The Event of the Other

As I have been reading the work of Heidegger, Levinas and Caputo, I have found myself blending their insights into a phenomenological model of the other. Caputo uses the term event to subvert onto theology and deconstruct the word God so that as an event, rather than a being, it can be freed from the limitations of a linguistic prison like a name or definition. The term event comes from the Latin word evenire which means come out or happen. The word is constructed from ex which means out and venire which means to come and from which we get our word venue. Venues are places where people come to experience a happening. This word seems very appropriate for describing what Levinas means by the other. If we understand the other as an event instead of a they(or tool)-for-us (Heidegger), then the other is free to happen in unexpected ways (beyond our expectations) in all of their strangeness and radical alterity. As an event and not a being-for-me imprisoned in my categories, concepts, and definitions, the other can startle me and unsettle me from my narcissism.

Levinas and Zubiri: The Cruel Error of Definition

For Aristotle, being (Greek: ouisia) was a substance (Latin: substantia, from sub under stare to stand.) In order to know the essence of a substance; that is, what a thing is, its essence must be demonstrated in a definition, Aristotle said. His most famous example of this is his definition of a human being as a rational animal. However, to define is to set limits on something (Latin: definire, from de completely finire to bind or set limits on, from finir boundary or end.) When Aristotle argues that knowledge of essences is gained via definitions he is linking his metaphysics of substance to his epistemology by making knowledge the result of capturing the essence of a substance in a definition. Heidegger would later criticize Aristotle for obscuring being by confusing it with substance. Still later, two of Heidegger’s students, Emmanuel Levinas and Xavier Zubiri would take up this critique of Aristotle.

It is important to point out that both Levinas and Zubiri were ethnic minorities. Levinas, a Lithuanian Jew and Zubiri, a Basque Catholic priest (who was later secularized). Each of these thinkers felt the sting of being totalized in definitions of the dominant cultures within which they lived and found themselves marginalized from. Levinas‘ privileging of the other arises against the background of his status as an ethnic minority in Europe. Zubiri’s emphasis on the dynamic structure of reality as the ground of being, which is incapable of being captured in a definition, also arises against the backdrop of his Basque heritage. (This is my contention that I am still investigating)

Levinas finds the other caught in a tension between its infinity (undefinability) and its totality (definability). However, his account of the infinity is not sufficiently accounted for, in my opinion (this may be the result of my limited reading.) Zubiri, on the other hand, does provide an account for it. Against Aristotle, Zubiri claims that reality is not a substance but rather it is a substantivity; that is, reality is not a static essence able to be captured in a definition but instead it is a dynamic structure of notes that is undefinable and full of possibility. For Zubiri, the history of philosophy has failed to recognize the distinction between reality as it is apprehended and naked reality which is not yet framed in concepts. Aristotle’s analysis stops at apprehended reality or in Levinasian terms totalized reality. But as Levinas reminds us, to totalize the other in this way is a cruelty that does violence to the other. For Zubiri, it is simply unscientific (given the insights from quantum physics) to think that reality can be exhausted in a demonstration or a definition. Zubiri reminds us that reality is dynamic and possibilating. Levinas reminds us that love is an insomniac and never falls asleep at the wheel (which leads to terrible accidents!) To capture the other in a definition is to enslave the other and relinquish pursuit of the possibilating mystery of the other.

I am still working out the connection between these two thinkers and there relationship to the other. I invite your comments, suggestions, and corrections.

The Irreducible Other

I am taking a course called Phenomenology of the Other this semester which focuses on the work of Emmuanel Levinas and Martin Heidegger. More specifically, the course is focusing on the question “Is ontology enough?” Levinas emphasizes the priority of the other over the subject so that the self is actually constituted by its response to the ethical demands placed upon it by the other. For Levinas, ontology is not enough. Ethics must serve as first philosophy. Heidegger has a decidedly different approach. For him ontology is sufficient for first philosophy. The other does not make a substantive ethical demand on Dasein. Instead, the other is reduced to a being-with so that it can be used as a means to an end. In Martin Buber’s terms, the Thou is reduced to an It. This reduction is what Levinas cautioned us against and may be one of the reasons that Heidegger found sympathy for national socialism. Levinas viewed this tendency to totalize the other into categories, concepts and frameworks as an ameliorization of the mystery of the other, who is a human being, an end not simply a means. The other is our neighbor to whom we are bound together in this web of life.

