1 The following philosophical journal was a convenient way for me to record my progress through my various meetings with other

Levinas scholars, tabulate my reactions to my reading, and set it within the framework of the everyday in Paris. 2000/05/16 Arrived at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport at 8 :30 or so, and went to the Familia Hotel, 11 rue des coles. Very tight quarters, and unusually hot weather. Forgot that I had accepted a dinner invitation for that evening at 8 :00 with Georges Hansel, a mathematician and talmudic scholar, Levinass son-in-law and husband of Simone. He called my hotel at 8 :45, and asked me to jump in a taxi and get there as fast as I could. Helen too tired to accompany me. The dinner was typically Jewish, with a glass of whiskey for an appetizer, and a simple meal. We were joined by David, Georgess son, married to a philospher who was not with us. David is a physicist. I presented Georges with a copy of my translation of Levinass A lheure des nations (In the Time of the Nations) and he gave me the Hebrew translation of Levinass interview with Philippe Nemo, Ethics and Infinity. I did most of the talking at dinner, about Levinass work itself, with a bit about Sauver la vie et sanctifier le nom , (Saving lives and sactifying the Name). One thing I find surprising about Georgess view is that he seems to find Levinas clear and to present no particular difficulties. I explained to him the distinction I feel must be made between clarity of expression on one hand and clarity or obscurity inherent in the object under consideration. To displace clarity of expression to the object domain would be precisely to be simplistic. I had called Jacques Rolland before leaving the U.S., had a fairly in-depth discussion with him about what I was interested in in his work. He pointed out that he has a new book out, Parcours de lautrement (PUF, 2000). I told him I would try to read at least some of it before we met. He said to call him back during the weekend, which I will certainly do. I was sorry to read at the beginning of his book about what he considers to be a dsaccord de fond (a fundamental disagreement) with Catherine Chalier. Not that there cannot be fundamental disagreements, but it seems to me that Chalier does not exactly grasp Levinas en aval (downstream), as Rolland says, in the religious and ethical consequences of his discourse, but that she understands ethics as the optics and language of the subjectivity Levinas attempts to explicitate. Rolland begins his book with Levinass notion that it is necessary for thought to turn against itself in order to break the doxic crust inevitably produced by its lava in cooling down into a content of thought . . . . This is the distinction between the Dire and the Dit (and I would like to analyze the difference between this and Merleau-Pontys parole parlante/parole parle. Then he goes on to speak of the essence of wakefulness, of disintoxication (dgrisement). 2000/05/19 Yesterday was a big day. Went to the cybercaf to check and send e-mail, then later on a quest for a library. Ended up at la bibliothque Sainte-Genevive, which is where Merleau-Ponty met Simone de Beavoir for the first time, according to the former. Have to go back today with a mug shot to get a pass. But was able to get into the

2 Sorbonne, where students were taking exams. I wandered through the huge building, and ended up in a huge but well-lit amphitheatre. Sat in numbered seat 114, and read the end of the introduction to Rollands Parcours de lautrement. I can see why Georges Hansel doesnt like the later Rolland. And I now see that my remark was justified (about not making a distinction between lack of clarity in style and the inherent lack of clarity in the subject matter or data. And what happens if in this peculiar domain opened up by Levinas, this domain of the otherwise than being, the dominant modality is in fact ambiguity? Hansels clarity prerequisite would become an absolute (and rather selfrighteous) obstacle, barring access to this beyond essence, a country in which things are done differently (autrement), a province overshadowed by the adverb otherwise. Today, Friday the 19th, I continue reading Rollands book. Im on page 30. I want to get a bit further along, because he said to call him during the weekend, so we could arrange to meet and talk. On page 30 there is the important observation that Levinas, being a phenomenologist, is content neither with the concepual construction nor the speculative deduction of his notion of the subject he is attempting to elaborate; he must find the circumstance that makes its description and articulaton possible, the circumstance that would make it possible to describe its mise en scne. I am now in room 203, tower 43, of Paris 7 (Jussieu). It is the bibliothque des Lettres et Sciences Humaines. Levinas rejects both intersubjectivity ( la Husserl, and later Merleau-Ponty) and dialogicity (Buber) in favor of proximity. He uses such expressions as au large du jeu ontologique et lapparatre ou de la manifestation (31). (out of reach of, or clear of, the play of ontology and appearance or manifestation) Later, and it is by unfolding the intrigue woven by this word (proximity) that we are going to . . . . In another place Rolland comments on the aptness of Levinass periphrase for the relation : a tying separation (une sparation liante). And Thus Giving is revealed as the deep meaning of Saying, () the ultimate moment of the approach. Levinas does not like to use the word individual for the other, because it evokes the notion of a small segment of a larger whole. It attenuates the uniqueness of the other man. [L]a surenchre de lthique (the exaggeration of the ethical), a key term (33), an accurate portrayal of Levinass technique. Pushing a concept to a different level : but not till it becomes something else, as in the Hegelian dialectic. Rollands own technique is to line up the relevant quotes, adding his own italics for emphasis, and singling out for emphasis those that define a concept. For example, exposition is not thematization, because in the former case one exposes him or herself to the other after the manner of a skin that is exposed to what wounds it, like a cheek turned toward one who strikes it (33). There is an urgency here, the extreme urgency of the assignation . . . surpresses the distance of consciousness of . . . . Obsession (. . . ) is not consciousness (34). And subjectivity is not prior to (or preparatory to) proximity(35). 2000/05/20 I continue to read Rollands study. I have contacted him by phone, and arranged to meet him next Thursday at the caf Escolier, Place de la Sorbonne, at 17 :00. I met him once briefly several years ago, but dont remember much how he looks. He says I should look for a bearded man with glasses and light auburn hair. I doubt Ill have too much trouble finding him, even though those terraces of the Latin Quarter cafs are quite vast.

