inherent in my selfconstitution. This intimacy allows the other to affect me from within. It is this, rather than
any external regard that makes me experience shame as an internal displacement.
Toseethislastpointisalsotounderstandwhatisatissuewhenstatepowerengages
intheintentionalshamingofindividuals.Onestrikinginstanceofthisisdepictedbyan
infamousphotograph.ItshowsnakedJewishmenandwomen,standingingroupsinanopen
field,vainlytryingtocovertheirprivatepartsastheyawaitexecution.Another,morerecent
instanceistheuseofrapeasaninstrumentofwarintheBalkans.Shame,wesaid,isthe
guardianoftheprivate.Itsbasicsenseisthatofmarkingtheboundarybetweenwhatshould
beseenandwhatkeptprivate.Thisboundarymarksonesplace.Myhouseanditscontents
ismyplacebecauseIalonecandecidewhomayenteritsdoors.Similarly,myclothingisa
boundaryoftheprivate,markingwhatispubliclyviewableandwhatisnot.Forced
nakednessandrapeareviolationsofthisboundaryandhenceofshame.Theyarea
displacementoftheotherinthemostliteralsenseofabolishingthemostintimatesenseofhis
orherplace.Assuch,theymaketheotherhomeless.Theydeclarethatthereisnoplacein

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thepublicrealmfortheprivacyofthefleshoftheother.Sincesuchfleshisourselfhoodin
itsnonsubstitutable,irreplaceablecharacter,theexclusionisthatoftheotherassuch.Given
thatthissamefleshisthebasisfortheempathythatistheselfaffectionofsociety,the
ultimateeffecthereistocuttheotherofffromthis.Thedeclarationofthosewhoexposethe
fleshoftheunwillingotheristhathisorhershamemeansnothing.Theyprovokeitprecisely
nottorecognizeit.Whatwehaveistheexplicit,consciousdenialofthatempathybywhich
werecognizeoneanotherasembodiedsubjects.
ShameastheFoundationforHavingaConscience
Thosewhohabituallyengageinsuchactsofintentionalshamingmostlikelyno
longerfeeleitherguiltorshame.This,however,doesnotmeanthatthetwoarethesame.
Guilt,insofarasitinvolvesthevoiceofconscienceanditsformalizationthroughthespoken
andwrittennorm,needslanguage.Shamedoesnot.Itisprimarilyabodilyphenomenon.
Therelationofthetwocanbeunderstoodasthatbetweentwodifferentformsoftheself
affectionofsociety:theselfaffectionthroughlanguageandthatthroughthebody.As
alreadynoted,thethrustoftheformeristowardsobjectivity.Theempathythatfunctions
throughlanguageleadstotheexternallyregardedobjectthatistherebothformyselfandmy
others.Whenthevoicesoftheseothersbecomegeneralizedasthevoiceofconscience,the
latterspeakstomefromacertainremove.Thisremovepointstothedistancethatwillbe
formalizedbytheobjectivelaw.Thislaw,whichmakesuseofobjectivelydefinedterms,
standsagainstme.Asastandard,itissomethingagainstwhichImustregulatemyconduct.
Shame,however,isprelinguistic.Itsfocusisonthebody.Therelationtotheotherthatis
paradigmaticforitistheintimateoneofhandtouchinghand.

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Thislackofremovedoesnotmeanthatshameissomethingthatwecanforgetabout
onceweformalizethevoiceofconscience.Theimplicationisratherthereverse.In
associatingguiltwithlanguageandshamewiththebody,myaccountimpliesthatshameis
foundationalforguiltinthesamewaythatthebodystandsasanecessaryconditionfor
language.97ThedependenceoflanguageonthebodyfollowsHeideggersanalysisofthe
interpretationsthatlanguageexpresses.Tointerpret(ortakesomethingassomething)isto
makeexplicitthepurposeofsomeobject.Ourinterpretationssignifywhatwedowiththe
objectsweencounter.Thus,toseelanguageashavingthispragmaticbasisistoseeits
dependenceonourvariousprojects.Assuch,itisalsotoadmititsdependenceonthebody
theverybodyinandthroughwhichweaccomplishourprojects.
Thecorrespondingdependenceofguiltonshamecanbeputintermsofasetof
implicationsdrawnfromtheabove.Thefirstisthatanormallyfunctioningbodyallowsa
persontoengageinthenormalprojectsofhissocietyandthustopossesstheunderstanding
thatisarticulatedbythecommonexpressionsofhislanguage.Now,whenheissubjectedto
theamputationofhandorfoot,orotherwisemutilated,hisbodynolongeristhatofthenorm.
Theimplicationhereisthatthismutilationextendstohisbodydependentprojectsand,
hence,tohispragmaticunderstandingofhisbeingintheworld.Theinterpretationsthat
articulatethisunderstandingarenolongercongruentwiththoseofsociety.Thesameholds
forthelinguisticmeaningsthatexpresstheseinterpretations.Withincertainlimitsnamely
thosesetbythebodilymutilationhe,thus,becomeslanguageless.Hecannolongerenact
throughhisprojectsthedisclosureoftheworldthatistheultimatebasisofmeaning.The
resultisthathismutilationisnotjustunspeakableinthesenseofbeingdreadful.Itisalso

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suchastoplacehimoutsideofthecontextofthecommonmeaningsheoncesharedwithhis
others.Assuch,itremoveshimfromthecontextthatgroundsthearticulationofhis
situation.
Varioussolutionshavebeenproposedtoremedythisdislocation.Mostnotableare
thetruthandreconciliationcommissionsthathavebeensetupinvariouscountriesfollowing
periodsofhorrificstateviolence.Onecanseethemasanattempttorestorethevoiceofthe
violated.Intheirproceedings,victimsandvictimizersconfronteachother.Theformerare
encouragedtodescribeandthelattertoconfesswhatpassedbetweenthem.Togetherthey
engageintheparadoxicalanduncertainattempttospeaktheunspeakable.Theattemptisto
undowhatisunspeakableintheprofoundsenseofbeingwhatisdestructiveofthevery
possibilityofspeech.Shameiswhatisultimatelyatissueinthesehearings.Thestates
mutilationofthefleshofitsvictimsisanextremeviolationoftheboundaryofthepublicand
theprivate.Itisaviolationofshameunderstoodastheguardianofthisboundary.In
protectingthisboundary,shamewatchesoverthefleshthatformsthebasisofourbeingin
theworld.Thisisthefleshwhoseabilitiesunderlietheinterpretations,meaningsand
languagethatexpresshowweareintheworld.Soregarded,shameguardsnotjustthe
privatesphere,butalsothepublicworldofcommonmeaningsthatgivesconscienceits
voice.Tothepointthatsuchcommissionsreawakensocietyssenseofshame,theyrestore
anessentialconditionforitshearingthisvoice.
Thesecommissionsaregenerallysetupafteraprolongedperiodofviolence,one
oftenaccompaniedbythebreakdownofsociety.Inthedownwardspiralofdisorderthat
leadstothisbreakdown,twophenomenaareparticularlystriking.Thereisanincreasing

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disregardofthehumanityoftheother.Concomitantly,thesocietymanifests,both
individuallyandcollectively,agrowinglackofselfcontrol.Itisnotjustthatnooneisin
controlinthegeneralsocialbreakdown.Theindividualscaughtupinthecollectiveviolence
alsodonotseemtobemastersoftheiractions.Insofarasbothofthesephenomenainvolve
thenonrecognitionoftheother,botharetiedtotheselfconcealmentofevil.Whenwefailto
recognizethehumanityoftheother,when,throughstereotyping,wereducehimtoathingor
ananimal,weconcealtheevilwedohim.Suchnonrecognitionthusbringsabouttheself
concealmentofevil.Giventhatthisotherisalsoinherentinourselves,thesamenon
recognitioninvolvesourselves.Itisarepressionofpartofwhatwearemorepreciselya
repressionoftheotherasconstitutingourselfhoodinitsfreedomandselfseparation.Here,
repressionoftheotherandselfrepressiongohandinhand.Theresultissomethingmore
thanthefailure,bothindividualandcollective,ofourselfunderstanding.Itistheerruption
oftherepressedintheirrationalityofourcollectivelife.Toexploretheresultantlackofself
control,wemustturnourattentionfromphilosophytopsychiatry.Ouraimwillbeto
understanditsinsightsonthehiddennessthatresultsfromrepression.

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CHAPTER VIII
BENITOCERENO:FREUDANDTHEBREAKDOWNOFTHECOLLECTIVESELF

EversincetheoracleofDelphisinjunctiontoknowyourself,thequestionofwho
orwhatwearehasoccupiedphilosophers.Onemotiveforpursuingithasbeenthefactthat
ourownbehavior,bothindividualandcollective,hasoftenbeensopuzzling.Howdowe
explaintheindividualconductthatapparentlymakesnosense?Whatisbehindtheirruption
ofirrationalityinpubliclife?Philosophically,theultimatequestionhereisthatofour
selfhood.Whatdoesourselfunintelligibilitysayaboutourselfhood?Howcanwebesuch
astobehiddenfromourselves?Inmoderntimes,thegreatsystematicefforttopursuethese
questionshasnotcomefromphilosophy,butratherfrompsychoanalysisinparticular,from
theworkofFreudandLacan.Thefocusofthesewritershaslargelybeenontheselfhoodof
theindividual.98YetasPlatoremindsusinconsideringthestateasthesoulwrittenlarge,the
questionofourselfhoodhasimplicationsnotjustforpsychology,butalsoforpolitics.By
regardingthelargercanvasofthestate,hesoughttogainaclearergraspoftheelementsthat
makeupaself(Republic368a369a).Inbothpsychologyandpolitics,thequestionofthe
relationofsuchelementsisthatofcontrol.Howdoweunderstandselfcontrolinthe
individualorthebodypolitic?Whichpartofourselfhoodis(orshouldbe)controllingand
whichpartcontrolled?
Inwhatfollows,IshallusetheinsightsofFreudandLacantoexaminethequestion
ofselfcontrolanditsbreakdowninourcollectiveselfhood.Thestate,onwhosecanvasI

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shallconductmyinquiryisnorealsociety,butrathertheimaginaryonedepictedbyHerman
Melvilleinhistaleofrevoltontheslaveship,theSanDominick.Hisnovella,Benito
Cereno,describesthestruggleofthreeseparatecaptainstoexercisecontrol.Their
inabilitytoworktogethergivesusapictureofasocietyinconflictwithitself,onethatis
collectivelyoutofcontrol.MychoiceofthismodelismotivatedbyFreudsadmonitionthat
aninvestigationofnormal,stablestateswouldteachuslittle.Theonlythingthatcan
helpusarestatesofconflictanduproar(Freud1989,p.38).99Thesearethestatesinwhich
thecomponentsoftheselftheego,theid,andthesuperegostruggleforcontroland,
hence,makecleartheirdistinctcharactersanddemands.IntakingtheSanDominickasa
representativeoftheself,Iwillalsotakethesecaptainsasrepresentingitscomponents.The
SanDominickwill,thus,beunderstoodasatableauuponwhichallthefactorsoftheselfare
seenintheirattemptstoexercisecontrol.
Suchanunderstandingmust,ofcourse,baseitselfonaselfconfessedlyanachronistic
reading.SomeeightysomeyearsseparatesFreudsOutlineofPsychoAnalysisfrom
Melvillestale.Intheabsenceofanydirectinfluence,howcanItreatthis1855storyasa
Freudianparable?Onapracticallevel,theanswermustwaitupontheresult.Asuccessful
interpretationwilljustifytheattempt.Onatheoreticallevel,onecanonlysaythatifFreud
didactuallygraspanenduringtruthaboutthehumanself,thistruthwasalsotherefor
Melvilletoexpressinliterature.
MymethodinuncoveringthistruthwillbetoalternatebetweenFreudiantheoryand
descriptionsofthenovella.Inthisbackandforth,eachofthecaptainswillbeviewedina
doubleperspective.Asindividualcharacters,eachwillappearasanindividualself

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possessinghisownego,id,andsuperego.Asformingpartofthecollectiveselfhoodofthe
SanDominick,eachwillrepresentbutoneofthesecomponents.Seeingthemasboth,we
willalsobegintoseehowourselfhoodissuchthatthestatecanrepresentit.
I
The notion of self-control implies a division in our selfhood between the components
that control and those that are controlled. Yet, when we use Freud to identify these elements,
we come to a surprising conclusion. Each seems to have its own claims to rule. This, at
least, is the conclusion that can be drawn from Freuds final account of the id, the superego,
and the ego, to which I now turn.
Writing in exile in London at the end of his life, Freud describes the id as the deepest,
most original layer of the self. The id, he writes, contains everything that is inherited, that is
present at birth. As such it is the place of our inborn, bodily instincts. Such instincts exhibit
the pressure of the body on consciousness. In Freuds words, they represent the somatic
demands on the mind (Freud 1989, p. 17). The id is where they first come to presence, i.e.,
achieve a first psychical expression (ibid., p. 14). Over against this organic, bodily
influence on the mind, we have the demands of society. Our parents place restrictions on our
instinctual demands. The super-ego designates the special agency which prolongs their
influence in imposing moral strictures on us. According to Freud, it includes in its operation
not only the personalities of the actual parents but also the family, racial and national
traditions handed on through them, as well as the demands of the immediate social milieu
which they represent (pp. 15-16). If the id exhibits the internalized presence of the body on
the mind, the super-ego is the place of the internalized presence of our others. Their
internalized voice gives us an external standpoint, one from which we can stand back and

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view ourselves. Viewing and judging the demands of the id, the super-ego makes its own
demands felt as the voice of conscience.100
While the id represents the influence of heredity, and the super-ego that of others,
the ego Freud writes, is principally determined by the individuals own experience, that is,
by accidental and contemporary events (Freud 1989, pp. 16). It is the place where the real
external world is acknowledged and dealt with (ibid., p, 14). The opening up of the self to
this world involves the repression of the id. Parental prohibitions first cause the child to
reflect on its instinctive impulses. It learns to cope with these by deciding whether they are
to be allowed satisfaction, by postponing that satisfaction to times and circumstances
favorable in the external world or by suppressing their excitations entirely (p. 15). To guide
it, the child must attend to realityi.e., to the intersubjective world that includes its parents.
Since its survival depends on its parents, the child must have their approval. Separating itself
from the immediacy of its desires, the child has to consider their effects on them. When its
instinctual demands are inappropriate, i.e., lead to parental disapproval, the child must
repress them. Its selfhood, which previously yielded at once to the pressure of desire, thus
acquires, through these actions, the inner distance that is both a self-separation and an
openness to the real, intersubjective world. With the internalization of the action of its
parents and their successors, i.e., with the appearance of the super-ego, the maintenance of
this openness becomes part of the functioning of the self. The ego names its result.
Phenomenologically regarded, the ego is the selfs openness to reality.
Paradoxically, such openness requires that the ego become, in part, closed to itself.
Its origin requires repression. The repressed materialthe instinctual urges and the
circumstances that in childhood were involved in their arousalare forced into the

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unconscious. There they live a subterranean existence, occasionally making their presence
felt by those disturbances of conscious life that Freud calls symptoms. A symptom is a
pattern of behaviordeeply disturbing to the patientthat cannot be explained in terms of a
persons actual situation or consciousness of it.101 It is, in fact, the inability of our conscious
life to account for these disturbances that motivated Freud originally to posit the existence of
an unconscious.
The question raised by this schema of ego, super-ego, and id is: who or what is in
control? Freuds response to this question is ambiguous. He presents the claims of each to
be the controlling factor. Thus, on the one hand, he asserts: The power of the id expresses
the true purpose of the individual organisms lifethe satisfaction of its innate needs.
Here, the ego seems to be in service to the id, since its task seems to be to discover the
most favorable and least perilous method of obtaining [this] satisfaction (Freud 1989, p. 17).
On the other hand, the super-ego can also claim to be in control. Not only does it represent
society and hence our ability, in meeting its demands, to function socially, it is also crucial
for our sense of the real world. The repression it continually exercises is what opens a space
for the ego and, hence, for our grasp of reality. As for the ego, Freud often speaks of it as
exercising control. The point of his therapy, he asserts, is to strengthen the weakened ego,
which involves extending its self-knowledge, the loss of which signifies for the ego a
surrender of power and influence (ibid., p. 56). Such language implies that the goal of
therapy is to restore control to the ego. Is the ego, then, the master of the self, or is it simply
a servant alternately satisfying the id and the super-ego? The question can be framed
ontologicallyi.e., in terms of the being of the ego. Is this being independent or dependent?
Is it a result of a successful negotiation between the demands of the two or is it the agent that

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brings this about? Freud implies that it is both an agent and the result of its agency.
Speaking of the egos agency, he asserts that an action by the ego is as it should be if it
satisfies simultaneously the demands of the id, of the super-ego and of realitythat is to say,
if it is able to reconcile their demands with one another (p. 15). But he also notes that
failure in this task can result in the id and the super-ego making common cause against the
hard pressed ego. Together they can succeed in loosening and altering the egos
organization, so that its proper relation to reality is disturbed or even brought to an end (p.
50). At the extreme, the result is psychosisi.e., the collapse of the ego understood as the
selfs relation to reality. Given that the failure of this negotiation results in its own collapse,
the ego seems to be a dependent, rather than an independent aspect of the self.
As already noted, Plato, facing a parallel difficulty thought to overcome it by a shift
in perspective. By assuming that the state is the soul writ large, he supposed that we might,
in its larger canvas, gain a clearer view of the relation of the elements that make up the self.
The shift, of course, widens the issue. It broadens the question of control to that of political
governance. It also complicates it. Once we take a Freudian perspective, we face the roles of
repression and the unconscious in the exercise of political power. We are, thus, invited to
understand the lack of sense that sometimes marks the public scene as a symptom pointing to
material that the society cannot acknowledge.
II
The opening pages of Benito Cereno are remarkable in their depiction of this lack
of sense. Marked by a certain dreamlike quality, they abound with incongruities and
ambiguities. The novella begins with Captain Delano, an American captain of a commercial
vessel, lying at anchor in the harbor of a desert island. Improbably, he is described as

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having touched [there] for water (Benito Cereno, p. 141).102 Coming on deck, he gazes
on [f]lights of troubled gray fowl, mixed with flights of troubled gray vapors. Together
they yield, in their indistinctness and blurring of outlines, [s]hadows
present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come (ibid., p. 142). Presently, a ship appears
like a white washed monastery after a thunderstorm. For a moment, Delano almost
believes that nothing less than a shipload of monks was there before him.103 On closer
inspection, the ship with its singular ... movements, takes on an even more spectral
appearance: The spars, ropes, and great part of the bulwarks looked woolly from long
unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her ribs put
together, and she launched, from Ezekiels Valley of Dry bones (p. 144). Above all, there is
the unreal appearance that presents itself to Delano as he boards the ship. If the approach to
the vessel is, in the gradual build up of Melvilles descriptions, like falling asleep, boarding
the ship is like entering the dream state itself. In the words of the narrator, ... the living
spectacle it contains upon its sudden and complete disclosure, has, in contrast with the blank
ocean which zones it, something of the effect of enchantment. The ship seems unreal; these
strange costumes, gestures, and faces but a shadowy tableau just emerged from the deep,
which directly must receive back what it gave (p. 145).
What Delano sees, once on board, only deepens the sense of mystery. He is greeted
by a clamorous throng, largely black, pouring out a common tale of suffering. It seems
that this is a Negro transportation ship in distress, the great part of whose white sailors
have been lost to the scurvy together with the fever (Benito Cereno, p. 145). Over this
multitude, Delano sees the figures of four elderly Negroes, who, crouched, sphinx-like, are
engaged in the apparently senseless task of picking junk into oakum. They are kept

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company by six other blacks, who with a bit of brick and rag are polishing hatchets. At
intervals, two by two, they sideways clash their hatchets together, like cymbals, with a
barbarous din (ibid., p. 146). Delano next catches sight of the captain of the vessel, Benito
Cereno. At one moment, the captain casts a dreaming, spiritless look upon his excited
people, at the next, an unhappy glance towards his visitor (p. 147). In obvious poor health,
wracked by violent fits of coughing, the captain seems to Delano to be the involuntary
victim of mental disorder. (p. 150). Babo, his servant, completes the tableau. Of small
stature, he is seen turning his head upward like a shepherds dog to regard his master, his
face a mixture of sorrow and affection (p. 147).
Of all the relations on board the ship, that between Babo and Cereno is the most
puzzling. Babo appears to exemplify the ancient view of the slave as a mere instrumentum
vocale a speaking implement to the extreme. He apprehensively follows Cereno as the
latter totters about. Sometimes he gives his master his arm, sometimes he takes his
handkerchief out of his pocket for him (Benito Cereno, p. 148). When Cereno
experiences a fainting attack of his cough, Babo draws a cordial from his pocket, placing
it to his lips. He then supports Cereno, encircling him with his arm, keeping his eye fixed
on his face (ibid., p. 152). This account of Babo as a living implement reaches its climax in
the scene describing Delanos departure from the ship. Cereno follows Delano and the
better to support him, the servant, placing his masters hand on his naked shoulder, and
gently holding it there, formed himself into a sort of a crutch. [P]resenting himself as a
crutch, Babo walks between the two captains till the moment of Delanos departure (p.
200). In Delanos mind, the relation of Babo to Cereno presents a spectacle of fidelity on
the one hand and confidence on the other (p. 154). At times, however, something seems

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amiss. Watching Babo shave Cereno, he notices Cerenos violent trembling at the sight of
the razor. There comes to his mind the thought that in the black he saw a headsman, and in
the white a man at the block (p. 186). This vagary is immediately dismissed. Delano,
however, remains troubled at the vagueness of Cerenos account of the calamities that have
befallen his vessel. There is also the disturbing incident when, after privately conferring with
Babo, Cereno asks him about the sailors and armaments aboard his ship. As Melville relates
Delanos thoughts, there was something so hollow in the Spaniards manner ... that the idea
flashed across him that possibly master and man, for some unknown purpose, were acting
out, both in word and deed ... some juggling play before him. But then, what could be the
object of enacting this juggling play ... ? (p. 188).
This inability to decipher what is passing before him marks the entirety of Delanos
stay aboard the San Dominick. Again and again, he is presented with incidents that do not
seem to cohere. Ordinary sailors are seen to be wearing fine linen. One even sports a hidden
jewel. Delano sees the blacks assaulting the whites without a word of reprimand from
Cereno. Cerenos behavior towards Delano as his guestat one moment full of extravagant
courtesy, at another, cold and remoteis equally inexplicable. Melville sums up these
puzzlements in the figure of an aged sailor tying an intricate knot. Asking him its purpose,
Delano is told For someone else to undo. The sailor hands it to him with the words,
Undo it, cut it quick (Benito Cereno, p. 176). Delano, however, knot in hand, and knot
in head, is left speechless. A black takes the knot from him, and, as Melville relates, Delano
found the proceeding very queer ... but as one feeling incipient seasickness, he strove, by
ignoring the symptoms, to get rid of the malady (ibid. pp. 176-77).

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For readers of Freud, this description of Delanos experiences has, in its puzzlements,
a certain resonance. It calls to mind Freuds theory of dreams. He takes dreams as wish
fulfillments. They are substitute satisfactions for the desires whose actual fulfillments would
interrupt our sleep. In Freuds words, The sleeping ego ... is focused on the wish to
maintain sleep.... It meets the demand [arising from some desire] with what is in the
circumstances a harmless fulfillment of a wish and so gets rid of it (Freud 1989, p. 44).
Some fulfillments, such as dreams of eating, are obvious in terms of the desires they satisfy.
Others, however, are less clear. They are both charged with energy and illogical. For Freud,
their puzzling character points to the distinction between the manifest content of a dream
and the latent [or hidden] dream thoughts (ibid., p. 39). The strange energy behind dream
images is given by the hidden instinctual impulses arising from the id. These impulses,
which are composed originally of unconscious material, find expression in preconscious
thoughts. The latter are the thoughts, lying just below the surface of consciousnessfor
example, memories of recent as well as more distant eventsthat can be reactivated and
made conscious. In dreaming they become, as it were, the clothing of the unconscious. As
Freud puts this, the dream-work is essentially an instance of the unconscious working-over
of the preconscious thought-processes. Taking on the garb of such processes, the
unconscious brings its own modes of working with it (p. 41). The dream thus allows what
cannot inherently appearthe unconscious as suchto appear. This appearance, however, is
often the result of a compromise (ibid.). If the original instinctive impulse is unacceptable
to the ego, the material in which it is clothed is arranged so as to distort its true significance.
Hence, the puzzling quality of the manifest dream is, in part, a result of censorship. The
substitutions, shifts, and blurrings at crucial moments can all be seen as attempts at giving

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the total result a form not too unacceptable to the ego ... (ibid.).104 What is hidden from its
view is the latent content, the content of the original impulse.
What makes dreams so interesting for Freud is their close connection with mental
illness.105 In neuroses, for example, we find the same split between manifest and latent
content. Here, however, the manifest content appears as symptoms. Like the distorted
content of the manifest dream, the symptom can be understood as a substitute satisfaction,
the true goal of which is hidden from the patient.106 In other words, the instinctual desires
that the subject cannot express in ways that are acceptable to himself come out as symptoms.
Symptoms, then, are the ways in which unacceptable unconscious materials appear in waking
life. Such materials, it should be noted, may have at one point become conscious, but
through repression they have been shoved back into the hidden realm.107 Now, if we ask why
we should accept this account, i.e., see symptoms as waking dreams pointing back to the
unconscious, Freuds answer is that we have no alternative. The very irrationality of the
symptom, the fact that it does not cohere with its manifest context in waking life means that
this context cannot account for it. Because of this, we have to say with Freud that our
conscious processes do not form unbroken sequences which are complete in themselves.
Something else, something unconscious, must be determining them. We, thus, come up with
the idea of something psychical being unconscious. Even though this appears selfcontradictory, it, according to Freud, is precisely what psycho-analysis is obliged to assert
(Freud 1989, p. 29).
III
To apply this to Delanos experience, we must have recourse to Platos stratagem. We
must move from the consideration of an individualDelano and his puzzlementsto that of

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the larger canvas of the ship itself. In this larger perspective, Delano is but one aspect of the
self. In the system of the self that is represented by the ship, he stands for the super-ego.
Benito Cereno, the troubled captain, represents the ego, while Babo, his servant, portrays the
id. These descriptions, as we shall see, provide a key to the desires and repressions that
animate Delano the individual.
BABO: The id, for Freud, is the most fundamental part of the self. Seated within the
unconscious, it has no direct communication with the external world and is accessible even
to our own knowledge only through the medium of another agencyi.e., the preconscious
materials with which it clothes its impulses. Freud adds that within this id, the organic
instincts operate. These instincts are compounded of fusions of two primal forces (Eros
and destructiveness) ... (Freud 1989, 84). The latter force, when it dominates, appears as the
death instinct. Now, to see Babo as representing the id is to transform his relation to Cereno,
taken as the ego. From a figure that supports Cereno, he becomes a factor invisibly
controlling him. This, as we learn from the trial deposition at the end of the novella, is in fact
the case. Thus, Babos posture as a living crutch is actually a way of keeping his knife close
to Cerenos breast. Cerenos words, we discover, are actually Babos. Cereno simply
supplies the garb in which they appear. Cereno thus testifies in his deposition that the
Negro Babo warned him that if he varied in the least, or uttered any word, or gave any look
that should give the least intimation of the past events or present state, he would instantly kill
him, with all his companions, showing a dagger which he carried hid, saying ... that the
dagger would be as alert as his eye. He also speaks of Babos control of his actions. He
reports that in every particular he informed the deponent what part he was expected to enact
in every device, and what story he was to tell on every occasion always threatening him with

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instant death if he varied in the least (Benito Cereno, p. 214). Babo is, in fact, the
captain of the slaves who have taken over Cerenos ship. The ships dreadful state has
been brought about by their prolonged but ineffectual attempts to force Cereno to return them
to Senegal. The violence of the destructive instinct within Babo is evidenced by his
treatment of the white sailors as well as his gruesome disposal of the body of Don Alexandro,
the owner of the blacks. The wounded sailors are tossed alive into the sea, while Alexandros
body is reduced to a skeleton and set in place of the San Dominicks figurehead. Under it,
Babo has inscribed the words, follow your leader. Having shown the bleached bones to the
surviving sailors, he daily warns them that they should, soul and body, go the way of Don
Alexandro if they speak or plot against him (ibid., p. 212). Understood in Freudian terms,
what we have here is a parable of the overcoming of the ego by the id. The reversal of the
role of master and servant in the tale of the revolt points back to the reduction of the ego to a
servant of the ids demands. What gives Delanos experience of the relation of Babo and
Cereno its unreal quality is not just the fact that Cereno cannot speak on his own, i.e., express
what is actually going on. It is that, to keep his purpose hidden, which is that of taking over
Delanos ship, Babo can speak to him only through Cereno. If he were to speak to the world
represented by Delano on his own, his purpose would be betrayed.108 Thus, his words to
Delano have to be clothed with Cerenos presence. Like the unconscious, he must remain
mute, only appearing through the substitute satisfactions of dreams or neurotic symptoms.
We, thus, have the strange lack of context and logic of many of Cerenos actions, which, in
fact, are not his own but are rather determined by Babo. We also have the fact that when the
plot is finally discovered and Babo is deprived of Cerenos voice, he cannot be made to

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speak. In Melvilles words, Seeing that all was over, he uttered no sound, and could not be
forced to (Benito Cereno, p. 222).
DELANO: The ego does not just have to satisfy the demands of the id; it must also
accommodate those of the superego. According to Freud, its task is made more difficult by
the fact that both the superego and the id disregard the external, real world. For the superego,
this is a function of the fact that its focus is not on what is, but rather on what ought to be. As
the voice of our conscience, it expresses the standards or norms of our social milieu. For
Delano, the captain of a large sealer and general trader, these standards concern the proper
ordering of the commercial and social relations that characterize a well-run ship. Again and
again, as representing the superego, Delano expresses surprise at their violation aboard the
San Dominick. Not only is the ship in shocking physical disarray, the social relations on
board seemed to follow no norm. Thus, for Delano, [t]he singular alternations of courtesy
and ill-breeding in the Spanish captain were unaccountable, except on one of two
suppositionsinnocent lunacy, or wicked imposture (Benito Cereno, p. 162). If, in fact,
the captain is mad, then Delano, to restore order, plans to send her to Conception in charge
of his second mate (ibid., p. 168). The social relations between the blacks and the whites
also violate his standards. Rather than being treated as commercial cargo and confined
accordingly, the blacks appear to have free reign of the ship. Even more shocking is the
apparent insubordination of some of their members. Thus, having observed a black strike a
white, Delano says to Cereno, Had such a thing happened on board [my ship] the Bachelors
Delight, instant punishment would have followed (p. 157). In fact, the only racial relation
on board the ship that fully meets his standards is that between Cereno and Babo. This is
made clear in a number of ways. Delano, for example, immediately moves from expressing

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alarm at the sight of two blacks dashing a sailor to the deckDon Benito ... do you see
what is going on there? Look!to wanting to purchase Babo. Don Benito swoons into
Babos arms in response to Delanos cry, and Delano congratulates his host on possessing
such a servant. The sight of Babos faithfulness has so overcome his alarm that he is moved
to make his offer: Tell me Don Benito ... what would you take for him? Would fifty
doubloons be any object? (p. 169). Just as telling are Delanos thoughts as he regards the
carefully staged scene of Babo shaving Cereno:
There is something in the Negro which, in a peculiar way, fits him for avocations
about ones person. Most Negroes are natural valets and hairdressers, taking to the
comb and brush congenially ... And above all there is the great gift of good humor ...
a certain easy cheerfulness, harmonious in every glance and gesture, as though God
had set the whole Negro to some pleasant tune. When to this is added the docility
arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind and that susceptibility of
blind attachment sometimes inhering in indisputable inferiors one readily perceives
why people take to them (p. 185).
Delano himself takes to them genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs (ibid.).
As Melville makes clear, it is Delanos prejudices that prevent him from seeing
beyond this staged performance. As he questions Cereno about the particulars of his voyage,
he sees him tremble at the sight of the razor in Babos hand, yet he never draws the
conclusion that Cereno is speaking under constraint. The reason for this is the unaspiring
contentment of a limited mind that he attributes to the blacks. In Delanos mind, the
limitation is such that blacks become assimilated into the animal world. Again and again, we
are confronted by animal imagery in Delanos reflections. To take but two of the most
striking examples, he describes a sleeping Negress as a doe, her child being a fawn. In
his words, Sprawling at her lapped breast was her wide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black

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little body half lifted from the deck, crosswise with its dams; its hands, like two paws,
clambering upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually rooting to get at the mark; and
meantime giving a vexatious half-grunt ... (Benito Cereno, p. 172). The sight gratifies
Delano as does the sight of blacks under an overturned longboat. These he sees as a social
circle of bats sheltering in some friendly cave, at intervals ebony flights of naked boys and
girls three or four years old darting in and out of the dens mouth (ibid., p. 182). The
narrator remarks, These natural sights somehow insensibly deepened [Delanos] confidence
and ease (p. 173). They undo any suspicions he might have regarding the conduct of the
blacks. A revolt of the blacks seems to him as implausible as a revolt of the animals. He
considers it only to dismiss it. Particularly telling are his thoughts at this moment: ...could,
then, Don Benito be any way in complicity with the blacks? But they were too stupid.
Besides, who ever heard of a white so far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species
almost, by leaguing in against it with Negroes (p. 175). As almost a different species, more
akin in their intelligence to the animal than to the human world, the Negroes can present no
danger.
CERENO: Given Delanos attitudes, which are largely those of the contemporary slave
holding society, Cerenos difficulty in conveying his sentiments are readily intelligible. Not
only must he overcome Delanos ingrained prejudices; every attempt to do so brings the
threat of instant action by Babo with his knife. What makes Cerenos situation so impossible
is that he is caught between two conflicting sets of demands. Delano, as the representative of
social order, insists on his cooperation in returning his ship to port and the Negro cargo to
captivity. Babo, however, demands that he assist him in the capture of Delanos ship which

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Cereno is to pilot to Senegal. Beset by both, Cereno seems a picture of what Freud describes
as the neurotic ego. According to Freud:
That ego is no longer able to fulfill the task set it by the external world (including
human society). Not all of its experiences are at its disposal, a large proportion of its
store of memories have escaped it. Its activity is inhibited by strict prohibitions from
the super-ego, its energy is consumed in vain attempts at fending off the demands of
the id. Beyond this, as a result of continuous irruptions by the id, its organization is
impaired, it is no longer capable of any proper synthesis, it is torn by mutually
opposed urges, by unsettled conflicts and by unsolved doubts (Freud 1989, p. 60).
This description seems an accurate portrayal of Cereno with his inexplicable shifts of mood.
Thus, Cereno cannot fulfill Delanos prohibitions regarding the blacks misconduct or the
lack of general order on the ship. Neither, however, can he explain to Delano, given Babos
presence, the reasons for his sudden silences, hesitations and apparent memory losses
regarding the questions put to him. As a result he is, in Delanos eyes at least, a picture of
mental imbalance. As the American captain describes him, His mind appeared unstrung, if
not still more seriously affected. ... like some hypochondriac abbot, he moved slowly about,
at times suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting his fingernail, flushing,
paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of an absent or moody mind (Benito
Cereno, p. 148). In fact, Cerenos functioning, as he tries to negotiate between Babos
threats and Delanos expectations is seriously impaired. Caught between the captain of the
slaves and the American captain, his weakened state is such that in Delanos judgment, ...
the poor invalid scarcely knew what he was about; either sulking in black vapors, or putting
idle questions without sense or object. (ibid., p. 168). As a representative of the neurotic
ego, he is, as Delano asserts, the involuntary victim of mental disorder (p. 150).

