EMMANUEL LEVINAS OTHERWISE THAN BEING OR BEYOND ESSENCE translated by ALPHONSO LINGIS KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS z‘Libeary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publiaton Data Levinas, Emmanuel. (Oterwise than being, (Martinus Nijof philosophy texts; v.3) ‘Translation of the 24 ed. (1978) of Autrement qu't. Includes bibliographical references. 1, Ontology. 2. Essence (Philosophy) I. Tie. I. Series BDS31-LASSI3 mM so. SBN 90-247.2974-4 Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Kluwer Actdemic Publishers inceporaes the publishing programmes of D. Reidel, Martinus Nijtof, Dr W. Junk and MTP Press. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Deve, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. Inall omer countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Neerands. Printed on acl free paper Originally published as Auarementqu'tre ou au-deld de essence, Phaenomenologica S4 10974, by Marinus Nijtoff Publishers, 1991, St printing by Kluwer Academic Publishers 1994; th psnting by Kluwer Academie Publishers ‘All RightsReserved (© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers [No prt ofthe material protected by this copyright nice may be reproduced or ‘lied in any form or by any means, electonic or mechanical, Including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and ‘etieval system, without writen permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the NetherandsTo the memory of those who were closest among the six million assassinated by the National Socialists, and of the millions on millions of all confessions and all nations, Victims of the same hatred of the other ‘man, the same anti-semitism, svn parma 12 ben “9 op “2K nen ot sem °9 na NIT Tr oR svhn ae ‘9a sare sin bem 2 37 om pen 9) na. bp onan nba pea a ange ann ranOr if righteous man (urn from his righteousness and do what is wrong, and I make that the occasion for bringing. about his downfall, he shall die; because you did not warn him he shall defor his sin, and the righteous deeds which he hhas done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at your hand, Ezekiel, 3:20 Then he..said to him, “Pass through the city through Jerusalem ~and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men ‘who sigh and cry forall the abominations that are done in the midst of it” And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and slay without mercy or pity. Old men, young men and maidens, litle children and women - strike them all dead! But touch no one on whomis, the mark, And begin at my sanctuary!" Ezekiel, 94-6 ‘The sages have said “Do not read “begin at my sanctuary, ‘but “begin with those that sanctify mey..as teaches the Talmudic Treatise Sabbath, 55a Commentary of Rachi on Ezekiel 9:6 .°That is my place in the sun.” That is how the usurpation of the whole world began, Pascal's Pensées, 112 “They have used concupiscence as best as they could for the general good; but it is nothing but a pretense and a false image of charity; for at bottom iis simply a form of hatred, Pascal's Pensées, 404CONTENTS ‘Translators Introduction Note ‘THE ARGUMENT Chapter I. Essence and Di 1. Being’s “Other” 2. Being and Interest 3. The Said and the Saying 4. Subjectivity 5. Responsibility for the Other 6. Essence and Signification 7. Sensibility 8 8 10. Being and Beyond Being Subjectivity is not a Modality of Essence ‘The ltinerary THE EXPOSITION Chapter 1 and Sensing {. Questioning and Allegiance to the Other 2. Questioning and Being: Time and Reminiscence 3. Time and Discourse ‘Sensuous Lived Experience b. Language ©, The Said and the Saying 4d. The Amphibology of Being and Entities ©. The Reduction 4. Saying and Subjectivity 4, The Saying without the Said », Saying as Exposure t0 Another «, Despite Oneself 4, Patience, Corporeality, Sensibility fe. The One £ Subjectivity and Humanity li‘Chapter IM, Sensibility and Proximity, {. Sensibility and Cognition 2, Sensibility and Signification 3. Sensibility and Psyche 4, Enjoyment 5. Vulnerability and Contact 6. Proximity a, Proximity and Space ». Proximity and Subjectivity €. Proximity and Obsession 4. Phenomenon and Face €. Proximity and Infinity £. Signification and Existence Chapter IV. Substitution 1. Principle and Anarchy 2. Recurrence 3. The Self 4, Substitution 5. Communication Finite Freedom’ 6 Chapter V. Subjectivity and Infinity 1. Signification and the Objective Relation 2, The Subject Absorbed by Being b. The Subject at the Service of the System «, The Subject as a Speaking that is Absorbed in the Said 4. The Responsible Subject that is not Absorbed in Being ©. The-One-for-the-Other is not a Commitment 2. The Glory of the Infinite 4. Inspiration Inspiration and Witness ¢. Sinesrly and the Glory ofthe Infinite 4. Witness and Language ¢. Witness and Prophecy 3. From Saying to the Said, or the Wisdom of Desire 4 Sense and the There fs 5. Skepticism and Reason IN OTHER WORDS Chapter VI. Outside NotesTRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION |. REDUCTION TO RESPONSIBLE SUBJECTIVITY Absolute selfresponsiblity and not the satisfaction of wants of human nature is, Husserl argued in the Crisis, the telos of theoretical culture Wwhich is determinative of Western spirituality; phenomenology was founded in order to restore this basis~and this moral grandeur~to the scientific enterprise. The recovery of the meaning of Being ~and even the possibilty of raising again the question ofits meaning - requires, according to Heidegger, authenticity, which is defined by answerabilit; it is not first fn intellectual but an existential resolution, that of setting out to answer for one’s very being on one's own. But the inquiries launched by phenome- nology and existential philosophy no longer present themselves first as a promotion of responsibility. Phenomenology was inaugurated with the the- ‘ory of signs Husserl elaborated in the Logical Investigations; the theory of ‘meaning led back to constitutive intentions of consciousness. It is not in pure acts of subjectivity, but in the operations of structures that contem porary philosophy secks the intelligibility of significant systems. And the late work of Heidegger himself subordinated the theme of responsibilty for Being to a thematics of Being’s own intrinsic movement to unconceal- iment, for the sake of which responsibility itself exists, by which it is even produced. In Levinas's work responsibility is once again set forth as the determinative structure of subjectivity, and the very form of the supple- ‘ment of intelligibility philosophy's reductive methods aim to bring to theo- retical. disciplines. In Husserl personal subjectivity in the form of a will for self responsibilty is realized in theoretical life. I isthe transcendental structure underlying science as a praxis, as a coherent form of discourse, system atized by the will to supply a reason for every fact, and a reason for every reason. In Heidegger authenticity i from the first conceived as the existen~ tial structure in which Being is articulated in true logos. In both cases responsibilty appears as a prodigy; for Husser it involves a total suspen- sion of the natural attitude and the leap into an utterly unnatural form of life, devoted to the idea of infinity. In Heidegger it requires an antecedentleap beyond what is as a whole, into the abysses of death. The responsibil- lty Levinas aims to exhibit is equally transcendental and bizarre in its structure, quite inexplicable in mundane or ontie terms but also inexpli- cable in transcendental terms, or ontological terms, deduced from the condition of possibility, or interpreted out of the ontic and formulated as its realizing “event.” The subjectivity struc- tured as responsibility which Levinas means to bring out, although it will indeed make the theoretical attitude or the ontological articulation possi- ble, has an antecedent and autonomous structure. For before being the structure by which truth is realized, it is a relationship with the Good, which is over and beyond Being. Contracted as a relationship with the Good, responsibility precedes and ‘makes possible the theoretical will, or the ontological appropriation. Itis first an ethical structure. This book is entirely a labor of articulating the inevitably strange, nonobjective and non-ontic, but also non-ontological, terms with which the original fore of responsible subjectivity has to be described. Levinas’s attention here is not on the experiences in which an ethical essence of subjectivity could be intuited, or out of which it could be deduced, He does not seek this ethical and non-theoretical intention of Subjectivity in special moral experiences, but finds it immediately in the theoretical intentions, the ertical and rational intentions of cognition, and therefore in language and in philosophical language in particular. For Le- vinas's project what is difficult is not to locate the place where ethical responsibilty is in force; as soon as one isin philosophy, indeed as soon as, fone is in language, one is in that place. But the difficulty is that every ‘theoretical and ontological intention of philosophy dissimulates the ethical subjectivity, just by formulating it in its terms, which are those of theoreti= cal and ontological inteligibility. Even the nonrepresentational language Which seeks to articulate the movement of Being itself in the presented or represented beings dissimulates the subjective movement that before dis- closing Being exposes itself to the Good. That the formulation of subjeciv- ity in terms of the objective, or already of the thematizable, or even of Being, is already this dissimulation is what forces Levinas to speak of a sphere which is not that of being while:not being nonbeing~ which is otherwise than Being. 