3 My interest in Rollands work stems from the following sources. First, he was a student of Levinass, and knows his thought very well. Levinas was the director of his thesis on Dostoyevski and the Other. Secondly, Rolland was the editor of a second edition of Levinass first published book, De lvasion (On escape), and did a lovely job, showing how the thought evolved to produce many key concepts in the later works. He also provided a helpful introduction. Rolland also collaborated with the Italian Sylvio Petrosino to produce an early critical study of Levinas, titled La vrit nomade. (Rolland also edited another work essay by Levinas, Ethics as First Philosophy, and helped organize a conference at Crisy-la-Salle, giving it the name Ethique comme philosophie premire, or Ethics as First Philosophy, the same title that was later used for the name of a Levinas conference in Chicago, organized by Adrian Peperzak. But the third and most important reason he interests me is this: he uses a philosophical language both rigorous and supple enough to prolong Levinass thought in its own direction; to posit itself in a region close enough to recapture some of the usaid that belongs to the work. Getting back to the reading, the chapter I am on describes the emergence of subjectivity. Not in an historical, but in a logical sense. The self seems to emerge after and as a result of the emergence of the other. Hence the ethical priority of the other may be foreshadowed in its genesis. I seem to exist first, not in the nominative, but in the accusative case, as the one who must respond to the other. (Me voici, or hineni in Hebrew, is a contraction of hinei, here, and ani, I; yet the French form is more illustrative of Levinass grammatical point, since the me of me voici is in the object case, or the accusative). The chapter goes on to describe the emergence of the third party, or the other of the other, which changes everything. For if love is sufficientin the sense of giving priority to the otherin a world in which there are only two people, it is not sufficient for justice. Justice would require a way of deciding who of the two others is to have priority. But the relationship between love and justice is a complex one, and it seems that the latter does not replace the former, but is just the only way of carrying to fruition the intent of the former in a world with more than two people in it, i.e. the real world, society or sociality. (Levinas uses the word sociality rather than society in order to distinguish between the sociological view of the collectivity and his own view, in which the plurality is based on the face-to-face between human beings.) For there to be justice there must be co-presence, simultaneity, presence of all together (so that there can be comparison). The word to describe this state of affairs is being (or essence in Levinass terminology). 2000-05-22 Just beginning the second chapter of Rollands study. In general I can say that it moves very slowly and methodically, but with the implication that such a pace will be the right gear to get us through some steep terrain to come. And such a methodology is welcome in the analysis of the face, this new philosophme, or element of a philosophical vocabulary. What makes the face so important? From a phenomenological point of view it is the fact that it is present in its refusal to be contained (p. 63). This important formulation appears already in Totality and Infinity (1961), 13 years prior to the work that Rollands study scrutinizes, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (1974). Rolland makes the point (actually I made a similar one on the subject of Merleau-Pontys philosophy of language in my thesis in 1989) that the plasticity of the face (the physical

4 presence, which can be touched and seen) limits the expression, but also assures it the presence through which the expression pierces, in its independence. There is an ambiguity here, since it is only through the sensible appearance of the face, only in that form that delimits the face that the expression can break through in its independence. (I had made a similar point about the way in which the visible traces of the letters in words are not seen per se, but clearly are perceived, since they determine the transcendent direction of thought-vision we call meaning. The letters must relinquish thematization in order to serve the cause of a beyond. We do not see the letters but according to the letters. As in Levinas, there is a special mission granted to the how, modality or the adverbality.) It is this ambiguity that will allow Levinas to speak at once of the holiness and the caricaturality of the face. This relation between the plasticity of the face (the caricatural) and the expression is related in Rolland to Levinass statement about the relation between manifestation (being, or essence) and that which is beyond being: Is there anything more to the psyche than the expending of the energy of being, of the positing of beings? (This quote appears at the beginning of the first chapter of Rollands study.) One important task that to my knowledge has not yet been taken on is the comparative study of the Talmudic (confessional) and the philosophical writings of Levinas on a chronological basis. Rolland mentions in passing the appearance for the first time of the distinction between the sacred and the holy in Totality and Infinity (1961) and that it does not emerge in his talmudic studies till 15 years later (in From the Sacred to the Holy (1976). The implication in this case at least is that the philosophical concept was developed first, then used to interpret the Talmudic text. The face (in Levinass essentialist use of the term) speaks. And it is with the further elaboration of expression in language that the other preserves and asserts his-her otherness. Pursuing the theme of the relationship between the philosophical and the religious writings, Rolland points out that holy and separated are the same word in Hebrew, kadosh (p. 65). The expression that the face brings into the world does not defy me by the weakness of my powers, but by my power to exert power (TI 176; quoted by Rolland, 67). In other words, the reason I am unable to integrate the look of the other into my world is not because I do not have the strength to do so, but because what looks out at me is not of the order of strength. It eludes all power. This is probably to be taken in the sense of the Hegelian master-slave dialectic. The master wants to be master of anothers freedom, not of his or her submissive gaze. To kill the other is to acknowledge defeat in this project. (Perhaps seduction, following this line of thought, is more dangerous to the other than a show of force.) Levinas says that the eyes of the other say Thou shalt not kill. This afternoon I got a pass for the bibliothque Sainte-Genevive, and checked out two books from their collection. Le sujet chez Emmanuel Levinas: Fragilit et subjectivit, by Grard Bailhache (PUF 1994), and Sujet et altrit: Sur Emmanuel Lvinas, by Augusto Ponzio, translated from the Italian by Nicolas Bonuet (LHarmattan, 1996). Of the two the first seemed the more interesting: a thesis done under the supervision of Petitdemange (I believe). The second contains two short interviews with Levinas, in 1988 and 1990. I also noted in the bibliography a work titled Emmanuel Levinas/Jacques Rolland, by Jacques Rolland (I cant believe that could be the title) : Ed. Verdier, Coll. Les Cahiers