The election of Barack Obama has made me conscious of the ways in which we try to totalize the other in order manage them and the subsequent dangers that arise from this totalization. President Obama has consistently refused to be reduced to a racial category or a politcal party. That is not to say that he does not have substantial commitments to either but simply that he resists the totalizations of “African-American President” and “Liberal Democrat” or even “Centrist”. He has continually directed our attention back to the substantive issues facing our nation instead of the polarizing issues that divide us. Visually, President Obama is not easily reduced to a particular racial or ethnic group which gives him a symbolic power, in my opinion. His symbolic ambiguity resists attempts at totalizing him. President Obama stood before all of us yesterday and placed an ethical demand on us as individuals and as a nation. Who we become over the next four years will be directly related to our response to that demand.

What’s in a Name?

I have just started reading John D. Caputo’s book The Weakness of God which argues that the name God harbors an event rather than an supernatural entity or being and that theology is the hermeutic activity that frees the event from the confines of the name. Caputo’s writing is refreshingly metaphorical and has an intentionally mystical quality. This is philosophical discourse in its richest form.

Caputo describes the realtionship between name an event in the following eight ways:

(1) Events are uncontainable in names. This means that all names are inadequate and must be deconstructed to free the event.

(2)Events are endlessly transatable. This means that all names are attempts at translating an event which is polyvalent, complex and undecided. A name points toward an event. Caputo says names are asked to carry what they cannot bear toward a destination they do not know.

(3)Events demand the deliteralization of names. Because an event can never be exhausted in a name the name must avoid literalization or ontologization. Caputo suggests the method of poetics to avoid literalization.

(4)Events are excessive. Events are what happen to us not what we do and are therefore advents which overtake us by crossing the preset boundaries of names. Caputo’s notion of excess is akin to Peter Rollins idea of rupture. An event is an irruption which sometimes breaks a name apart.

(5)Events are not always good news. This means that evil, which Caputo describes as irreparably ruined time, without the possibility of compensation, is a possibility in an event. Events can disturb the natural equilibrium provided by a name.

(6) Events are beyond being. An event is not a entity, or a being or even being itself. It is an impulse that stirs within a name and is characterized by a to come and therefore points toward a future of infinite possibilities.

(7) Events are the truth of a name. The truth of an event is open-ended and full of uncontainable possibilities which may be good news or bad news, a welcomed truth or a truth hard to bear. Caputo points out that this kind of truth requires courage to accept.

(8) Events are kairological rather than chronological. This means that clock time cannot capture an event. Events are moments of transformation that make possible a new birth, a new beginning, a new invention of ourselves, even as it awakens dangerous memories.

Caputo’s theology can be summarized as follows: The name God harbors within it an event that cannot be cannot be contained within it. The event of God must be seen as endlessly translatable and must never be reduced to an ontic concept but rather must be held loosely in poetic terms which play with possibilities. God must be allowed to exceed the boundaries of the name and rupture our preconceived ideas. And most importantly, we must have the courage to accept difficult truths that push us towards new beginnings.

Drinking Coke With Heidegger

What does a Coke bottle mean in a world where there is no such thing as Coke in particular or bottled beverages in general? How are we to understand “Coke bottle” apart from a world in which “Coke” and “bottle” have meaning? Hubert Dreyfus (UC Berkley) has explored these questions in his Fall 2007 lecture on Heidegger’s Being and Time (available on iTunes for free). I am now listening to this lecture series for the third time and Heidegger’s concept of worldhood is finally becoming clear.

Dr. Dreyfus says that Heidegger distinguishes three types of being. The first way is translated as present-at-hand and relates to substances whose properties can be analyzed. Gold is an example of present-at-hand. The next type is what Heidegger calls ready-to-hand and relates to equipment. A hammer is an example of ready-to-hand. Finally, there is Heidegger’s beloved Dasein which is German for being-in-the-world and relates to any being that takes a stand on its own being. Human beings are examples of Dasein. Both present-at-hand and Dasein have self-sufficientt being; that is, their being is not contingent upon on the being of anything else. However, ready-to-hand does not have this type of self-sufficiency. In fact, equipment such as hammers have their being only within a world in which there are nails, wood, and carpenters. Hammers are meaningless or unintelligible (Dreyfus’ term) without something to hammer. The being of hammer is contingent on the being of nails, lumber, and carpenters.

Coke bottles are the same way. Without Coke or bottled beverages the bottle as equipment is meaningless. Dr. Dreyfus’ points out that in the movie The God’s Must Be Crazy a bottle drops out the sky into a primitive culture which is unfamiliar with Coke. The bottle is meaningless as equipment and becomes a rolling pin (I haven’t seen the movie so I am taking Dr. Dreyfus’ word for it.) In order to be a Coke bottle in that culture there would need to be such a thing as Coke or bottled beverages.

Heidegger’s notion of worldhood reveals how much we take for granted in our every day existence. The simple act of drinking a Coke is revealed to be tethered to a host of other referentials that allow such and act to be intelligible. It has also caused me to be more reflective about the average-every-day world I live in.