2. THE FACTS OF RESPONSIBILITY The critical exigencies of rational discourse, the resolve to think in response to what Being gives, are movements of responsibilty. Every effort to deduce responsibility, justify or ground it, or even state it ina syntheticrepresentation, is already an exercise of responsibilty. Responsibility is a fact. ICs a fact prior to the facts assembled by coherent, that is, respons ble, discourse. The theoretical attitude, the ontological logos which artcu- lates Being, owes its energy to this given-or this imposed. Responsibility is a bond. It is @ bond with an imperative order, a com- mand, All subjective movements are under an order; subjectivity is this subjection. This bond does not only determine a Being to act, but is con- stitutive of subjectivity as such, determines it to be. But-and this is the most distinctive and original feature of Levinas's ethical philosophy the locus where this imperative is articulated is the ‘other who facesthe face of the other. Facing, which is not turning a surface, but appealing and contesting, is the move by which alterity breaks into the sphere of phenomena. For Levinas responsibility isthe response to the imperative addressed in the concrete act of facing. Responsibility isin fact a relationship with the other, in his very alteity. Then a relationship with alteity as such is constitutive of subjectivity, Responsibility is a form of recognition - acknowledgement of a claim, an order, which is even constitutive of subjectivity ~a summons to arise to be ‘and to present oneself It involves a recognition not of the form but of the force - vocative and imperative and not causal, informative or even indica tive force of the other, of alterty itself. It is realized as a response to the ‘other facing. This recognition is not a cognitive act, tha is, an identifying, re-presenting, re-cognizing act. It is effected in expressive acts by which ‘one expresses oneself, expresses one’s own being, exposes oneself. to the fother. These acts are incarnate acts; indeed exposure is being incarnate, and for Levinas the most basic implication of exteriorty in subjectivity is already found in this structure of being an exposedness to another, in the move of responsibility. It is as responsible that one is incarnated. Con- cretely the acts by which one recognizes the other are acts of exp giving, of one’s very substance to another. Responsibility is enacted not ‘only in offering one’s properties or one's possessions to the other, but in giving one’s own substance for the other. The figure of maternity is an authentic figure of responsibility. How far docs responsibility extend? It is already in act. To elucidate responsibility is 1o bring to light a bond in which one i already held, and where there is still a demand to be answered. Responsibilities increase in the measure tnat they are taken up. They take form in an unendingly open ing horizon, an infinition ‘That responsibility has the status ofa fact means that it did not originate in an act of subjectivity -in the act of assuming or taking upon oneself. ‘Temporally speaking, that means that responsibility did not originate through an act of presentation or representation. Every representationalready misses the originative moment. It does not only have the status of “always already there” when an act originates or begins, but the assembling of oneself and beginning which characterizes the act of consciousness will bbe shown to be launched from it. In this sense it is “pre-original,” prior to all initiatives and their principles, an-archic. This also means that I am not only answerable for what I initiated in a project or commitment of my will. I am responsible for the situation in Wwhich I find myself, and for the existence in which I find myself. To be responsible is always to have to answer for a situation that was in place before I came on the scene. Responsibility is a bond between my present ‘and what came to pass before it. In iti effected a passive synthesis of time that precedes the time put together by retentions and protentions, am responsible for processes in which I find myself, and which have @ ‘momentum by which they go on beyond what I willed or what I can steer Responsibility cannot be limited to the measure of what 1 was able to foresee and willed. In fact real action in the world is always action in which the devil has his part, in which