5 de la nuit surveill, numro 3, ISBN 2-86432-035-5, Prix Br. 145.00 FRF. Oddly, I see no mention of this work in by the same author of his most recent work, Parcours de lautrement. (I now see that it was originally titled Subjectivit et an-archie and is alluded to at the end of the Chapitre Prliminaire.). 2000/05/24 On the way to work at the Bibliothque Sainte-Genevive I stopped along the rue des coles at LHarmattan, an academic bookstore where I purchased three books on Levinas : Emmanuel Levinas : thique comme philosophie premire, Prface et annot par Jacques Rolland (1992; 1998, Payot et Rivages); Emmanuel Levinas et la socialit de largent, Roger Burggraeve (Peeters, 1997); and Emmanuel Levinas : Positivit et transcendance, suivi de Lvinas et la phnomnologie, sous la direction de Jean-Luc Marion (PUF, pimthe, 2000). Proceeded to the library, passing in front of the Collge de Sainte Barbe, founded in the 15th century. Couldnt help thinking about the students of late middle ages treading these same winding streets. And at the top, along the stretch outside of the Panthon, students squatting, smoking, eating, waiting for buses, talking and reading outside the Bibliothque. I have the ritual down now. Show the laminated card, open your backpack for examination, proceed to the point where you put the laminated card through a scanner to get a slip of paper with a numbered seat, climb the stairs to the entrance of the reading room, put the card in again to get through the turnstyle, order the book you want on a little old computer, insert the card in a scanner again, find your seat, and after a maximum of 20 minutes proceed to the monte-charge where the books are waiting for you, let the attendant scan your card with a hand-held scanner, and return to your seat. This time I read further into Grard Bailhaches Le sujet chez Emmanuel Levinas : Fragilit et subjectivit, and examined a new one, La Diffrence comme NonIndiffrence : Ethique et altrit chez Emmanuel Lvinas (Klim, 1995). I then began writing the first draft of something I am provisionally calling Emmanuel Levinass Description Of What Isnt There. It is a personal or experiential approach to Levinas, intended as an informal introduction to the major elements of his philosophy. I have decided to separate, from now on, this Paris Diary from the work on Levinas that I will be working on for the rest of the month, and that may well have to be completed during my sabbatical. I have discovered that the Bibliothque Nationale de France is now transferred from rue Richelieu to the Quai de la Gare, and that it is called la Bibliothque Mitterand. Ah, these empire-building politicians. Well, it tops the Centre Pompidou, now usually referred to more neutrally as the Centre Beaubourg, after the quarter. I subsequently learned that the old Bibliothque national will be kept as a depository for manuscripts, and the new one will be solely, or chiefly, printed material. Met with Donald Palmer and his wife Leila yesterday at the Grande Htel Jeanne dArc, rue de Jarenne, in the marais area. Donald wrote the textbook I have been using for several years now in Intro. to Philosophy, Looking at Philosphy, or The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter. I dont look upon Donald as a serious philosopher, but he did produce a handy and readable introductory text, and is a nice person. He was en route for his house in Cahors. She is in womens studies, but quite intellegent nevertheless. I may have Emily consider inviting her to lecture. She expresssed interest in the Victorian

6 novel The Wilder Shores of Love, which tells of Victorian ladies going off to join harems on the Barbary coast. Helped expatriate Jeff Brown move his furniture from a large truck into his twoyear rental, 9 rue de Poissy, near our hotel. One thousand dollars a month. A terrific deal. The package arrived with my wifes recent American fiction, to tide her over. The strike of the convoyeurs de fonds (Brinks) is over, so we will be able to change our French travelers checks into currency without the 3% charge the American Express in Paris has begun charging, or even the 1.5% charged by the French post office. It occurs to me that I should visit the Alliance Isralite Universelle, which Levinas directed for many years, and which has probably the best collection of works on and by him of any place. We are having dinner this evening with Catherine Chalier and Annette Aronowicz (translator of Nine Talmudic Readings). Ill ask her where the library is and whether I can get access to the collection. We switch hotels on Friday. And now, back to reading. 2000-05-25 Today I am scheduled to meet Jacques Rolland at the Escolier caf, place de la Sorbonne, at 5 :00 PM. I still have only finished roughly half of his book, but will spend some time this afternoon going over the notes of my reading thus far and have some hopefully probing questions to get our meeting off the ground. Last night I met Catherine Chalier and Annette Aronowicz at the Procope, 13 rue de lAncienne Comdie, in the Latin Quartin for dinner. Catherine arrived first, and seemed genuinely happy to see me. Helen decided not to come because most of the conversation would be in French and it was to be pretty much a Levinasian meeting. She asked my what I was going to be doing and I did my best. One point she was troubled by, my quote, originally quoted by Michel de Certeau (in La fable mystique, I believe), of Levinas : une indiscrtion vis--vis de lindicible (an indiscretion with respect to the ineffable). She doubted, without explicitly saying so, that the quote could be actually from Levinas, or at least wanted to know the context, because she said the word indiscrtion implied a sort of intrusiveness if not violence (a very strong word, she said) that was uncharacteristic of Levinas. Im fairly sure of my ground, but must admit I dont know the precise source. It seems to me that it must be from either De lexistence et des existants, or Totalit et infini. The easiest way for me to find the source would be to consult my translation, The Mystic Fable, because I think I would have put Levinas in the index if he is quoted there, and that I would have had a footnote with the exact reference in English as well as French. So Ill have to let that one ride till I get home I guess. Frustrating, though. Annette arrived, a young woman on sabbatical who had rented an appartment in Paris but is leaving on Sunday. Teaches in Religious Studies at Franklin and Mary, in the Philadelphia area. I told her of my admiration for her intro. and translation of Levinass Nine Talmudic Lessons. She is doing research on the writings and life of a Jewish communist from Eastern Europe, who fought in the French resistence and was hid by friends in Lyon during the Holocaust. She does not appear to have a great deal of specific interest in Levinas at this time, aside from the latters writings on Judaism, most of which are contained in the collection titled Difficile Libert, or Difficult Freedom, which was