Making Sense of the Rainbow

Olafur Eliasson has a piece called “Beauty” in his current DMA exhibition Take Your Time. “Beauty” is a piece that involves light breaking in a spectrum via drops of water creating a rainbow for observers. Depending on the angle of the light, the particular shape of the drop of water, and the position of our eyes, different colors appear, and consequently different rainbows. Eliasson points out that because a rainbow only occurs in perception (because it is the product of light, water, and the eye) its existence is contingent on the presence of the observer. No observer, no rainbow. Eliasson calls this making sense. We are not passive recipients of reality, but rather we construct reality. We make sense, sense doesn’t make us. The rainbow is a product of our particular perspective, our individual act of seeing and the reality in which we are embedded.

I know what your thinking. “Does that mean that if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound?” Well….. yes. Now that wasn’t so hard. Was it? Watch this You Tube video to hear Eliasson explain his idea of art as a model of reality.

On Becoming a Philosopher

The recent economic downturn, the reduction in funding for philosophy programs, and the diminishing number of faculty positions for philosophy professors has left me wondering what the future might hold for me after I complete my degree. Why am I studying philosophy and not economics or computer science? Is it to land a tenure track position at a major university or is it for a more idealistic reason like the “love of wisdom” or a “thirst for truth”? I would be reluctant to comodify the discipline of philosophy into a means to a paycheck. I prefer to think of it as a vocation that enriches my life whether I ever publish an article or teach a class. I am becoming a philsopher to find answers to the flood 0f questions that haunt my existence and hopefully communicate those answers, or at least more precise questions, in a meaningful way to others who are seeking a meaningful life. My goal is to do that professionally through teaching philosophy and I refuse to relinquish that goal. I will continue to prepare myself with the understanding that preparation always precedes participation. The recent article by Gregory Pence titled How to Be Happy in Academe reminded me of why I began studying philosophy and encouraged me to never give up the struggle for a career in philosophy and when I finally do begin to teach to remember the three things we are expected to do: teach students who want to learn, publish about things you care about, and be a good academic citizen through service to your institution and field. If you are becoming discouraged as philosophy major do yourself a favor and read this article.

A Critique of Pure Tolerance: Part 3 – Repressive Tolerance

The final essay in A Critique of Pure Tolerance is “Repressive Tolerance” written by Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse claims that the realization of objective tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or supressed. In other words, the rulers would be required to be intolerant toward the policies, attitudes and opinions that threaten the national interest and the ruled would be required to extend tolerance to the rulers’ intolerance. Marcuse calls this a loaded tolerance which is determined by the class structures of a society. Pure tolerance, he points out, can take two forms: (1) passive tolearance which accepts the policies, attitudes and opinions of the status quo regardless of their harmful effects, and (2) active tolerance which is rigoursly non-partisan and conesequently protects and supports the machinery of discrimination. Pure tolerance, according to Marcuse, is inherently paradoxical.

Given that tolerating anything and everything leads to tolerance of the intoleraable Marcuse argues for a discriminating tolerance that extends tolerance only to those policies, attitudes and opinions that are not destructive. In other words, tolerance must be intolerant of intolerance. In order to be liberated from oppression of any kind there must be freedom of thought, speech and action, and more importantly, dissent. Dissent is the result of autonomous thought and challenges the entrenched and established ideas. But, Marcuse is quick to point out, the telos of tolerance is truth and this truth is not the truth of science and propositional logic but absolute truth as it unfolds in history as freedom from violence and supression. In the end, Marcuse advocates his discriminating tolerance as a practice for the radical minorities who struggle to break free from the tyranny of the majority who have institutionalized tolerance and thereby neutralized its power to attain truth. While his insight into the paradoxical nature of tolerance is helpful, one is left wondering who decides what policies,attitudes, and 0pinions are destructive or more importantly what the limits of freedom are. Indeed, he gives no clear definition for destructive,truth or freedom.

One significant problem this essay raises is what grounds are there for arguing for tolerance at all. Is there a metaphysical basis for tolerance or is it merely the dream of the disenfranchised. Hans Oberdiek has pointed out that tolerance is not a virtue in the classical Greek sense. In fact, following Marcuse, it is often virtuous to be intolerant. For example, to be intolerant of genocidal policies in Rhawanda or Nazi Germany. However, one would never argue that it is virtuous to be uncourageous or unjust. Here we may have hit on the real issue: tolerance as a practice must have a metaphysical ground in order to be compelling and to determine its limits. For example, the classical Greek virtues are grounded in the good or the beautiful. In short, tolerance must have a telos. Marcuse’s attempt to make truth the telos of tolerance is not helpful because his definition is vague at best weighted with elitist privilege. This observation makes it clear that a metaphysics of tolerance must precede any discussion of tolerance.