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IV
The question of who is in control of the San Dominick may be posed in terms of the
inscription Babo has had painted below its figurehead: Seguid vuestro jefe (follow your
leader) (Benito Cereno, p. 144). At the beginning of the novella, the figurehead is
covered. The answer to the question of the identity of the leader is unknown. At the end,
however, the canvas covering it is whipped away from the prow and we learn its identity
(ibid., p. 203). Death, in the form of the bleached bones of the slave owner is revealed as the
leader of the ship. Melville indicates this leadership in a number of ways. He has Babo,
for example, point to the prow and threaten Cereno and the sailors with death by saying:
you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow your leader if you fail to obey (p. 212). When
Cereno does later die, the novella ends with the statement that borne on the bier, [he] did,
indeed, follow his leader (p. 223). Death, in fact, can be understood as the leader of the
entire ship with all its inhabitants, white and black. In its inability to function as a whole, it
is where it is being led.
This point may be put in terms of its three captains, none of whom is actually in
control. Babo, the captain of the slaves, cannot control the ship since he cannot pilot it.
Lacking any knowledge of navigation, he must rely on Cereno who for months on end has
thwarted his designs to sail to Senegal. If Babo, with his hatchet grinders, represents power
without knowledge, Delano can be taken as the reverse: as possessing knowledge without
power. He is an excellent pilot. In spite of the San Dominicks dreadful condition, Delano
manages to bring her to harbor. His assumption of being in control, however, is unfounded.
In bringing Cerenos ship close to his own, he is actually forwarding Babos designs.
Moreover, as we later learn, he is nearly killed during his stay a number of times. In

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Cerenos eyes, his complete lack of power was such that only heavens intervention saved
him. 109 Of the three captains, only Cereno grasps the reality of the situation. He knows what
Babo is capable of and the danger of Delanos situation. He is, in fact, party to both their
milieus, since he knows both Delanos world of commerce with its living cargo and Babos
world of revolt and escape. Yet, torn as he is between the demands of the two, he is unable to
act. Only when he springs from the ship into Delanos longboat, thus freeing himself from
Babos importunity, can he at last speak and warn Delano.
ViewedasaFreudianparable,thelackofcontrolevincedbyeachofthecaptains
pointstotheinsightthatFreudattemptstoconveyinspeakingoftheselfintermsoftheid,
egoandsuperego:Theidentityoftheselfisnotthatofsubstance.Itisratherasystem.As
such,theselfsproperfunctioninginvolvesabalancingofallofitsaspects.Thus,the
destructionofthisbalanceisthissystemsundoing.Itis,infact,thedestructionoftheself,
understoodasasystem.Selfcontrol,accordingly,ispossibleonlyifalltheaspectsofthe
selfworktogether.Whentheyopposeeachother,when,inparticular,theidandsuperego,in
theincompatibilityoftheirdemands,makecommoncauseagainsttheego,controlbecomes
impossible.Theselfdestructivenessthatcharacterizestheoutofcontrolselfresults,then,in
theleadershipofdeath.Thedeathinstincttakescontrol.
V
Thesedescriptionsofthecaptainsascomponentsoftheselfpointtothedesiresand
therepressionsanimatingDelano.Asnotedearlier,Delanohasknowledgewithoutpower.
Itisclear,however,thattheknowledgethathepossessislimitedtotechnicaland
commercialmatters:Heisskilledinnavigationandiscarefultonegotiateonbehalfofhis
shipsownersanacceptablepriceforthesailsandriggingheisprovidingCereno.By

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contrast,hisignoranceofthehumanfactorsbeforehimisalmosttotal.Againandagainthe
whitesailorstrytosignaltheirdistresstohim,butwithasingularobtusenesshefailstoread
thesigns.Whilenotingtheirreducednumbersandmistreatmentbytheblacks,hisonly
thoughtsarethattheyaresomehowinleaguewiththeinvalidcaptainagainsthim.Asforthe
dangerposedbytheblacks,Delanosfirmbeliefisthattheyaretoostupidtorevolt.They
arepracticallyadifferentspecies;tohismind,theyareapartoftheanimalworld.The
reality,ofcourse,isquitedifferent.Babo,whomhetakesasexhibitingtheunaspiring
contentmentofalimitedmind,islaterrevealedasthepersonwhosebrainnotbodyhad
schemedandledtherevolt(BenitoCereno,p.222).Hisheadis,infact,ahiveof
subtlety(ibid.,p.223).AsfortheNegresseswhoseanimalitygratifiesDelanowiththe
thoughtofnakednature,...puretendernessandlove(p.173),theyturnouttohaveactively
encouragedandparticipatedintherevoltoftheblacks.Accordingtothedisposition,hadthe
Negroesnotrestrainedthem,theywouldhavetorturedtodeath,insteadofsimplykilling,the
SpaniardsslainbycommandoftheNegroBabo(p.217).
Delanos obtuseness can, in fact, only be understood in terms of repression. Again
and again, he dismisses as vagaries the suspicions aroused in him. Like the symptoms of
seasickness, he strives to ignore them (Benito Cereno, p. 176). Even his own body tries to
warn him through an apprehensive twitch in the calves of his legs as he passes through
Babos guard of hatchet grinders. Yet when Delano turns about and sees the Negroes still
stupidly intent on their work, his only response is to smile at his late fidgety panic (ibid.,
p. 156). The blacks, working like so many organ-grinders, cannot harm him. These
remarks, like so many others attributed to Delano, indicate the tie between his repression and
desires. His desire to see blacks as organ-grinders, as does, fauns, dogs, and other

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animals, above all, his desire to see them as stupid, as possessed of a limited mind, is
such that he represses all evidence to the contrary. Were he to acknowledge the ability of the
blacks to revolt, he would have to admit that they had a sense of human liberty. This,
however, would imply that their slavery was unjust and that he and his slave-holding society
were also unjust.110 The latter are not, for Delano, simply unfortunate truths. The strength of
his resistance to them marks them as impossible. This can be put in terms of the work of
repression. Like the dreamwork, the goal of repression is to prevent us from confronting an
unacceptable content. Thus, repression substitutes what, for Delano, is a possible
representatione.g., the blacks are happy animals, are part of unadorned nature, etc.for
an impossible onethe blacks are fellow human beings, unjustly enslaved.111 In dreaming,
the goal of the dreamwork is the preservation of sleep. In the waking dream that
characterizes Delanos stay aboard the San Dominick, Delano remains asleep to the end. The
strength of his desire not to be disturbed is such that, dismissing all evidence to the contrary,
he remains oblivious to the dangers that surround him.
VI
Melvilles tale invites us to consider repression not just as an individual, but also as a
social phenomenon.112 When we do so, we move from Delano, the individual dreamer, to
America as engaging in a collective dream. To consider this a waking dream, one
characterizing its national life in the 1850s, is to see the repressed material coming back as
symptoms. The latter, in their lack of coherence with the actual state of things, indicate the
impairment of the reality principle and, hence, of the ego as embodying this. The rise of the
death instinct in the resulting disorganization would, then, as in Melvilles story, signify that

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the leader had become deaththat is, that society as a whole was proceeding to its
destruction.
The evidence that such thoughts are not absent from Melvilles intent can be drawn
both from history and from the story itself. Benito Cereno first appeared serially in 1855.
This is three years after the appearance of Uncle Toms Cabin and six years before the
outbreak of the Civil War. In 1855, the Supreme Court took up the Dred Scott case.
Basing itself on the opinion of the framers of the Constitution that blacks were beings of an
inferior order, possessing no rights which the white man was bound to respect, it ruled
that the slave Dred Scott was indeed property to be returned to his owner.113 The
disturbances and denials surrounding this 1857 decision left America essentially without any
unified, effective leadership. Even by 1855, however, no great prescience was required to
see its drift towards the destruction of civil war.114
That Melville shares the preoccupations of his time is apparent in the dates and names
he uses to frame his story. In his account the San Dominick has been at sea from May 20,
1799 to its encounter with Delanos vessel on August 17, 1799. As has been pointed out by
numerous critics, 1799 is the midpoint of the French Revolution, with its Declaration of the
Rights of Man. The midpoint of the San Dominicks journey falls on July 4th, the date of the
Declaration of Independence, a document asserting that all menbut not, according to the
Supreme Court, the Negroare created equal.115 The year 1799 alludes to this exclusion
since it is the midpoint of the 20-year constitutionally imposed grace period allowing the
enslavement and transportation of blacks from Africa to the United States.116 The name, San
Dominick, also indicates the blight of slavery.117 The island of Santo Domingo was the first
land discovered by Christopher Columbus. It is the place where, at the behest of the

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Benedictine monk named San Bartholomew, Columbus introduced slavery to the New World.
Starting in 1799 with the revolt of Toussaint lOuverture and extending to the mid 1800s, the
island experienced a number of devastating, but ultimately successful, slave rebellions.118 In
Melvilles story, the original figurehead of the San Dominick was the image of Christopher
Coln, the discoverer of the New World (Benito Cereno, p. 212). Babo replaces it with
the skeleton of the slave-owner Aranda. As if to emphasize the connection with the original
event, Melville, at the end, has the head of Babo placed on a pole, where it met, unabashed,
the gazes of the whites, and across the Plaza looked towards St. Bartholomews church a
Benedictine foundation where Arandas bones were interred (ibid., p. 223). He also chooses
the name Benito Cerenosignifying pallid Benedictinefor the San Dominicks
captain.119
There is no doubt that from Melvilles perspective, the introduction of slavery into the
New World was a disaster. Modern critics largely agree that, as an abolitionist, his view of
slavery is that it is, as he writes in Mardi, a blot, foul as the crater-pool of hell.120 Critics
are also united in seeing Captain Delano as a microcosm of American attitudes of the time
towards the Negroes. As Schiffman describes him, Delano suffers a mental block in that
he can only conceive blacks as subhuman beings. 121 Benito Cereno is, then, a cautionary
tale regarding Delanos attitudes. Viewed in the context of its time it is, as John Bernstein
writes, a warning to America to either keep faith with the blacks ... or be prepared to
follow the leadership of Alexandro Aranda to ultimate destruction.122
From a psychoanalytical perspective, one can generalize this warning by putting it in
terms of repression. Repressed material does not disappear; it does not vanish when forced
into the unconscious. It rather shows itself as symptoms, i.e., as those patterns of behavior,

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whose illogic points back to their coherence with the inadmissible, with what, given the
structure of our psychic economy, cannot appear. What could not appear in pre-Civil War
America was the humanity of the blacks. The repression of this was both individual and
collective. Individually, it expressed itself in the mental blocks that prevented people from
acknowledging this humanity. Collectively, it was a function of the social and economic
institutions of slavery, the effect of which was to deprive blacks of the means to appear
human. In Melvilles tale, these deprivations take the form of the language available to the
blacks. Babo can speak to Delano only through Cereno. Cereno, as it were, supplies the
linguistic garb in which he can appear. So clothed, however, the appearance is distorted.
Control being exercised by the other who cannot appear, what does appear in Cerenos
distracted language makes Delano take him as the involuntary victim of mental disorder.
Cerenos language, in its apparent irrationality, in its lack of contact with what Delano takes
to be the real world, takes the form of a symptom arising from repressed material. In the
tale, it is symptomatic of the other whose humanity has been repressed.
It was Jacques Lacan, who in his famous return to Freud, spoke of symptoms as
linguistic disturbances. In his view, they arose from breaks in the linguistic continuity of the
subject, gaps caused by the repression to the unconscious of unacceptable materials. As he
writes, The unconscious is that chapter of my history that is marked by a blank or occupied
by a falsehood: it is the censored chapter. The censored material reappears in the
distortions necessitated by the linking of the adulterated chapter to the chapters surrounding
it. 123 It appears in symptomatic languagei.e., language that points back to what has been
censored.124 It also appears in the actions that cannot, in the accepted, nonsymptomatic
language, account for themselves. Now, for Lacan, what has ultimately been censored is the

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other. In his words, ... the unconscious of the subject is the discourse of the other. The
symptom points to the repression of the others role in the subjects self-recognition
(Function and field in crits , p. 55). Viewed in these terms, what is at work in the
language, not just of Cereno, but of all the whites of the tale, is the denial of the humanity of
the blacks. Their language betrays a striking lack of self-recognition precisely because they
cannot recognize the blacks as sharing their humanity. In Hegelian terms, they cannot
recognize the humanity of those whose recognition must mediate their own grasp of
themselves as human. Thus, the similarities of behavior and desire through which we
recognize others as like ourselves, granting them thereby their indispensable role in
recognizing our own humanity, are both recognized and repressed by them. The very
characteristics that link them to the whites must be cast into the unconscious as censored
chaptersgapsin their self-understanding.
VII
I began this chapter by asking about the nature of self-control. Originally my
question was about that part of our selfhood that should exercise control. It was, with regard
to its references to public life, a Platonic question about sovereignty or rule. My recourse to
Freud and Melville has, however, provided a non-Platonic answer. The self is not such that
any specific part can claim to rule. Rather than being a substance, the self is a system, one
composed of elements that lack the independence required for sovereignty. Thus, for Freud,
the ego, understood as our interface with reality, is both the cause and result of the ongoing
negotiation between the demands of the id and the superego. These, in turn, cannot achieve
any coherence in their expression without the ego. The same point can be made about our
collective selfhood. It is also a system of mutually dependent components. Because of this,

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the suppression of any one of them throws the whole out of balance. To put this in terms of
the language of public debate is to see the discourse of the suppressed other as occupying our
collective unconscious. Concretely, this means that when the language of a dominant group
or interest becomes the exclusive means of public discourse, the other expressions of our
humanity are repressed into the censored chapters of the unconscious. With this, those who
speak the unacceptable language are forced into the position of the id. Like Babo and the
blacks of Melvilles novella, they cannot speak. They are present, not in person, but rather in
the distortions of the public language that excludes them.125 Here, the irrationality that at
times marks public life may be viewed as the return of the repressed in the form of
symptoms. To take Melvilles account of the San Dominick as manifesting the inner
workings of our selfhood is, then, to draw a moral quite distinct from Platos claim that
sovereignty must be limited to a select group of guardians. Benito Cereno, when read as
a Freudian parable, teaches us that social and political control cannot rest on exclusion. Like
the delicate and difficult negotiations which keep open the egos ability to act, control on the
public level must also be based on the continuous effort to meet the others demands.
Such advice, of course, is more easily given than taken. There is a certain resistance
to opening up repressed material. This resistance can be described in subjective,
psychoanalytic termsi.e., in terms of our displeasure about facing unacceptable truths
about ourselves. It can also be accounted for objectively in the case of certain items. In the
former case, hiddenness or concealment is something we engage in. Delano, as I said, hides
from himself the humanity of the blacks because of what that would say about himself and
his slaveholding society. He thus conceals from himself the evil of slavery. In the latter case,
we must speak about the self-concealment of some of the things we repress. The claim here

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is that, objectively regarded, evil as such conceals itself. Not everything we do repress is
evil. It may simply be an unpleasant truth. But when it is evil, its nonrecognition has an
objective side. It springs from the nature of evil itself. The claim that evil is inherently selfconcealing points to a lacuna in our previous analyses. It is one thing to say our failure to
recognize it allows it to go unchecked, it is another to say that evil itself provokes this
nonrecognition. In the second case, the question concerns the nature of evil. More precisely,
it concerns its peculiar manner of being (or nonbeing), which makes its apprehension so
difficult. In attempting to answer this question, we shall also try to show how literature is
particularly suited to uncover evils concealment. It is to its grasp of evil as escaping our
grasp that I now turn.

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CHAPTER IX
LITERATURE AND EVIL
Our past century was exemplary in a number of ways. The advances it made in
science and medicine were unparalleled. Also without precedent was the destructiveness of
its wars. In part, this was due to an increasing technological sophistication. The time lag
between a scientific advance and its technological application was, in the urgency of the
century, constantly diminished. Modern weaponry combined with mass production,
communication and mobilization to produce what came to be known as total war. This was
a war without any of the limits that characterized the conflicts of the previous centuries. It
was this lack of restraint that, perhaps more than anything else, led to the terrible excesses of
this century: its wartime terror bombings, deportations, and genocidal slaughters. It also led
to the chief problem this century presents to ethics: that of the grasp and comprehension of
collective evil. This problem is not just theoretical. An inability of those involved in its
collective processes to take thoughtto actually apprehend the evil they were engaged in
characterized the disasters of the 20th century. At least in part, the participants lack of
restraint was based on a lack of recognition.
At the beginning of the century Joseph Conrad published a novella, The Heart of
Darkness, which focused on evil, restraint, and recognition. Its story revolves around Kurtz,
described by its narrator, Marlow, as a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear ...
(Conrad 1989, p. 108).126 Kurtz, until his last moment, failed to recognize the evil that
positioned him within the heart of darkness.127 Such evil is both individual and collective;
it includes both Kurtz and the Company he works for. The novel can be taken as an
attempt to describe evil, its theme being the lack of restraint that is its most obvious marker.
More profoundly, however, its subject is the difficulty of recognizing evil. The lack of
restraint, which characterizes evil, is based on a lack of recognition. This lack is not
accidental. It follows from the self-concealing nature of evil. There is, in this view, a clear

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line of self-reinforcing causation: evils self-concealment generates a lack of recognition,

which generates a lack of restraint, which generates evil. In its ability to escape recognition,
evil, as we have pointed out, seems capable of an indefinite expansion.
The pragmatic, ethical question that follows from this is: How does one break this
circle of causation? It is a question we broached in our consideration of shame. In this
chapter, I am first going to look at Conrads descriptions of the difficulties involved in
recognizing evil. I shall then examine how a similar set of difficulties plague our attempts to
come to terms with the evil of the Holocaust. After some reflections on the self-concealing
nature of evil, I shall conclude by describing the ability of literature to unmask this
concealment. My claim is that in such unmasking, literature achieves what nonphenomenological philosophy cannot. This achievement gives literature its special, moral
dimension.
TheAbsenseofEvil
At a certain point, in relating the tale of The Heart of Darkness, Marlow exclaims in
exasperation: Do you see the story? Do you see anything. It seems to me I am trying to tell
you a dreammaking a vain attempt because no relation of a dream can convey the dreamsensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment ... that notion of being
captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams (Conrad 1989, p. 57).
What frustrates his attempts to present a clear narrative is the senselessness of what he is
describing. Events occur without any clear purpose. For example, as he travels down the
coast of Africa, his ship encounters a man-of-war ... shelling the bush (ibid., p. 40). He
relates, In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible,
firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns ... a tiny projectile would give
a feeble screechand nothing happened. Nothing could happen. Given that the shore was
empty, there was a touch of insanity in the proceeding ... (ibid., p. 41). The French ship

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was firing at an invisible enemy while its own men were dying of fever at the rate of three
a-day (ibid.).
The same pattern of death and senselessness marks his further encounters. At the
trading station at the mouth of the river, he comes across a collection of abandoned objects
including a boiler wallowing in the grass and a a railway-truck ... with its wheels in the
air. Their utter lack of utility matches the purposeless blasting of a nearby cliff. He
remarks, They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this
objectless blasting was all the work going on (Conrad 1989, p. 42). Again, illness haunts
the proceedings. In the shade by the falls, Marlow stumbles on a collection of dying natives:
Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the
earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain,
abandonment, and despair. Left to their own devices after they had sickened, they were
dying slowly (Conrad 1989, p. 44). Their painfully thin shapes matched those of the black
prisoners that had just passed him by. In his description, Black rags were wound round their
lions, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints
of their limbs were like knots in a rope: each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were
connected together with a chain ... (ibid., p. 43). They are carrying baskets of earth up the
hillside in an activity as senseless as the incomprehensible blasting. This combination of
senselessness and death repeats itself in his encounter with the companys impeccably
dressed accountant. In his ramshackle office, a dying company agent has been placed in the
corner. Exhibiting a gentle annoyance, the accountant remarks, The groans of this sick
person ... distract my attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against
clerical errors in this climate (ibid., p. 46). The natives outside are also a cause for his
distress. As Marlow relates his words, When one has got to make correct entries, one
comes to hate those savageshate them to the death. ... When you see Mr. Kurtz tell him
that everything herehe glanced at his deskis very satisfactory (ibid., p. 47).

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What exactly is satisfactory? The reader is not told. The glance at the desk
suggests that the reference is the accounts he is keeping. This focus allows him not to see the
death that is before him nor the senselessness of the Companys enterprise. Again and again,
this lack of sense or purpose is driven home. Conrad writes, for example, of the companys
upriver outpost: There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of
course. It was as unreal as everything elseas the philanthropic pretense of the whole
concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work (Conrad 1989, p. 54).
What is truly uncanny is the fact that those engaged in it do not see it. Marlow sees them
strolling aimlessly about the stations enclosure. He relates: I asked myself sometimes
what it all meant. But the best he can come up with is the simile of a pointless pilgrimage:
they wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of
faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. Supposedly, they were after ivory. Its
word was on their lips. You would think that they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile
rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse (ibid., p. 52). Yet even the notion
of ivory fails to explain what goes on about him. These pilgrims never leave the station to
start their pilgrimage. Their desire for it is an imbecile rapacity. With the mention of the
corpse, senselessness and death are again associated.
To recognize something as itself is to place it within the categories that mark the
boundaries of its sense. In general, we grasp what we can make sense of. To turn this about,
to escape sense is to escape our grasp. So regarded, Marlows descriptions of the
senselessness of what he sees can be taken as attempts to describe this escape. They may be
regarded as Conrads effort to describe the non-recognition of evil. In the Heart of Darkness,
evil escapes our grasp through its senselessness. This non-recognition extends to the death
that has been constantly conjoined with the senselessness of the enterprise. Thus, the deaths
of the natives and agents seem to pass unnoticed. At most, they are occasions of annoyance.
In the absence of sense, they simply contribute to that commingling of absurdity, surprise,
and bewilderment that Marlow describes as characterizing a dream.

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A dream is marked by a lack of reality. Nothing really corresponds to it. Marlow,

however, is not dreaming. He is awake. His remark points to the fact that the difficulty he
faces in telling his story is not just its lack of sense. He is frustrated by a corresponding lack
of being. Phenomenologically, this can be expressed by noting that the apprehensions of
sense and reality normally occur together. If we cannot make sense of our experiences, that
is, if we cannot make them fit together so as to see them as presenting a self-consistent
situation, then their referent is also lost to us. A lack of sense makes us assert we are
dreaming rather than encountering a reality. Marlows account exemplifies this in its
dreamlike character. His account is constantly undermined by the vertiginous feeling that as
we get to the heart of the matter, we find less and less of substance. Our encounter is simply
with absence.
Conrad uses a number of striking images to make this point. The station manager, for
example, is described as a common trader whose only ability seemed to inspire
uneasiness. How could such a perfectly ordinary individual be in charge of a station that
from the natives perspective, at least, must appear more like a concentration camp than a
commercial venture? Marlow relates, He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for
order even.... Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause
(Conrad 1989, p. 50). The suspicion is that at his heart there is an absence rather than a
presence. Ones unease comes from the fact that there is nothing there to see. As Marlow
describes the experience of talking with him, He sealed the utterance with that smile of his,
as though it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. You fancied you
had seen thingsbut the seal was on (ibid., p. 51). What is the seal and what is sealed
by it? The suggestion here is that the nothing within him is both. In its nonbeing, it
conceals itself. It is both seal and sealed. The same lack of substance appears in the
description of the mangers confidant as a papier-mch Mephistopheles. Like a papiermch figure, this devil conceals an absence. As Marlow says, ... it seemed to me that if I

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tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and I would find nothing inside but a little
loose dirt, maybe (ibid., p. 56).
Kurtz, at the very heart of the darkness that Marlow is trying to describe, appears as
both a voice and a nothingness. Deathly ill when Marlow encounters him, he still preserves
his eloquence, his capacity for creating a splendid appearance through his words. Marlow
describes him as a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a
shadow darker than the shadow of the night draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous
eloquence (Conrad 1989, p. 116). In Kurtzs case, the nothingness within and the terribly
destructive power of his companys enterprise form an active unity. His nothingness,
precisely in his command of language, appears all consuming: a devouring emptiness. In
Marlows words, I saw him open his mouth wide [to speak]it gave him a weirdly
voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men
before him (ibid., p. 99). The political implications of this combination of eloquence and
nothingness are not hard to findparticularly with our experience of the dictators of the last
century. Conrad in 1902 is not unaware of them. He has a journalist who knew Kurtz
describe him to Marlow: but heavens! how that man could talk. He electrified large
meetings. He had the faith. He could get himself to believe anythinganything. He would
have been a splendid leader of an extreme party. What party? ... Any party ... He was
ananextremist (ibid., p. 115).
TheHolocaustandtheLimitsofRationalIntelligibility
Hans Jonas, the philosopher, once paradoxically asserted that much more is real than
is possible. Normally we say that the possible is greater than the real. In limiting the real to
what we can make sense of, the possible simply sets the bounds to what can (but need not) be
realized. Yet, in attempting to account for the Holocaust, this order is reversed. Describing
its how and why, one is confronted by the incredible, by what seems to exceed the possible
taken as the realm of sense. As Emil Fackenheim writes, citing Jonas remark: To explain

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an action or event is to show how it was possible. In the case of the Holocaust, however, the
mind can accept the possibility of both how and why it was done, in the final analysis, solely
because it was done ... (Fackenheim 1988, p. 64). In our inability to account for the how
and the why, we confront the sheer purposelessness of the enterprise. Its senselessness (its
lack of any sufficient reason why ...) shows itself in the insufficiency of the attempts to
explain it.
In making this point, Fackenheim runs through the standard explanations. Suppose,
for example, we say that the Nazis believed their propaganda regarding the Jews. We could
then assert that The Nazis wished to save Germany ... from what they considered to be the
Jewish virus (Fackenheim 1988, p. 63). The difficulty here is that Germany was itself
sacrificed when it came to a choice between defending the country and destroying the Jews.
In pursuit of the latter, essential workers were gassed, trains were diverted from the front to
continue the deportations to Auschwitz.128 All this bespeaks an essential madness. Should
we then reach for psychological explanations? Must we say that the Holocaust happened
because Hitler was disturbed? In Fackenheims formulation: Were the German people led
did they let themselves be ledfirst to victory, then into catastrophic defeat because Hitler
had a love-hate relation to his mother? Were six million actual non-Aryans and many
additional honorary ones butchered and gassed because the Fhrer hated his father and
thought of him as a half-Jew? (ibid., p. 64). The very formulation of the question reveals
the difficulty. There is an immense disproportion between the cause and the effect. To
overcome it, we have to suppose that the Germans themselves were disturbed. The Germans,
however, were not alone. Hitler had his alliesCroatia, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Spainto
name a few. Even the Catholic Church under Pius XII afforded him a crucial recognition
through its Concordat.129 Were they all unbalanced? In Fackenheims words, Must one
may oneextend such psychopathic hypotheses beyond Hitler to the German people, to
much of Europe, to large parts of the world? (ibid.).

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One can, of course, say that rather than being mad, the Germans were manipulated.
The actions of those who supported the final solution were not really their own. In the
infamous phrase, they were just following orders. Yet, as Fackenheim asks: are there no
limits to being manipulated? What does this say about the bureaucrats, generals, soldiers,
academics, clerics, office holders, and so on who actively or passively contributed to the
solution? Were there none equal to the power of the manipulators? (Fackenheim 1988, p.
64). The chief manipulator is Hitler himself. The dilemma, as Fackenheim notes, is that if
we pursue this route, we at once falsely endow this individual with a diabolical omnipotence
that is beyond all humanity and, equally falsely, ascribe to all those ordered and inspired by
him an all-encompassing manipulability that is beneath all humanity. The problem here is
that between these two extremes, Man is lost (ibid., p. 65). He is either more or less than
the recognizably human. Hitler, however, with his mass of petty resentments and shopworn
ideas hardly classifies as a superman.130 As for those beneath him, they were not automatons.
They were human beings like ourselves. As we know from our own experience, there is in
every being-manipulated a letting oneself be manipulated. Belief comes not just from
without, but from within. Did these people persuade themselves that they were indeed saving
Germany from the Jewish virus? Did they continue in this belief even when it meant
sacrificing Germany? With this, we return, as in a circle, to the difficulty of our original
explanation. To do so, however, is to begin this circle again. The very circularity of our
explanations points to their insufficiency. Each one leads us on to the next. Each regarded
by itself reminds us of Marlows description of the company agent as a papier-mch
Mephistopheles. None of them has the substance that can stand examination. The result,
then, is that there is no anchor for our explanations. The Holocausts defining character thus
seems to be its inexplicability. To the point that it exceeds the bounds of sense, it exceeds
any attempt to integrate it into an intelligible framework.