7 deplorably translated by San Hand for Athlone (Johns Hopkins in the United States). It needs to be redone. Catherine Chalier is collaborating with Marc Faessler, an old friend (in both senses of the word) of Levinass, a Protestant theologian who lives in Switzerland. She said she got a very moving letter from him that very morning. He had had a heart transplant (I believe thats what she said) and was writing to say he might not be able to continue their project together, which was a study of Judaism and Christianity (not specifically Levinascentered). I went on to speak more about my project, explaining that what I had in mind was a general introduction with a minimum amount of background on phenomenology, etc., an experiential approach. The dinner was excellent, and Catherine could not be deterred from paying for it. I think she really was sorry Helen couldnt be there, and said she would call sometime at our new hotel to invite us to her house, perhaps for a Shabbat dinner followed by a visit to Levinass synagogue. Well see. Chalier does not follow the orthodox Kasrout to the letter (if she did she would not be eating at a non-Kosher restaurant) but had fish, anyway. She said Philip Roth was quite popular in France, but didnt know his most recent publications. I suggested that Annette might be interested in Roths recent I married a Communist. Helens package with the American novels from her daughter and the mouth-wash arrived, and I got pretty steamed with the post-office official who insisted I go get my passport in order to claim the package. Shortly after I got back to the hotel (under a slight drizzle) Georges Hansel called the hotel room. He had received my thank you card, and it seems to me he wanted to know what the other side was doing (the enemy Levinas faction, led by Chalier). I kept to my usual policy of speaking strictly about Levinass philsophy itself, without getting into any mundane details that might be made use of. Also, suggested he call again at the new hotel early next week so we could get together for lunch someplace. But he does need a kosher restaurant, so I left the question of where up to him. And now I must get to the preparation of notes for my meeting with Rolland. 00-05-26 Met with Jacques at the Escolier, place de la Sorbonne, yesterday. He was 20 minutes late. I had already finished my caf au lait when I saw a man who met the description he had given of himself over the phone. He was carrying Au-Del du Verset, Levinass 1982 collection of Talmudic Studies with him. It was a bit slow getting going, Jacques ordered an expresso, they brought him a regular, then when they brought the rduit it had sugar in the bottom. The waiter made the mistake of saying Jacques would have to talk to the patron. Jacques went back and talked, not to the patron, (owner) but the grant or manager, whom he had known for some 30 years, a stout man missing several teeth. They both came out smiling, the manager apologized for the waiter whom I did not see again. I had prepared two questions for Jacques. The first was about the precise nature of Jacques Derridas accusation of violence on the part of Levinas (in the essay Mtaphysique et violence,), and whether he (Rolland) was really convinced that Levinas had made modifications to his philosophy as expressed in Totality and Infinity (1961) to take the critique into account in his Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (1974). There were passages to this effect in Rollands Parcours de lautrement (2000) but I was

8 not very clear about it, mainly because I have not read much Derrida. Rolland was quite convinced that there were modifications stemming from the critique, and as I recall when I raised the same point during my dinner with Chalier, she also was of that opinion. Speaking of my dinner with Chalierremembering my frustration about the quote Chalier questioned, I asked Rolland if he knew it (une indiscrtion vis--vis de lindicible) and he said he did, and that it was from Autrement qutre, which I had no reason to doubt, because the book he had just completed was entirely devoted to an analysis of it. So when I got home I got out my copy which I had brought with me, and began looking for it. The first passage I came upon that was fairly close (p. 198, Fr.), speaks of lindiscrtion du dit, or the indiscretion of the Said, which in itself is quite interesting. But I eventually found the quote I was thinking of, though I had gotten a word or two wrong. The actual line is lindiscrtion envers lindicible (indiscretion with respect to the ineffable), and it is on page 8 of the French. The full sentence is : Treason at the price of which everything is shown, even the ineffable, and by means of which the indiscretion toward the ineffable, which is probably the very task of philosophy, is possible. What is the context of this rather enigmatic sounding sentence? It is embedded in a paragraph toward the end of section 3 of the first chapter of Otherwise than Being, a paragraph titled Le Dire et le Dit, which is usually translated (and perhaps inevitably so) The Saying and the Said. (French has the recourse of using any verb as a noun by putting the masculine singular definite article in front of it : this le Dire is literally the to Say, and expression that is probably, in English, too awkward to live. Therefore Alphonso Lingis and other translators, myself included, have substituted the present participle preceded by the definite article, i.e. the gerund. The solution is falls somewhat short, because the -ing form in English tends to evoke the present tense and the verb in progress, whereas the French infinitive (which probably would be more accurately termed the indefinite, since it lacks any personal or temporal desinance) evokes the mere idea of the action simplicer. Levinas has just staked out his new domain, the pre-original, or the an-archic or the non-original as he variously calls it. This domain is precisely the beyond being alluded to in the title. Why do we need a domain of the beyond being in the first place? (Let me mention in passing that I am using the term domain for this realm, or whatever we end up calling it, but the term is a tad inappropriate no doubt because it has an implication of spatiality. Now, spatiality is in the realm of being, or at least the most common notion of spatiality. Levinas, perhaps in a way analogous to Husserl before him, distinguishes lived space and geometrical or Cartesian space. The problem of appropriate terminology in discussing the beyond being will be a constant and necessary one, which Levinas himself discusses at length, and to which we shall return.) Let it suffice to say at this point that Levinass critique of Heidegger leads the former to feel this necessity for a number of reasons, the chief of which concerns beings inherent tendency to consolidate itself in the preservation of its being, the conatus essendi (at all levels : the atomic, as confinement,1 the vital, as the struggle for life, and the human, as the competitive vying of egos, and as war). We shall have a great deal more to say about this question, the philosophical necessity and justification for this move, the opening up of beings other (which is not to be confused
1

In the course of my dinner with the Hansels, David, Georgess son, who is a physicist, told me Levinas had called him when he was working on a text in Entre-Nous. He wanted to confirm his use of the term confinement in a technical sense as used in physics: the property of cohesion, which causes elementary particles to retain their form. I dont know whether the corresponding word is used in this sense in English.

9 with the opposite of being, i.e. nothingness, which, like all negations, is tributary to the affirmation it denies.) For the more immediate purpose of explicating the context of the phrase indiscretion with respect to the ineffable, let us limit ourselves to the question, given the two domains of being and beyond being, of how it is possible to say anything about the latter. Being is the domain of what is, hence also of that which is the case. As Levinas often points out, our entire notion of the validity of statements in language is based on their corresponding to a state of affairsto what is. (As an illustration of this, consider Bertrand Russells analysis of the problematic utterance The present king of France is bald. In Russells opinion, which can be taken as representing that of logical positivists in general, the statement must be deemed meaningless because there is no present king of France.) Levinas, in his characterization of the difficulty, often uses the term thematization, and to thematize. This simply means that when we speak of something that something becomes the object of our attention (or, the subject of our inquiry). Thematization posits something as being, and then adds characteristics to that something. Such a procedure is of course typical of discourse concerning things that are, things that obtain within the realm of being. Thematization seems to be inevitably entailed in any sort of discussion about anything. Hence what Levinas terms a methodological problem arises. In the passage we are explicating, he poses the problem, and in doing so develops the dichotomy he highlighted as the section title, The Saying and the Said. Grammatically, it would seem that the contrast Levinas is making here might be construed as a contrast between the present (participle) and the past (participle). That interpretation is almost certainly erroneous, however, if only for that fact (as pointed out in the parenthetical remark in my previous paragraph) that the French text does not use the present participle at all, but rather the infinitive.2 And although I hold to my opinion that it is the lack of definition of person and number that is at the origin of the term infinitive (qua undefined or indefinite), one could speculate that a suggestion of infinity is at the root of Levinass choice of the infinitive to designate the sort of Saying that occurs in the realm of the beyond being. By contrast, the realm of the Said corresponds to that of being. The Said is the discursive equivalent of manifestation in the domain of being; indeed, it may be considered a part of manifestation. But let us return to the text immediately leading up to the passage in question. Levinas uses the word treason, in this connection, but in a favorable, or at least inevitable, sense. Just as our physical gestures or physiogomy may at times be said to betray our feelings or hidden intent, similarly Levinas suggests that the Said may be brought to give away something of the Sayingsomething of that which cannot properly be said at all, for in doing so we would thematize it and thereby remove it from the realm of beyond being, and bring it into being (or contaminate it with being). The use of the term treason in a