the force of initiative has force only inas- much as it espouses things that have a force of their own, Lam responsible for processes that go beyond the limits of my foresight and intention, that carry on even when T am no longer adding my sustaining force to them and even when I am no longer there, Serious responsibility recognizes itself to be responsible for she course of things beyond one's own death My death will mark the limit of my force without limiting my responsibilty. ‘There is in this sense an infinity that opens in responsibility, not as a given immensity ofits horizons, but as the process by which its hounds do ‘not cease to extend ~ an infnition of infinity. The bond with the aterty of the other is in this infinity. 1am answerable before the other in his alterty ~ responsible before all the others for all the others. To be responsible before the other is to make ‘of my subsistence the support of his order and his needs. His alterty com- mands and solicits, his approach contests and appeals; | am responsible before the other for tne other. I am responsible before the other in his alterity, that i, not answerable for his empirical and mundane being only, but for the alterity of his initiatives, for the imperative appeal with which hhe addresses me. 1 am responsible for the responsible moves of another, for the very impact and trouble with which he approaches me. To be responsi ble before another is to answer to the appeal by which he approaches. Its to put oneself in his place, not to observe oneself from without, but to bear the burden of his existence and supply for its wants. | am responsible for the very faults of another, for his deeds and misdeeds. The condition of being hostage is an authentic figure of responsibility.1. THE INNOVATIONS OF OTHERWISE THAW BEING ‘An ethical philosophy of responsiblity grounded in a phenomenology of the face (or quasi-phenomenology: for a face is not so much a mode of appearing of the other, as a “trace” where alterity passes) has been the central concern of Levinas in Torality and Infinity and in subsequent writ- ings that developed its theses, especially those assembled in Humanism and the Other. But Totality and Infinity was structured, classically, as a phe- rnomenology in different strata, related as founding and founded. A sphere of pure sensibility was first disengaged, sphere of the nocturnal horror of the indeterminate, and of ipsety taking form as a relationship of immer- sion in the sensuous element, determining itself as pleasure or contentment. ‘The relationship with things was carefully distinguished from this anteced- ‘ent relationship of sensuous enjoyment and alimentation. It begins with inhabitation, the establishing of a dwelling, a zone of the intimate closed from the sphere of the alien. Things are apprehended as solid substances and movable goods, furnishings for a dwelling, before they are means and implements in a practical field. And there is a new form of ipscity identity ing itself in these acts of inhabitation and appropriation, existence for one- self in the form of being at home with oneself, ire chez soi. There was already a relationship with the other at this level, a relationship through cohabitation, with the other as complementary and “feminine” presence. But the relationship with the other in his alterty, the ethical relationshi breaks out in the face to face position in which language takes place. The ethical nature of the relationship with a face constituted the center and principle originality of Levinas's analyses. But Levinas described also an erotic sphere, relationship with the carnal and with the ebild that comes in the carnal, relationship of voluptuousness and fecundity, as “beyond” the face, a sphere over and beyond the ethical Otherwise than Being abandons this construction by strata. On the one hhand, the highly original concepts that were elaborated to formulate the ‘erotic relationship ~ the concept of closeness for the sake of closeness con- trasted with that of intentional, teleological movement, the concept of “proximity” contrasted with the presence that establishes distance, the con= cept of contact by sensuousness contrasted with the signifying aim, even the theme of skin caressed contrasted with face addressed -are now the basic concepts with which the ethical relationship of responsibility with the ‘ther is formulated. The ethical relationship with alterity is now deseribed ‘with concepts opposed to those of presence, the present, aim or intention ality. These concepts will be used to formulate saying itself, and the signi- fyingness of speech founded on an existential structure of being for-the-other, in terms of a making-contact that precedes and supports