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TheLimitsofPhilosophicalRationality
Fackenheim writes that to confront the Holocaust ... is to face the fact that the
precise point which marks the limits of penultimate rational intelligibility marks the end also
of ultimate or philosophical rationality (Fackenheim 1988, p. 65). His claim is that the
Holocaust escapes any ultimate philosophical explanation. A philosopher who accepts this
still can ask why this must be so. What does this failure reveal about philosophical
rationality? Can we give a philosophical account of the failure of philosophical rationality to
deal with evil in its most exemplary manifestation?
This manifestation is marked by a lack of sense and a corresponding lack of
substance. In Conrads novella, the search for evilfor the heart of its darknessleads to
absenceto a void that is at once self-concealing and all-consuming. In the Holocaust, when
we turn to Hitler, we meet a similar lack of substance. Instead of encountering a superman,
we find what has been described as an almost inconceivable spiritual, moral and human
inferiority (Fackenheim 1988, p. 65). In both cases, our thought confronts what is not
that is, what can only be negatively characterized. Philosophy, however, is first and foremost
the thought of what is. Taking its origin in Parmenidess speculations, it has by and large
heeded his admonitions about the two ways of enquiry:
theoneway,thatitisandcannotnotbe,isthepathofPersuasion,foritattendsupon
Truth;theother,thatitisnotandneedsmustnotbe,thatItelltheeisapath
altogetherunthinkable.Forthoucouldstnotknowthatwhichisnot(thatis
impossible)norutterit;forthesamethingcanbethoughtascanbe(Parmenides
1966,p.269).
The injunction here is to think about the it is, not about the is-not. The latter cannot be
grasped. The correlation between thinkability and being means that the is-not can neither
be philosophically known nor uttered. From the beginning, then, the limits of philosophical
intelligibility are clearly those of being.131

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The modern expression of this position occurs in Heideggers philosophy. For

Heidegger, as earlier noted, we disclose what-is through our projects. Such projects reveal
both what and how a being is. Thus, my project to build a fire reveals paper as combustible.
My project to write a letter shows it to be a surface for writing. In each such action I also
reveal my own being. I show myself to be the one building a fire or writing a letter.
Heidegger puts this point in terms of his definition of us as care.132 Care is our being
responsible for our being. This means that our being is an issue for us (Heidegger 1967a,.p.
325). It is the result of our projects, of the choices we make in deciding not just what we will
do but (as inherent in this) what we will be.133 This last is the crucial and underlying issue in
every project we undertake. Each action, Heidegger argues, is ultimately for our sake. Its
ultimate motivation is the concern we have for own being. Given this, the world we disclose
through our projects has an intelligibility that presupposes this concern. The beings within
our world have the sense of the in order to.134 They appear as means for achieving our
projects. Thus, paper appears to me as combustible when I use it in order to build a fire. I
build it for my sake, i.e., in order that I be warm. Without my concerns, it would not be there
for me.135 Even the thought of it as missing requires that it relate to my goals.136
In such a framework, as is obvious, purpose is everything. Both sense and being rely
on our ability to respond to the question: Why are you doing that?137 Philosophical
intelligibility traces this to our own beingi.e., to the care we have for it. This, however, is
precisely what is denied to us when we regard the Holocaust. As already noted, Germany
was itself sacrificed when it came to choosing between defending the country and destroying
the Jews. In pursuing it, the Germans manifested a lack of care for their own being. The
death marches at the end, when the camps had to be abandoned and the war was clearly lost,
were completely useless and, hence, in Heideggers terms, senseless. In such terms, we have
to say that nothing was disclosed by them. If we take truth in Heideggers preferred sense
of unhiddenness, this lack of disclosure is a lack of truth. Nothing is made manifest

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here. To turn this about, we have to say that such actions reveal, not being, but its absence.
Philosophical rationality is stymied by a void surrounded by nontruth.
Heidegger, as is well known, observed a complete silence regarding the Holocaust.
Having equated philosophy with ontology (the science of being), one may speculate that he
found nothing in the event to consider.138 In its exceeding both truth and being (as he
defined these terms), the Holocaust exceeded what his philosophy could grasp. So regarded,
his failure to speak about the Holocaust is accounted for by his philosophy. It is also,
however, accounted for by his lifei.e., from the fact of his decade-long involvement with
the Nazi movement.139 Thus, the suspicion remains that this silence is self-serving. Yet when
we turn to the tradition he criticized, our search for philosophical intelligibility does not
advance. Ancient and mediaeval philosophy seem equally incapable of coming to terms with
evil.
The essence of its position is summed up by Augustine in his attack on the Manichean
position that good and evil (light and dark, God and Satan, spirit and matter) were the names
of opposed powers locked in struggle for the world. Evil, he argued, was not a positive
character. It is a lack, an absence of goodness. In his words, evil is nothing but the removal
of good until no good remains (Augustine 1961, p. 63). In itself, it is simply a
nothingness.140 In the Middle Ages, this position became incorporated in the doctrine of the
transcendent properties of being. These are the properties of being irrespective of where it is
found. Every being is not just existent. To the point that it is, it is one, true, and good.
Conversely, to the point that it is not, it lacks unity, truth, and goodness. Truth, here, does
not so much signify disclosedness as a correspondence of a thing to its exemplar. A true
man is a person who fully instantiates the form or essence of what a person ought to be.141 In
such an instantiation, he has his unity. He participates, as it were, in the self-identity of the
form he instantiates. This participation and correspondence is a human beings goodness or
excellence as a person. Goodness is not a matter of usefulness. There is no hint here of the
pragmatic basis of Heideggers account.142 Goodness is simply one of four equivalent ways

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of characterizing what is. To the point that something can be characterized by one of these
predicates, they all apply to it. To lack any one of them is to lack all of them.
If we grant this, then to the extent that something is evil, it lacks not just goodness,
but also being, unity and truth. Its lack of being will give it the substanceless character of a
dream. By virtue of its lack of unity or self-identity, our experience of it will be marked by a
lack of focus, an inability to pin it down. The same holds for our attempts to get at the
truth of it. It will constantly elude us, its evasions appearing to us as lies. Of course, to
assume that they are such is to assume something is there to which they do not correspond.
Yet, given that evil also lacks being, this itself appears as a deception. It is part of evils selfconcealment.143 As such, it reminds us of Marlows description of the station managers
smile as a a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. Did the smile conceal
something or was there nothing there to conceal? The answer of philosophical rationality
that there is nothing there shows that we are at its limits. We cannot use its concepts to
grasp what is within. They seem incapable of making evil rationally intelligible.
The Moral Dimension of Literature
What allows evil to grow unchecked is, as I noted, its ability to escape recognition.
The failure of philosophy to capture it within its net of concepts does not end, but rather adds
to the urgency of the question of its recognition. Concretely, the question is: how do you
describe evil, thus, permitting its recognition, if its very nature involves self-concealment? In
a certain sense, the nothingness that occasions philosophys failure to grasp its how and
why points to the answer. It does so by indicating the peculiar phenomenology, the special
mode of appearing, that characterizes evil. If evil is, in fact, nothingness, it cannot be given.
Its phenomenological givenness is thus that of what cannot be given. This nongivenness,
however, has a peculiar cast. It distinguishes itself from the other types of nongivenness we
have previously considered.

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The best way to see this is through some examples. As Fackenheim observes, a
single incident, occurring during Eichmanns trial in Jerusalem, was sufficient to demolish
the claim that there were no independent actors in the Holocaust, only an escalating
system. He writes: The accused had preserved a stolid composure throughout his trial.
One day the room was darkened and pictures of Eichmanns victims were flashed on the
screen. Secretly, a camera was trained on him in the dark. Believing himself unobserved,
Eichmann saw what he sawand smirked.144 This minor detail gives what refuses to be
given. It points to a hidden complicity of the doer and the deed, a complicity that positions
Eichmann as something more than a cog in the wheel.
Conrads Heart of Darkness is filled with a host of similarly revealing details. There
is, for example, the gentle annoyance of the accountant with the groans of the dying
agent in his badly constructed office. There is the contrast of his impeccable appearance
high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and
varnished boots145with the rags rapped around the loins of the prisoners outside the shed.
Then there is the description of the painting made by Kurtz representing a woman, draped
and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. Seeing it, we cannot help asking: For whom is
the torch lit? How can she light the way for (or lead) anyone in her stately progress if she
herself is blind?146 It is through the addition of such details and the questions they raise that
we gain a sense of the evil that pervades the whole enterprise. Marlows descriptions never
directly point to it. There is never an unmasking which directly exhibits the sense or
meaning of evil. Instead, he proceeds by indirection. As Conrad describes his story telling,
To him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the
tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of those
misty halos that are sometimes made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine
(ibid., p. 30). It is in the descriptions of the surrounding details, rather than in the plot, that
his meaning unfolds.

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The same thing can, of course, be said of Melvilles depiction of the slave ship, the
San Dominick. In both cases, we have to do with an evil that hides itself. This is, in fact,
why we had recourse to its literary descriptions. Proceeding by indirection, literature is
capable of unmasking the self-concealment of evil. In focusing on its surrounding
circumstances, it describes evil in terms of such concealment. It does this by grasping the
absent by the halo, that is, by the details that surround what should be present but is not. The
very uneasiness its descriptions provoke point to the lack of being behind the appearance.
This uneasiness is itself a giving of what cannot be given. In Marlows tale, then, the journey
down the Congo river to find Kurtz is a voyage into the heart of darknessnot in its story
linebut in its relating of what seems to be both inappropriate and incidental to the
enterprise. It is, in its telling, an attempt to see the absence of evil by describing it through
its surrounding halo. Evil, here, is recognized by what should be present but is not. 147 To
describe the giving of the absent is precisely to call attention to the smirk of Eichmann, to
the gentle annoyance of the accountant, and to the unease occasioned by the empty smile
that sealed all the station managers remarks. In each case there is a disturbance of presence,
an inappropriateness that points to a lack of any underlying reality. To be sensitive to this is
to be aware of the giving of the absent; it is to grasp the peculiar is not that characterizes
evil in its self-concealment.148
In Pascals Penses, there is a celebrated description of two types of mind. The first,
the geometrical intellect (lesprit de gomtrie) proceeds deductively from a small number
of definite principles. These principles are remote from ordinary usage. Yet once we grasp
them, we can reason securely. The second, the subtle intellect (lesprit de finesse),
proceeds by regarding a host of details. Its principles, Pascal writes, are so subtle and so
numerous that it is almost impossible that some will not escape notice. (Pascal 1960, p.
264). He adds, They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen; there is the greatest
difficulty in making them felt by those who do not of themselves perceive them (ibid., 265).
What is required for this mind is good sight. (ibid., p. 264). Having this, we see the

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matter at once, at one glance and not by a process of reasoning ... (ibid., p. 265). In
Marlows tale, we have in its wealth of details the results of such good sight. To read it is
to experience an education of our sensibility, a training of our esprit de finesse, which allows
us to grasp what we cannot apprehend directly.149 Is it too much to suggest that an essential
part of literatures moral dimension consists in affording us this education?150 Among the
educated classes of Germany, the best response to National Socialism was that of its writers.
To the point that it could, its literary talent chose exile rather than compromise. The Nazis
returned the compliment in their infamous burning of the books. On each side, there was a
recognition of the other.
What about the recognition of the victims of the Nazis? The Nazis attempted to
isolate, dehumanize, and ultimately destroy those they persecuted particularly the Jews.
For a minority, such recognition meant more than resisting the dehumanizing stereotypes of
Nazi propaganda. Beyond acknowledging the humanity of the Jews and recognizing the evil
being done them, they took action. At great risk, they attempted to rescue Jews. Their
recognition of the victim was, in fact, also a recognition of the appeal coming from the lives
they saw at risk. It was a recognition of an absolute demand to save life. As our next chapter
shows, this morally obligating recognition reveals yet another sense of the alterity and
nongivenness of the other.

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CHAPTER X
RESCUEANDTHEFACETOFACE
Given the experiences of the last century, the very least we can ask from an ethics is
that it guard against the moral collapse that accompanies genocide. This seems like a
relatively straightforward demand. We all assume that our ethical sensitivities would have
been outraged were we to have been, for example, contemporary witnesses to the isolation,
round up, and extermination of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. Hannah Arendt, however,
reminds us that such actions were legally sanctioned. As she notes in her classic study,
Eichmann in Jerusalem, they apparently enjoyed a nearly universal, if tacit approval. Both
the academic community and the religious establishment kept a prudent silence. Those
seeking to oppose them, thus, had to rely on their own sense of conscience. This, however,
seemed completely at odds with what they must regard as the unanimous opinion of all
those around them (Arendt 1967, p. 295). When they did act, they went really only by
their own judgments, and they did so freely ... They had to decide each instance as it arose,
because no rules existed for the unprecedented (ibid.). This is particularly the case for those
who acted to rescue the Jews.151 The action of saving a life in a situation of mass slaughter is
not called for in the normal functioning of society. Such functioning is, in fact, set up so that
we are not faced with a situation of playing God in the sense of deciding if the person
knocking at our door should live. But the context that demanded rescue was not that of
normal life. Such life had been hijacked by the Nazis. Public morality, the morality that is
expressed in the judiciary system and the other institutions of the state, regarded rescue as a
criminal act, one punishable by the death of the rescuer.
What, then, could the rescuers rely on? What informed their sense of conscience?
One view of ethics is that it is simply a collection of social norms. Those who act ethically
express these norms in their conduct. Acting ethically, they follow the rules. They do not
lie or steal or commit those other acts which would undo the social bond. They act as

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everyone does who is a good member of their society. In such a view ethics is simply
relative to society. It does not express a standpoint that can call it into question. When we
follow its rules, the determiner of our agency is society itself. Because of this, ethics cannot
guard us against the moral collapse of society. Yet, there is the fact of rescue during the
holocaust. In the face of societal evil, there are extensive and well documented cases of
individual goodness. Generally, what moved the rescuer was a direct encounter with the
victim. There was an exchange of gazes that exemplified the Levinasian face-to-face
encounter.152 In what follows, I am going to explore how this encounter points to an ethics
that is not simply a result of social conditioning. In doing so, I shall examine Levinas claim
that the face-to-face is the beginning of an ethics that exists on the other side of every form
of social relativity.
Common Elements
A number of elements are common in the accounts we have of rescue. The first and
most obvious is what can only be called the traumatic character of the context. In the
situation of foreign occupation with its sudden devaluation of human life, nothing seems to
make sense any more. The mass slaughter of a docile human population that has been herded
into ghettos combines the violent emotional affect and senselessness that form the chief
elements of psychological trauma. In Lithuania, people could look out from their windows
on the Jews being marched to their execution in the local forests and cemeteries. Their
neighbors were the victims of an essentially senseless violence. In Poland such violence
included hanging people from lampposts.
In this traumatic context, people generally did not go out to rescue. They did not seek
out Jews, placing their own lives and their families at risk. The Jews sought them out.
Rescuing, thus, normally began with a face-to-face encounter, the character of which appears
in some common examples. A teenager on the run in Vilnius, gets off the street by going to a
doctors waiting room. Finally, her turn comes to be examined. The woman doctor,
examining her eyes, tells her she can find nothing wrong with her. Her tears well up as she

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tells the doctor her situation. The doctor continues to examine her, looking into her eyes, all
the while saying, Dont worry child. Everything will be fine. I shall take care of you.153 In
Amsterdam, a woman waits in line with her ration card at a greengrocers shop. Next to her,
a woman whispers, I have no distribution card, I am illegal, in fact, I am afraid. To this she
replies, Come along with me, we shall divide with you the food we have. The woman, Omi
Strelitz, stays with her rescuers till the end of the war.154 In southern France a family of nine
persons on the run from the Gestapo knocks at the door of a remote farmhouse. They are
given dinner and shelter for the night. The next day the family is split up and hidden till
liberation.155 In rural Poland, a man approaches a house hung with a sign Kill the Jews and
save the country. Desperate and hoping the sign was there to protect the family, he knocks
at the door. The woman of the house, realizing that he has nowhere to go, grabs his hand and
leads him to a place of hiding.156
In each case what is at stake is a life. You can either admit the person at the door or
turn him away to face an almost certain death. Given this, the persons life is in your hands.
If you dont act, it is probable that no one else will. The immediacy of danger is such that
you cannot hand on the task to someone else. Unasked for, you are faced with a unique, nontransferable responsibility. The face of the other is, in this encounter, an appeal to preserve
life. It is an appeal that makes you unique in your responsibility. Given the immediacy of
the situation there is hardly time to reflect. You have either to open the door or close it and
turn the Jew away.
TheHerovs.theRescuer
The hero who rushes into a burning building to save a life also acts without reflecting.
This commitment, however, is limited in time. The hero either succeeds or fails, the act
being over within a few minutes. The rescuer, however, faces an open-ended commitment.
It might last several years. It might stretch on indefinitely. Particularly in the East, the
rescuer cannot know who will win the War. Thus, the path chosen is open; it is without

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closure, while the risks taken are at least as great as in most heroic actions.157 The contrast of
the hero with the rescuer reveals a further distinction. Whether the hero succeeds or fails, the
heroic deed is publicly applauded. It has a public presence and intelligibility. The rescuer,
however, must always act in secret. By definition, if the act becomes known, it cannot
continue. Publicity for the rescuer is equivalent to failure. This need for secrecy can even
include close family members. A farmer in Poland hiding Jews had to send them to his
wifes parents when his brother visited. His brother was part of a Polish Home Army group
that hunted Jews down.158 One measure of the public unintelligibility of the act of rescue is
the level of anti-Semitic feeling in the surrounding society. In Poland, Jews were frequently
murdered when, at wars end, they finally emerged from hiding. Roving bands of the Polish
Home Army still sought them out as they attempted to return.159 On reaching their villages,
they were also subject to attacks by the general population.160 As a result, their rescuers
frequently swore them to secrecy.161 Even after the war, the act of rescue could not be
acknowledged. It was still denied public intelligibility and acceptance.
This contrast between the rescuer and the hero calls to mind Kierkegaards
comparison of Abraham and the hero. The hero, who appears as the knight of resignation,
expresses the universal. His sacrifice, involving as it does, the public good, is intelligible
to all. Thus, everyone can understand Agamemnons sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia.
Everyone can sympathize with the cruel necessities laid on the father. The reasons of state
that forced him to resign his love for his daughter are known to all. By contrast,
Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, expresses the particular. It lacks public
intelligibility. Its public expression is that he is willing to murder Isaac. The private
expression is that this is a sacrifice, that he is responding to Gods call. This is a call made in
private to him, a call which he cannot publicly explain except to say that it is, somehow, a
trial. Abraham, as Kierkegaards knight of faith, acts, humanly speaking, entirely on his
own. He assumes an individual, non-sharable, non-expressible responsibility. His relation
with God, who has given him this strange command, has drawn him out of his society. It is

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to God alone that he has any relation as he travels to the place of the sacrifice. This relation,
which is of one individual to another, is absolute. It overrides all other relations. In
Kierkegaards words, Abraham becomes that individual who, as the particular, stands in an
absolute relation to the absolute. The paradox here is that as the single individual, he is
higher than the universal (Kierkegaard 1985, p. 85). He assumes a stance above and beyond
that universal, public intelligibility that characterize ethics as a set of social relations.162
The same sort of stance characterizes the rescuer. The public unintelligibility of the
rescuers act is matched by the individual, non-transferable responsibility he or she assumes.
In the life threatening situation in which they act, rescuers have an absolute relation with the
person appearing at the door. This relation is absolute because it does not express an
obligation that is relative to some particular society. The agent is the person; it is not society
acting through the rescuer. It is also absolute because it expresses a non-transferable, nonrelative demand to save a persons life.
Life
How does the face-to-face encounter establish this relation? What underlies its
absolute demand? The immediate answer to these questions comes from the context. The
person to be rescued is at extreme risk. He appeals to you to save his life. The absolute
nature of the appeal comes from the life that will be lost if you do not act. Life in this
context does not designate a concept. It is not something you apprehend by abstracting a
feature common to a number of individuals. It is rather the life of this individual, the life that
founds all this persons possibilities. In Nietzsches phrase, life here has the status of a
universal that exists before things.163 It appears as a prior condition, something that has to
be given if anything else is to be given. The absolute nature of the appeal, then, comes from
the fact that without life, nothing else is possible. Every action presupposes the life of the
doer, every assertion, the life of the speaker, every value, the life of the valuer. This is the
sense of the Jewish proverb, the person who saves a life saves a world.164 Without life,

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there is no human world with its actions, assertions and values. The latter absolutely
demand life as their condition.
If the founding quality of life makes the appeal absolute, how does this quality
appear? How does the appeal in its absolute character makes itself known? Once again, the
context supplies the answer. The rescue situation is one of a life at risk. In the face-to-face
encounter, it is the possibility of its immediate loss that shows lifes preciousness. The
appeal, then, comes from the other person as liable to death. In the exchange of gazes, it
comes, we can say, from the face as the mortality of the other person. This mortality is
what points back to life as foundational. In a certain sense, death, as beyond life, gives me a
perspective from which to view life. This does not mean that death, as other than life,
illuminates itself. In grasping the face as the mortality of the other person, I do not gain a
perspective on what is beyond life (another world).165 Rather, death shows me what life is by
showing me what its absence is. As indicated, it is the absence of all a persons possibilities.
It is, in Heideggers phrase, the possibility of an impossibilityi.e., the impossibility of any
existence at all (Heidegger 1967, p. 262). It is the impossibility of all a persons
perceptions, projects, plans, desires, values, etc. Thus, seeing the other persons life at risk, I
grasp its founding character. I see why the person who saves a life saves the world.
MortalityandtheFace
Much of what Levinas says about the face parallels the above. Although he does not
speak in detail about the act of rescue, he does provide a way to think about the moral
recognition that underlies it.166 Levinas characterizes the face as the very mortality of the
other person. The face is grasped as nudity, destitution, passivity and pure vulnerability.
In this nudity of the face, facing the Other, he writes, is an exposure unto death
(Levinas 1994a, p. 107). It is an exposure first of all to the death to which the other person is
liable. According to Levinas, an obligation arises from this experience.167 There is, he
explains, a facing up of authority, as if the invisible death to which the face of the other

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person is exposed, were for the Ego that approaches it, his business ... . Here, the ego is
called to answer for this death. He is called to assume responsibility for the life of the
other person. In Levinas words, Responsibility for the Otherthe face signifying to me
thou shalt not kill, and consequently also you are responsible for the life of this absolutely
other Otheris responsibility for the unique one (ibid., 107-8).
The key term in this account is the designation of the other person in his uniqueness
as the absolutely other Other. For Levinas, my responding to the Other grows out of this
sheer alterity. This alterity is that of death, the very death I am exposed to in my
apprehension of the face as the mortality of the other person. Death is, by definition, on
the other side of everything I can think and know.168 If phenomenology designates what
can appear to me, if its field is what I can know as based on appearance, then death appears
as the rupture of phenomenology. This is the rupture which the face of the Other calls
forth in exposing me to its mortality (Levinas 1994a, p. 107). Interpreting Levinas, we can
say that it is precisely this alterity that calls me to respond. My response is provoked by this
rupture or break in the known that death occasions.
The phenomenon I am pointing to is familiar to anyone who has ever had a close
call. A brush with death makes us consider our lives, ask what is worthwhile and what is
not. It calls on us to own what we have, to take responsibility for the choices that shape
our life. Behind this experience is the fact that death, in being beyond life, gives us a
perspective from which to view life. Showing us its contingency, it raises the question of
why we have shaped it in the particular ways we have. Such questioning gives us a concrete
example of the inquietude that we earlier discussed as responsible for our self-separation
(see above, p. 27). In Levinas words, it is a questioning where the conscious subject
liberates himself from himself, where he is split by ... transcendence (Levinas 1993, p. 127).
On the one side of the division, we have the I that is questioned, on the other side, the
questioning I. This split, Levinas claims, confers an identity on me (ibid.). This is
because, in questioning myself, I bring myself forward to face my questioning. Confronting

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myself, I am a for-itself. I achieve my identity for myself as I respond. If we take death as

the ultimate other, the other that we can never absorb or assimilate, then what we have here is
the awakening of the for-itself (veil du pour-soi) ... by the inabsorbable alterity of the
other (ibid. p. 32).169
This alterity is, in Levinas phrase, an alterity that is in me. The face of the Other
manifests alterity in its mortality. Yet, I too can die. Because I can, the Others mortality, his
liability to death, is my own. It is my own ultimate self-alterity. In my liability to death, I
exist in the self-separation, the standing outside of myself within myself, that gives me a
radical perspective to question myself. Responsibility, here, is an ontological condition. The
call for me to respond to the questioning is one with my being a for-itself. Thus, the other
person, for Levinas, is both totally other; and yet, in this alterity, this person is as intimate to
me as my mortality. The Other is as much a part of myself as the being able to confront
myself that arises from such alterity. The key to this argument is that it is through the other
through the Others face, that is, through its nudity, its vulnerability, its exposure to death
that I face death. This mortality, which I experience through the face of the Other, is mine
through this Other. It is mine as the other-than-me that is within me. I am, in my being formyself, the responding (the responsibility) that this grounds. Such responsibility is first for
my Other and, through this, for myself as answerable for this person. As such, it forms my
ontological condition as a for-itself. The constant, if paradoxical claim, of Levinas is that my
being responsible for myself exists through my being responsible for the Other, the very
Other whose otherness in me makes me a self.170
To translate this rather abstract position into the concrete experience of rescue, I have
to return to the point that death does not illuminate itself. It casts its light on life. Thus, the
encounter with the Other in his mortality, that is, in the liability to death that occurs when the
Jew appears, points to life itself. The Jews face exhibits life as threatened, as that which is at
issue in my response to this encounter. The face, thus, contains in its mortality the
commands, you shall not kill, you shall not allow killing, you are responsible for this

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life before you. Here, the alterity of death illumines the alterity of life. What it reveals is
lifes excessive givenness. It does this by pointing to life as the ground of innumerable
possibilities, possibilities which, in their very infinity, are not thematizable. It exhibits life as
exceeding and hence rupturing what I already know and, hence, as not capable of being
reduced to any sort of stereotype.171
Given this character of life, we have to say that the obligation to preserve it is
precognitive. The face, in the rescue situation expresses, a precognitive demand. This is a
demand that, like life, is prior to knowing. It is a demand that shares lifes character of
exceeding every objectification, every attempt to objectively define and delimit it. Thus,
facing the Other, we cannot say why we are obligated. We cannot penetrate further so as to
thematize the obligation. To do so would be to define life, to thematize itthe very thing
which, according to the argument, we cannot do. In fact, for Levinas, ethics begins with the
unease occasioned by this inability to answer. It begins with this unexplainable demand to
respond to the Other, this unexplainable responsibility. In his words, the for-the-other in the
approach of the face ... precedes all grasping ... . It is older than consciousness of ... or
intentionality. It is prior to knowledge. (Levinas 1994a, p. 106). In fact, the obligation
comes precisely from such priority.
TheFaceastheTraceofGod
In Jewish tradition, God cannot be represented. To make God present in carved stone
or in a painted image is to engage in idolatry. It is to assume that we can represent or know
in worldly terms the Creator of the world. If we accept this, how does the being that is
before the world appear within the world? If Gods being is other than worldly being, it can
only appear as such by appearing as a lack of worldly being. God can appear as he is, as
other than the world, only as such alterity. This alterity implies that God is present in the
world as poverty, as need or lack.

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The above may be put in terms of Levinas claim that in the access to the face there
is certainly also an access to God (Levinas 1985, p. 92). Like God, the face in its alterity is
beyond thematization. In its nudity and destitution, it represents the God that cannot be
represented. In the absolute appeal that emanates from it, it points to a God that commands
absolutely. Thou shalt not kill is, Levinas asserts, the first word of the face. It is an
order. There is a commandment in the appearance of the face, as if a master spoke to me.
However, at the same time, the face of the Other is destitute (ibid. p. 89). Levinas invites us
to understand the commandment as flowing from such destitution. His insight is that it is the
very lack, the very vulnerability of the face that appeals to us to preserve it. Such destitution
is, however, the trace of God. It is the only way God, in his alterity, can appear within the
world. This appearance, then, is one with the appeal. God cannot appear except as the
appeal, the appeal that comes from the abandoned, the unfortunate, the wretched. With this,
we have a Levinasian answer to the question, Where was God during the Shoah (the
holocaust)? God, we can say, was present in the appeal of the face. He was, for example,
present in the face of each person who knocked at the door and appealed to be rescued.
Many people, of course, did not rescue. They closed the door. The face appeals, it
does not coerce. It is not a force. Rather than expressing power, it signifies obligation. It is
an ethical demand, one that remains on the level of the ought. As Levinas expresses this,
The face combines weakness with authority: There are these two strange things in the face:
its extreme frailtythe fact of being without means and, on the other hand, there is authority.
It is as if God spoke through the face (Levinas 1988, p. 169). This speaking through the
face is, I think, Gods being faithful to his own alterity. The ethical obligation that springs
from the alterity of the Other is, in Levinas view, the essence of the authority of God. In his
words: The face is not a force. It is an authority. Authority is often without force. In this
it is like God. It is not the case that God commands and demands, that he is extremely
powerful. This, Levinas claims, is a very recent notion. On the contrary, the first form,
the unforgettable form, in my opinion, is that, in the last analysis, he cannot do anything at

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all. He is not a force but an authority (ibid.). It is this very combination of authority and
alterity, of commandment and lack of power that is here presented as the origin of the ethics.
The ought here is thought precisely as the authority that exists in its abandonment of
coercion. By virtue of its origin in alterity, the ethics that expresses this ought exists on the
other side of every form of social relativity.
HearingandnotHearing
Granted that the face is an appeal that does not coerce, why did some people respond
to it, while others did not? The reasons for not responding are obvious enough. The whole
power of the Nazi state, with all its ruthless brutality, was employed to prevent people from
rescuing. Yet, in spite of this coercion, some answered the appeal and some did not. Why?
An essential reason involves the stereotyping of the Jews. The Jew in the Polish stereotype
had exploited Poland for years. It was assumed during the war that he was hoarding gold.172
In the Ukraine, the Jew was regarded as a Bolshevik, and hence as responsible for the
Stalinist terror. Such stereotyping is the opposite of the face-to-face encounter. It is, in fact,
an extreme form of thematization. In it, I determine the Other according to my categories.
Doing so, I deny that the Other can be other than my conception of him. So regarded,
stereotyping is a denial of the alterity of the Other. From a Levinasian perspective, it is a
silencing of the Other as calling me into question. It is a denial of my need to respond to
such questioning. Thus, insofar as I deny the Other his uniqueness, I deny my need to
respond uniquelyto respond as an individual to the individual who stands before me.173 In
other words, I do not feel the need to transcend the social norms that set the stereotypes.
Instead of encountering the person, I think the stereotype and close the door.174
It is possible to frame the above in terms of Freuds division of the instincts into the
two basic forms, the love instinct and the death instinct. In Freuds words, the aim of the first
is to establish ever greater unities and to preserve themin short, to bind together; the aim
of the second is, on the contrary, to undo connections and so destroy things (Freud 1969, p.

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18). From an evolutionary perspective, it is relatively easy to trace their formation: The
aggressive tendencies of the death instinct were selected for by the need of our primitive
ancestors to defend the tribe from outsiders. The love instinct, with its aim of binding people
together, performed an equally useful service within the tribe. The more intimate the relation,
the stronger is its force. Radiating outward from the parent-child bond, its binding force is
felt throughout the group.175 In Freuds account of their economy, the two instincts hold
each other in check.176 This means that the more the one is absent, the greater is the force of
other. Now, when I stereotype the Other, I reduce this person to a fixed set of categories. At
the extreme, I objectify him as I would a thing. So regarded, stereotyping can be seen not
just as denying the alterity of the Other. Paradoxically, its denial of the other persons
otherness is also the positioning of the Other as an outsider. This is because the ultimate
outsider is not even human. It is just a thing, a sheer givenness with no alterity, no resistance
to thematization.
If this is true, then stereotyping the Other makes him the outsider, that is, makes him
liable to the action of the death instinct. By contrast, the face-to-face encounter, in
preventing objectification, undoes this instinct. In the face-to-face, I encounter the Other in
his alterity. The Other, in his alterity, is in me. He is my alterity. He is my standingoutside-myself-calling-myself-into-question. He is, as I noted, in me as the very thing that
allows me to be a for-itself. In this ontological condition there is a connection of intimacy
and alterity that can perhaps best be expressed by saying that the Other is as intimate as the
child in the womb. This image does not just point to the relation where the force of the love
instinct is at its height. It reminds us that this most intimate connection with the child is that
of sharing life. In its intimacy and alterity, the face-to-face recalls the pre-cognitive
obligation that springs from life. The rescuer Johanna Eck expressed this obligation as
follows: If I dont help, I dont fulfill the task that life (or, perhaps, God) demands of me. It
seems to me that humans form a great unity; and when they act unjustly to each other, they
are striking themselves and everyone in the face. This [was] my motive.177

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Johanna Ecks reference to life or, perhaps, God recalls Levinass assertion that
in the access to the face there is certainly also an access to God. It is time to examine
more directly the notion of such access. Is it really possible to stand, in Kierkegaards
phrase, in an absolute relation to the absolute who is God? What sort of recognition would
this involve? At issue, here, is nothing less than the possibility of our relationship to God
after Auschwitz. How do we understand the silence of God during this terrible multi-year
event? The next chapter, in attempting some answers to these questions, will rework on an
explicitly theological level the insights our present chapter has only touched on.