An interesting comparison might be made between Maurice Merleau-Pontys use of the parole parlante/parole parle dichotomy (the speaking word, the spoken word) and the one introduced by Levinas. Suffice it to say here that despite some similarities, Merleau-Pontys intent is to draw attention to the creative spontaneity that can be distinguished in a certain use of language and the already established corpus of word meanings (as embedded in languages); although he clearly assigns prominence to the former, he is always quick to point out the interdependency of the two.

10 positive sense may help prepare us for a further catachresis3 : the use of indiscretion in a positive sense as well. How are we to understand the term indiscretion in this instance? First of all, in the sense of an utterance that reveals something that should not be revealed. In a somewhat more neutral sense, indiscretion (we may think of the noun here as being at the base of both discreet and discrete,) may be understood as the lack of separation between two realms. Although this second meaning should probably be given center stage here, the former is probably co-intended. There are texts in Levinas that suggest that the role of philosophy (i.e. that specifically Greek modality of making manifest through verbal explicitation) recognizes nothing as off limits in its exposure of the articulations of the Logos. Now, as I pointed out earlier, one of the meanings of the Hebrew kadosh (the main one being holy,) is separated. Hence there is a suggestion that philosophy is essentially atheistic, a suggestion borne out by other passages in Levinass writings. The spiritual importance of atheism is This treason, then, and this indiscretion, we are told, probably constitute the very task of philosophy. There is one further point to be made in connection with this rather dense passage, in which every word counts. Levinas introduces a further nuance. Can this treason be reduced? The verb to reduce appears to be used here in its technical, phenomenological sense. Before interpreting its meaning, let us adduce the second passage containing the term indiscretion, which also contains an allusion to reduction. [D]ans lindiscrtion du Dit, tout se montre; par lequel tout se montre en trahissant certes son sens, mais dune trahison que la philosophie est appel rduire . . . (p. 198). How does philosophy reduce the treason that made it possible for all to show itself? [I will have to decide on how I think the word reduction is used here. Is it in the technical sense of the Husserlian reduction? Or is it used simply as synonymous with diminuation?) 00-05-28 Cold and windy this morning. Last night I thought through the possible interpretations of one of Levinass preferred expressions, which I believe he attributes to Maurice Blanchot : Ensemble mais pas encore. Together but not yet. I think that rather than an affirmation of an after-life it should be read as an existential description of the tenor or tending-toward of life : we are together (whence proximity) but not yet, i.e. not yet actually together (which would be a mystic fusion). This would be Levinass parallel and reply to Heideggers being-toward-death. The precise reply-refutation (rplique) is Levinass -Dieu (either to God or until God or until we see each other again in God, or good-bye). I remember this as being the avowed sticking point for a German student of Levinas, Bernhardt Liebsch (I have his study of Merleau-Ponty at the house : he took part in the Merleau-Ponty Circle Meeting at Berry College some years ago), and also

Catachresis, a general term for the misuse of language (in French some writers have used the term dboter, to dislocate an articulationof speech in this case) may well be considered a necessary stylistic device, a lingusitic strategy, or even a part of Levinass methodology, in the latters attempt to use the Said to communicate the Saying. There is example for it: cf. Pseudo-Dionysiuss use of catachresis and hyperbole to indicate the divine. That catachresis (a misuse of language) is what Levinas has in mind is further demonstrated the passage mentioned earlier: Or tout notre propos consiste a se demander si la subjectivit, malgr son tranget au Dit, ne snonce pas par un abus du langage grce auquel, dans lindiscrtion du Dit, tout se montre . . . (p. 198, my underlining).

11 of Diane Perpich, who is organizing the next Levinas seminar at Duquesne in Pittsburgh next spring. Just made arrangements with Luce Giard (executrice to the literary estate of noted Jesuit historiographer Michel de Certeau) at Le Petit Bofinger (entre 7 :45 et 8 :00; 46, boulevard de Montparnasse, langle de la rue dAlenon, mtro Montparnasse). 2000-06-01 The dinner with Luce went well, probably better than it would have had Helen and our friend Jason not come along. Luce was her usual bossy, charming self. Helen thought she was quite attractive. We discussed the progress of my translation of Certeaus The Possession at Loudun briefly, and evoked some memories of Michel, who died 15 years ago in January of this coming year. She does not have e-mail and I think disapproves, so I will send her a card (not sure why; we took her out to dinner). Went to lunch at the Hammam, a kosher restaurant on the famous rue des Rosiers, the old Jewish quarter on the right bank, with Georges Hansel, Levinass son-in-law. He gave me a copy of his book, Explorations talmudiques (Paris : d. Odile Jacob, 1998). I enjoyed talking to him about his father-in-law, and Helen asked him for particulars about his own childhood. His parents were from Checkoslovakia, and both died during the Holocaust when he was three. No siblings. Saved by a double-agent woman by the name of Stern. I notice that he dedicated his book to her. It reads (in translation) : To the memory of Juliette Stern, who, during the dark night that fell over Europe between 1939 and 1945, saved the lives of hundreds of children. She took one of them in; he remembers. Georges is a mathematician, and his son David a physicist. It seems to me that Georges writes like a mathematician, with great precision and discipline. He studied under Rabbi Rottenberg (senior). He mentioned this as we went by the synagogue and school, and again when we passed a kosher butcher shop, under the authority of Rabbi Rottenberg the son, who does not have the brilliance of his father, says Georges. Since the weather is soggy and overcast, I will probably work all day at the hotel, some of the time in a lounge below the lobby. Tomorrow evening we are invited to dinner at Catherine Chaliers home. We will bring some pastry for dessert. Eight oclock, 68, rue de Cvennes, in the 15th arrondissement. Building B, 2nd floor, apt. 31. In the course of my conversation with Georges, I brought up the Saying/Said dichotomy, in connection with that quote that has been haunting me, to the effect that the role of philosophy is (probably) indiscretion with respect to the ineffable. I said I thought it to be a central issue, because even in Levinass eyes it posed a methodological problem in that it is impossible to thematize the pre-meanings of the Saying without betraying them by making them manifestations of being, i.e. of the Said. Georges said that in his opinion this was not the main issue of the book Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, but rather substitution. So I have decided to reread the central chapter of that work, titled Substitution before proceeding any further. I believe that most of the other works by Levinas draw consequences and announce a general doctrine concerning (a) a critique of ontology, and (b) the necessity for this otherwise than being that would be something like a hidden field of origin, eluding both time and space. Time, in that it is a past that never was present, i.e. a diachronic time (rather than the synchronic time of the now that retains through memory and anticipates