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CHAPTER XI
ABRAHAM AND ISAAC: A QUESTION OF THEODICY

Theodicy and Auschwitz

The word theodicy comes from the Greek words for God () and justice ().
Although coined by Leibniz, the attempt it represents is far older. In the Jewish tradition, it
stretches to the beginningthat is to the stories of Genesis with their attempts to explain how
evil could exist in a world created by God. God, after each creative act, sees that his
creations are good. Women, however, bear their children in pain (Gn 3:16) and the ground,
sprouting thorns and thistles, can at times appears cursed to the farmer (Gn 3:18). How
do we explain this? How is it compatible with Gods justice? Is it, in fact, possible to
justify Gods ways to man? Beginning with Genesiss account of mans disobedience,
there is a whole tradition of efforts to answer this question. It includes Isaiahs notion of the
suffering servantthe person who suffers for the sins of othersand the Maccabean
notion of the martyrthe innocent and just sufferer who serves as a witness for the truth.
As the philosopher, Hans Jonas, observes, the event of Auschwitz marks an
important challenge to this tradition. Auschwitz names not just the setting in which over a
million Jews, Gypsies and Poles perished. It also signifies the dehumanization of its victims.
In the factory-like working of its machine for extermination, even the gesture of
martyrdom and witness was not left to the dying. In Jonass words, Not fidelity or
infidelity, belief or unbelief, not guilt or punishment, not trial, witness and messianic hope,
nay, not even strength or weakness, heroism or cowardice, defiance or submission had a
place there.... Of all this, Auschwitz, which also devoured the infants and babes, knew

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nothing. ... no glimmer of dignity was left to the freights bound for the final solution, hardly
a trace of it was found in the surviving skeleton specters of the liberated camps (Jonas 1996,
p. 133). Jonas asks, And yet God let it happen. What God could let it happen? (ibid.). Eli
Wiesel, the writer, raises the same question in his story of the lector who reads the service in
a synagogue. He begins each service with the biblical words of response, Here I am, Lord.
The times, however, are bad. Each time a pogrom sweeps through the village, still fewer
Jews are left to come to the service. At the end only the lector remains. As always, he begins
with the words, Here I am, Lord. This time, however, he adds the question: Where are
you? The question is about the absence of God. It is intimately involved in the question of
how God could let such things happen. In Jonass words, ...one would expect the good God
at times to ... intervene with a saving miracle. But no saving miracle occurred. Through the
years that Auschwitz raged God remained silent (Jonas 1996, p. 148). Where was God
Where was his presence during that period? The agonizing problem today, Jonas claims, is
to explain Gods lordship. The question one faces after Auschwitz, is how to rethink
the traditional concept of God so as to understand Gods presence.178 In what follows, I
shall add my own effort towards this end. In examining the problem of theodicyof the
justification of Gods way to manin the light of Auschwitz, I shall first look to the
traditional (Christian) ways in which this problem is posed. I shall then turn to the story of
Abraham and Isaac to reformulate the problem and find a possible solution to the question of
where God was during the Holocaust.
ThePrivativeNatureofEvil
Mani, the Persian founder of Manichaeism, gave one of the basic alternative solutions
to the problem of reconciling God and evil. He saw good and evil (God and Satan, spirit and

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matter, light and dark) as names of opposed powers locked in a struggle for the world. In
answer to the question of how an all-powerful God can permit evil, the Manichean solution is
to declare that God is not all powerful. Rather than being infinite, God is limited; his
goodness is opposed by a contending principle of evil. This doctrine found a wide appeal
amid the disasters of the declining Roman empire. Augustine, the great point of cultural
transmission from classical Rome to Christian West, was himself a Manichi for nine years.
When he ultimately did convert to Christianity, he turned his efforts to combat his former
faith. Evil, he claimed, was not a positive character. It is a lack, a privation, an absence of
goodness. As we cited him in the last chapter, evil is nothing but the removal of good until
no good remains (Augustine 1964, p. 63). In itself, it is simply a nothingness. According to
the medieval doctrine of the transcendent properties of being, to the point that something is,
it is one, true, and good. Conversely, to the point that it is not, it lacks unity, truth, and
goodness. God, in his supreme perfection, embodies all of them in an exemplary degree. He
is supremely being, supremely good, supremely one and supremely true. The evil
that is the opposite of this positive state is not. Lacking any unity or self-identity, it is
formless and powerless.
This reduction of evil to nonbeing leaves us with an obvious difficulty: how are we to
account for the presence of evil in the world? For a Christian this difficulty is compounded
by the belief that God is pure being. If action is the consequence of being, that is, if you first
have to be in order to act, then all action is ultimately traceable to the God whose act of
being upholds the world. The goodness that always accompanies being implies that God
always acts for the best. What he produces is, in Leibnizs phrase, the best of all possible
worlds. Given this, how can evil be present in it? The answer of this tradition is that evil is

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simply an unavoidable result of finitude. Since Gods creations are finite, none of them can
have all the perfections. Were they to have all of them, each would be God. Since, in fact,
they are finite creatures rather than the infinite Creator, each necessarily lacks some measure
of the good. This lack (or privation) can, from the creatures individual perspective, be
considered an evilthat is, a falling off from the good. This, however, is more than
compensated for by the perfection of the whole made up of these finite beings. This means,
as Descartes writes, We should not consider a single creation separately when we
investigate whether the works of God are perfect, but generally all created objects together
(Descartes 1990, p. 53). From the perspective of the world as it is and will be everything is,
in fact, the best it can possibly be.179 The optimism of this view is amply caught in Goethes
Faust, where the devil announces himself as a part of that power that always wills evil and
always works good.180 In the world that unfolds continuously for the best, good always
comes out of evil. The lack or privation that finitude implies is always made up for in the
end.
The very mention of Auschwitzwith its harnessing of industrial and technical processes to eliminate a peopleshows there is something missing in this account. The event of
Auschwitz represents a dead loss. The communities lost to the Holocaustfrom Ldz to
Stettin (Szczecin)will never come again. On the ontological level, Auschwitz shows that
evil can take on a coherent, highly organized form. It can, in fact, appear as an activeand
destructiveprinciple of great power. We cannot then say that evil, in itself, is a
nothingness. If action comes from being, such nothingness would not be so destructive.
On the moral level, the difficulty in this account appears in its attempt to show that good
always issues from evil. Following this line, we have the position that sees the foundation of

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the state of Israel as the good that came out of the Holocaust. The position takes the
horrors of the concentration camps as part of the process that resulted in the return of the
Jews, after a nearly two thousand year absence, to the promised land. Their suffering served
to expedite this end. There is an obvious moral objection to this defense. The victims of
Auschwitz were not part of this return. To treat them as means for this end argues, not for
Gods goodness, but rather the reverse. Ethically regarded, the end does not justify the
means. Its goodness can be corrupted by the means employed to achieve it. This is
particularly the case when the means involve the degradation and destruction of millions of
innocent victims. As Kant pointed out, we leave the path of morality whenever we treat
another person as simply a means for our ends. To regard persons as means is to take them
as things, as instruments for our purposes, rather than as persons with purposes and dignity of
their own. Thus, the attempt to justify God by pointing to the founding of Israel makes him a
moral monster. It saves his power and Lordship over the world by sacrificing his goodness.
The fundamental problem here, as Jonas remarks, is that of combining the notion of
Gods lordship or power with that of his goodness once we admit the existence of evil in the
world. In his words, Only a completely unintelligible God can be said to be absolutely good
and absolutely powerful, yet tolerate the world as it is (Jonas 1996, p. 139). If we do not
want to admit such unintelligibilityi.e., to lose ourselves in talk of Gods hiddenness and
inscrutabilitywe must, in fact, attempt to think of Gods presence in a different way. We
must, in fact, follow Levinass insight and break the tie between goodness and power in
speaking of Gods relation to man. In my attempt to do this, I am going to look at the
founding of this relationship. For the Jews, this occurs with their start as a peoplethat is

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with the story of Abraham. The last chapter touched on Kierkegaards treatment of this. I
shall return to his themes, but in much greater detail.
TheStoryofAbrahamandIsaac
In the account of Genesis, separation and creation go together. God separates the
light from the dark, calling the light day and the darkness night (Gn 1:5). He separates
the water from the water to create the sky above and the water below. The water below is
separated so as to create land and sea (Gn 1:6-8). The creation of the lights in the expanse
of the skythe sun and the moonis also a mark of the separation of day from night
(Gn 1:14). Finally he divides man himselftaking a part of Adam to form Eveto create
the human species (Gn 2:22).181 In the creation of the Jews (the Israelites) we find the same
use of separation. Gods first words to Abraham are: Go from your native land and from
your fathers house to the land that I shall show you. I shall make of you a great nation (Gn
12:1-2). Abraham thus departs to begin his wanderings. The story of his niece, Rachel,
stealing his brothers family idols, suggests that his family worshipped idols (Gn 31: 19, 30).
If this is so, then Abraham separates himself not just from his fathers family but also from
their religious practice. As God leads him from one place to another, he continually repeats
his initial promise. Thus, when Abraham first comes to Canaan, he promises: I shall give
this land to you and your offspring (Gn 12: 7). When Abraham returns there from Egypt,
God reminds him, I give all the land that you see to you and your offspring forever. I shall
make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth,
then your offspring too can be counted (Gn 13: 15-16). There is, however, a problem. As
Abraham tells God, after yet another removal and another promise, What can you give me,
seeing that I shall die childless (Gn 15:2). Gods only reply is: Look towards the heavens

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and count the stars, if you are able to count them.... So shall your (Gn 15: 5). Time passes.
Abraham and Sarah, his wife, become old; but God continues to repeat his promise. Again
he tells Abraham, I shall make you exceedingly fertile and make nations of you (Gn 17: 6).
This time, however, even Abrahams credibility is stretched. As Genesis relates, Abraham
threw himself on his face and laughed, as he said to himself, Can a child be born to a man a
hundred years old, or can Sarah bear a child at ninety? (Gn 17: 17). Nonetheless the child is
eventually born. The continuous separations of Abraham from his familiar surroundings
have born fruit in the creation of Isaac. Isaac, who is the whole content of Abrahams life
insofar as it has been shaped by Gods promise, has come to be.
God, however, is not through with Abraham. He puts Abraham to the test. As
Genesis relates: God says to him Abraham, and he answered, Here I am. And He said,
Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and
offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights which I shall point out to you (Gn
22: 1-2). Early the next morning Abraham departs with Isaac and two servants. After three
days, he reaches Moriah, dismisses the servants, loads the wood for the sacrifice on the back
of Isaac and sets off with the fire and the knife for the sacrifice. And then for the first
time Isaac speaks. He asks, Where is the sheep for the burnt offering. Abraham answers
that God will provide the sacrifice (Gn 22: 7-8). He then binds Isaac, lays him on the alter,
on top of the wood and raises the knife to slay him. In the happy ending that concludes
the story, an angelthe sign of the presence of Godintervenes. He calls out, Abraham!
Abraham!, and Abraham answers, Here I am. The angel (or God) tells him not to do
anything to Isaac. For now I know that you fear God. Looking up, Abraham sees a ram
caught in the thicket by its horns (Gn 22: 9-13). This is the sacrifice that God has provided.

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God now repeats his promise one final time: Because you have done this and have not
withheld your son, your favored one, I shall bestow my blessing upon you and make your
descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven ... (Gn 22:16-17).
What is the nature of the presence of God here? What does this tale tell us about the
relation between God and man that is inaugurated with Abraham and the creation of the
Jews? Reading this disturbing and paradoxical account, one cannot help wondering what the
protagonists are thinking. What motivates their actions? It is difficult to answer. Abraham,
for example, has a relation to God through Gods promise. The substance of the promise is
Isaac, since it is through him that Abrahams descendants will come. Isaac, his son, is to be
the origin of a new people. Yet, Gods demand that Isaac be sacrificed voids this promise
and, hence, the basis of Abrahams relation to God. Granting this, why does Abraham
continue on his way to the land of Moriah? Gods demand that he give up Isaac is a demand
that he separate himself even from the substance of the promise that motivated all his earlier
separations. What then is his relation to God when he raises the knife? Abraham can, of
course, refuse the sacrifice and keep Isaac. To do this, however, is to defy God and lose the
promise. Thus, the Isaac that he saves will not be the father of a new people. To keep Isaac
as such a father, Abraham has to be willing to give him up. Yet, if he is willing and believes
that God is serious in his request, he must believe that he will lose Isaac. The paradox is that
he can only keep the Isaac of the promise by losing him, and would only lose him by
attempting to keep him. Gods relation to Abraham is equally problematic. What, for
example, is the point of the test he is proposing to put Abraham through? What is he
requiring of him? If we think of their relation in terms of the covenant that God makes
with Abraham, it seems that Abraham has more than fulfilled his part of the bargain

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heeding Gods call, separating himself from family and familiar places at his command.
When God, after a long delay, finally fulfills his part of the agreement by granting Abraham a
son, the story should come to an end. Instead, in the test God proposes, God does not just
seem intent on breaking the covenant, but on doing this through Abraham. In asking
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he requires Abraham to undo Gods part of the bargain. God
himself brought about the miraculous birth of Isaac to a woman of ninety. Moreover, if
Abraham goes through with the act, then God does not create a new people through
Abraham. With the sacrifice of Isaac, he loses the means. Why then does he put his own
creative intentions at risk? It seems, then, that to the point that he is sincere in his request
and Abraham takes him seriously, everything is undone. Not only is their relation unraveled,
but Gods whole effort to make a new people is brought to nothing.
KierkegaardsReadingofAbrahamandIsaac
Kierkegaard, in his Fear and Trembling, amply illustrates the strangeness of this tale
by running though a number of alternative outcomes. In one of them, Isaac embraces
Abrahams knees, begging for his young life. Abraham, to save Isaacs faith, declares,
Stupid boy, dost thou suppose that I am thy father? I am an idolater. Dost thou suppose that
this is Gods bidding? No, it is my desire (Kierkegaard 1954, p. 27). In another version,
Abraham, having discovered the ram, sacrifices it and returns home. But the very thought
that God had required this of him torments Abraham. He cannot forget it. Thus,
Abrahams eyes were darkened, and he knew joy no more (p. 28). In yet another outcome
imagined by Kierkegaard, Abraham never brings himself to sacrifice Isaac. Rather, on the
way to Moriah, he threw himself upon his face, he prayed to God to forgive him his sin, that
he had been willing to offer Isaac, that the father had forgotten his duty towards the son (pp.

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28-9). In yet another version, Kierkegaard has Isaac see Abrahams despair as he clenches
the knife. Isaac sees the tremor passing through Abrahams body and loses his faith in God
(p. 29).
None of these actually happen. Neither Abraham nor Isaac lose their faith. What is
this faith that they both preserve? How does the test that God proposes reveal this
faith in its special nature? Kierkegaard, to answer such questions, proposes a thought
experiment. Suppose a pastor preached on the story of Abraham and Isaac, emphasizing that
Abraham was willing to offer to God the very best he hadthat is, his own son Isaac.
Imagine, further, that a parishioner takes him seriously. He too wishes to have Abrahams
faith. He too will sacrifice his son, since this also is the best he has (Kierkegaard 1954, p.
39). In Kierkegaards comical rendition, the pastor is horrified when he learns the mans
intention. While before he only preached indifferently on the story, he is now astonished at
himself at the earnest wrath which he thundered down upon that poor man. He tells his wife,
I am an oratorall I needed was the occasion (p. 40). This story brings out the nature of
the test Abraham faces. If the voice he hears is not from God, then what the voice
embodies is the temptation to murder. The voice actually tempts him to violate the sacred
duty of a father to a son, that is, the duty of the parent to protect the child. In this case,
Abraham is tested to see if he will give way to this temptation: Will he be strong enough to
hold fast to what he knows is his duty to the child? If, however, the voice is Gods, then the
temptation is this very duty. The test he faces is whether or not he will obey God in spite of
his duty to Isaac. For Kierkegaard, Isaac represents ones duty. He writes: Abrahams
relation to Isaac, ethically speaking, is quite simply expressed by saying that a father shall
love his son more dearly than himself (p. 67). If the voice is Gods, however, this very

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obligation expresses a temptation. In Kierkegaards words, What ordinarily tempts a man is
that which would keep him from doing his duty, but in this case, the temptation is itself the
ethical ... which would keep him from doing Gods will (p. 70). For Kierkegaard, then, the
paradox of faith is that it suspends the ethical. In his words, If faith does not make it a holy
act to be willing to murder ones son, then let the same condemnation be pronounced upon
Abraham as upon every other man (p. 41).
To grasp Kierkegaards meaning, we have to note that the ethical, to which he
contrasts faith, is defined in Kantian terms. Kant, gives me a ready rule to see if the
maxims by which I regulate my life are moral. According to Kant, I ought never to act
except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law
(Kant 1964, p. 70; Ak. IV, 402). This last is the formula of his famous categorical
imperative. To apply it is to see if your maxim could become through your will a universal
law of nature (ibid., p. 89; Ak. IV, 421). We do so whenever we universalize our maxim
i.e., attempt to see what would happen if everyone adopted it. Suppose, for example, your
maxim is that a person can make false promises to get out of a difficulty. Imagining this to
be a universal law, you see at once that such promises would never be believed. The maxim
cannot be universalized without making promises impossible (ibid., p. 90; Ak. IV, 422). If
we accept this doctrine, then with Kierkegaard we assert that the ethical is the universal
(Kierkegaard 1954, p. 78). So defined, the ethical is the opposite of the private. As the
universal, the ethical has the same relation to everyone. It is public, open to all. It is, in
Kierkegaards words, the manifest, the revealed (p. 91). To express the ethical is, then, to
leave behind all strictly private motivations. It is to regulate ones conduct according to rules
that apply to everyone, rules that by definition have a universal, public intelligibility.182

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This, however, is precisely what Abraham cannot do. The demand that God places on
him suspends the ethical. If the ethical relation is that of one to all, i.e., of one and the same
rule of conduct applying to all, the relation that Abraham has to God is one-to-one. As we
cited him in the last chapter, it is a nonqualified, absolute relation, one in which the
particular person stands in an absolute relation to the absolute (Kierkegaard 1985, p. 85).
In other words, everything else falls away. There is only Abraham and God. They alone
determine their relationship. The paradox of faith, as Kierkegaard calls it, is that this
relation is higher than the ethical (which it suspends). Through faith, Kierkegaard writes,
the individual determines his relation to the universal [or the ethical] by his relation to the
absolute [or God], not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal
(Kierkegaard 1954, p. 80). Thus, through faith, the ethical relation is reduced to a relative
position in contrast with the absolute relation to God (p. 81). In other words, faced with
Gods command, I obey it rather than the ethical law. Of course, to actually experience this
command as directed just to myself, I have to believe that I can have this one-to-one relation
with God. If I do not, then I remain on the level of ethics and its universal laws. Such laws,
as rationally intelligible, do not require faith. Faith, according to Kierkegaard, is this
absolute, one-to-one relation. In his words, Either the individual as the individual is able to
stand in an absolute relation to the absolute (and then the ethical is not the highest) or
Abraham is lost ... (p. 122). He is lost because he stands convicted of violating his ethical
duty. He becomes the ethical monster who wanted to kill his child.183
Kierkegaard writes, The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he would
murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he would sacrifice Isaac (Kierkegaard 1954, p.
41). The contradiction between the two is such that neither side is intelligible to the other.

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How can faith explain itself to the ethical? The ethical is the universal. The universal is the
realm of the conceptualization that underlies the ability of language to communicate through
common (or universal) meanings. To leave the universal is thus to leave the possibility of
communicative speech behind. It is to give up the possibility of being intelligible to others.
The result is that Abraham ... cannot speak. Therein, according to Kierkegaard, lies the
distress and anguish. For if, when I speak, I am unable to make myself intelligible, then I am
not speaking. Abraham can speak about everything except the most important thing. As
Kierkegaard observes, The relief of speech is that it translates me into the universalbut
this translation is impossible with regard to Abrahams relation to God (p.122 ). The relation
and the test it embodies is on the other side of every act of conceptualization, every attempt
of reason to explain it.
The same can be said of the faith Abraham preserves through this test. For the
test to be real Abraham must believe that God is serious when he commands him to sacrifice
Isaac. He must take Isaac as already lost as he walks with him towards Mount Moriah. This
resignation with regard to Isaac, however, contradicts Gods promise. Since Isaac is the
substance of the promise, to have faith in the promise is to believe that he will not lose Isaac.
Thus, Abraham faces a contradiction. He must both take Isaac as lost and believe by faith
that he will get him back. Such faith, rationally speaking is absurd insofar as it embraces a
contradiction. For Kierkegaard, however, this is the nature of Abrahams faith. In his words,
He believed by virtue of the absurd; for all human reckoning had long since ceased to
function (p. 47). In other words, faced with a contradiction, the only thing that can save
him is the absurd, and this he grasps by faith. So he recognizes the impossibility, and at that
very instant he believes the absurdhe believes that he will get Isaac back (p. 58). It is this

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faith that preserves him from the different outcomes we saw Kierkegaard sketching out.
Abraham does not turn back on his way to Mount Moriah. He does not ask forgiveness for
having forgotten his duty to his son. Isaac does not see anguish in his fathers face as he
raises the knife. Abrahams old age is not darkened by the thought that God had required
this of him. Rather, from the start, he believed that, contrary to all human reckoning, God
would fulfill his promise, that the Isaac that he had given up for lost would be preserved.
The Problem of the Presence of God
In spite of its power, there is something missing in Kierkegaards account. This may
be put in terms of the problem of theodicy as Jonas formulates it. The problem is that of
combining Gods intelligibility with his power and goodness. Kierkegaard, in his radical
separation of faith and reason, sacrifices the intelligibility of God. His belief by virtue of
the absurd is actually a denial that one can think the relation of faith at all. Given that a
great many things that are not matters of faith are unintelligible, the category of the absurd
seems too broad. A further difficulty concerns the apparent sacrifice of goodness. The
distinction Kierkegaard draws between faith and ethics places our relation to God, if not
outside of, then at least on the other side of every ethical relation. Yet, as any reader of the
five books of Moses can testify, ethics as embodied in the Law of Moses is a definitive
characteristic of the Jewish faith. Its rules, as embodied in the ten commandments and the
code of Deuteronomy, are essential. It is by enacting them that the Israelites become one
people, the people of the covenant. Faith in this context involves following the Law, the very
law whose ethical content is inherent in its insistence that we aid the widow and the
orphan, that we defend the stranger, the fatherless and the poor.

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The strength of Kierkegaards position comes, not in his separation of the ethical and
the religious, but in its acknowledgment of the transcendence of God. Such transcendence
fills the faith of Abraham with dread. It also names a dilemma: How can the radically
transcendent God, the God who is radically other, appear in the world? Kierkegaard likens
Gods dilemma to that of a great King who falls in love with a lowly maiden. For the King to
appear in all his glory would abash the girl. She would run into her hut and hide. Yet if he
pretends to be a peasant, he would lie about himself. How, then can he appear as himself?
(Kierkegaard 1987, pp. 26-30). In divine terms, the difficulty is that the gods concern is to
bring about equality. If this cannot be brought about, the love becomes unhappy (p. 28).
But how can there be equality, given the radical transcendence of God? As Kierkegaard
notes, there was a people who had a good understanding of the divine, this people believed
that to see the god was death (p. 30). The reference here is, of course, to the Jews, to their
belief that one cannot see God and live (Ex. 33:20).184 Given Gods killing splendor, how can
he show himself as he is. As Kierkegaard remarks, Who grasps the contradiction of this
sorrow: not to disclose itself is the death of love; to disclose itself is the death of the beloved
(p. 30).
One can, of course, attempt to bridge this contradiction by pointing to Gods miracles.
Is not God present in the parting of the Red Sea, when the Israelites escape from Egypt?
Does not Elijah make him manifest when, in a contest with the prophets of Baal, he gets God
to set fire to his offering, even though he has doused it with water (I Kg 18:31-39)? Cannot
the same be said of the whole host of miracles that Christ performs? Yet, if this is so, why do
these miracles produce so little faith? In Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire
leading the Israelites, even Gods speaking from Mount Sinai with peals of thunder did not

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instill belief. While Moses is on Mount Sinai speaking with God, his brother Aaron makes a
golden calf. Seeing it, the people cry out, Here is your God, Israel ... who brought you out
of the land of Egypt (Ex 32: 4). Similarly, Elijahs success with his pyre does not stamp out
belief in Baal. It reappears in the next few chapters. As for Christs many miracles, they
cannot prevent his trial and crucifixion. This singular lack of success stems, I believe, from
the fact that miracles are worldly events. Precisely because they occur within our world, the
power that produces them can be taken as a worldly power. Thus, as Exodus relates, many of
Mosess miracles are matched by the magicians at Pharaohs court. As for Elijahs pyre, who
knows if, rather than water, he had an inflammable liquid poured on his offering. Even
Christs healing miracleshis curing fevers, his calming epileptics, his making the lame
walkhave their analogues in the cures of modern medicine.
The fact that natural processes can produce the same results is behind miracles
inability to produce faith in a nonworldly, nonnatural God. In fact, to the point that miracles
are worldly events pointing to worldly causes, the god that they do manifest is a pagan
divinity. Pagan gods are part of the world. Their powers may exceed ours, they may live
forever, yet they are as much natural beings as the sun and the moon, the stars and the earth
all of which were worshipped in Biblical times. This point may be put in terms of the
Biblical prohibition against representing God. As the previous chapter noted, to make God
present in carved stone or in a painted image is to engage in idolatry. It is to assume that we
can represent or know in worldly terms the creator of the world. Such a creator, however,
must exist independently of the world. His creative action, as responsible for the world itself,
cannot have worldly constraints or conditions. It, thus, cannot be made manifest by a
worldly process. With this, we have the problem of the presence of God: How does the being

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that is before the world appear within the world? How does this being make itself manifest
as it is?
AlterityandEquality
If Gods being is other than worldly being, he can only appear as such by appearing
as a lack of worldly being. The last chapter observed that God can appear as he is, as other
than the world, only as such alterity. He must, therefore, give himself as not being able to be
given in terms of the world; he must appear as other than its terms of power and might.
Concretely, this implies that he appears as the powerless, the helpless, the vulnerable. In
Biblical terms, his presence is that of the widow and orphan. If this is correct, then the test
that Abraham undergoes is that of encountering God in this alterity. Abraham must be
brought to see the face of God in the face of what appears to be worldly privation. The test,
in other words, is one of recognition. It poses the question: How can God appear in
vulnerability and privation and yet be recognized as God? To recognize him as God is to
apprehend his authority. As the author of the world, God is the source of all authority. Yet,
as other than the world, this source cannot be understood in worldly terms. How can
Abraham grasp this authority that has no basis in worldly power? To answer this question is
to grasp the nature of this authority-without-power that marks Gods presence.
The difficulty Abraham confronts involves not just Gods alterity. Kierkegaard
describes the encounter between God and man as one of mutual love. This implies that the
test that Abraham faces involves equality. He must encounter God on the level of equality
the equality without which the divine love becomes unhappy. How is this possible, given
the transcendence of God? How can Abraham encounter God in a symmetrical as opposed to
an asymmetrical (or unequal) relation? The problem that Kierkegaard raises was recognized

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by Plato. In one of Platos dialogues, Socrates asks a priest about the nature of piety. The
priest describes it as a care of the gods (Plato 1981, p. 18; 12e). Prayer and sacrifice is
what we offer to the gods; in return they provide us with their benefits. As Socrates sums up
his position, piety would then be a sort of trading skill between gods and menone
involving a mutual exchange of benefits (p. 21; 14e). The difficulty, of course, is that the
gods cannot be benefited by any services that we might perform for them (p. 19; 13c). They
neither need nor depend on our sacrifices. In fact, as Socrates says, we have such an
advantage over them in the trade that we receive all our blessing from them and they receive
nothing from us (p. 21; 15a). Given this, it does not make much sense to see our relation
with God as a contract, or covenant, regulating the exchange of goods. Since we cannot
benefit God, we can hardly force him to fulfill his part of the contract by threatening to
withhold our services. To make our inequality equal, we must, then, have a relation
involving something other than a simple exchange of benefits. In fact, insofar as our
relations to others involve only exchange, they are not directed to the other, but to what the
other offers. This is why friendships based on pleasure or utility last only so long as these
benefits are provided. If I am friends with you only for the pleasure you provide me, then
when the pleasure ceases so does my friendship. The same holds for relations based on the
others usefulness. Since my relation is to such usefulness, and not to the person, it ceases
when the utility is no longer there. 185
These requirements of alterity and equality are behind the strange request of God to
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. In a certain sense they are the same requirement. Gods alterity
requires that our relationship with him be conceived in terms that are other than those of the
world. To encounter God as he is, the relationship cannot be one of the goods and services of

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this world. If it is, we act for these benefits, not for God. The demand of alterity is, then,
that we give up all claims on the earthly economy understood as a transfer of goods. This
is also the demand that equality makes. Equality requires that God and I act for each others
sake, not for the sake of what we can provide each other. In his willingness to give up Isaac,
Abraham meets both demands. Without Isaac and the promise he embodies, his relation to
God cannot be conceived in worldly terms. The frame of reference, which is that of a
promise involving an event in the world, no longer obtains. This abandonment of the
promise is what makes their relation equal. They are equal insofar as neither can benefit the
other. Before the request, their relation appeared as one of exchange, as part of the earthly
economy. God would realize his creative action through Abraham, and Abraham would
become the father of a people. After the request, this economy is suspended. Just as God can
get nothing from Abraham, so Abraham can get nothing from God once Abraham becomes
willing to sacrifice Isaac. Abrahams consent to this request puts an end to whatever utility
or pleasure that marked his relationship with God. That Abraham continues towards Moriah,
that he proceeds to the point of raising his knife, signifies that his relation is with God
himself, not with any benefit. As such, it becomes the same as Gods relation with Abraham,
a relation that, in fact, is independent of any supposed good that Abraham might provide.
Their relation, then, is to each other. It is immediate and one-to-one. It is such in its alterity,
in its standing on the other side of every worldly advantage, every worldly expression of
power and authority.186
Where is God in this alterity? How does his authority appear in it? According to
Genesis, Gods authority appears at the moment that Abraham, facing Isaac, picks up the
knife. It is present in the command, Do not raise your hand against the boy or do anything

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to him (Gn 22:12). It is possible to combine this command with the face of Isaac, the face
that Abraham regards as he holds the knife. The face is that of the helpless victim, of a
person bound and about to die. In its vulnerability, it recalls the God who, to be given as he
is, must give himself as the absence of worldly power. Here, Gods authority speaks from
this absence. It expresses itself in the command not to hurt Isaac, a command that appears to
proceed from the face itself. With this, we return to the claim that Levinas makes. He asserts
that in the access to the face there is certainly also an access to God (Levinas 1985, p. 92).
In the nudity and destitution that mark the alterity of a person in need, the face,
according to Levinas, represents the God that cannot be represented. It gives, in other words,
what cannot be given. The authority of God that appears in this need comes in the command
that issues from the face. Thou shalt not kill, as we cited Levinas, is the first word of the
face. He writes: It is an order. There is a commandment in the appearance of the face, as if
a master spoke to me. However, at the same time, the face of the Other is destitute (ibid. p.
89). For Levinas, the commandment flows from such destitution. It is the very lack, the very
vulnerability of the face that appeals to us to preserve it. Such destitution is, however, the
presence of God. It is the way that God appears in the world as other than the world. In his
otherness, he appears as the appeal that comes from the helpless victim.
In a Levinasian reading of the story of Abraham, God appears in the face of Isaac.
The voice of God, commanding Abraham not to kill Isaac, is an appeal issuing from Isaacs
own face. The face exhibits, to those who can recognize it, the authority without power that
marks Gods presence. This implies that Kierkegaard is wrong in seeing the immediate faceto-face relation with God as the suspension of the ethical. If Levinas is right, it is actually the
beginning of the ethical. This is because God is present through the face of Isaac. This face

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appeals, it does not coerce. Rather than expressing power, it signifies obligation. An ethical
demand appears through it, a command that remains on the level of the ought. As we cited
Levinas, The face combines weakness with authority: There are these two strange things in
the face: its extreme frailtythe fact of being without means and, on the other hand, there is
authority. It is as if God spoke through the face (Levinas 1988, p. 169). This speaking
through the face is Gods being faithful to his own alterity. The ethical obligation that
springs from its nudity and destitution is the essence of the authority of God. Ethics
arises in this combination of authority and alterity, of commandment and lack of power. The
ought of ethics, as distinct from the is, is on the other side of every form of worldly
coercion, every form of reward or punishment. It exists at the precise point where Abraham
encounters God through the face of Isaac. With this, we have a new aspect of the sacred,
understood as that which set limits to our conduct (see above, p. 61). The sacredness of God,
his being inviolate or holy, manifests itself in the face. It is the sacredness of the person. To
fear God is to recognize this inviolability. It is to fear harming Isaac, that is, to hear the
command, Thou shalt not kill, issuing from the face. The test of Abraham is, thus, not
whether he will sacrifice Isaac, but rather whether, given this willingness, given this entrance
into alterity, he can hear this command.187
ABiblicalTheodicy
Augustine asserts that evil is nothing but the removal of good until no good remains
(Augustine 1964, p. 63). Evil, in other words, is the privation of the good. To reverse this,
the privation of good is also evil. Since goodness and being are equivalent and since action
springs from being, an inability to act indicates a lack of both being and goodness. Being
powerless and passive thus have to be taken as evil. When we give this ontology a moral

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cast, then we take those who suffer (rather than do), that is, the poor and the wretched of the
earth, as evil. Concretely, this means that we take them as suffering for their sins, their
distress being a result of their immorality. In the theodicy built on this insight, we assert that
just as God rewards the good, so he punishes the evil. The wretched, then, must be suffering
for a just cause. In the book of Job, this is the explanation given by Jobs comforters. Job,
they claim, did not execute justice on the wicked. He cheated orphaned children of their
rights. He was led astray by riches or corrupted by fat bribes (Jb 36:17-18). This is why
he suffers. God saves the wretched by their very wretchedness, and uses [the] distress [of
punishment] to open their eyes (36:15). Job, however, insists on his innocence. Since we
do see the innocent suffer and the wicked flourish, prosperity and power cannot, he argues,
be the sign of goodness (Jb 12: 6, 21:7-13, 34:1-12). God at the end of the book backs Job
up and rebukes the comforters. He says to them, I burn with anger against you ... for not
speaking truthfully about me as my servant Job has done (Jb 42:7). Job, he orders, must
pray for them: And I shall listen to him with favor and excuse your folly in not speaking of
me properly as my servant Job has done (Jb 42:8).188
It is possible to see in Job and Genesis a radically different theodicy than that which
has its Christian roots in Augustine.189 To grasp this theodicy, we must make the shift from
an ontology of power to a view that separates authority and power. Levinas expresses this as
a shift in the desire we have for God. Normally, desire directs itself towards a union in which
it absorbs the desired. How can such desire direct itself toward the transcendent God who is
beyond all worldly being? Levinas writes, in order that the Desire beyond being, or [the
desire for] transcendence, might not be an absorption ... the Desirable, or God must remain
separated in the Desire; as desirablenear yet different, Holy. This, he adds, can only

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be if the Desirable commands me to what is the nondesirable, to the undesirable par
excellance; to another (Levinas 1998a, p. 68). This undesirable is the person in distress, the
other who, in his poverty and privation, lacks everything I might desire. To direct me
towards this other is to make me see in this person the face of God. It is to insist that I see in
the persons face the holiness, the inviolability of God. According to Levinas, the Desirable
or God is Good in this very precise, eminent sense: He does not fill me with goods, but
compels me to goodness, which is better than to receive goods (p. 69). The compulsion is
not that of coercion, but rather that which springs from the appeal of the destitute.
Answering the appeal, relieving the others destitution, I become good.
This presence of the Desirable in the nondesirable has a Christian analogue. In the
gospel of Matthew, Jesus tell us who he will admit into his kingdom when he comes in his
glory as the King. The King takes in those who fed him when he was hungry, gave him
drink when he was thirsty, clothed him when he was naked, made him welcome when he was
a stranger and visited him when he was in prison. The chosen ask, when did we do this? The
King replies that when they did it to one of the very leastthat is, to the hungry, the naked,
the rejected of societythey did it to him (Mt 25: 33-40). As the Desirable he was in the
nondesirable. For a Christian, to accept this message is to see the presence of God on the
Cross. It is to see the face of God in the wretched creature who, like Job, cries out, My
God, my God, why have you deserted me (Mt 27:46). In Christs very nakedness and
exposure, Christians should see God.
With this we have an answer to the question, Where was God in the holocaust? It is
the same answer we gave when we said that he was present in the face of each person who
appealed to be rescued. To expand this, we can say that God was also present in each person

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forced onto a deportation train. He was present in the destitution of those who survived the
journey to the camps. His face was that of each degraded inmate in his nakedness and need.
His presence was that of the appeal of every face. The real question here is where was man?
Where were those who heard the appeal, those whose relation to the Good was not that of
consumption, but rather that of being compelled to goodness? In this view, the question of
theodicy actually turns on justifying, not God, but rather ourselves, in the face of this appeal.
This transformed sense of theodicy affects our relation to God. In particular, it affects
the sense of prayer. How do we pray to God after the experience of the holocaust? How
does prayer respond to his presence? Our answer will involve yet another form of
hiddennessthat of the kenosis that allows God to appear.

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CHAPTER XII
WHAT SHOULD WE PRAY FOR
Prayer, both private and public, is one of the most common of human activities. All
human history records it; its roots probably go back to before recorded history. Yet, when we
attempt to submit its most common form, that of petition, to philosophical analysis, we run
into difficulties. All too often we pray for things, such as victory or gaining a desired
position and forget that there are losers in such competitions. Prayer, here, seems caught in
the mimetic violence that Ren Girard describes. According to Girard, our socialization
involves our imitating others. It thus leads us to desire what they desire and hence to
compete with them, often in violent ways, for possession of a desired object.190 Our focus on
objects in petitionary prayer also seems to trap us within what may be called an earthly
economy. We pray to God for some object and often promise something to God, some
sacrifice on our part, in return. As I previously cited Plato, the piety evinced by such prayer
would then be a sort of trading skill between gods and menone involving a mutual
exchange of benefits (Euthyphro, 14e). The difficulty is that the gods neither need nor
depend on our sacrifices (13c). What benefit could the gods receive from us? How can we
enter into a process of exchange with them? (15a) Platos critique, which Derrida repeats,
makes us ask: How can prayer relate us to the sacred? How can we ask for things and not be
trapped in an earthly economy?191 To answer these questions, I propose to examine prayer
phenomenologicallythat is, in terms of the appearing of the sacred. My thesis is that the
above difficulties can be resolved if we see prayer as the attempt to provide a space where the
sacred can appear. The key concepts here are those of kenosis and incarnation. Providing a
space for the sacred, I shall argue, involves the form of hiddenness that occurs in Gods

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kenosis or self-emptying. This kenosis is also a manifestation, one which permits the sacred
in petitionary prayer to incarnate itself in our bodily being and behavior.
Two Concepts of the Sacred
The first, and perhaps most basic, concept of the sacred seems to stand opposed to
any attempt to analyze it phenomenologically. Phenomenology is the study of appearing, but
the sacred seems to signify what cannot appear. The Israelites believed that no one can see
God face to face and live (Exodus 33:20). The Greeks, too, had a sense of the killing
splendor of God. When Zeus fulfills his promise to Semele to show himself as he is, he does
so in a bolt of lightening, reducing her to ashes. 192 Behind such examples stands the notion
of the otherness of the god, of its not fitting into the contexts in and through which things are
normally given. Such contexts are those of the earthly economythat system of exchange
through which things come to us. Our bodily metabolism with its organic needs is an
example of this economy; so are our normal, everyday commercial transactions. They point
to our dependence on the world, i.e., to the fact that we live only through a constant process
of exchange with it. The otherness of the sacred manifests itself in its not being part of this
economy. Thus, as I earlier noted, the Greek root of the Latin, sacer, means safe, in the
sense of being kept apart or reserved for the divinity (see above, p. xxx). As consecrated to
the god, the sacred cannot be used by us. One cannot cut down and use the timber of a
sacred grove. The trees forming the grove are inviolate. One should not, in fact, even enter
the grove. The trees and the ground, as sacred, are not to be touched.
Fortunately for our purposes, there is a second notion of the sacred, one that has an
equal place with the first. This is the sense of the sacred as coming into the world by
incarnating itself. Zeus, for example, can appear on earth as a wanderer, one to whom we

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owe the obligation of hospitality. For the Israelites, God becomes present in the law he gives
to Moses. The law is their life. It is that which makes the Israelites into Gods people.193
The most striking example of incarnation is, of course, that of Christ. In its specifically
Christian sense, incarnation involves the hiddenness of God in Christ. This occurs, according
to St. Paul, through his kenosis, that is, through Gods emptying himself and taking on the
form of a slave (Philippians 2:7). This self-emptying can be seen as a response to the
problem raised by the biblical concept of the alterity of God. God is the absolute creator of
the world. As such, he exists prior to the world and, hence, independently of it. His creative
action, as responsible for the world, cannot have worldly constraints or conditions. It, thus,
cannot be made manifest by a worldly process. Accepting this, we face once again the
problem of the presence of God. If Gods being is before the world, how can he appear
within the world? How does this being manifest itself as it is? The answer provided by the
previous chapters is that he can only do so by appearing as a lack of worldly being. God can
appear as he is, as other than the world, only as such alterity. He must, therefore, give
himself as hiddeni.e., as not-being-able-to-be-given in terms of the world. He must appear
as other than its terms of power and might. For Christians, this implies that he appears as the
powerless, the helpless, and the vulnerable. To do so he must empty himself. He must, in
Pauls words, take on the form of a slave.
The Gospels use a number of examples to illustrate this connection between
incarnation and kenosis. In the last judgment, according to Matthew, Christ will admit into
his kingdom those who fed him when he was hungry, who gave him drink when he was
thirsty, who clothed him when he was naked, who made him welcome when he was a
stranger and visited him when he was in prison. When asked by the elect, When did we do

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this? he replies that it was when they did it to one of the very leastthat is, to the hungry,
the naked, the rejected of society (Matthew 25: 33-40). Perhaps the most striking example of
this self-emptying is Christs appearance on the cross. At the end of his earthly life, he
appears as the wretched creature who, like Job, cries out, My God, my God, why have you
deserted me? (Matthew 27:46). In Christs very nakedness and exposure, Christians, we
said, are supposed to see God.
How does this vision of God on the cross accord with the above-mentioned killing
splendor of God? Phenomenologically speaking, we have to say that the two concepts of
the sacred, rather than contradicting each other, designate alternative ways of relating to the
sacred. Thus, the Crucifixion does not deny such splendor; it does however exhibit it by its
hiddenness or absence. To see the divine splendor and live is to grasp it in its absence from
the worldly context. In such a context it can appear only as a lack. To see it and perish is to
leave this context. It is to totally separate oneself out from the worldly context whose
economy sustains our worldly life. Here, the killing vision draws us out of the world, out of
all our human possibilities and resources including those of aiding the poor and afflicted.
The positive sense of this departure is that of mystical raptureof the hiddenness of the
mystic in the Godhead. Its negative sense involves the attempt to draw God into the earthly
economy, i.e., treat the sacred as a good we can consume. This sense admonishes us that all
such attempts will result in our being consumed by its killing splendor.
Kenosis as Receptivity
The above implies that if we wish to encounter God within the world, we must meet
him on the level at which he can appear within the world. Given that this level is one of
absence and lack, how is this possible? God is in the world by virtue of having emptied

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himself. To encounter him, we must also empty ourselves. Through such kenosis, we
provide a space in which he can appear. Self-emptying is, in other words, a form of
receptivityone which allows the hidden to appear. The Bible provides us with two figures
or types to understand this relation. The first is the empty waste that existed before
creation. The second is the creative breath, the ruah or spirit of God that hovers over it. In
the Bible, creation is accomplished through this breath. Thus, when God creates Adam, he
does so by exhaling. Having fashioned Adam from the dust of the soil, Genesis relates that
he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living soulin
Hebrew, he becomes a nephesh, a living breath (Genesis, 2:7). This action of creating by
breathing out is repeated each time God expends breath to say let there be. It is the general
action of creation. As God says to Moses, in explaining why the Sabbath or seventh day
should be set apart, Between myself and the sons of Israel the Sabbath is a sign forever,
since in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day he rested
and drew [back in] breath (Exodus 31:17, JB, p. 118).194 In Johns Gospel, Christs claim to
incarnate God is shown by his possession of this breath. John the Baptist recognizes Christ
because he sees the spirit (the agios pneuma or divine breath) descending and remaining with
him (John 1: 32-33).195 As permanently possessing this Holy Spirit, Jesus must be the one
who incarnates the very presence of God, the creator. He is also, however, according to Paul,
the one who has emptied himself, becoming nothing. As such, he is equally in the position of
the empty waste before creation. Emptying himself, he thus becomes the perfect figure of
a pure receptivity to Gods creative action. The receptivity is such that he receives and
embodies this action. He takes it on as his own.

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If we make Christ our paradigm of this relation to the sacred, then the relation
involves both self-emptying and receptivity. Thus, to engage in the prayer that brings one
into such a relation with the sacred is to empty oneself so as to provide a space for the divine
in the form of the Holy Spirit to appear. It is to imitate Christ as the self-emptying of God, as
the one in whom the Holy Spirit or creative breath acts. Receptive to the Holy Spirit, one
takes upon oneself its creative action. How are we to understand this? How can we imitate
Gods creative action within the already created world? As existing prior to all that is, God
creates from nothing. Creative action, thus, occurs prior to its object. How can we engage in
this?
There is a traditional Christian answer to this question. It frames the more general,
phenomenological response I give below. Christians see creation in terms of the love that is
prior to its objectthe love that brings about what it desires. Such love is not a making. It is
not a fashioning of something from something else. We imitate this creative love whenever
we provide the space, the environment that allows the coming to be of the object. All forms
of nurturing are examples of this creative, human love. A parent who engages in it creates
the adult by providing the environment in which the child can grow and develop. The farmer
does the same thing with regard to the seed. The seed without the proper receptivity of the
soil cannot grow. The seed is as little the plant as the child is the adult. Both need the proper
space in order for the let-there-be of creative action to occur. The frequent references to
love in the Gospels point to the action of providing this spacethat is, of allowing what will
be to incarnate itself and hence come to be.

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Empathy and Incarnation
A strictly phenomenological account of the relation of kenosis and incarnation can be
made in terms of empathy. The word comes from the Greek pathein, to suffer or undergo,
and en, signifying in. According to its etymological sense, the sense employed throughout
this work, empathy is a feeling (a suffering or undergoing) of the world in and through
another person. At its most basic level, empathy is bodily. Another person hurts his hand
and we reach for our own. We see someone cut himself and we wince. In each case, we take
on the others flesh. We allow the other, at least as long as empathy lasts, to incarnate
himself in us. This letting ourselves be shaped by the others circumstances can extend to
taking account of the others bodily condition: sex, health, and so on. The same holds for the
others memories and anticipations. Insofar as these are known to us, they too can become
components of our empathy. In each case empathy involves both a self-emptying and an
assumption of the othera letting him or her come to be in our person. Its moral aspect is
shown by the impulse it gives to our following the golden rule. If, through empathy, we
have the capacity of experiencing the distress of others, then we refrain from harming them.
Positively, we treat them as we would like to be treated. Both actions occur as a function of
our taking on the selfhood of the other. The fact that variations of the golden rule are found
in all the worlds major religions is testimony to the universality of this capacity to assume
anothers selfhood 196.
When empathy takes on its radical, religious form, it exhibits a striking combination
of passivity and activity. Insofar as empathy involves kenosis, it can lead to a passivity to the
other that is reminiscent of the passivity of the empty waste before the creative action of
God. In its ultimate form, what we have is a passivity similar to that which Levinas speaks

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of in describing substitution. Experiencing it, we experience the impossibility of evading
the neighbors call. We find that we are not free to distance ourselves from him or her.197
What we undergo is a passivity without the arche of identity, one where our identical
selfhood, our ipseity is a hostage. In such a situation, Levinas writes, The word I means
to be answerable for everything and for everyone.198 In this radical substitution, selfresponsibility becomes responsibility for the other. Incarnating the other becomes a
passion involving the assumption of the suffering and failings of the other.199 What we
have here is a responsibility for the others responsibility. Taking on the others failings, we
assume responsibility for the wrongs done by the other. In the religious language that
characterizes Isaiahs description of the suffering servanta language mirrored by the
Gospels account of Christwe take the others sins upon ourselves. For both Levinas and
the biblical accounts, this does not mean that we engage in the others sins. Substituting
ourselves for the other does not signify our assuming the others lies, self-deceptions and
vices. It points to our assuming responsibility for their results. The activity this implies is
the other side of empathy. It is that of taking up the task of undoing the harm done by the
other. This is the harm done to the others of this other, those others who can include
ourselves. It is also the action that makes good the harm that the other does to himself. The
result, then, of incarnating the others needs and failings in our bodily being and behavior is a
certain type of action. Ideally, this is the action of the good works that identify those who
have assumed a relation to the sacred. For Christians, it is the action of the Holy Spirit.
EscapingMimeticViolenceandtheEarthlyEconomy
When we imitate the other to the point of desiring what the other desires, we tend to
enter into competition with the other. The result, in Girards phase, is mimetic violence.

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Such violence and the aggressive feelings that accompany it can be highly destructive of
society. According to Girard, societies purge themselves of this aggression by directing it
towards a sacrificial victim. The guilt its members feel for their actions is taken to be the
guilt of the victim or scapegoat. It takes responsibility for the wrongs they have engaged in.
Redirecting their mutual aggression towards the victim, they do away with it. Its murder
relieves them of their sense of guilt. It quells, for a while, the violence that threatened to
undermine social relations.200 Such, according to Girard, is the pattern of natural religion.
The uniqueness of Christ is that of reversing this natural religion. Christ is the innocent
victim. He suffers, not for his own, but for our sins. His very innocence gives the lie to the
victims guilt. It, thus, gives the lie to the violence associated with the sacred. Meditating on
his innocence, we are forced to recognize our own responsibility.201 The incarnation empathy
I described has an equivalent effect. Understood as our imitation of Christ, it prevents us
from projecting our sins on to the other. Imitating Christ, we take on the sins of the other.
We assume them as part of our responsibility. In other words, in assuming responsibility for
the other, the individual becomes himself the scapegoat. He or she takes up the task of
undoing the harm done by mimetic violence.
There is a parallel reversal with regard to our involvement in the earthly economy.
Christs appearance as the victim is also his appearance as one of the very least. It is, I
have stressed, his presence in the person of the poor, the dispossessed, and the afflicted.
Insofar as the divine appears as need, our relation to it is not to some good that can be
consumed. The relation is not a function of our appetites. Their aim is the overcoming and
absorption of the desired object. Such a relation is forbidden by the first sense of the sacred.
Whoever attempts to consume the divine will be consumed by its killing splendor. The

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second sense of the divine, insofar as it involves both incarnation and kenosis, guards against
this. As we cited Levinas, to prevent such absorption, the Desirable or God must remain
separated in the Desire. Emptying himself, he separates himself from everything we might
desire. To enter into a relation with this sense of the divine is to see the divine presence in
the nudity and destitution of the other, more precisely, in the appeal that his need makes to us.
The insight of this sense of the sacred is that God in his alterity can only appear as such an
appeal. In this appearing, as Levinas writes, he does not fill me with goods, but compels me
to goodness. This focus on doing good rather than receiving goods is what ultimately
moves us beyond the earthly economy.
What Should We Pray For
According to the above, the prayer that opens us up to the sacred is not a function of
the earthly economy. Still less is it an expression of mimetic violence. It is, rather, an
imitation of the divine in its action of kenosis. Engaging in it, we empty ourselves and open
ourselves to the other. In this very action, we open a space for the divine in its creative
action. The sense of this self-opening can be put in terms of our praying for another and for
ourselves. In praying for the other, I do not compete with him, but rather give way. I pray
that good come to the other. Concretely, this means that I both pray that his need be met and
take on this need. Taking it on, I attempt to relieve it. In other words, I assume, as much as I
can, the action I pray for. Can I pray that my own needs be met? To deny that I can would
seem to assume that I am of less worth than the other, that my own sufferings are somehow
of less account. This cannot be taken for granted.202 Accepting this, however, one must also
admit that to receive goods is not necessarily to become good. Still less is a loss of goods to
be considered as a decline in a persons moral worth. Insofar as prayer is a relation to the

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Goodness that makes one good, one can, therefore, pray for goods only as a means to do
good. This implies that every petitionary prayer is also a promise. It is a promise to receive
the object as a means, as a gift that one will pass on to the other. The same holds for ones
prayers for the other. All goods, all fulfillments of needs, should be prayed for as a means to
become good. By becoming good, rather than simply possessing goods, we escape from the
violence that characterizes the earthly economy. Only by doing so can we enter into a living
relation with the sacred. To do so is to share in the unfathomable generosity of Gods
kenosis. It is to participate in his creative love. Doing so, we become the nurturing space that
is receptive to the hidden let there be of the action of this love.
What does this sense of prayer do to the traditional concept of God? Is the sense of
the sacred it implies compatible with this concept? God, in the traditional view is the highest
being. As such, he is supremely being, supremely good, supremely one and supremely
true. He is also the universal cause of all that is, including, as a causa sui, his own being.
Can such a view of God still be maintained? The question of Gods being is not just
theological, but ontological. It has to do with the truth of being in the sense of the really real,
i.e., what truly can be said to be. Metaphysics was the discipline that attempted to answer it.
A final chapter is needed to see how our studies on alterity and the intersubjective character
of mind renew this discipline and the question of God.

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Chapter XIII
METAPHYSICSANDALTERITY

To speak seriously about metaphysics in a book on current philosophy is to admit to

being out of fashion. The task of overcoming metaphysics, announced by Nietzsche, and
taken up in earnest by Heidegger and Derrida, has long been understood as a fait
accompli.203 If metaphysics is thought about at all, it is regarded as overcome and, hence, as
an irretrievable part of philosophys past.204 The reports of its demise are, however,
premature. Viewed in its classic formulation, metaphysics, in fact, cannot be overcome.
This is because metaphysical thinking is grounded on the ineradicable intersubjective
character of human life. This character determines how we think about the world. It
necessarily gives this thought a metaphysical cast. This holds even it we understand
metaphysics in the way Heidegger proposes in order to oppose it.
MetaphysicalThinking
Heidegger writes that metaphysical thinking rests on the distinction between what
truly is and what, measured against this, constitutes all that is not truly in being.205 In the
long history of philosophy, this distinction has been variously interpreted. Generally,
however, it has involved taking the true world as invisible yet intelligible and the nontrue
world as visible but not per se intelligible. To illustrate this point, four examples should
suffice. I shall limit myself to Platos, Descartes, Berkeleys and Kants expression of this
distinction.

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For Plato, the very being of to beis to be always in
the same manner in relation to the same things. As Plato explains, this is to be
unchanging and, thus, to remain the same with oneself. The ideas () beauty itself,
equality itself, and every itself are truly beingbecause they do not admit of
any change whatsoever.206 What constitutes all that is not truly in being is what does
change. For Plato, this is the whole of the visible sensible world. The contrast here is
between the invisible yet intelligible ideas and the sensible world. The proper object of the
intellect is, for Plato, the self-identical. Its self-identity allows us to return to it again and
again, expressing our conception of it in a fixed concept. The ideas, in their unchanging
natures, embody, then, not just the being, but also the intelligible structure of the world.
This holds, even though the ideas, themselves, cannot be sensuously seen.207
The same contrast between the invisible and the visible can be found in Descartes
distinction between the mathematical and the sensuous qualities of bodies. The
mathematically quantifiable aspects of bodies are apprehended only through the intellect.
The visible aspects, i.e., their colors, odors, tastes, sounds, and textures, are immediately
grasped by our five senses. As Descartes warns us, the information presented by these
senses is deceptive.208 Per se, they do not reveal the truth of reality. What cannot deceive
are the quantifiable aspects of bodies. These, he writes, are clear and distinct, and
everything which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly is wholly truei.e., applies
directly to reality.209 Thus, what counts as true being is what can be quantified. It cannot be
directly seen, but only understood by our minds when we number and measure. What
sensuously appears, by contrast, cannot count as what truly is.

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As is well known, George Berkeley, in arguing against Descartes, argues against this
distinction. Following Locke, he calls the numerable aspects of bodies their primary
qualities, reserving the term, secondary qualities, for their sensuous aspects.210 As
Berkeley observes, we cannot quantify what does not sensuously appear. The extension and
motion of a body that we enumerate must come sensuously garbed. Given this, primary
qualities do not point to the reality underlying appearance. They are rather dependent on
appearance. Berkeley draws a radical conclusion from the inseparability of primary and
secondary qualities. Admitting, with Descartes, that the sensuous qualities of objects exist
only in the mind, i.e., only as perceptions, he argues that the same holds for the primary
qualities.211 This means that neither the primary nor the secondary qualities point to a real
material world beyond the perceptual. There is, in fact, no evidence for such a real world.
Strictly speaking, then, the world that appears has its being as a perception.212 Its to be is
to be perceived. Thus, the appearing worlds substratum, what supports it, is not anything
external. It is not matter with its supposed primary qualities. It is the perceiver.213
Ultimately, the supporting perceiver is God. I support the perceptual qualities I can change
at my will through my imagination. Those that I cannot change are produced by God.214
The distinction between primary and secondary qualities thus results in the positing
of two types of being: the being of the perceptions (or ideas in Berkeleys terminology)
and the being of the minds or spirits that support them. The former depend on the latter,
it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute
to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit.215 Because of its
independence and grounding quality, spirit or mind counts as what truly is. Because of their
dependence, the perceptions do not. As before, this distinction is also one of appearing and

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nonappearing. Qua unextended, those unextended indivisible substances or spirits which
act and think and perceive cannot themselves be perceived.216 If we ask how we can
apprehend ourselves, given that we are spirits, Berkeleys answer is that we do comprehend
our own existence by inward feeling or reflection, this even though in a strict sense we
have not ideas [or perceptions of ourselves].217
Berkeleys position is, on this point, remarkably similar to Kants. Kant describes
our nonperceptual consciousness of ourselves as follows: I am conscious of myself, not
as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that I am. This representation is a
thought, not an intuition (Kant 1955c, B157; Ak. III, 123). This means that so far as inner
intuition is concerned, we know our subject only as appearance, not as it is in itself.218 For
Kant, this distinction between appearance and reality holds generally. The appearing of the
objective world is the result of the categories, understood as the rules we follow in
synthesizing our experiences into ongoing presentations of objects of sensible intuition. The
categories are categories of appearance, not of reality. What the world is apart from such
categories, i.e., what it is in itself in its true being, cannot be known.219
This unknowability does not prevent Kant from calling the world in itself the
intelligible world and from designating the self, in its true being, as a member of it.220 In
the world of sense, events follow the rules of causality. Everything that objectively appears
is determined by external relations. Nothing determines itself. This means, as Kant writes,
if I were solely a part of the world of sense, my actions would have to be taken as in
complete conformity with the natural law of desires and inclinations ... (Kant 1964, p. 121;
IV, 453). Reason, however, prevails in the intelligible world, which I belong to through my
mind. On one level, the distinction between the two worlds is between laws of logic, which

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I use to reason out the consequences of my actions, and those of causality, which
characterize the working of nature. On another, it is between my power to determine my
own conduct according to the principles that I recognize through reason and my being
controlled by my environmentfor example., through the desires it occasions.221
With Kant, then, we once again find the characteristic that Heidegger uses to
describe metaphysical thinking. We have the distinction between what truly is and what,
measured against this, constitutes all that is not truly in being, the former being the world
as it is in itself, the latter being the appearing world.222 We also find the two other
characteristics that generally accompany this division. The true world, the world that is in
itself, does not appear. It is, however, associated with mind as the intelligible world. A
further characteristic also appears, one that was implicit in our other examples. For Kant,
the true world is independent. Since it provides the transcendent affection necessary for the
syntheses of consciousness, the appearances that result from such syntheses are dependent.
As such, the true world is also a ground of the apparent.
OvercomingMetaphysics
Although the necessity of overcoming metaphysics has now become a commonplace,
it is still worthwhile to ask what is wrong with the above schema. One obvious answer
comes from the plurality of candidates for the true world. Which shall we choose: Platos
ideas, Descartes mathematical relations, Berkeleys mind, or Kants intelligible, noumenal
world? These are but a few of the possibilities offered by the long history of metaphysics.223
Although all are in some way associated with mind (and thus with an intelligible world
that should offer us criteria to guide us), the distinction between the real and the apparent
makes it difficult to choose. How can we decide between items that do not appear? Fichte,

218
perhaps Kants most brilliant disciple, claimed that the problem involves the ontological
relation between the real and the apparent. The appearing world is not true being since it
is not independent. It is grounded in the true being of the real world. Now as Fichte notes,
By virtue of its mere notion, the ground falls outside of what it grounds.224 The two are
opposed and yet linked insofar as the former explains the latter. In other words, the
ground explains the grounded by embodying a different notion or conceptone that falls
outside of the grounded. Were the ground to express the same notion, it would be in the
same position as the groundedi.e., it would be in need of the very explanation that it,
itself, is supposed to provide. Fichtes logic, when applied to the true being that grounds the
appearing experiential world, immediately differentiates its notion from the latter. If the
latter involves experience, then such true being cannot. As Fichte draws the inference, when
we attempt to discover the ground of all experience, our object necessarily lies outside of
all experience.225 With this, however, the real world that is supposed to ground
experience becomes essentially unknowable.
Nietzsche, in his Twilight of the Idols, gives a short history of metaphysics that aptly
catches the force of Fichtes logic. This history is entitled How the True World
Ultimately Became a Fable. The history begins with Plato for whom, the true world is
attainable by the sage, the pious man and the man of virtue. This man is the philosopher
who leaves the cave of the sensuously appearing world to enter the world of the ideas.
Doing so, he lives in it. Christianity substitutes the believer for the philosopher. The
distinction between the apparent and real worlds is translated into one between this world
and the next (the world of the afterlife). The latter is the true world, which is unattainable
for the moment, but promised to the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue (to

219
the sinner who repents). With Kant, the distinction takes the form of the division between
the noumenal and the phenomenalthe nonappearing and the appearing worlds. Here, the
nonappearing true world exists for us as an obligation, a commandi.e., as the
categorical imperative that is our sole positive contact with the world in itself. This is the
intelligible world where the obligations I recognize through my reason hold universally.
As Nietzsche remarks, what we confront in Kant is the idea [of the true world] become
sublime, pale, northern, Knigbergian. As nonappearing, it is unattainable, it cannot be
proved. The next stage in Nietzsches history appears when we realize that, as noumenal
and, hence, unknowable in itself, the true world cannot be obligatory. As Nietzsche asks,
what could something unknown constrain us to? At this point the true world becomes
a useless idea that has become quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea. Thus,
the cry of the next stage is let us abolish it! The final stage occurs when we realize that
in abolishing the true world we have also abolished the world of appearance!226 As
grounded by the true world, the apparent world cannot exist by itself. Thus, the latters
abolition is also its demise.
With this, we have Heideggers demand to overcome metaphysics. Metaphysics, he
writes, thinks of being (Sein) as a ground, taking beings (die Seienden) as the
grounded.227 As we have seen, this involves taking the former as the true world and
reducing the beings that we encounter to the apparent world. This very thought, however,
leads ultimately to the unknowability and rejection of the true being that is supposed to
ground beings. Overcoming metaphysics is, consequently, overcoming this logic of ground
and grounded. It is motivated by the desire not to explain the appearing world in terms of a
nonappearing world.228

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TheIntersubjectiveNatureoftheTrueWorld
It is not clear that Heidegger himself ever succeeded in overcoming metaphysical
thinking.229 Equally, one can question the success of the other major 20th century
philosophers that have taken on this project. As I indicated at the beginning, I do not wish
to make yet another attempt to overcome metaphysics, but rather to cast doubt on this
entire project. The distinction between the real and the apparent is, I believe, ineradicable.
This is because it is based on the essentially intersubjective character of our life. This may
be put in terms of the three characteristics metaphysics generally ascribes to the true
world: its hiddenness, its grounding quality, and its intelligibility. Although apparently
disparate, these three elements have the same root. As I plan to show, its hiddenness can be
traced to the hidden quality of the other subjects correlated to the true world, while this
worlds grounding quality can be understood in terms of their role in its constitution. The
same derivation can be made of the intelligible quality of the true world. At its origin is
the intersubjective nature of intelligibility. If I am correct, then the nonappearing elements
that metaphysics has traditionally taken as the really real (Platos ideas, Berkeleys mind
or spirit, Kants intelligible world, etc.), are actually traces of our nonappearing others. The
true world aimed at in metaphysics is, in fact, the intersubjective world.
The connection between the true and the intersubjective worlds appears whenever we
raise the question of appearance versus reality. The question arises when we doubt that we
are getting the world as it is in itself, i.e., when we suspect that somehow the world that
appears is not the same as the world that truly is. As I earlier noted, to resolve these
doubts, we generally ask other people if they see what we are seeing. We thereby assume
that the real world is the world that is there for all of us. It is the world to which we all

221
have common access (see above, p. 47). Such a world, of course, exists in contrast to the
world that immediately appears to mei.e., the world expressed by the content of Kants
judgment of perception. Such an I see judgment simply expresses a perceptions
relation to a [given] subject.230 It makes no objective claims. It is precisely when I doubt
what I seei.e., doubt its realitythat such claims come to the fore. I resolve them by
questioning my neighbors about the world that is really there for all of us.
The very expression of this contrast reveals how this attempt to proceed from the
appearing world to the true world leads me to posit the latter as hidden. It is not the logic of
the ground and grounded that forces the true or real world into the realm of the
nonappearing. It is the fact that to intuit the world that is there for all of us, I would have to
see simultaneously out of my own and my others eyes. The difficulty, here, is not just
factuali.e., that I happen to be unable to directly intuit the mental life of others. It is also
conceptual. It follows from the meaning of embodied consciousness. Consciousness, in
directing itself towards an object, always brings one of the objects sides or aspects to the
foreground and relegates the rest to the background. It does so because, as embodied, it
always has a spatial position from which it views the object. Given this, to posit the real
object as intuitively available to a single consciousness implies both robbing consciousness
of its orientation and dispensing with the foreground-background structure that characterizes
its awareness. As Merleau-Ponty writes, this positing of one single object, in the full sense
exceeds perceptual experience and the synthesis of horizons . It is, in fact, the death
of consciousness understood as the process by which we intuit the world.231
How, then, can I intuit the true world? As long as I have a body, I must perceive it
from one position at a time. Thus, the intuition of the world in itself, the world

222
simultaneously grasped in all possible perspectives, seems impossible. Impossible, that is,
in this life. This is, perhaps, the reason that Plato, in the Phaedo, looks to the afterlife for
such a grasp. After death, when the soul of the philosopher finally succeeds in separating
itself from the body, then it will directly apprehend the reality of the ideas.232 Similarly
Christians generally believe that the beatific visioni.e., the direct intuition of the really
real understood as Godrequires a separation of the soul from the body.
Another, less drastic solution is to rely on what other people tell me. Here, I continue
to assert that the real world is that which is available to us all, but I take my own access to it
as mediated through my others. At this point, the real world becomes a correlate of my
linguistic community. Its presence is through the others who speak to me. This speaking
occurs from earliest childhood. My entrance into the human world was also an entrance into
language. Thus, as was earlier noted, I learned how to speak while learning how to make
my way in the world. Each new activity with its related objectssuch as my learning how
to eat with silverwarewas introduced with a verbal description. Through the constant
commentary of my caregivers, it was a linguistic as well as a behavioral learning
experience. The continuance of this process through childhood and beyond means that the
objects I now encounter already come clothed with intersubjectively determined linguistic
meanings.
The sensuous immediacy of objects combines with these meanings to yield a world
that is both appearing and nonappearing. Embodied, I experience its immediate sensuous
presence in much the way that other animals with similar senses do. The same sounds,
colors, textures, etc. are present to us all. I also share with the higher animals the associative
ability to link these perceptions. For both myself and such animals, when one appearing

223
object has been frequently experienced with another, its reappearance calls up the
remembered image of the other. Where we part company is in terms of the linguistic
meanings that structure the human intelligibility of this sensuously present world. As
intersubjective, these meanings make possible the positioning of their referents as existent,
not just for myself, but also for the other members of my speaking community. Using
language, I have the possibility of making objective (intersubjectively verifiable) truth
claims. I can speak about the world, its objects and events. The referents of my statements
are asserted to be objective, i.e., really out there. For all this, however, the real world I
refer to has a nonappearing quality. The linguistic structures that underlie it do not, in their
functioning, sensuously appear. They can, of course, take on a sensuous garb. The sounds
of speech and the spatial forms of letters are immediately present to the senses. Yet, as the
experience of hearing a foreign language makes clear, this appearing is not their
intelligibility. Their intelligibility is as sensuously hidden from me as another persons
mind. To grasp what a person has in mind, language is necessary. This nonappearing
element allows me to move from my merely private, sensuously appearing world to the
true or real world.
If the above is correct, then the true world that metaphysical thinking aims at is
actually the intersubjective world. Such thinking distinguishes between what truly is and
what, measured against this, constitutes all that is not truly in being. This distinction has
generally been expressed in terms of the hiddenness, grounding quality and intelligibility of
what truly is. All three elements, however, characterize the intersubjective world. Thus,
my life with othersin particular, my use of language to confirm my perceptionsmakes
me take the reality of the world in terms of those structures that determine its appearance but

224
do not themselves appear. Such structures are as hidden as the minds of the others they
allow me to communicate with. They do, however, ground the true world since it is by
using them that I confirm my perceptions. Speaking with my others, I can move from an
experience of what I directly see to an assertion that what I thus see actually exists. The
same linguistic structures, by virtue of the meanings and logical relations they comprise,
serve as the repository of the intelligible character of the true world. The spoken and
written meanings that I can return to again and again transcend the temporally bound
existence of their authors. As I cited Husserl in this regard, they achieve the persisting
existence of the ideal objects (Husserl 1962, p. 361). They, thus, attain the unchanging
status of the ideas comprising Platos true world. Given their relation to our positing of
reality, it is hardly surprising that from Plato onward, the equation of the real and the
rational has been a constant preoccupation of metaphysical thought. Platos ideas,
understood as the invisible looks of things, Berkeleys mind or spirit, taken as the
nonappearing support of perceptual being, the formulations of modern mathematical physics
that cannot be perceptually represented and yet are taken as the true structure (the reality)
of what is: all such formulations express the same metaphysical impulse. They interpret the
reality of the world in terms of what structures appearances, but does not itself appear.
Ultimately, they all point to the others who allow us to escape from the solitude of our
immediate perceptual consciousness. It is such others who, in grounding the real world, lie
at the root of its hiddenness and intelligibility. They are its truth.
Metaphysics of the Other
I said above that it is not the logic of the ground and grounded that forces the true
world into the realm of the hidden. It is the fact that to intuit the world that is there for all of

225
us, we would have to see simultaneously out of our own and ours others eyes. Given this,
how are we to think the relation of ground and grounded with regard to the true world? For
Fichte, the true world, understood as the ground of experience, is necessarily outside of all
experience. If, however, others are the truth of the true world, this cannot be the case. I
must, necessarily, experience them to posit the true world in the first place. Their givenness
does not mean that I can directly intuit their consciousnesses. It does, however, imply that I
experience them behaviorally and linguistically as the truth of the true world in the sense of
being its unhiddenness, i.e., the clearing in which it can appear. They are its truth in the
Heideggerian sense of .233 Concretely this means that the true world, rather than being
outside of experience, is in experience in the same way that others are in me.
Their being in me does not mean that the distinction between the real and the
apparent worlds is overcome. The distinction is, rather, internalized. As that between self
and others, it becomes part of who we are. However much we may attempt to withdraw
from the world, we never leave our others behind. Each of us, even in our most private,
reflective moments is a part of an intersubjective, linguistic community. This becomes
apparent when we ask: who speaks, who is spoken to in the interior monologue that we
often experience simply as the chatter in our heads. To make this inner distinction
between speaker and auditor, each of us must already, within ourselves, be outside of
ourselves.234
This point may be put in terms of Heideggers notion of being-in-the-world.
According to Heidegger, we are, ontologically, being-in-the-world.235 Because we cannot be
without the world, we are, from the beginning, concerned with and involved in the
world. We express this concern in our projects, i.e., in activities as mundane as making

226
breakfast and as far-reaching as searching for a cure for cancer. Each time we engage in a
project, we disclose the objects of our world. As we cited Heidegger above, it is only in
terms of such projects that the world appears at all, i.e., as articulated into objects with
disclosed properties.236 If we grant this, then with Heidegger, we assert: Self and world
belong together in the single entity, the Dasein. Self and world are not two beings, like
subject and object, or like I and thou, but self and world are the basic determination of the
Dasein itself in the unity of the structure of being-in-the-world.237 Dasein is Heideggers
term for human being as disclosive, as the openness in which the world can be revealed.
When I say that others are such unhiddenness or openness, I am pointing to their crucial role
in such Dasein. From the moment of my birth I am always already with others. All my life
projects, all the activities by which I learned how to make my way in my world, thereby
disclosing it, were introduced to me by my othersinitially my caregivers. As indicated,
their introduction was accompanied by a constant verbal commentary, one which clothed the
disclosed world with intersubjectively determined meanings. As a result, my being-in-theworld involves both the apparent and the hidden. Given that I am being-in-the-world
through my others, I cannot but disclose an appearing world that points back to a level of
nonappearing. As the others that are in me, this nonappearing manifests itself as an inner
alterity, a nonappearing in the heart of my self-presence. Because my self presence is a
function of the intersubjective world, this inner alterity is actually my being outside of
myself in myself. It is my being thrust into a world whose truth exceeds me.
If the above is correct, then Heideggers account of human being as being-in-theworld does not overcome but simply expresses in a new dimension the metaphysical thought
that distinguishes between the true and the apparent world. Such thought, according to

227
Heidegger, thinks of being as a ground. Heidegger writes, This ground itself needs to be
properly accounted for by that for which it accounts, that is, by the causation through the
supremely original matterand that is the cause as causa sui. This is the right name for the
god of philosophy. As Heidegger observes, Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this
god.238 As a ground, it is an ultimately hidden god. For Heidegger, this godthe product
of onto-theo-logyis the result of metaphysics having led theology astray. Its
overcoming by the god-less thinking (gott-lose Denken) that Heidegger looks forward to
is yet another reason to overcome metaphysics.
What happens to such god-less thinking when we realize that metaphysical
thinking, with its distinction between the true and the apparent, is a function of who we are?
In its attempt to think the truth of being, does not this thinking itself suffer a reversal? I
would suggest that to turn it back to God is to think about the role of others in the truth of
being. When we do, the question of the causation through the supremely original matter
(die ursprnglichste Sache) becomes that of Gods presence in the other. Metaphysically, it
becomes the question of Gods role in my being outside of myself in myselfi.e., his role in
the very openness to being that I am. For Levinas, this question invites us to think the
presence of God in the face of the other. More generally, it is to pose the question of
metaphysics in a new key. It is to ask, who is the other that ultimately structures the world?
What is the excess of the saying that is beyond the said of our intersubjective, linguistic
community? How can we properly characterize the exceeding truth of the world we are
in? Such questions are necessarily metaphysical. Only the metaphysical thought of the
future can answer them. Whatever its ultimate conclusions, the concepts of recognition and
alterity, of hiddenness and givenness will form essential aspects of this thought. The

228
reflections of the present volume have been framed to help open a path to it. In pointing
beyond themselves to what exceeds them they exhibit the underlying intuition that animated
them.