12 through care or concern for the future, thus structuring the present between those two horizons), and space in that it is the alibi (=the elsewhere) that is more accurately designated as the no-place. As we were leaving the bookstore, the Shir Hadash (New Song), at which I also purchased Philippe Nemos Job et lexcs du mal (Job and the excess of evil : with an introduction by Levinas), and, on Georgess advice, the writings of Jacob Gordin (crits : Le revouveau de la pense juive en France). Gordin (1896-1947) was one of the important figures in the French school of Jewish thought. The others were Lon Asknazi, Emmanuel Levinas and Andr Nher. When we arrived at the bookstore Librairie du Temple, (Shir Hadash), I was introduced by Georges to the owner L. Magnichever, a woman, and her daughter, who wore the traditional orthodox headdress. I was presented as one of Levinass translators from the United States. The daughter subsequently mentioned to me that she was writing a masters on Levinas and the disappearance of the subject. I had the impression she couldnt be very far along : after all there is no disappearance (on the contrary) of the subject (the moral subject at least) in Levinas. The renewal of subjectivity, more or less equated with the human, is what is characteristic and unusal for his time Levinas. Georges entered into the conversation for a bit as well. The address of the bookstore is 1, rue des Hospitalires St Gervais 75004 Paris, tel. 011 33 42 72 38 00, fax 011 33 42 78 79 47, email : librairie-du-temple@starnet.fr . 2000-06-02 It looks like I may be going to dinner alone with Chalier this evening, unless Helens toothache subsides. She has an appointment with Dr. Saintier, who was recommended by Georges Hansel, at 4:00. Unfortunately she was unable to get anyone to see her on Wednesday, and Thursday was a national holiday (le jour de lAscension). My sister and brother-in-law arrive from Spain this afternoon, and are staying at the Aliz Grenelle Hotel, 87 Bd. mile Zola, in the 15th arrondissement. Last night I pursued the reading, interpretation and analysis of Substitution, the central part of Autrement qutre, ou Au-Del de lessence (1974). I am now on the section titled 2. Rcurrence. I am still unclear what L. means by recurrence. Also, concurrently, I am reading Levinass Ethique comme philosophie premire (1982). 2000-06-06 There is something visceral about memory. The bread, the cheese, the Badoit (water), and that infinitely tough meat they call stek. (Already the they is artificially easyit was never that simpleI lived on the edge of we and they, the linguistic edge. As in the crisis zone of any edge: the intensive littoral life of the tide pools, the volcanic border between tectonic plates, the splendor, the greatness and the misery of border towns, or just the state of visual emergency that we call the outline of things.) I would like to go against the normal convention here, and be allowed to refer back expressly to a certain element of the preceding parenthesis, which, like the unconscious perhaps, the reader and writer both know about but agree not to refer to in the main text. The I lived goes back to when I lived in Paris, from the age of twenty to twenty-five, some forty years ago. I was writing academic papers in French for the Institut des Professeurs de Franais ltranger, beneath the bare bulb of the kitchenette adjoining the single room apartment, my pregnant wife

13 tossing uneasily in the summer heat beneath the roof of the mansarde with its tiny skylight overlooking rooftops, irregular chimney pipes and tortuous antennae. It was a classic but I didnt know it. The scrounging to make a living teaching English, the pleasant grime of daily metro life, the milk brought home in a little triangular carton called a berlingot, and endless baguettes. Amphibious in languages, I lived there, that is, here. And ever since, at parties, dinners, walks, I find myself turning an irregular Parisian corner into that pastswimming away like a minnow in two inches of French, heading for the dangerous and exciting depths of Rimbaud, Valry or Proust, where I left them two score years ago. And philosophers as well. At least here, one might think, translation and transcendence could rise above the waters surface and still breatherise to survey the world from the point of view of eternity, as Spinoza said: sub specie aeternitatis. That is the path that led me at last to the arid clime of Emmanuel Levinass world of otherwise than being, or beyond essence, essence being the Levinass word for the verbal sense of beings everyday antics in the present we are always in, and always are in. Can that otherwise, beings other, be said? This must apparently be answered in an attenuated affirmative, but it is the Saying of the Said that is the truly ineffable. I find this diary style congenial. Its rhythm, like that of days, ends in the gentle relinquishment of sleep, which is represented by the blank spaces between the entries. Or, more minutely, like the scarcely perceptible renunciation that connects or disconnects our breathing, in the moment of transition from in to out; a premonition of the stillness of death, or the equilibrium of timelessness, life eternal? Levinas, who considered the possibility that philosophy was an indiscretion toward the ineffable, attempted to say the labyrinth of subjectivity in a new way, in terms that could not be termssince terms are terminal, moments of stability, solidity, substantiality, and hence being, hence inappropriate to designate beings other. Beings other, which is neither negativity nor death, since these are clearly parasitic, tributary to being. Non-being, as we know since Hegel, is deeply embroiled in a dialectic with its opposite, and so cannot escape the orbit of its positive pole. Being and presence (both as here and as now) cannot be exited without collapsing the synchronic powers of the mindmemory and anticipation. Hence Levinass introduction of a radical diachrony: a past that never was present, and that is connected to a notion of radical passivityand both of these to an an-archy or un-condition from before creation. But more of this later. A few words now about a book that Levinas admired, and wrote and introduction to: Philippe Nemos Job et lexcs du mal. The book is a fresh interpretation of the book of Job. It is followed by Levinass review essay of the book, titled Transcendance et Mal. The work begins with a rejection of the theology of the friends of Job, which it qualifies as technical, and to be assimilated with the scientific view of the universe. If you break a rule, the only way to get back into the right order is to repent, undo, start over. This view is also attributed to psychiatry. It is also (and here Levinas will differ) the universe of the Law (of Moses). Job, who appears by modern standards to be suffering from a change, an anguish, should take medicine, according to the modern assessment (so Nemo). Job himself, at least at the outset, seems to agree with this view. But he does not agree that he has somehow forgotten his sins. Then Philippe Nemo introduces the idea of the other other scene (the latter is, I believe, a Freudian term referring to the subconscious). I will