229

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239

Endnotes

Introduction

ForHume,vividnessiswhatcausesustobelieveintheexistenceoftheobject.Hewrites,
theforceandvivacityoftheperceptionconstituteinthemindwhatwecallthebeliefinthe
existenceofanyobject(Hume1973,p.153;Treatise,BookI,PartIII,SectionXIII).

Thereverseimplicationalsoholds.Intersubjectiveagreementpointstoreality.SeeKant

1955d,18;Ak.III,2978.
3

Havingsomethingasahumanpossibilitydoesnot,ofcourse,meanthataperson

possessesitsactuality.Seeingtheotherplayinganinstrument,forexample,doesnotmeanI
amatoncecapableofplayingthisinstrument.Itdoes,however,informmethatthisisahuman
capacitythatImight,throughappropriatetraining,alsodevelop.
4

Heidegger1987,II,230.

Heraclitus,theoriginalphilosopherofthenonmanifest,expressedthisintermsofthe

soul:Youwouldnotfindouttheboundariesofsoul,evenbytravelingalongeverypath:so
deepameasuredoesithave(Fr.45,inKirkandRaven1966,p.205).
6

ChapterI

Husserl1962,p.106.

Ibid.,p.116.

Inhiswords,combination,beinganactoftheselfactivityofthesubject,cannotbe

executedsavebythesubjectitself.(Kant1955c,B131;Ak.III,107).
9

AsKantputsthisconclusion,inherently,...Iexistasanintelligencewhichisconscious

[ofitself]solely[asconscious]ofitspowerofcombination;butinrespectofthemanifold
whichithastocombineIamsubjectedtoalimitingcondition.(entitledinnersense),namely
thatthiscombinationcanbemadeintuitableonlyaccordingtotherelationsoftime,whichlie
entirelyoutsidetheconceptsoftheunderstanding.Suchanintelligence,therefore,canknow
itselfonlyasitappearstoitself....(Kant1955c,B1589;Ak.III,124).

10

ItisbecauseofthisthatKantassertsthattheunityoftheactualsubjectisnotthatofthe
categoryofunity.Thecategoriesarerulesforcombination;thus,thecategoryofunity
presupposescombination.(Kant1955c,B131;Ak.III,108).

11

Husserl1962,p.116.

12

Thisactofreproductionistobedistinguishedfromthereproductiveimagination,

whosesynthesisisentirelysubjecttoempiricallaws,thelaws,namely,ofassociation,and
whichthereforecontributesnothingtotheexplanationofthepossibilityofapriori
knowledge..(Kant1955c,B152;Ak.III,120).Theactisactuallyproductive,i.e.,generative
oftimeinthedistinctionofitsmoments.Itthusfirstgeneratestheelementsthatcanbe
associated.Withouttheact,noknowledge.(aprioriorempirical)ispossible.
13

Thereisaneasywaytosymbolizethisprocess.SupposeIhaveanoriginalimpression,I1.As
IadvancetothenextimpressionI2,thefirstisreproduced.Lettingpairsofbracketssymbolize
reproduction,thisadvancecanbesymbolizedasI2[I1].Similarly,theadvancetothenext
impressionI3wouldbesymbolizedasI3[I2[I1]].Wethushavetheseries,I1,I2[I1],
I3[I2[I1]]...,whichcanbethoughtofascontinuingaslongasweholdtheindividual
impressions,I1,I2,I3,...aspartofacompletepresentation.

14

HusserlgivesaphenomenologicalparallelofKantspositioninhisdescriptionofhow

theidenticalintentionalobjectevidentlyseparatesitselffromthechangingandvariable
predicates.Hecallsthisobjecttheidentical,thedeterminablesubjectofitspossible
predicatesthepureXinabstractionfromitspossiblepredicates...(Husserl1976,p.302).
15

AsKantsexampleofgraspingatriangleindicates,noteverysynthesisofrecognitionin

aconceptyieldsthesenseoftimeasenduring.Thus,thesynthesisthatgeneratesthetriangleby
thecombinationofthreestraightlinesaccordingtoaruledoesnotposittherealintime.
(Kant1955c,A105;Ak.IV,80).TheXhereisnontemporal.Itisonlywhenthe
representationssynthesizedhavedistincttemporalpositionsthatsenseofenduringcanobtain.
16

Itdoesthisbygeneratingthesequencethatwehavesymbolizedinnote4asI3[I2[I1]].

17

OnesignofthisisthatitreappearswhenKantreplacesthethreefoldsynthesisoftheA
deductionwithhisaccountofthefigurativesynthesis.(B152).Itnowappearsintherelation
betweenouterandinnersense.AsHokeRobinsonnotestherearetwocontradictory...theses,
bothofwhichKantappearstohold.Thefirstisthatthetimedeterminationofoutersenseis
priortothetimedeterminationofinnersense.Thesecondisthattemporalityaccruesfirstto
innersense,andonlythenderivativelytooutersense.(Robinson1989,no.3,pp.2756).
Togethertheyimplythatourgraspofthesuccessivenessofinnersenseisthroughthetemporal
determinationsofoutersenseeventhoughthelatterpresupposetheformer.Inotherwords,we
canonlygraspthesuccessivenessofinnersenseintermsoftheoutersensethatinnersense
grounds.We,thus,faceacircularity,inthatweassumedthesuccessivenessofinnersense
representationsinordertoestablishoutersensetemporalorder;butitisonlyonthebasisof
outersenseorderthattimedeterminationininnersense,andhenceitssuccessiveness,canbe
established.(ibid.,p.278).

18

InKantswords,Thethoughtthattherepresentationsgiveninintuitiononeandall

belongtome[thatis,aremine]isequivalenttothethoughtthatIunitetheminoneself
consciousness.(Kant1955c,B134;Ak.III,pp.10910).
19

Derrida1973,p.156.

20

Itisalsoamanifestationoftheworldinsofarastheworldistheultimatesourceofthe

transcendentaffectionthroughwhichthesubjectaffectsitselfinthereproductiveact.
ChapterII
21

FortherelationbetweenKantsandHusserlsaccountoftimeconstitution,seeThe

TemporalityofKnowing,inMensch1996,pp.4550.
22

Onerequiresareductionwithinthetranscendentalreductiontograsp,inamore

completemanner,thestreamingimmanenttemporalizationandtime,tograsptheprimal
temporalization,theprimaltime...Thisisthereductiontothestreaming,primalimmanence,
totheprimalunitiesconstitutingthemselvesinthis....(Ms.C7I,Jan.July1932,p.14b).

23

ButI,Husserlsays,theidentical[subject]ofmyacts,amnowandonlynowand

am,inmybeingasanaccomplisher,stilltheaccomplisheroftheaction....(Ms.C10,1931,p.
16b).Byvirtueofmytemporalization,themomentsoftimedepart.Yetthistemporalization,
Husserlremarks,oughtnottocoverupthefactthatIamegologicallycontinuallystreamingly
nowandonlynow....(ibid.).
24

Theextendedquotehereis:Thereis,indeed,community[ofselfandOthers]the

wordcoincidencehas,unfortunately,theconnotationofextendedcoincidence.(Deckungin
Extension),ofassociation...[Theegos]life,itsappearances,itstemporalizationhavean
immanentextensioninthestreamstime,andsodoesthatwhichiswithinthestreamas
somethingmaterially,temporallyconstituted.Everythingwhichistemporalized,everything
temporalizedbythestreamingmodesofappearanceswithintheimmanenttemporalstreamand
then,onceagain,bytheexternal.(spatialtemporal)appearances,hasaunityofappearance
[andhence]atemporalunity,aduration.[But]theegoasapoledoesnotendure.Therefore,
alsomyegoandtheotheregodonothaveanyextensivedistanceinthecommunityofour
beingwitheachother.Butalsolife,mytemporalization,hasnodistancefromthatofthe
Other.(Ms.C16VII,May1933;Husserl1973a,p.577).
25

Sartresexpressionofthispositionis:Thebeingofconsciousnessquaconsciousnessis

toexistatadistancefromitselfaspresencetoitself,andthisemptydistancewhichbeing
carriesinitsbeingisNothingness.Thus,inorderforaselftoexist,itisnecessarythattheunity
ofthisbeingincludeitsownnothingnessasthenihilationofidentity.(Sartre1966,p.125).
Withthis,wehavethenewcategoryoftheForitself.(seeibid.,pp.1256).
26

ThediaofdiachronycomesfromtheSanskritrootoftheGreektwo)andhas

thesenseofapart.ItisusedbyLevinasinthissense.Fortheetymologicaloriginofthis
usageseetheentryfordiainTheShorterOxfordEnglishDictionary,3rded.,ed.Onions,
Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1964,p.499.
27

Thus,referringtotimeandalltemporalphenomena,Levinasasks,Couldntone,in

thesephenomena,thinkoftheiremptiness[i.e.,thefactthatinherentlytimeisnottiedtoa
givencontent]andtheirincompleteness[i.e.,theunendingqualityoftime]asastepbeyond

contents,amodeofrelationwiththeuncontainable,withtheinfinitethatonecouldnotsayisa
[qualitative]term?.(Levinas1993,p.127).
28

Ashealsoputsthis:Always.Thealwayswouldsunderitself.Thealwaysoftime

wouldbeengenderedbythatdisproportionbetweendesireandwhatisdesired[i.e.,the
assimilationoftheother],andthisdesireitselfwouldbetheruptureofintentional
consciousnessinitsnoeticnoematicqualityi.e.,thequalitythatmakestheothergivenasa
correlatetomynoetic.(orknowing)intentions.(Levinas1993,p.127).
29

Moreprecisely,whatcallsforththeruptureofphenomenologyisthefaceoftheother.

(Levinas1994a,p.107).AsweshallseeinChapterX,behindthisruptureisthemortalityof
theface.Apersonsliabilitytodeathpointstowhatcannotbeseenorknown.
30

Thisdoesnotmeanthatouterthingscannotbecharacterizedasintime.Time,Kant

writes,istheformalconditionofallappearanceswhatsoever.Inthis,itisdistinguishedfrom
spacewhichservesastheaprioriconditiononlyofouterappearances.(Kant1955c,B50,Ak.
III,p.60).Thepointfollowsbecauseallpresentationsbelongasdeterminationsofthe
mind,toourinnerstate.Thisinnerstate,however,belongstotime.(ibid).Thus,whenwe
relateourrepresentationstoanouterobject,theobjectitselfassumesatemporalcharacter.We
ascribetoitthepastwerecallandthefutureweanticipateeventhough,strictlyspeaking,we
cannotoutwardlyintuiteither.
31

AsKantexpressesthis,everythingwhichbelongstoinnerdeterminationsis

representedinrelationsoftime.Butonlytheinnersense,bymeansofwhichthemind
intuitsitselforitsinnerstate,graspssuchrelations.(Kant1955c,B37;Ak.III,52).
32

ChapterIII

Lockesformulationis:Wearesofarfromknowingwhatfigure,sizeormotionofparts
produceayellowcolor,asweettaste,orasharpsound,thatwecanbynomeansconceivehow
anysize,figure,ormotionofanyparticles,canpossiblyproduceinustheideaofanycolor,
taste,orsoundwhatsoever:thereisnoconceivableconnectionbetweentheoneandother.
(Locke1995,p.445).Leibnizmakesthesamepointinhisanalogyofthemill.Perceptions,

hewrites...areinexplicablebymechanicalcauses,thatistosay,byfiguresandmotions.
Supposingthattherewereamachinewhosestructureproducedthought,sensation,and
perception,wecouldconceiveofitasincreasedinsizewiththesameproportionsuntilonewas
abletoenterintoitsinterior,ashewouldintoamill.Now,ongoingintoithewouldfindonly
piecesworkingupononeanother,butneverwouldhefindanythingtoexplainperception.
(Leibniz1962,p.254).
33

Agoodexampleofsuchalawwouldbethepsychologicallawofassociation.The

experienceofonesetofcontentsbringsaboutthepresenceofasecond,associatedsetof
contents.ThefirsteditionoftheInvestigationscontainstheclearestexpositionofHusserls
positiononrealcausality.Husserltheretakesrealbeingasbeingtemporallydeterminate.Real
causalityis,correspondingly,understoodasatemporaldeterminationinwhichtheconditionsof
thepastnecessarilydeterminethoseofthepresent.Ifweexpresstheseconditionsasaseriesof
variables,thenthesevariableswhenassociatedwithaparticulartimepointareconsideredto
bebothdeterminedanddeterminative.(SeeHusserl19001901,II.,24950).Theunityfounded
throughsuchaseriesofdeterminationsisaunityexistingthroughtime.Itisathinglike
unity,itscharacterbeingdeterminedbyrelationsofdependenciesbetweensucceedingcontents.
(ibid.,II,248,25051).Applyingthisdefinitiontotheego,Husserlwrites:Justastheouter
thingisnotthemomentaryindividualcomplexofcharacteristics,butratherconstitutesitselfas
aunitypersistinginchangeinfirstpassingthroughamultitudeofactualandpossiblechanges,
sotheegofirstconstitutesitselfasasubsistingobjectintheunitythatspansallactualand
possiblechangesofthecomplexofexperiences.Andthisunityisnolongera
phenomenologicalunity;ithasitsbasisincausallawfulness.(ibid.,II,332).
34

DeBoer1966,p.589.

35

ForanaccountofthisseeMensch1981,pp.36.TheclaimthatHusserlsownmotivated
pathstartsfromtheproblemofthepossibilityofobjectiveknowledgeismadeinhis
NachworttoIdeenIII,Husserl1971,p.150.

36

Thus,asJ.N.Mohantyobserves,Husserlneverreallyabandonstheontologyofideal

andrealbeing.InMohantyswords,Husserldidcarryalong,throughouthislong

philosophicalcareer,anontology.Hehadacertainpictureofthetotaldomainofentities,the
world,accordingtowhichtherearetwokindsofbeing,therealandtheideal.Theformeris
characterizedbytemporality,itisindividuatedbyitsspatiallocationand/ortemporal
occurrence.Thelatterisnotspatiotemporallyindividuated.IfHusserlbecamemoreand
moreconcernedwiththeenterpriseofclarifyingtheconstitutionofmeanings,thisshouldnotbe
construedasentailingthatheeverabandonedhisbeliefthatthereareessences.(Mohanty
1985,p.192).
37

Nietzschedrawsaparallelconclusionwhenheasserts:Theutilityofpreservationnot

someabstracttheoreticalneednottobedeceivedstandsasthemotivebehindthe
developmentoftheorgansofknowledgetheydevelopinsuchawaythattheirobservations
sufficeforourpreservation.(Nietzsche1968,pp.2667).Ifthisisso,thenachangeinthe
conditionsofpreservationdoesnotjustchangeutility.Itchangeswhatcountsasknowledge
aswell.
38

Husserl19001901,II,16.

39

Husserl,thus,writes:Thisidealimpossibilityofanegativepropositiondoesnotclash

withtherealpossibilityofanegativeactofjudgment.Inotherwords,wearefreetosay,
...thepropositionisabsurd,buttheactofjudgmentisnotcausallyruledout.(Husserl1970,p.
158).
40

HusserlsThesisoftheIdealityofMeanings,ReadingsonHusserlsLogical

Investigations,ed.J.N.Mohanty,TheHague,MartinusNijhoff,1977,p.77,hereaftercitedas
Mohanty1977.
41

DeBoer1966,p.582.

42

ThomasNenondistinguishestwomodelsoffoundationintheInvestigations.Thefirstisthe
ontologicalmodelthattreatsofindependentanddependentobjects.(Nenon1997,p.99).As
exemplifiedintheThirdInvestigationstheoryofpartsandwholes,itsconcernistoseewhich
objectsrequireotherstoexistandwhichcanexistontheirown.Thesecond,whichappearsin
theSixthInvestigation,istheepistemologicalmodelthattreatsofindependentanddependent

acts.Here,thequestionisnotinwhichthinganotherkindofthingfindsitsexistence,but
ratheronwhatbasisahigherlevelactcanbeconstructed....(ibid.,p.106).Whenweassert
thatmeaningsarenotobjectsbutrathermediumsofreference,weare,infact,assertingthat
theirfoundationisepistemological.Itconcernstheactsthatmustbeundertakeninorderthat
theidealityoftheirreferringfunctionbeestablished.
43

Husserl1973b,p.262.

44

InHusserlswords,thepropositionitselfis,foralltheseactsandactmodalities,

identicalasthecorrelateofanidentificationandnotgeneralasthecorrelateofacomparative
coincidence.(Husserl1973b,p.263).
45

Mohantyputsthisintermsofananalogywiththeconstitutionofthesenseofaphysical

object:Ifthesenseofthepredicatephysicalobjectisconstitutedinperceptualexperiencesof
varioussortsinterrelatedincertainmoreorlessdeterminatemanners,similarlythesenseof
meaningisconstitutedinactsofunderstandingandcertaincorrelationsbetween[an]
understandinguseofexpressionsbyspeakersand[an]understandinggraspbyauditors
(Mohanty1977,p.81).
46

Suchexperience,ofcourse,presupposestheempathywithoutwhichtherewouldbeno

intersubjectivecommunity.SeeHusserl1962,p.360.
47

Theperceptionsarenotparticularsthatformtheextensionofthebox.Itisnotasif,

ingraspingthebox,weapprehendwhatiscommontotheperceptions.Thegraspoftheboxas
thesameistheresultofanactofidentification,onewherewegraspthereferentofeachofthe
perceptionsasthesame.
48

SeeBerkeley1988,Introduction,10andHume1973,Bk.I,PartI,sec.7.
49

Descartes1990,p.6869.

50

SeeKant1955d,Ak.IV,2978.

ChapterIV

51

DiscussionCommentsbyEugenFinkonAlfredSchutzsEssay,TheProblemof
TranscendentalIntersubjectivityinHusserl,inAlfredSchutz,CollectedPapersIII,ed.I.
Schutz,TheHague:MartinusNijhoff,1966,p.86.

52

AsKantexpressesthistransition,Allourjudgmentsareatfirstmerelyjudgmentsof
perception;theyholdgoodonlyforus.(i.e.,foroursubject),andwedonottillafterwardsgive
themanewreference.(toanobject),anddesirethattheyshallalwaysholdgoodforusandin
thesamewayforeveryoneelse.Theconfirmationthattheydoholdgoodforothersi.e.,that
othersconfirmthemconfirmstheirreferencetotheobjectfortherewouldbenoreasonfor
thejudgmentsofothermennecessarilyagreeingwithmine,ifitwerenottheunityoftheobject
towhichtheyallrefer,andwithwhichtheyaccord.Theconverserelationalsoholds;the
confirmationoftheirreferencetotheobject.(i.e.,oftheirobjectivevalidity)confirmstheir
holdingformyothersforwhenajudgmentagreeswithanobject,alljudgmentsconcerningthe
sameobjectmustlikewiseagreeamongthemselves.(Kant1961,pp.556;Kant1955d,Ak.IV
298).

53

SeeReasoning,inJames1948,pp.35457.

54

Thisiswhy,asHeideggerwrites,Worldisonly,if,andaslongasDaseinexistsHeidegger
1988,p.170.Asanequipmentaltotality,whichisuncoveredbyourprojects,itdependson
us.Seeibid.,pp.1634.Suchaworld,ofcourse,isnotnature,whichalwaysalreadyis.
Theelementsofnaturebecomeobjectsinourworldwhenwedisclosethemthroughour
projects.(ibid.,p.169).

55

InHeideggerssomewhatconvolutedphasing:Thereisverbalexpressionlanguage

onlyinsofarasthereisconsidering,andsuchconsiderationofsomethingassomethingis
possibleonlyinsofarasthereisinterpreting;interpretationinturnisonlyinsofarasthereis
understanding,andunderstandingisonlyinsofarasDaseinhasthestructureofbeingof
discoveredness,whichmeansthatDaseinitselfisdefinedasbeingintheworld.(Heidegger
1985,p.261).
56

ThesimilaritiesbetweenHeideggersandWittgensteinsaccountsoflanguageare

striking.BothopposeAugustinesview,accordingtowhichweleanedourlanguagebyhaving

ourcaregiverspointtoobjectsandnamethem(SeeConfessions,I.8,Wittgenstein1968,1,
32).Bothtiemeaningtouse(Wittgenstein1968,43,556).WheretheydifferisHeideggers
focusonourusesoftheobjectsweencounter,ratherthanontheusesofourwords.Thisaffects
theirviewoflearningalanguage.ForHeidegger,itisafunctionofourleaninghowtomake
ourwayintheworld,i.e.,learningtheusesofitsobjects.ForWittgenstein,itisamatterof
learningthedifferentlanguagegameswhichspecifydifferentusesoftheword.Thus,whenwe
areindoubtaboutameaning,Wittgensteinadvises:alwaysaskyourself:Howdidwelearn
themeaningofthisword?Fromwhatsortofexamples?inwhatlanguagegames?Given
thatthewordcanfunctioninanumberoflanguagegames,thewordmusthaveafamilyof
meanings(77).Wittgensteinrepeatedlyusestheexampleofchesstoillustratethenotionofa
languagegame.Thispointstothefactthattheusesofwords,asspecifiedbytherulesofa
givenlanguagegame,areessentiallyconventional.Thereisnononconventionalrelation
betweenthewordsthatformourlanguageandtheworldwithitsobjects.ForHeidegger,
however,theusesthatdeterminesmeaningdisclosenotjusttheobjectused,theyalsoexhibit
ourownbeingintheworld.Thelatter,asouressentialontologicalcondition,isanythingbuta
convention.Asforthefamilyofmeaningsgivenbythedifferentusesoftheobject,beyond
theirconventionalrelationtooneanother,theyareallunifiedbytheirreferencetotheobject
disclosed.
Sartre1966,p.60.

57

58

AfurtherimplicationHisthatthequestionofreason,sinceitinvolvesthesameselfseparation
asfreedom,presupposesfreedom.Foranelaborationofthispoint,seeHeidegger1969a,pp.
123ff.

59

ChapterV

Heidegger1985,p.85.

60

ThisconceptisrelatedtowhatMarioncallsasaturatedphenomenon.Accordingto

Marion,thisalsoinvolvesanexcessofintuitionovertheconceptorthesignification..
(CaputoandScanlon,eds.1999,p.69).WhereIdifferfromMarionisinnotassumingthat
suchaphenomenonimpliesadeparturefrombeing.Itseemstomethatthenotionofbeingis

widerthanthatofbeinganobject.ForMarion,however,saturatedphenomenacannotbe
describedeitherasobjectorasbeing.(ibid.,pp.7071).
61

AsSartreputsthis,WhatImustattainistheOther,notasIobtainknowledgeofhim,

butasheobtainsknowledgeofhimself.Thiswouldinfactsupposetheinternalidentification
ofmyselfandtheother..(Sartre1966,p.317).Giventhatthisisimpossible,wehavetosay:
Theotheristheobjectofemptyintentions,theOtheronprinciplerefusesandflees.Thisis
becausetointendtheOtherasotheristointendafullintuitionofanabsence.(ibid.,p.318).
62

ItisbecauseofthisnonpresencethatLevinascanspeakoftheruptureof

phenomenology,whichthefaceoftheothercallsforth.Inreferringtowhatcannotappear,
thefacedoesnotcease,initsenigmaorambiguity,totearitselfawayfromandmake
exceptiontotheplasticformsofthepresenceandobjectivitythatitnonethelesscallsforth.
(Levinas1994a,p.107).
63

ForDerrida,thisinabilitytodistinguishbetweenotherswhoaretotallyother,condemns

theconceptsofresponsibility,ofdecision,orofdutytoparadox,scandal,andaporia.If
everyother.(one)isevery.(bit)other[toutautreesttoutautre],i.e.,if,everyoneelseis
completelyorwhollyother,howcanIsortoutmyethicalobligationstothem?.(Derrida1995,
p.68).
64

Derrida1978,p.123.Atissuehere,accordingtoDerrida,istheverypossibilityof

Levinasslanguage:Levinas...depriveshimselfoftheveryfoundationandpossibilityofhis
ownlanguage.Whatauthorizeshimtosayinfinitelyotheriftheinfinitelyotherdoesnot
appearassuch...?.(ibid.,p.125).
65

Levinasalsoasserts,Theotheristhefuture.ThebasisofthisclaimforLevinasis,

however,quitedifferent.AccordingtoLevinas,whatlinkstheOtherandthefutureistheir
sheeralterity.Hewrites,thefutureiswhatisinnowaygrasped.thefutureiswhat
befallsandlaysholdofus.Theotheristhefuture.Theveryrelationshipwiththeotheristhe
relationshipwiththefuture.(Levinas1994b,pp.767).Myviewisthatfuturityismanifestin
theothersbehavior.Itispresentintheexcesssuchbehaviormanifestsbeyondwhatweintend.

66

Therefore,Lord,notonlyareyouthatthanwhichnothinggreatercanbethought,but

youarealsosomethinggreaterthancanbethought.(quiddammaiusquamcognitaripossit).
Forsinceitispossibletothinkthatthereissuchaone,then,ifyouarenotthissamebeing,
somethinggreaterthanyoucouldbethoughtwhichcannotbe(Anselm1965,p.137).
67

BothtranslationsaregivenbyTorah1962,p.102.TranslationsfromGenesisandExodusare
fromTorah1962.

68

Becauseofthis,onecannotreallyspeakofreligionasaneconomyi.e.,asamatter

ofexchangewhereonedoessomethingforGodandbindshimtodosomethinginreturn.
DerridascritiqueofreligioninthisregardignorestheopennessoftherelationtoGod.See
Derrida1995,pp.111115.
69

AsHusserlputsthis:Outerperceptionisinterpretation,thustheunityoftheconcept

demandsthatinnerperception,besuch.Itbelongstoperceptionthatsomethingappearswithin
it,butinterpretationmakesupwhatwetermappearancebeitcorrectornot,anticipatoryor
overdrawn.ThehouseappearstomethroughnootherwaybutthatIinterpretinacertain
fashionactuallyexperiencedcontentsofsensation.IhearabarrelorganthesensedtonesI
interpretasbarrelorgantones.Evenso,Iperceiveviainterpretationwhatmentallyappearsin
me,thepenetratingjoy,theheartfeltsorrow,etc.Theyaretermedappearancesor,better,
appearingcontentspreciselyforthereasonthattheyarecontentsofperceptiveinterpretation.
(Husserl1984,p.762).
70

Kant1964,p.100;Ak.IV,435.

71

LewisandShort1966,p.1610.

72

Sophocles1954,lines36ff,p.81.

73

AstheBiblerelatestheirinitialencounter,Godcalledtohimoutofthe[burning]

bush:Moses!Moses!Heanswered,HereIam.AndHesaid,Donotcomecloser.Remove
yoursandalsfromyourfeet,fortheplaceonwhichyoustandisholyground.AndMoseshid
hisface,forhewasafraidtolookatGod.(Exodus,3:46,inTorah1962,p.102).

74

Thus,whenGodappearstoJob,hesays:itismyturntoaskquestionsandyoursto

informme.(Job,38:3,inJerusalemBible1966,p.772).AllcitationsfromthebooksofJob
andMatthewarefromthistranslation.
CHAPTERVI

75

Levinas1969,p.43.Kant1955c,A105;Ak.IV,80

76

InKantswords,Iftwoopposedjudgmentspresupposeaninadmissiblecondition,theninspite
oftheircontradiction.(whichisnotactuallyagenuineone),bothfalltotheground,inasmuch
asthecondition,underwhichaloneeachofthesepropositionsissupposedtohold,itselffalls.
(Kant1955b,B531:Ak.III,3456).ForKant,thisconditionwasthattheappearingobjectwas
thethinginitself.

77

Withthis,wereverseDescartesorderofcertainty.FromaCartesianperspective,self
certaintyisfirst;certaintyregardingothershastobededucedfromthis.Theself,inthis
perspective,isthesphereoftheunhidden,whiletheother,intranscendingthis,remainshidden.
Here,however,itisthefactofmyownselfhiddennesswhichmakesmesaythattheother,in
regardingme,isinaccessibletome.Hisinaccessibilityisbasedinmyown.Theoriginal
hiddennessis,isfact,thatofmyselftomyselfinmybeingintheworld.

78

Thisiswhy,asMerleauPontynotes,Perceptionispreciselythatkindofactinwhichthere
canbenoquestionofsettingtheactitselfapartfromtheendtowhichitisdirected.(Merleau
Ponty1962,p.374)

79

Topositanobjectabsolutelywithoutthisstructureis,then,toposititinawaythatitcan
neverbegraspedbyconsciousness.Infact,asMerleauPontywrites,...theabsolutepositing
ofasingleobjectisthedeathofconsciousness...sinceitdispenseswiththisstructure.
(MerleauPonty1962,p.71).

80

Dawkins1995,p.15.

81

MerleauPonty1968,p.225.

82

Lacanbelievesthisoccurswiththechildsrecognizinghisownimageinthemirror.For
Lacan,thisstage,inwhichtheIisprecipitatedinaprimordialform,occursbeforeit[theI]
isobjectifiedinthedialecticofidentificationwiththeother,andbeforelanguagerestorestoit,
intheuniversal,itsfunctionassubject.(Lacan1977a,p.2).Mypositionisthattheoriginal
mirroristhebodilypresenceofthecaregiver.

83

MerleauPonty1968,p.224.

84

Allthisaffectshowwetakethetraditional,Kantianaccountofthevisibleinvisiblesplit.From
theKantian.(andHusserlian)perspective,IdonotappearinsofarasIconstitute.Thedeepest
layerofconstitutionisthatoftemporalization.Thus,asKantargues,allappearanceis
temporallyextended.Everythingtemporallyextendedrequirestemporalsynthesis.Butthat
whichsynthesizescannotbeitselftheresultofsynthesis.Thus,itcannotitselfbetemporally
extendedand,hence,cannotappear.(Kant1955c,B1569).If,however,temporalsynthesis
werefoundedinmybodilyIcan,i.e.,inmybeingintheworld,thenthegroundwould
naturallyappear.Itsnonappearingwouldbeafunctionofitsappearing.Itwouldbeafunction
ofitsgivingitselfasnotbeingabletobegiven.Itwouldbeanimplicationofappearanceitself.
Whatwehave,then,isareversaloftheKantianprocedure.Kantexplainsappearanceinterms
ofthehiddennessoftemporallyconstitutingsubjectivity.Thereversalexplainsthehiddenness
ofsubjectivityintermsofappearance.Itdoesthisintermsofitsbeingintheworldthevery
beingthat,intheappearanceofitsIcan,groundstemporalization.

85

SeeJames1948,pp.35457.

86

Thisiswhy,asHeideggerwrites,Worldisonlyif,andaslongasDaseinexists.(Heidegger
1988,p.170).Asanequipmentaltotality,whichisuncoveredbyourprojects,itdependson
us.Seeibid.,pp.1634.Suchaworld,ofcourse,isnotnature,whichalwaysalreadyis.
Theelementsofnaturebecomeobjectsinourworld,whenthroughourprojectswedisclose
them(ibid.,p.169).

87

Giventhis,wecannotendorsethesharpdistinctionWittgensteinmakesbetweenthe

privateandthepublic,wheretheprivateistheunspeakableandthepublicisthedemonstrable
andspeakable(Wittgenstein1968,268293).Inourview,theprivateisspeakablebecauseit

originatesinourbeingintheworld.
88

AccordingtoFreud,thismakesguiltafunctionofthesuperego.Thisaspectofourselves,he
writes,includesinitsoperationnotonlythepersonalitiesoftheactualparentsbutalsothe
family,racialandnationaltraditionshandedonthroughthem,aswellasthedemandsofthe
immediatesocialmilieuwhichtheyrepresent(Freud1989,1516).Theirinternalizationgives
risebothtothesuperegoandthesenseofguilt.InFreudswords,itisonlywhenthe
authority[ofothers]isinternalizedthroughtheestablishmentofasuperego...thatweshould
speakofconscienceorasenseofguilt(Freud1962,72).

89

Anapparentexceptiontothisisthecircumstanceofanindividualsbeingashamedofhisbody
whenheprivatelyregardsitinthemirror.Thiscanbeexplainedbythefactthatwhenaperson
seeshimselfinamirror,heregardshimselfasanobject(seenote13below).Assumingan
externalstandpointtohimself,hecan,asanobserver,standinforanexternalobserver.Thus,
themorevividlyherepresentstohimselfanimaginedotherwithexactingstandardsofbeauty
orfitness,themorehemayexperienceshameinhisbodysfailuretomeasureup.Suchcases,
however,aresecondarytotheprimaryphenomenon,whichinvolvesanactual,ratherthanan
imaginedother.AsSartrewrites,theOtheristheindispensablemediatorbetweenmyselfand
me.IamashamedofmyselfasIappeartotheOther(Sartre1966,302).

90

Atraceofthisoriginappearsinthemeaningsofpudeur.Laroussedefinesthebasicmeaning
ofpudeurasmodesty,sexualmodesty,andattentatlapudeurasindecentassault
(Larousse1960,578).

91

Italsodeterminesourownbeing.Webecomethepersonwhohasaccomplishedtheseprojects.
Insofarassuchprojectsinvolvetheworld,sodoesthebeing(theDasein)thatisdefined
throughthem.Thus,tosaythatbeingintheworldisDaseinsfundamentalontologicalmode
isalsotoassertthatitsbeingisdefinedthroughprojectsinvolvingtheworld.

92

Thisincludesattributesthatonewouldnormallynotthinkofinthisconnection.Abodys
beauty,forexample,becomesapublicobjectinthecontextofitsusetoattractmatesor,inthe
contextofthemoderncommercialworld,itsusetosellproducts.

93

AsHeideggerputsthis,Insofarasitis,deathisessentially,ineverycase,mine,(Heidegger
1967,240).

94

Giventhefactthatmeaningsareuniversals,theycannotexpresstheparticularityofanybeing.
ForAristotle,thismeansthatwecannotdefinetheparticular.Wecanonlyapprehendit
throughintuitivethinkingorperception(MetaphysicsVII,x,1036a27).Whatsetsour

bodilyparticularityapartisthefactthatweliveinandthroughit.Itistheconditionofthe
possibilityofhavingprojectsand,hence,ofinterpretingourworld.Assuch,itsinexpressibility
isuniquelyourown.Itconcernsourveryfunctioningasbeingscapableoflanguage.Itisthis
functioningasagroundorconditionofthespeakablethatmakesituniquelyunspeakable.The
operativeprinciple,here,isthatexpressedbyFichtewhenhewritesbyvirtueofitsmere
notion,thegroundfallsoutsideofwhatitgrounds.Thisisbecause,ifthetwowerethesame,
thegroundwouldloseitsfunctionofexplainingthegrounded.Ititselfwouldbeinneedofan
explanationthatitissupposedtoprovide(Fichte1982,p.8).
95

Theroleofempathyinshameexplainswhybabiesandtoddlersdonotfeelshame.AsGail
Sofferpointsout,thechildssenseoftheother(and,hence,itsempathy)onlygradually
develops.Initiallyforthechild,therearenoothers.Ittakesitscaregiversasextensionsof
itself.SeeSoffer1999,151166.

96

SeeEdmundHusserl1952,153.AsHusserlmakesclear,noothersensecansubstitutefor
touchinthisreturnofthesensingactivity.Takeforexamplesight.Icanregardmybody,but
asHusserlnotes,Idonotseemybody,thewayItouchmyself.WhatIcalltheseenbodyis
notsomethingseeingwhichisseen,thewaymybodyastouchedissomethingtouchingwhich
istouched.Whatislackinghereisthephenomenonofdoublesensationinwhicheachhand
feelstheotherasobjectandfeelsitselfassubject(155).Sincesightlacksthis,whenIlookat
myselfinamirror,Idonotseetheseeingeyeasseeing.Theeyethatregardsmefromthe
mirrorisexperiencedasanobject.Itisliketheeyeofanotherand,hence,myseeingitdoesnot
givemeafirstpersonexperienceofitsseeingme(155,n.1).TohavethisIwouldhaveto
experienceitsseeingasmyseeing.Touchdoesthissincethehandthatistouchedalsofeelsits
beingtouched.Thus,thesensationsofthetouchedhandpointbacktothetouchinghandas
touching.Bycontrast,theeyethatIregardinthemirrorisliketheinanimateobjectsthatI
touch.Ifeeltheirproperties,butIdonotfeelthemfeelingme.

97

Thisdoesnotmeanthatin
feelingguilt,wenecessarilyfeelshame.Therelationoffoundationisnotthatofgenusto
species,butratherthatofaconditionforthepossibilityofsomethingtothatwhichitservesas
suchacondition.

98

ChapterVIII

AnotableexceptionisFreudsFreud1982,wherehespeaksofacollectivesuperegoand
collectiveneuroses.Evenhere,however,thetreatmentofourcollectiveselfhoodisnot

systematic.
99

hereafterreferredtoasFreud1989.

SigmundFreud1989;

100

InFreudswords,itisonlywhentheauthorityisinternalizedthroughtheestablishmentofa
superego...thatweshouldspeakofconscienceorasenseofguilt(Freud1962,p.72).

101

Symptomsgenerallytakeon
theformofsymbolicsubstitutes.Suchsubstitutesareactionsthatsatisfyonasymboliclevela
personsrepressedwishesor,alternatively,placehiminasituationwherethesewishescannot,
infact,berealized.InFreudswords:Thesymptomsofneurosesare...eitherasubstitutive
satisfactionofsomesexualurgeormeasurestopreventsuchsatisfaction;andasaruletheyare
compromisesbetweenthetwo(Freud1989,p.67).Thissubstitutioncantakeonhighly
symbolicforms.Freudgivestheaccountofaladywhorepeatedlyperplexedhermaidby
callingherandpointingtoagreatmarkonthediningtablecover(Freud1965,p.273).Ten
yearsearlier,shehadmarriedamucholdermanwhoprovedimpotentontheirweddingnight.
Hecoveredthefactofhisfailurefromthemaidbypouringredinkonthebedinaplace
correspondingtothemarkonthetablecloth.AsFreudremarks,Itisclear,firstofall,thatthe
patientidentifiedherselfwithherhusband(ibid.).Heractionsymbolicallysatisfieshiswishto
hidehisdisgrace...intheeyesofthemaidwhodoesthebeds(ibid.).Beyondthis,the
sexualurgethatreceivessymbolicexpressionisthatinvolvedinhisovercominghis
impotencyawishshewould,presumably,haveshared.

102

throughoutasBenitoCereno.

103

TheimageryassociatingtheshipwithamonasterycontinueswhenDelanomeetsitscaptain,
BenitoCereno.InDelanoseyes,Cerenosmanneronreceivingmessageswas,initsdegree,
notunlikethatwhichmightbesupposedtohavebeenhisimperialcountrymans,CharlesV,
justprevioustotheanchoritishretirementofthatmonarchfromthethrone(BenitoCereno,
p.149).DelanosprejudicesagainstSpaniardsandtheirCatholicismleadhimtosuspectthe
whitesonboardofplottingagainsthim.

104

Inpart,thestrangenessof
thedreamalsocomesfromtheunconsciousitselfi.e.,initsimposingitsmodeofworking
onthepreconsciousmaterial.InFreudswords,Thegoverningrulesoflogiccarrynoweight
intheunconscious;itmightbecalledtheRealmoftheIllogical(Freud1989,p.43).Thislack
oflogicinthelawsoftheunconsciousismoststrikinginthephenomenonofcondensation.

Melville1979,cited

Freudwritesinthisregard,Thelawsthatgovernthepassageofeventsintheunconscious
sufficetoexplainmostofwhatseemsstrangetousaboutdreams.Aboveallthereisastriking
tendencytocondensation,aninclinationtoformfreshunitiesoutofelementswhichinour
wakingthroughweshouldcertainlyhavekeptseparate(p.41).Thisidentificationofpotential
oppositesexplainsthedominantrhetoricaldeviceofBenitoCereno,whichSundquistcalls
tautology.Ashedefinesit,tautologyassertsthevirtualequivalenceofpotentiallydifferent
authoritiesormeanings.Itdoessobyrhetoricalmimicryorbybringingtwomeaningsinto
suchapproximationastocollapsethedistinctionbetweenthemwithoutliterallydoingsoin
BenitoCereno,wherephenomenabothintemporalsequenceandinvisualspaceareroutinely
showntobeonthepointofcollapseintosomethingelse,tautologymaybetakentobethe
governingfigureofMelvillesnarrativemethod(Sundquist1993,p.155).Sundquists
brilliantstudy,detailsalltheinstancesoftautology.ItsusebyMelville,inmimickingthe
effectsofcondensation,reinforcesthedreamlikecharacterofthetale.
105

InFreudswords:Adream,
then,isapsychosis,withalltheabsurdities,delusionsandillusionsofapsychosis(Freud
1989,p.49).Fortunately,itisofshortdurationandharmless.(ibid.).

106

ForFreudtheseareprimarilysexual.Hewrites,Aswehavelearned,neuroticsymptomsare,
intheiressence,substitutivesatisfactionsforunfulfilledsexualwishes(Freud1982,p.86).

107

Theworkofpsychoanalysis
involvesreversingthisprocessofrepression.InFreudswords,Symptomsarenotproduced
byconsciousprocesses;assoonastheunconsciousprocessesinvolvedaremadeconscious,the
symptomsmustvanish....Ourtherapydoesitsworkbytransformingsomethingunconscious
intosomethingconscious,andonlysucceedsinitsworkinsofaritisabletoeffectthis
transformation(Freud1965,p.291).

108

Theonetimehedoesspeak
onhisown,BabosaystoDelanoandCereno,dontspeakofme;Baboisnothing(Benito
Cereno,p.154).FromaFreudianperspective,heisthenothingnessthatcannotbedirectly
spokenof.Astheunconscious,heistherefusalofspeech.AccordingtoCharlesNnolim,the
nameBabosignifiesdenial.Hewrites,ThewordbabointheHauslanguage,which
incidentallyistheonlylanguagethatisspokenthroughoutWestAfrica,fromNigeriato
Senegal,meansNOanexpressionofstrongdisagreement,(CharlesNnolim,Melvilles
BenitoCereno,AStudyintheMeaningofNameSymbolism,NewYork,NewVoices
PublishingCompany,1974,p.40).

109

AsCerenolatersaystohim:
Godcharmedyourlife....Tothinkofsomethingsyoudidthosesmilingsandchattings,rash
pointingsandgesturings.Forlessthanthese,theyslewmymate,Raneds(BenitoCereno,p.
221).

110

CatherineZuckertputsthis
intermsofthereasonswhyDelanomightwanttoforgetwhathehasseen.IfDelanohad
thoughtaboutthefactthathehadwitnessedtheenslavementofanaturalleader,the
Americanwouldhavehadtoquestionthecoincidencehebelievesexistsbetweenthenatural
andconventionalorderaswellasthesimplegoodnessofnaturehumanorcosmic.The
Captainwould,inotherwords,havehadtoinquireintothebasisofhisownfreedomaswell
ashisownorothergovernmentscontrolofhumanbeings(Zuckert1999,p.251).

111

Anotherparallelsubstitution
ofapossibleforanimpossiblerepresentationoccursthroughDelanosbeliefthattheSpaniards,
ratherthantheblacks,areplottingagainsthim.Theformerisimpossibleinthesenseofnot
fittingintoDelanosconceptualframeworkaccordingtowhichtheblacksaretoostupidto
revolt.ThelatterisapossiblerepresentationsinceforDelano,withhisProtestantframework,
theSpaniardswerenaturallyplotters.

112

ForFreud,thesocial
phenomenonofrepressionistiedtothearisingofasocialsuperego.Inhiswords,Itcanbe
assertedthatthecommunity,too,evolvesasuperegounderwhoseinfluencecultural
developmentproceeds.Theculturalandtheindividualsuperegoarealikeinthattheformer,
justlikethelatter,setsupstrictidealdemands,disobediencetowhichisvisitedwithfearof
conscience(Freud1982,pp.8889).

113

114

Alreadyin1855serious
violencebetweenproandantislaveryelements(abolitionistssettlersfromNewEnglandand
proslaveryimmigrantsfromMissouri)hadbrokenoutinKansasearningitthesobriquet,
BleedingKansas.

115

Discussingtheassertions
that,allmenarecreatedequal,thattheyareendowedbytheirCreatorwithcertaininalienable
rights,thatamongthesearelife,liberty,andthepursuitofhappiness,Taneywrites:Butitis
tooclearfordisputethattheenslavedAfricanracewerenotintendedtobeincludedandformed
nopartofthepeoplewhoframedandadoptedthisdeclaration;forifthelanguage,as

Taney1949,p.721.

understoodinthatday,wouldembracethem,theconductofthedistinguishedmenwhoframed
theDeclarationofIndependencewouldhavebeenutterlyandflagrantlyinconsistentwiththe
principlestheyasserted;andinsteadofthesympathyofmankind,towhichtheysoconfidently
appealed,theywouldhavedeservedandreceiveduniversalrebukeandreprobation.Sucha
supposition,however,isimpossiblesince,asTaney,immediatelyadds:themenwho
framedthisdeclarationweregreatmenincapableofassertingprinciplesinconsistentwith
thoseonwhichtheywereacting(Taney1948,p.722).Astheseremarksmakeapparent,inhis
inabilitytoacceptcertainfacts,muchofTaneysreasoning,betraysacastofmindsimilarto
Delanos.
116

SeeRichardson1987,p.71
foradiscussionofthesedates.ThatthesedatesareframedtoexpressMelvillesintentionsis
apparentfromthefactthattheyarechangedfromthoseinChapter18ofAmasaDelanos
NarrativeofVoyagesandTravels(Boston,1817),thehistoricalaccountonwhichBenito
Cerenoisbased:WilliamRichardsonreprintsthischapterinRichardson1987,pp.95122.
OtherhistoricalsourcesforMelvillestalearetheslaveinsurrectionsaboardtheAmistadin
1849andtheCreolein1843.Bothwerewidelypublicized.

117

rebellion,theshipsnamewastheTryal.

118

Onthispointandothers
regardingthesymbolismofthenameSanDominick,seeZuckert1999,pp.242243.

119

InAmasaDelanos
Narrative,theSpanishcaptainiscalledbothBonitoSereno(BlessedSerenity)andBenito
Cereno(PallidBenedictine).ThefirstoccursinthemainbodyofDelanosaccount,the
secondintheSpanishcaptainsdepositions.Seepp.103and107ofRichardson1987.Itisin
choosingthesecondname,thatMelvillecanbesaidtomakereferencetotheBenedictinesrole
intheintroductionofslavery.

120

fromMardi,p.250).

121

...Melvillehasgivenusa
mindthatringshistoricallytrue.DelanosuffersamentalblockinlookingatNegroes.He
cannotconceiveofthemasfullyroundedpeople.Tohim,theyaresimple,lovable,subhuman
beings,quitehappyasslavesandservants(Schiffman1950,p.322).

InAmasasaccountofthe

Nnolim1974,p.5(Quote

122

Bernstein1964,pp.1734.

123

Lacan1977b,p.50.

124

Hencethenotionofthe
Lacaniancure:Analysiscanhaveforitsgoalonlytheadventofatruespeechandthe
realizationbythesubjectofhishistoryinhisrelationtoafuture(Lacan1977b,p.88).Itsaim
istohelpthesubjecttorediscoverinthishistory[whichherelatestothetherapist]...thegap
impossibletofill,ofthesymbolicdebtofwhichhisneurosisisthenoticeofnonpayment
(ibid.,p.89).

125

Thispointisquitegeneral.
Itis,forexample,possibletoseeboththeantiterroristlanguageofthecurrentAmerican
administrationandthediscourseoftheterroristsasindicativeofrepression.Repressioncan,in
fact,bemutual.Therepressedelementscanthemselvesengageinrepressionthuscomplicating
andentanglingeachsidesnonrecognitionoftheother.Theresultisthedistortedlanguagethat
issymptomaticofadisconnectfromreality.
126

ChapterIX
127

134

Thethemeofrestraintoccursinconnectionwiththatofthewildernessasaplacewhere

therestraintsofsocietyareabsent.AsMarlowtellshisauditors:Thisistheworstoftryingto
tell...Hereyouallare,eachmooredwithtwogoodaddresses,likeahulkwithtwoanchors,a
butcherroundonecorner,apolicemanroundanother....(Conrad1989,p.84).Sosituated,
theycannotexperiencewhatitmeanstobethrownbackononesowndevices,tohaveto
recognizeevilononesownandtoresistitscall.NoneofthedevicesMarlowcallsupfrom
attemptingtopreserveappearances.(ibid.,p.77)tolosingoneselfinanobscure,back
breakingbusiness.(ibid.,p.86,seealsopp.6970)seemadequatetothetasksofrecognition
andresistance.
Whenhefinallydid,KurtzcouldonlyexclaiminacrythatwasnomorethanabreathThe
horror!Thehorror!.(Conrad1989,p.111).Thismomentofrecognitionisbothcomplete
andtoolate.

128

AsFackenheimasks,whenallcamecrashingdown,whywasitmoreimportanttoannihilate
thefewremainingJewsthantosavealltheGermans?.(Fackenheim1988,p.63).

129

AccordingtoJohnCornwell,thepricePiusXIIhadtopayforthisConcordatwasthe
disbandmentoftheCatholicCenterParty,thelastremainingoppositiontoHitler.SeeCornwell
1999,pp.149151.

130

Fackenheim,inthisregard,mirrorsthecommonjudgmentinwriting:nothoughtfulreadercan
haveanydoubtastothealmostinconceivablespiritual,moralandhumaninferiorityof
AdolphHitler....Hisideas...areunoriginalandtrite.Hispassion...isforthemostpartfed
bylongnursed,pettyresentments,byameanthirstforvengeanceforoldbutneverforgotten
slights(Fackenheim1988,p.65).

131

AsLevinasobserves,theselimitsalsoapplytothenothingnessofdeath,whichforphilosophy
isanantimpossiblepenser.Headds,Onnepeutmconatrelenantdelamorte,mais
onnepeutnonplusleconnatre.(Levinas1993,pp.8081).

132

DaseinsBeingiscare.(Sorge).(Heidegger1967a,p.284).

133

InHeideggerswords:TheDaseinisoccupiedwithitsownbeingmeansmoreprecisely:itis
occupiedwithitsabilitytobe.Asexistent,theDaseinisfreeforspecificpossibilitiesofits
ownself.Itisitsownmostpeculiarabletobe....itisthesepossibilitiesthemselves.
(Heidegger1988,p.276).

134

Assuch,theyappearasequipment.Equipment,Heideggerwrites,isinorderto.He
adds,abeingisnotwhatandhowitis,forexample,ahammer,andtheninadditionsomething
withwhichtohammer.Rather,whatandhowitisasthisentity,itswhatnessandhowness,is
constitutedbythisinordertoassuch,byitsfunctionality.(Heidegger1988,p.293).

135

Thus,Idisclosebothitandmyselfthroughmyproject.Inthelatter,theDaseinisunveiling
itselfasthiscanbe,inthisspecificbeing.(Heidegger1988,p.277).

136

Heidegger,thus,writes:Ifcircumspectivelettingfunctionwerenotfromtheveryoutsetan
expectance...i.e.,anexpectingthatanitemIneedwillbepresentwhenIneeditthenthe

Daseincouldneverfindthatsomethingismissing.(Heidegger1988,p.311).
137

SeeHeidegger1988,p.276.Theunderstandingofbeingthatunderliesmyprojectsdependson
this.SuchunderstandingisthroughtheoriginaltemporalityofDasein,whichiscomposedof
itshavingbeen,itsmakingpresent,anditsbeingaheadofitself.Thesethreetemporalmodes
formthehorizonofallpossibleunderstandingofbeing.Theythemselves,however,are
groundedinourprojective,purposefulexistence.Thus,inthisframework,beingiswhatis
disclosedthroughsuchpurposiveexistence.Seeibid.,p.325.

138

SeeFackenheim1988,p.63.

139

ThesilenceonthiswasfirstbrokeninFeras1987.

140

Gilsonwrites,summinguphisposition,Evilistheprivationofagoodwhichthesubject
shouldpossess,afailuretobewhatitshouldbeandhence,apurenothingness.(Gilson1960,
p.144).

141

AsHeideggerpointsout,ourmodernnotionofcorrespondenceisbasedonthisconception.
Theintellectcorrespondswithrealitywhenitaccordswithitsexemplari.e.,withtheform
specifyingwhatahumanis.IntheMiddleAges,thisformisGodscreativeideaofthehuman
intellect.SeeHeidegger1967b,pp.767.

142

Theologically,onecanexpressthisbynotingthatthegoodnessthatisdefinedinrelationto
Godcannotbedefinedintermsofbeinggoodforsomething.Goddoesnotneedhis
creations.Whiletheymaybeusefultoeachother,hedoesnotdependonthemforthe
achievementofhispurposes.Hisomnipotenceincludeshisindependencefromhiscreations.

143

Suchselfconcealmentcanbeexpressedintermsofafifthtranscendentqualityofbeingthatis
sometimesadded:beauty.Here,thelackofgoodnessalsoexpressesitselfinacertainugliness
ordisproportion.Subjectively,itisexperiencedinthedesiretoturnaway.Thisturningaway
isalsopartofevilsoccasioningitsownconcealment.InConradstale,thisaspectofevil
appearsinMarlowsinabilitytoactuallyrepeatKurtzslastwordstohisfiance.The
substitutionofhernameforthehorror,thehorrorappearstobethefinalcoveringupornon
recognitiongeneratedbyKurtz.SeeConrad1989,p.121.

144

Fackenheim1988,p.66.Fackenheim,himself,takesthisincidentalsoasarefutationof
HannahArendtsideathatevil[oftheHolocaust]isonlyextremeandnotradical,
spreadinglikeafungusonthesurface.Itisthoughtdefyinginthesensethatthought,
tryingtoreachsomedepth,isfrustratedbecausethereisnothing.(ibid.,thereferenced
passageisArendt1978,p.250ff.).Thepositionofmypaperisthatthisnothingisitself
revealedbythissmirk.

145

Conrad1989,p.45.

146

Marlowhimselfcomments,theeffectofthetorchlightonthefacewassinister.(Conrad
1989,p.54).

147

Asimilarsetofdisturbancesofpresence,ofinappropriatenesscharacterizeMelvillesstory.
Againandagain,DelanoregistersandrepressesthesenselessnessofgoingsonaboardtheSan
Dominick.

148

Anearly(1948)workofLevinasseemstoapproachthisinsight,butthenturns

decisivelyagainstit.InRealityanditsShadow,Levinasspeaksoftwotypesof
disengagementfromtheworld.ThefirstisPlatonic.Here,disengagementinvolvesgoing
towardtheregionofPlatonicideasandtowardtheeternalwhichtowersabovetheworld
(Levinas1998b,p.2)Inthismovement,togobeyondistocommunicatewithideas,to
understand.(p.3).Thesecondbelongstoart(thetermdesignatesalltheartsfrompainting
toliterature).Itengagesinadisengagementonthehithersideoftime.Here,theartist
knowsandexpressestheveryobscurityofthereal.Hisattentionisnottobeing,butto
somethingbeyondthis.Thus,tothepointthatbeingandintelligibilityareone,thefunctionof
art[lies]innotunderstanding.Thus,thenontruthofbeinginvestigatedbyartisnottobe
definedbycomparisonwithtruth,aswhatisleftoverafterunderstanding.(ibid.).Rather,this
nontruthconsistsinthesensuousimageinitsindependencefromthecategoryofsubstance
(p.5).SuchstatementsmightleadonetosuspectthatartforLevinasisopentothe
nonsubstantialcharacterofevil.Itsmoraltask,accomplishedbyitsdescriptivepowers,would
betounmaskevil.ForLevinas,however,itisincapableofthis.Theimageartgraspsis
simplytheoldgarmentsbeingleavesbehindasitmovesforwardtothefuture(p.7).This

meansthateveryartworkisintheendastatueastoppageoftime,orratheritsdelaybehind
itself.Inotherwords,itsdisengagementisactuallyfromtheworkofbeingitself,thevery
existingofabeing(p.8).Itstopsitstemporaladvance.Theresultisthepeculiar
timelessnessoftheworkofart.Itisalsoitsirresponsibility.Sincetheworkisfrozenintime,
itcannotgotowardthebetter.It,thus,doesnotcallonustoaccomplishthisbetter;itcalls,
rather,toameregazingontheimageorshadowofbeing.Inartisticproductions,asLevinas
putsthis,theworldtobebuiltisreplacedbytheessentialcompletionofitsshadow.Thisis
notthedisinterestednessofcontemplationbutofirresponsibility.Thepoetexileshimselffrom
thecity.Fromthispointofview,thevalueofthebeautifulisrelative.Thereissomething
wickedandegoist[ical]andcowardlyinartisticenjoyment(p.12).
AsJillRobbinsshowsinherexcellentstudyofLevinasandLiterature,thisnegativeattitude
towardsartisquitegeneralinLevinassworks.InTotalityandInfinity(1961),forexample,
ethics,shewrites,isconsistentlythoughtofasabreakfromparticipation(Robbins1999,
p.86).ParticipationisLvyBruhlstermfortheaffective,primitiverelationofthesavageto
thesupernatural.Levinas,inRealityanditsShadow,seesthisrelationasresponsibleforthe
powerofart(Levinas1998b,p.4).InhisLvyBruhletlaphilosophiecontemporaine,
(1957)citedbyRobbins,hecallsthenostalgiaforparticipationsoutmodedandretrograde
formsakindofelevationofmythandatoleranceforthecrueltieswhichmythperpetratesin
morality(Robbins1999,p.88).Thefirststepinmoralityisthustobreakwithit.Beyond
this,thereisalsotheviewofartssubstitutionoftheimagefortheobjectasillegitimate,as
amountingtoidolatry(pp.845).Thegreatsinhereistomakeanimageoftheface.Sincethe
imageisfrozen,itcannotspeak.Itisapureexampleofthesaidfromwhichallsayingall
abilitytointerruptthesaidhasbeenevacuated.Giventhis,Robbinsconcludes,noaesthetic
approachtothefacecouldalsobeethical.Thereisnoethicalimageoftheface;thereisno
ethicalimage(p.84).ThisnegativeapproachcontinuesinOtherwisethanBeingorBeyond
Essence(1981).AsRobertEaglestonewritesinthisregard,IfLevinasspositiononartas
revealingBeingandessencehasbeensubtlychangedbyhisdevelopingsenseofthelimitsof
Being,hisunderstandingoftherelationshipbetweenartandtemporalityhasnot.Thesaid
imprisonsthelivedintoessence,intoaverb(OBBE,pp.367)andimposesatotalizing
teleologicalnarrativeofidentityandconsciousness.Theunnarratableotherloseshisfaceas

aneighborinnarration(OBBE,p.166).(Eaglestone1997,p.154).Thismeans,Eaglestone
concludes:JustasinRealityanditsShadow,theartworkislockedupinthetemporalization
ofessence.Artstillhasnoaccesstothehuman(Eaglestone1997,p.154).
149

MichaelLevensonsuggeststhattheHeartofDarknessseessuchgoodsightasthe

basisofrestraintand,hence,ofmoralautonomy.Thenovella,hewrites,offersthe
Impressionisttemperamentasitselfabasisformoralautonomy.TheascentfromKurtzian
horrorisanascenttoaregionofexperienceinwhichvirtueandvicedisclosethemselvesin
sightandsound,tasteandsmell.Betweenfragilesocialconventionsandblindpassionsmorality
findsaplaceintheeducatedimpressionsofthepracticalmoralist.Suchamoralistis
particularlysensitivetothingsfittingornotfitting.Inhiswords,onceonehaslearnedtotrust
intelligentsensationsonecomestorelyonintuitiveperceptionsofconsonanceand
dissonance(Levenson1991,p.57).Onebecomesaware,wewouldsay,ofthejoinsof
realityinparticular,thoseplaceswhereacertaindissonancefunctionsasatraceofthe
absenceleftbysomethingbeingcensoredorpurposelyexcluded.
150

MarthaNussbaumwritesregardingsuchaneducation:Situationsareallhighly

concrete,andtheydonotpresentthemselveswithdutylabelsonthem.Withouttheabilitiesof
perception,dutyisblindandthereforepowerless.Obtusenessisamoralfailing;itsopposite
canbecultivated(Nussbaum1990,p.156).Goodliteraturepromotessuchcultivation.Our
attentiontoitscharacterswillitself,ifwereadwell,beahighcaseofmoralattention.Asshe
explainsthis:Anovel,justbecauseitisnotourlife,placesusinamoralpositionthatis
favorableforperceptionanditshowsuswhatitwouldbeliketotakeupthatpositioninlife.
Wefindherelovewithoutpossessiveness,attentionwithoutbias,involvementwithoutpanic
(ibid.,p.162).Here,wecannotagreewithRobertEaglestonescriticismofNussbaumviz.,
thatshedoesnotaccountforthepuncturingofthesaid,ofthelogocentriclanguageof
ontology,bythesaying(Eaglestone1997,p.169).Toassertthatsheisunabletoexceedthe
languageofontologyandreachamomentoftranscendenceistoassumethatacultivated
perceptiondoesnothavetheabilitytointerruptthesaidi.e.,recallusbacktothesaying
(ibid.).Insofarassuchperceptiondoes,however,sensitizeustothedisconsonant,i.e.,tothat
lackoffitthatisthetraceoftheabsent,itcaninterruptthesaid.Inthis,theperceptionfostered
bygoodliteratureisanalogoustothatbroughtaboutbyphilosophy.InEaglestoneswords:

Thereductionofthesaidtothesayingbeyondthelogos,beyondbeing(OBBE,p.45)
occursforLevinas,inphilosophy,throughtheconstantinterruptionofthesaid,calledforbythe
saying(Eaglestone1997,p.164).Thesameinterruption,Iclaim,canoccurinliterature
throughtheeducationofoursensibility.
151

CHAPTERX

AclassicacknowledgmentofthisproceedingwithoutrulesoccursinthestatementofDr.
AntonitoHelenaBibliowicz:Iftheyfindyoutheywillkillyou,andtheywillkillme,mywife
anddaughters.IhaveacommitmenttoGodAlmightytosavethesufferingJew,butIdonot
knowifIamrighttodothis.Igotochurch.IcrytoGodtofindoutwhattodo.Hedoesnot
tellme.SoIdecidetosaveyou.(MiamiHerald,Nov.8,1988,p.1B;seecase#1381,Yad
VashemArchives).
152

Therewere,ofcourse,networkssetuptorescueJews.Theseorganizationsoccurredmostlyin
theNetherlandsandinFrance.InEasternEurope,wheretheoccupationwasparticularlybrutal
andantiSemitismwidespread,rescueremainedoverwhelminglyamatterofthefacetoface
encounter.Dr.Paldiel,thedirectoroftheAchivesfortheRighteouswritesinthisregard,The
recordherewithregardtotherighteousAmongtheNationstestifiesthatmost.(butcertainly
notall)rescueoperationswereinitiatedbetweenthepotentialrescuerandaJewishpersonon
therun.Thisfacetofaceencounter,againsttheterriblesettingoftheHolocaust,hadanear
cataclysmiceffectontherescuer,whodecidedtodohisbestandsavethedistraughtandtotally
helplesspersonstandinginfrontofhim.Thisscenarioisespeciallytrueforrescueoperations
inEasternEurope.Otherrescueoperationswereinitiated,notnecessarilyasaresultofsucha
direct,facetofaceencounter,butasaresultoftherescuerwitnessingtheunprecedentedNazi
terrorunleashed,especiallyagainstJews.Thismadehimdeterminedtotrytodosomethingto
help.ManyrescueoperationsinWesternEuropeweretheresultofsucharealization.Here
too,thefaceoftheotherpersoniswhatledmostrescuerstogetinvolved.(letterdated,
Jerusalem,May18,1998).