14 skip over the details. Nemo attributes to Job the discovery that God is all-powerful, can do good or evil, and is somehow more human than the false comforters thought. He discovers the transcendent God, which turns out to be quite similar to Christ. Levinass interpretation of the (philosophical) significance of the book of Job is that Job discovers that we are responsible beyond what we contracted for. Where were you when I created the world, means that humans, being creatures, always come later. They are thrust into a preexisting world, so that they must assume responsibility before becoming free agents. (Cf. AE, 156-57) 2000-06-09 Bought three books by San Antonio (Dard, a satirical and joyous slinger of slang la Rabelais, who just died in his home in Switzerland): Tango chinetoque, Si maman me voyait, and Jai peur des mouches. I will add these to my existing collection of two: Y a-til un Franais dans la salle, La pute enchante and Certains laime chauve. I still do not have Alice au pays des merguez. I also have a weakness for Georges Duhamel, who, though a most respectable author (membre de lAcadmie), is really a second-rate writer of historical novels (a bit like Maurice Druon, another second-rate author who was a member of the French Academy). I am authorized to buy one more book, Jan Patockas book on phenomenology, which I will look for on Monday. Yet another purchase: Fabio Ciaramellis Transcendance et thique (Brussels: Ousia, 1989). I might describe Ciaramellis style as the opposite of Derridas. He is avowedly pedantic, following his author at a respectful distance, clarifying wherever possible. I think he has gotten the essential tabulated, and in my opinion that is the most important. Derrida,s critique is a bit all over the lot, difficult to follow, and clearly that of a person who is very far from having carefully assessed the importance of Levinass work. (This is a first impression I reserve the right to retract later.) Ciaramelli sees the essence of Levinass oeuvre to be his renewal of the understanding of subjectivity as transcendence. The language of this subjectivity is ethics. Now I have always been struck by the artificiality of the rationalistic or theoretical approaches to ethics. Not only in Aristotle and Plato, but in Aquinas as well, and even Kant. Not that an irrational approach would be any better. (I cannot help but think of the work of Fred Olafson in this regard: he was somewhat disappointed with Heideggers failure to develop a full-fledged ethics from his Mitsein, and tries to do so himself. But does he really dare to introduce any new approach, merely attempt to stretch the same one in a different directionor more accurately, farther in the same direction?) 2000-06-10 It is generally considered simply a confusion to imply that there is any connection between good in the moral sense and good in the natural sense. (In fact it would be considered part of the naturalistic fallacy, I believe, according to G. E. Moore.) But perhaps there is a connection. Good in the naturalistic sense (this tastes good, the apple has gone bad) may be something like a side effect, or secondary appearance (I am taking what I believe to be a phenomenological approach here). Eating, or taking a shower are both good in a functional sense and a hedonistic one. Is good something like a lagniappe for good behavior? (This analysis is totally insufficient, however, since the functions involved are

15 only good upon rational analysis. But in its attempt to be concrete, we must avoid allowing phenomenological analysis to fall into empiricism. I would like to get back to the Levinasian analysis of the psychism, and to do that it would be quite helpful I believe for me to continue with the reading of Ciaramellis book. I am now getting to the point where I can begin to think in terms of organizing material into a plan. (I dont like to do that until I have some material already.) I think that todays purchase of Jan Patoc kas Quest-ce que la phnomnologie (Grenoble: Jrme Millon, 1988). The reason phenomenology is essential to my exposition is that such a technique has the power of casting light upon the prejudices that dominate both everyday life and natural knowledge (Patoc ka, 263). Thethemes in Levinas I need to explore are subjectivity and transcendence. But all interesting and original work, as phenomenology has recognized, must have its source in a personal experience. In my case it is, I would say, a clear sense of the incongruity of rationalistic ethics. Hence the problem of ethics for me must go back over the peculiar history of western, i.e. Greek, philosophy, in order to show that incongruity, but then also to show how ill equipped its opposite, the irrational, is in this domain. It is true that feelings are generally thought to be beyond the reach of the rational approach, but are they after all? Without espousing the naturalism of psychology, it may be possible to develop along Levinasian lines something on the order of a new approach to ethics. Of course Olafson has done a great deal in the area of existentialism already, with respect to the question of ethicswhich seems, in the long run, to be his main interest. His approach is thankfully pedantic (as is Ciaramellis, self-avowedly). He deals with the question from the point of view of heteronomy vs. autonomy. He personally favors, if I understand him correctly, autonomy (no ethics without free choice). But Levinas is careful to point out that the situation of the free-willed individual set before ethical choices (good versus evil) is not fundamentally that of the human being. This was the point of his analysis of the Book of Job (cf. AE, 156). The analysis appears in a section titled (in quotation marks in the original French) Finite Freedom. One reasons in the name of the freedom of the ego, as if I had been present at the creation of the world, and as if I could only have the burden of a world issued from my free will. Presumptions of philosophers, idealist presumptions! Or an irresponsible dodge. That is what Scripture reproaches Job with. He would have been able to explain his misfortunes if they could be derived from his misdeeds! But he had never desired evil! His false comforters are in agreement with him: one cannot, in a meaningful world, be held responsible when one has done nothing wrong. So Job must have forgotten his misdeeds! But the subjectivity of a subject come late into a world not of his own making does not consist in projecting, or treating, this world as his project. The delay is not insignificant. (156-7, my italics.) 2000-06-09 Began reading Fabio Ciaramellis Transcendance et thique: Essai sur Levinas (Bruxelles: d. Ousia, 1989). 2000-06-12