153

ThedoctorsnameisYelinaKutorgiene;thewomansherescuedisShulamitLirov.Ms.Lirov
toldherstorytomeandDr.PaldielatYadVasheminAugust1998.Withherwasthesonof

thedoctorwhorescuedher,VictorKutorgas.
154

QuotedfromthetestimonyofNeeltjeFischerLustandMaartjeBrunaLust,8May1997,Yad
Vashem.TherescuersareTrijntjeLustHeijnisandherhusband,HermanusLust.

155

Alanuittombante,les9personnescomposantnotrefamilleontfrapplaportedeM.

andMme.Astier.Ilsnousontouvertetsansnousposdesquestions,nousontfaitasseoirla
tablefamilieetnousontoffertdiner.Deslitsonttprparetilsontmmedonnleur
proprechambremesparents.(TestimonyofMme.RaymondZarcate,July24,1994,case
#6961,YadVashem).
156

Thewomanofthehousewarnedmetogoaway,thatsomeonewastherewhowouldkillme.
ShemusthaverealizedIhadnowheretogoandshegrabbedmyhandandledmedowntoa
bunkerunderthebarn,whereImettwootherJewsthatthisfamilywerehiding...(Testimony
ofSidneyOlmer,June25,1986,YadVashemArchives).

157

Therescuer,moreover,canalwaysturnback.HecanasktheJewheisshelteringtoleave.In
thissensetherescuerhastocontinuallyrenewhiscommitment.

158

YadVashemArchives,case#5482.JanTulwinskiandhiswifePaulinahidtheJew,Eliahu
Rosenberg,whileJansbrother,Stanislaw,wastheantiSemiticmemberoftheHomeArmy.

159

Assoonaswewereliberated,wehadadditionaltroubles.Wecouldntbuyfood.ThePolish
antiSemiteswouldntreturnourhousestous.TheywereinhabitedbyPoles.Wehadtolivein
anatticwhichhadbrokenwalls....Atnightthelowtemperatureswereunbearable,andwewere
sufferingfromhunger.Ashorttimelater,theA.K..(PolishArmyUnderground)penetrateda
housenearbywhichwasinhabitedbytenJewswhohadreturnedfromtheworkcamps.Four
peoplewereshottodeath.Otherswerewounded...ThePolescaughtthekillersandtheywere
laterletlooseunpunished.(testimonyofMr.IraCrandell,April29,1985,YadVashem
Archives).

160

Thetwosoldiersthatwereourguardianswereadvisedtoescortusbacktomyparentshouse.
ThenightthattheRussianshelpedusgobacktothehousewefoundthePolishgentilesofthe
communitygatheredaroundthehousescreamingthattheyhadfoundJewstokill.(Testimony

ofSolGersten,SamuelGersten,andEstherScheinmanKrulik,Oct.20,1985,YadVashem
Archives).
161

Thiswasfortheirownsafety.AsthemembersoftheSzoorsfamilyreport:Weleftthe
Kaszubahometwoatatimebecausehewasjustifiablyafraidtoletanyoneknowthathehad
hiddenus.Evenafterthewarheandhisfamilysliveswereindangerforhidingus..
(TestimonyofPhilipShore,NachumShore,AbeShore,andSaraGoldlist,May11,1993,Yad
VashemArchives).

162

Thisishisdistinctionfromthetragichero.AsKierkegaardwrites:Abrahamisthereforeatno
instantthetragichero,butsomethingquitedifferent,eitheramurdereroramanoffaith.
(Kierkegaard1985,p.85).

163

Universaliaanteremasopposedtoconceptswhichareuniversaliapostrem,thatis,
universalsthatareafterthefactofthethingsbeinggiven.SeeNietzsche1967,p.103.

164

TheoriginalofthisproverbcomesfromtheMishnah,Sanhedrein4:5oftheBabylonian
Talmud.SeeSedarNezikininEpstein1935,p.233ff.AccordingtotheMishnah,God
createdhumanity,notaraceofbeings.(as,say,intheancientmythofPrometheus),butfirstof
allasasingleindividualinordertoteachusthatineachindividual,thereisawholeworld.
Everyindividualis,inthisrespect,equaltoAdam.HadonedestroyedAdam,thedestructionof
allhispotentialdescendantsimpliedinthiswouldstretchtothewholeofhumanity.Theclaim,
then,isthatinsomesenseeveryoneisanAdam,everyonepotentiallycontainshumanity,
containsthetotalityofthehumanworldinhim.

165

StilllessdoIgainanexperienceoftheabsenceofallexperience,whichisdeathitself.As
Levinasasks,If,inthefaceofdeath,oneisnolongerabletobeable,howcanonestillremain
aselfbeforetheeventitannounces?.(Levinas1994b,p.78).Inotherwords,theactual
experienceofdeathistheendoftheexperiencingselfandcannotassuchbeexperienced.
Giventhis,itisthroughtheOther,inparticularthroughthefacetofaceencounter,thatI
experiencedeath.InLevinaswords,Everythingwecansayandthinkaboutdeathactually
comesfromtheexperienceandobservationofothers....(Levinas1993,p.17).

166

Whenhedoesmentionit,itisbrieflyandusuallyintermsoftherelationsofJewsand

Christians.ThefollowingpassagesinDifficultLibertyaretypical:TheexperienceofHitler
broughtmanyJewsintofraternalcontactwithChristianswhoopenedtheirheartstothem
whichistosay,riskedeverythingfortheirsake.(Levinas1990,p.xiii).Ofcourse,wemust
neverforgetthepurityofindividualactsbyChristians,andtherewereanimpressivenumberof
themwhowerefaithfultothespiritofFranceinsavingthelivesofus,thesurvivors,during
thoseterribleyears.WecannotforgetthecourageoftheChurchhierarchyinFrance.But
Christianity'sfailureonthepoliticalandsociallevelcannotbedenied.(p.99).Theevil[the
CatholicChurch]hasinflictedonusinthepastcannotmakeusdeafandblind.Howcanwe
denythepossibilitiesforgoodandthespiritofsacrificeofsomanyofitsmeninwhosedebt,
moreover,welaythroughtherecentterribleyears,andtowhommanyofusoweourlives?(p.
105).Tomyknowledge,Levinasdoesnotspeakoftheactofrescueinrelationtothefaceto
face.
167

...thismortality...isalsoanassignationandobligationthatconcernstheego.(Levinas
1994a,p.107).

168

Itis,infact,myabsence.AsLevinasquotesEpicurus,Ifyouare,itisnot;ifitis,youare
not.(Levinas1994b,71).

169

Tofollowthisinterpretationwouldimplyconsideringthenonsynchronicityoftheother

asthatofdeath.Death,astheendoftemporalization,cannotbeintegratedintotime.Itis
ultimatelydiachronous.
170

Itisnot,then,thecasethatmymortalityandthatoftheOtherareonparwitheachother.For
Levinas,thereisanessentialasymmetrybetweentheselfanditsOtherinwhichtheOtherhas
priority.

171

Thisinterpretationofdeathaspointingtowardslifesexcessivegivennessisourown.It

cannotbeascribedtoLevinas.
172

ThisstereotypemeantthattheSchmalznikswhosearchedoutJewstoblackmailthemcould
justifythemselvesbyassumingthattheywerejustgettingbackwhatwasstolenfromPoland.

173

ThisstressontheuniquenessoftheOtherisalsofoundintheMishnahcitedinnote14.It
arguesthatsinceGodcreatedtheworldformanssakeoriginally,forthesakeofAdamif
everyoneislikeAdam,theneveryonecansaythatGodcreatedtheworldforhim.Everyone,
however,islikeAdaminhisuniqueness.TheMishnahputsthisasfollows:Godcreatedman
aloneasasingleindividual.(Adam)toproclaimthegreatnessoftheHolyOne,blessedbehe:
Forifamanstrikesmanycoinsfromonemold,theyallresembleoneanother.ButtheSupreme
KingofKings,theHolyOne,BlessedbeHe,fashionedeverymaninthestampofthefirstman,
andyetnotoneofthemresembleshisfellow.Thereforeeverysinglepersonisobligedtosay:
theworldwascreatedformysake.(Epstein1935.,p.234).Theclaimisthateveryperson.
(likeAdam)isunique.Thus,theworldofeachperson,theworldthatcomestopresencein
andthroughthisperson,isalsounique.Assuch,itisirreplaceable.Itcannotbemadeupby
theworldofanotherpersonorpersonsfornotoneofthemresembleshisfellow.Thelegal
pointhereisthatwecannotatoneforfalsewitnessinacapitalcrime,fornooneresemblesthe
uniquepersonatriskinthefalsejudgment.Thebiblicalpointisthatwearefashioned...inthe
stampofthefirstman,notbecause,likecoins,weresembleeachotherinourresemblanceto
anoriginalmold,butbecauseeachofusresemblesAdaminbeingabsolutelyfirst,absolutely
unique.WearesingularlikeAdamwhenhewasfirstcreated.Creationunderstoodasthe
worldthatcomestopresenceineachpersonis,then,forthesakeofeachus.LikeAdam,
eachpersoninhisuniquenesscansaythatcreation,initscomingtopresence,isformysake.

174

Mixedcases,wherethestereotypeandthefacetofacearebothpresent,areparticularly
interestinginthisregard.AndreasSheptitski,theGreekCatholicArchbishopofLvov.(then
LwowinGalicia,Poland)providedrefugetoRabbiDavidKahanna.Oneday,findingthe
Rabbiinthelibrary,heaskshimtoreadaloudthepassagehepointsoutfromtheNew
Testament.TheRabbireads:Hisbloodbeonourheadsandthoseofourchildren.The
Archbishopasksifthepresenteventsarenotafulfillmentofthisprophesy.TheRabbilooksat
him,butmaintainsaprudentsilence.Laterthatevening,thearchbishopsummonstheRabbito
hischambersandasksforhisforgiveness.Thepreviousinterviewwithhimhadbeenweighing
onhisheartandhecouldnotsleep.Therabbiforgiveshim..(Case#421,YadVashem
Archives).ItispossibletoseeinthisresulttheconflictoftheRabbisgazeandthebiblical
stereotype,withtheinfluenceoftheformerfinallygainingtheupperhand.

175

Forprimitiveman,however,itusuallydoesnotextendbeyondthegroup.AsDarwinwritesof
theanalogoussocialinstincts:Itisnoargumentagainstsavagemanbeingasocialanimal,
thatthetribesinhabitingadjacentdistrictsarealmostalwaysatwarwitheachother;forthe
socialinstinctsneverextendtoalltheindividualsofthesamespecies.(Darwin1967,p.480).
Theydonot,sincetheaggressiveinstinctsarerequiredfortribalwar.

176

Thus,initially,thetotalavailableenergyofEros...servestoneutralizethedestructive

tendencieswhicharesimultaneouslypresentthroughthedeathinstinct.(Freud1969,p.19).
Afterward,however,disbalancescanoccurasoneortheotherinstinctbecomesweakenedin
theindividual.Seee.g.,ibid.,pp.5960.
177

DieMotivefrmeineHilfe?InEinzelfallkeinebesonderen.Grundstzlichdenkeichso:Ist
meinMitmenschineinerNotlangeundichkannihmbeistehen,soistdasebenmein.
(verfluchte)PflichtandSchuldigkeit.UnterlasseichdieseHilfe,soerflleichebennichtdie
Aufgabe,diedasLebenodervielleichtGott?vonmirfordert.DieMenschen,sowillesmir
scheinen,bildeneinegroeEinheit,undwosieeinanderunrechttun,schlagensiesichselbst
undalleninsGesicht.Dies[war]meineMotive.(TestimonyofJohannaEck,August2,
1956,YadVashemArchives).Intranslation:Themotiveformyhelp.Therewerenospecial
motivesintheparticularcases.BasicallyIthoughtasfollows:Ifmyfellowcreature.
(Mitmensch)isindistressandIcanstandbyhim,thenthisismy.(damned)dutyand
obligation.IfIdonthelp,Idontfulfillthetaskthatlife.(or,perhaps,God)demandsofme.It
seemstomethathumansformagreatunity;andwhentheyactunjustlytoeachother,theyare
strikingthemselvesandeveryoneintheface.This[was]mymotive.Asimilarsentiment
regardingtheunityoflifeisexpressedbyMichaelErlich:Wehadnothingtangiblethatwe
couldgiventhem[therescuers].Theirphilosophywasthattheyandwealltogetherwouldlive
ordie.(TestimonyofMichaelErlich,December20,1973,YadVashemArchives).Ira
PozdnjakoffwritesofDanguvietyteswithwhomhestayed,All[the]rescuersinthisfamily
believeddeeplythathumanlifewassacred....(TestimonyofIraPozdnjakoff,givenon
January9,1984,YadVashemArchives,case#3872).
178

ChapterXI

JonasassertsthatthisistheproblemfacedbythebelievingJew.(Jonas1996,p.159).I
think,however,thatitisaproblemfacedbyallpeopleofthebook,i.e.,allthosethattake
seriouslyGenesissassertionofGodsLordship,betheyJewish,MoslemorChristian.

179

InhisMonadology,LeibnizstatesthatthemindofGod,initsideas,containsan

infinityofpossibleuniverses.Theremust,heargues,havebeenareasonsufficientforhimto
selectoneratherthananothertoexist,areasonfoundinthefitnessorinthedegreeof
perfectionoftheonechosen.God,inotherwords,alwayschoosesthebest.Basedonthis,
eachpossiblethinghastherighttoclaimexistenceinproportiontotheperfectionwhichit
involves.(Leibniz1962,534,p.26263).Theuniversethatactuallydoesexistmust,
accordingly,havethegreatestpossibleperfection.Itachievesthis,accordingtoLeibniz,by
havingthegreatestpossiblevariety,togetherwiththegreatestorderthatmaybe.(ibid.,58,
p.263).OrdercomesfromGodsadaptingeachsubstancetoeveryother,suchthateach
givesareasonorcauseforwhatoccursintheothers.(52,p.262).Varietycomesfromthe
pluralityofdifferentsubstancesinvolvedinthiswebofmutualdetermination.Eachworksto
positionalltheothersasuniquelysituatedperspectivesonthewhole.(56,p.263).
180

Faust,PartI,line1335.

181

Thesameconnectionofseparationandcreationappearsinthestoryofthetowerof

Babel.Whenhumanstrytostaytogetherbybuildingacityandtowerwithitstopinthesky,
thuspreventingtheirbeingscatteredallovertheworld,Godintervenesbyconfoundingtheir
speech.Tosecurehiscreativepurposes,TheLordscatteredthemoverthefaceofthewhole
earth.(Gn11:4,11:9).
182

ForKant,then,touniversalizeamaximistoabstractthepersonfollowingitfromany

particularsituation.Hecannotpleadanyparticularcircumstancestojustifyhisconduct.What
mustmotivatehimissimplythemaximitselforrathertheobjective,universallawit
exemplifies.
183

Forwhenfaithiseliminatedbybecomingnullornothing,thenthereonlyremainsthe

crudefactthatAbrahamwantedtomurderIsaac.(Kierkegaard1954,p.41).

184

AsimilarviewisexpressedintheGreekstoryofZeusandtheyounggirl,Semele.

Zeusswife,indisguise,persuadesSemeletoaskZeustoshowhimselfasheisinreturnforher
favors.Trappedbyhispromise,Zeusdoesso,appearingasaboltoflighteningandreducing
Semeletoashes.
185

ThispointismadeinAristotlesNicomacheanEthics,1156a241156b5;seeAristotle

1962,p.219.
186

ThesamealterityisbehindAbrahamsabilitytoarguewithGodoverthefateofthe

inhabitantsofSodomandGemorrah.Ontheonehand,Abrahamtakesituponhimselfto
remonstratewithGod,Willyousweepawaytheinnocentalongwiththeguilty?...Shallthe
Judgeofalltheearthdealjustly?.(Gn18:23,18:25).Ontheotherhand,hereferstohimself
asbutdustandashes.(18:27).Theothernessimplicitinthisassertioniswhatputshimina
onetoonerelationwithGod.Morally,heisGodsequal.
187

ProfessorClaireKatzofPennStatehasadifferentLevinasianreadingofthestory.In

herpaper,TheResponsibilityofIrresponsibility,shearguesthatAbraham,inregardingthe
faceofIsaac,turnsfromGodtotheethical.Shewritesinthispaper,giveninthe1999
conferenceonLevinasatEmoryUniversity,ButmightwenotsaythatAbrahamsaw,atthe
momentheraisedtheknife,thefaceofIsaac,thatis,sawitinawaythatdemandedresponse,
thatcommandedhim,acommandgreaterthanGodscommand,torespondtoafacethat
signifiedtheparticularityoftheOther,ratherthantheuniversalityofanation?.(p.14).Inthis
reading,wecansaythatAbrahammighthavedefied,andmaybeevendiddefy,God,evenif
theAngelhadnotcometostophim.Followingsuchareading,wemightapproachLevinass
understandingofwhatitmeanstoloveTorahmorethanGod,tolovetheethicalmorethan
God.(p.15).ThisloveofTorahortheethicalmorethanGodmeansthatonemay,inthe
nameoftheethical,rebelagainstGod.(ibid.).Inmyreading,Levinassassertionthatinthe
accesstothefacethereiscertainlyalsoanaccesstoGodimpliesthatweneednotdistinguish
betweentheethicalandGod.WhereIdepartfromLevinasisinmyseeingthedemandsof
alterityandequalityasnotopposed.

188

GoddoescriticizeJobforobscuringhisdesigns.(Jb38:2).Thereference,here,

seemstobeJobscursingthedayofhisbirth.(3:3).Thiscanbetakenasanassertionthat
GodscreationofJob.(andbyimplication,hiscreationassuch)isnotgood.Goddefendshis
creationtoJobinhisspeechattheendofthebookofJob.ThebookbeginswithGodsbetting
onJobsgoodness.SatanassertsthatJobsrelationtoGodissimplytotheworldlypossessions
Godhasaffordedhim.Heasserts,JobisnotGodfearingfornothing,ishe?.(1:9).Take
awaythesepossessionsandhewillcurseyou.(1:11).JobdoesnotcurseGod.Hedoes,
however,loseconfidenceinhimselfi.e.,inthevalueofhiscreationofJob,andforthisGod
criticizeshim.
189

Initsreferencetotheforms,thistheodicyhasitsrealbeginningintheessentiallypagan

ontologyofPlatoandAristotle.Whatmakestheontologypaganistheimmanenceofthe
highestorthedivinefortheseauthors.Boththeformsandtheprimemoverthatthinksthem
areintheworld,nottranscendenttoit.Thus,whenweusetheirthoughtstodescribethe
divine,itinevitablybecomesaworldlypower.
190

ChapterXII
AccordingtoGirard,theprocessinvolvespositivefeedback.Hewrites:theindividual
whofirstactsasamodelwillexperienceanincreaseinhisownappropriativeurgewhenhe
findshimselfthwartedbyhisimitator.Andreciprocally.Eachbecomestheimitatorofhisown
imitatorandthemodelofhisownmodel.Eachtriestopushasidetheobstaclethattheother
placesinhispath.Violenceisgeneratedbythisprocess;orratherviolenceistheprocessitself
whentwoormorepartnerstrytopreventoneanotherfromappropriatingtheobjecttheyall
desirethroughphysicalorothermeans(Girard1996,p.9).Becauseofthisfeedback,the
violencecangetoutofcontrol.
191

ThisistheproblemDerridaraisesattheendofTheGiftofDeath.Christianity,becauseofits
promiseofaheavenlyreward,doesnotreallyescapebeinganeconomictransaction.In
Derridaswords:"Allthose[whosacrifice]arepromisedaremuneration...agoodsalary....
Itisthusthattherealheavenlytreasureisconstituted,onthebasisofthesalaryorpricepaidfor

sacrificeorrenunciationonearth..."(Derrida1995,p.99).ThebeliefhereisthatGod...will
paybackyoursalary,andonaninfinitelygreaterscale(Ibid.,p.112).Thisholdseventhough
Christiansdenythattheirobjectisaheavenlyreword.Suchadenialissimplyaconcealmentof
theunderlyingeconomy.Derridathusconcludes:"Christianjusticedeniesitselfandso
conservesitselfinwhatseemstoexceedit;itremainswhatitceasestobe,acrueleconomy,a
commerce,acontractinvolvingdebtandcredit,sacrificeandvengeance"(pp.11314).For
Derrida,then,Christianityisinherentlyincapableofescapingtheviolenceofearthlyeconomy.
Thispapersemphasisonkenosisisapartialattempttocounterhisposition.Itdoesnot,
however,bringupthequestionoftheheavenlyreward.
192

ItisZeus'swife,indisguise,whopersuadesSemeletoaskZeustoshowhimselfasheisin
returnforherfavors.Trappedbyhispromise,Zeusdoesso.

193

Therelationtothesacredhereisjustice.OneincarnatesGodbyfollowingthelaw,i.e.,by
makingitoneslife.Justice,ofcourse,isnotjustfairnessinAristotlessense.Itisalso
presentintheadmonition,constantlyrepeated,nottoforgetthewidowandtheorphan.

194

JBreferstoTheJerusalemBible1966.

195

Isaiah,whomJohntheBaptistquotesaboutmakingstraightthewayoftheLord,writesabout
theMessiah,I(God)haveendowedhimwithmyspiritandonhimthespiritofYahweh
rests(Isaiah42:1,11:2,JB,pp.1208,1160).Thewordforspiritisruah.

196

AccordingtotheConfucianAnalects,thegoldenruleis:Donotimposeonotherswhatyou
yourselfdonotdesire(15.24).Otherformulationsoftheruleare:Thisisthesumofduty:do
naughttootherswhichifdonetotheewouldcausetheepain(fromtheHindu,Mahabharata);
Whatishatefultoyou,donotdotoyourneighbor:thatisthewholeTorah,alltherestofitis
commentary(fromtheJewishTalmud,Shabbat31a);Whateverisdisagreeabletoyourselfdo
notdountoothers(fromtheZoroastrian,ShayastnaShayast13:29);Hurtnototherswith
thatwhichpainsyourself(fromtheBuddhistUdanaVarga).Therulecanalsobeformulated
positivelyasintheConfucianprecept:Tryyourbesttotreatothersasyouwouldwishtobe
treatedyourself,andyouwillfindthatthisistheshortestwaytobenevolence(Mencius
VII.A.4).ThismirrorstheChristianprecepttodountootherswhatyouwouldhavethemdo

untoyou.Christianityscommandtoloveyourneighborasyouloveyourselfcan,infact,be
takenasaninjunctiontoengageinthesortofempathythattakesselfandotherasthesame.See
http://www.fragrant.demon.co.uk/golden.htmlforanextensivelistofquotationsonthegolden
rule.
197

Levinas1996,p.95.

198

Ibid.,p.90.

199

Ibid.,p.95.

200

Girardgivesthefollowinggeneraldefinition,ByascapegoateffectImeanthatstrange
processthroughwhichtwoormorepeoplearereconciledattheexpenseofathirdpartywho
appearsguiltyorresponsibleforwhateverails,disturbs,orfrightensthescapegoaters.They
feelrelievedoftheirtensionsandtheycoalesceintoamoreharmoniousgroup(Girard1996a
p.12).Thiseffectisparticularlyvaluableforsocietiesexperiencingtherunawayeffectsof
mimeticviolence.Here,thesacrifice[ofthescapegoat]servestoprotecttheentirecommunity
fromitsownviolence;Theelementsofdissensionscatteredthroughoutthecommunityare
drawntothepersonofthesacrificialvictimandeliminated,atleasttemporarily,byits
sacrifice(Girard1996b,p.77).

201

AccordingtoGirard,thisiswhattheGospelsalonetellyou,thatJesuswasinnocent.We
werewrong,saystheNewTestamentcommunity,totheextentthatwewereinvolvedinthat
[viz.,thesacrificeofJesus](Girard1996c,p.274).Thus,thetextplaces[thecollective
violence]squarelyonthosewhoareresponsibleforit.TousetheexpressionfromtheCurses,
itletstheviolencefallupontheheadsofthosetowhomitbelongs(Girard1996d,p.168).In
doingso,itunderminesthetransferenceofguilttothescapegoatthatistheessentialelementof
thenotionofsacrificeinnaturalreligion.ThisisthepointbehindGirardsassertion:Firstof
all,itisimportanttoinsistthatChristsdeathwasnotasacrificialone.TosaythatJesusdies,
notasasacrifice,butinorderthattheremaybenomoresacrifices,istorecognizeinhimthe
WordofGod:IwishformercyandnotsacrificestheWordofGodsaysnotoviolence
(ibid.,p.184).

202

Here,IdepartfromLevinas.InresponsetoFransoisPoirisquestion:Inthefaceto

facebetweentheIandtheyou,betweenmeandtheother,thereisafundamental
asymmetry,Levinasreplies:Yes!TheotherpassesbeforeIdo;Iamfortheother.That
whichtheotherhasasdutieswithrespoecttome,thatshisbuisness,notmine(Levinas2001,
p.54).

203

ChapterXIII

DerridacitesinthisregardtheNietzscheancritiqueofmetaphysics,thecritiqueofthe
conceptsofbeingandtruth,forwhichweresubstitutedtheconceptsofplay,interpretation,and
sign.(signwithouttruthpresent);theFreudiancritiqueofselfpresence,thatis,thecritiqueof
consciousness,ofthesubject,ofselfidentityandofselfproximityorselfpossession;and,
moreradically,theHeideggeriandestructionofmetaphysics,ofontotheology,ofthe
determinationofbeingaspresence.(Derrida1993,p.226).Freudisincludedherebecausehe
underminestheascriptionofthetrueworldtosubjectivity.Derridasownovercomingof
metaphysicsinvolveshisnotionofdifferance.(thedifferencethatispriortoeveryidentity,that
involvesthemeaningstodifferandtodelay).Hewrites,Differanceisthenonfull,
nonsimpleorigin;itisthestructuredanddifferingoriginofdifferences..(Derrida1973,p.
141).ItiseventheoriginofHeideggersontologicaldifferencebetweenbeingandbeings:As
such,differanceisolderthantheontologicaldifferenceorthetruthofBeing.(ibid.,p.
155).Indeterminingthisdifference,italsodeterminesHeideggersdestructionofmetaphysics
asontotheology.(seeibid.,pp.15660).

204

Thisovercomingofmetaphysicsdoesnot,ofcourse,beginwithNietzsche.Kantasserts

thatmetaphysicsconsideredinitselfalone.(andnotsimplyasanaturaldisposition),is
dialecticalandillusory.(Kant1955d,Ak.IV,365).Becauseofhisdistinctionbetweenthe
actualandtheappearingworld,however,bothNietzscheandHeideggerconsiderhisthought
metaphysical.
205

Heidegger1987,II,230.

206

Phaedo,78d,mytranslation.

207

For,Plato,then,thestudyoftheideasconcernswhatisandisinvisible.(Plato1968,

p.208).
208

ThusDescarteswrites,itseemsmosttruethatinanobjectwhichishotthereissome

qualitysimilartomyideaofheat;thatinawhite,orblack,orgreenobjectthereisthesame
whiteness,orblackness,orgreennesswhichIperceive;thatinabitterorsweetobjectthereis
thesametasteorthesameflavor,andsoonfortheothersenses.(Descartes1990,p.77).Yet
noneofthisis,infact,thecase.Thepurposeoftheinformationprovidedbyhissensesis
survivalratherthantruth.Theyaregiven,hewrites,onlytoindicatetomymindwhich
objectsareusefulorharmful.(ibid.,p.79).Assuch,theinformationtheyprovideisstrictly
relativetohisparticularnature.Platoalsowarnsusagainsttrustingtoourbodilysenses.See
Phaedo,65b.
209

Meditations,III,Descartes1990,p.34;seealsoV,p.32.

210

SeeLocke1965,BookII,Ch.IV,par.910.

211

InBerkeleyswords,ButIdesireanyonetoreflectandtry,whetherhecanbyany

abstractionofthought,conceivetheextensionandmotionofabody,withoutallothersensible
qualities.Formyownpart,Iseeevidentlythatitisnotinmypowertoframeanideaofabody
extendedandmoved,butImustalsogiveitsomecolororothersensiblequalitywhichis
acknowledgedtoexistonlyinthemind.Inshort,extension,figureandmotion,abstractedfrom
allotherqualitiesareinconceivable.Where,thereforetheothersensiblequalitiesare,there
mustthesebealso,thatis,inthemindandnowhereelse.(10,Berkeley1988,p.56).Seealso
ibid.,73).
212

Seeibid.,3,88.

213

Seeibid.,91.

214

Seeibid.,289.

215

Ibid.,6,Berkeley1988,p.55.

216

Ibid.,90,Berkeley1988p.87.

217

Ibid.,89,Berkeley1988,p.86.Berkeleyaddstothistheargumentthatwecannot,per

se,haveanideaorperceptualimageofanactivity.Hewrites:Aspiritisonesimple,
undivided,activebeing.Hencetherecanbenoideaformedofasoulorspirit;forallideas
whateverbeingpassiveandinert.(Videsect.25),theycannotrepresentuntous,bywayof
imageorlikeness,thatwhichacts.(ibid.,27,Berkeley1988,p.62).Totranslatethisinto
modern,phenomenologicalterms,wecansaythattheideaorperceptionispassivebyvirtueof
beingtemporallyfixed.Occurringataspecificmoment,itsinksintopastnesswiththat
moment.Asitdoesso,itscontentremainsunchanged.Thisisitsbeinginert.Tocallitsuch
istosaythat,havingoccurred,itisincapableofnewness.ForBerkeley,thisisthevery
oppositeofsoulorspiritconsideredasanactiveprinciple.Wecannotcaptureitsactivityinan
imageoridea,sincetodosowouldbetofixitandhencetoloseit.
218

Kant1955c,B156;Ak.III,122.

219

Kantsays,wecannothaveknowledgeofanyobjectasathinginitself,butonlyinsofar

asitisanobjectofsensibleintuition....(ibid.,Bxxvi;Ak.III,16).
220

SeeKant1955a,Ak.IV,4534.

221

Seeibid.

222

ThisholdseventhoughforKant,thedistinctionbetweenthephenomenalandthe

noumenalworldstheworldthatappearsversestheworldinitselfwasframedtoshowthat
metaphysicsinitsattempttoknowtheworldinitselfwasimpossible.This,accordingtoKant,
waswhytheCritiqueofPureReasonexhibitedthepossibilityofsyntheticcognitionapriori,
theprinciplesofitsapplication,andfinallyitslimits(Kant1955d;Ak.IV,365).
Metaphysicsexceedssuchlimitsand,hence,isimpossible.
223

Heideggergivesthelist:Substantiality,Objectivity,
Subjectivity,theWill,theWilltoPower,theWilltoWill.(Heidegger1969b,p.66).

224

Fichte1982,pp.78.

225

Ibid.,p.8.

226

Nietzsche1964,pp.2425.

227

Heidegger1969b,pp.12425.

228

InHeideggerseyes,evenNietzschefailsinthisproject.WhenNietzschetakeswillto

poweraswhattrulyisanddemoteseverythingelsetoitsmereappearance,hefallsbackinto
metaphysicalthinking.Thus,accordingtoHeidegger,Nietzscheisthinkingtheselfsamething
[ashispostKantianpredecessors]whenheacknowledgestheprimalBeingofbeingsaswillto
power.(Heidegger1987,II,223).
229

Derridadoubtsthis.Hewrites,Itwaswithinconceptsinheritedfrommetaphysicsthat

Nietzsche,Freud,andHeideggerworked.HeideggerconsideredNietzsche,withasmuch
lucidityandrigorasbadfaithandmisconstruction,asthelastmetaphysician,thelast
Platonist.OnecoulddothesameforHeideggerhimself.(Derrida1993p.227).
230

Kant1955d,18;Ak.IV,298.

231

MerleauPonty1962,p.71.

232

Phaedo,79cd.

233

Theyareitsuncovering,itsentdeckendsein.SeeHeidegger1967a,p.219221.

234

Heideggeralsostressestheimportanceoflanguage.Hewrites,forexample,Dasein

ismoreoveressentiallydeterminedbythefactthatitspeaks,expressesitself,discourses,andas
speakerdiscloses,discovers,andletsthingsbeseen.(Heidegger1985,p.210).Inasserting
this,however,hedoesnotstressthatthisdeterminationbylanguageisadeterminationby
others.Thus,theimplicationsthatcanbedrawnfromthisescapehim.
235

InHeideggerswords,Thismeansthatinbeing.(InSein)inthesensealreadydefined

[ofbeingintheworld]isnotapropertyoftheentitycalledDasein.Inbeingisratherthe
constitutionofthebeingofDasein,inwhicheverywayofbeingofthisentityisgrounded.
(Heidegger1985,p.159).

236

Asanequipmentaltotality,whichisuncoveredbyourprojects,theworldthus

dependsonus.InHeideggerswords,Worldisonly,if,andaslongasDaseinexists.
(Heidegger1988,p.170).
237

Ibid.,p.297.

238

Heidegger1969bp.72.