16 I go back to the reading of Rollands Parcours de lautrement this morning in the Jardin des Plantes, partially because Jacques telephoned over the weekend, and we are going to have dinner together (and perhaps a date of his) this evening. He told me he has been going through a depression. (I knew, through Catherine Chalier, that he had that problem, and also a drinking problem.) He sounded as if he had had a good deal to drink, perhaps. He told me he was sorry he had not gotten back in touch with me. I mentioned the books I had bought, particularly Ciaramelli, of whom he thought highly. I mentioned in passing the death of a French writer of popular detective storiesRabelaisian rants loosely hooped together in incredible plots, a very French lower class detective, lots of bistrots and satirical but sentimental slices of French life with what the French think of as James Bond moments, all in a lyric slang that I sometimes need help with.) He said he wasnt very good, but that got him talking about Cline (who is a recognized great, with some similar traits, but also a stong anti-Semite who was incarcerated with collaborators after the end of WWII, and who was admired by Levinas despite his anti-Semitism) and Vassily Grossman, the Russian Jewish author of Life and Desitiny, which is quoted by Levinas in several of his works. It is on the Soviet years, full of horrors and suffering, but with a glimmer of hope. The passage Levinas quotes reflects the idea that there is a goodness or kindness that is very small and weak and impossible to organize into a system, but is infinitely strong, and eventually overcomes the most organized evil. Rolland told me that when he was invited up to Levinass apartment he brought him a Russian copy of that novel, and that Levinas had said he would never have time to read it, gesturing at all the books in his front room library (which I remembermostly Hebrew). This was, Jacques thought, in the early 80s. Im not at all sure he will show up. (I have to phone La Gargouille, the little restaurant on rue des Boulangers, for reservations.) I am reading Rollands chapter titled Il (=He). Odd, in that chapter, at least in the beginning, it is mainly question of Moi, of moi and of je. Is there really the difference Rolland points out between these terms in Levinas? (I could perhaps contact David Levin at Northwestern to get a copy of the paper he gave at a conference on this.) According to Rolland, the moi, the je, on the other side of the Moi (au rebords du Moi, p. 97), and it is the Other in the Same (lAutre-dans-le-Mme). I approve of the attention Rolland gives to the passage quoted (R., 99), from Levinas (AE 137), concerning the description of passivity more passive than all passivity. As if the ideality of matter resting on itself hid a dimension in which there is the possibility of a receding to the hither side of immediate coincidence, a materiality more material than all matteri.e. such that irritability or susceptibility or exposure to wounds or outrage would show its passivity more passive than any passivity of effect. 2000-06-16 (I am writing this back in the U.S.) On the 13th, I had dinner with Catherine Chalier, who helped celebrate my 60th birthday, one day in advance. Perhaps the most significant moment for me was when I asked her to tell me about her first encounter with Levinass writings. Her lyce teacher (highschool +1) for some reason she could not account for asked her to read Levinass thesis Totality and Infinity. She was too young to understand much of it, but she intuited something in the text that had meaning for her. I think it was the early part, in which Levinas speaks of desire. Desire is considered there as

17 a form of transcendence, since it goes beyond the subject. It is lack, but at the same time a thought that thinks something more than it contains. I remarked that this may indicate that it is not necessary to understand Levinas in the context of phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) to have access to the most important elements in his philosophy. In my opinion, that most important element is the possibility of going beyond being. This possibility is first described in Levinass first published work, De lvasion (1935) as that of exiting being by a new route. In what is arguably his most definitive work, Autrement qutre ou au-del de lessence (1974), there is question of thinking the possibility of a tearing free from being (p. 9). The way in which such a departure from being is envisaged by Levinas develops over time. In De lvasion, it is clear that being is understood as created being. Therefore it is possible to consider the striving toward God as a yearning to exit being, but, philosophy either applied the category of being to God, or envisaged God as Creatoras if one could transcend being by approaching an activity or by imitating a work that consists precisely in producing being. The romanticism of creative activity is animated by a profound need to exit being, but nonetheless shows an attachment to its created essence, and its eyes are fixed on being. The problem of God, for it, has remained the problem of His existence. (p. 96, Fr.) In other passages it is clear that Levinas has to a great extent retained this view in his approach to art, which does succeed, he says somewhere, in leaving being, but always to return to its forms (circular voyage, la Ulysses, as opposed to the linear, transcendental one of Abraham, which has remained the paradigm of the mystic voyage, the desire not to return). But Levinass critique of art is more complex than this, since in the later works particularly he refers to art as not being involved so much in the empirical productions of being, the created being, as the pre-world moments of creation itself, the en-dea de ltre, or the hither side of being. This might be usefully compared with Merleau-Pontys praise of a region of spontaneity, source of creativity. Postscript: As is clear no doubt from the above, I have been striving to determine the direction I would like my work during the sabbatical to take. Provisionally I have come to the following conclusion. This fall, I will teach a course on contemporary philosophy. I have already assigned the books I want to use: Heideggers Being and Time, Merleau-Pontys Signs, and Levinass Entre Nous. I will choose to follow the themes of subjectivity, transcendence and finitude through these three authors. By choosing a common theme cluster I can bring out the differences in the approaches and conclusions of these three philosophers. Further, it is my hope that this work, and my interaction with students, will help me get a start on my own writing during the sabbatical, which will feature these same themes.

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Beavoir, Simone de........................................................................................................................1 Chalier, Catherine............................................................................................1, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16 Christ............................................................................................................................................14 Ciaramelli.........................................................................................................................14, 15, 16 Derrida, Jacques...................................................................................................................7, 8, 14 Duhamel.......................................................................................................................................14 Hansel, GeorgesG......................................................................................................1, 2, 7, 11, 12 Husserl, Edmund..................................................................................................................2, 8, 17 Levinas, Emmanuel......................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Lingis, Alphonso..............................................................................................................................8 Nemo..................................................................................................................................1, 12, 13 Olafson...................................................................................................................................14, 15 Rolland, Jacques...........................................................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16

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