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In other words, you have something which you can enjoy but which you
need not necessarily be enjoying immediately although its there at hand,
ready to be enjoyed. Once more, in any kind of possession, the orientation
is towards the self, towards the I.
This orientation towards the self holds true even when you come
to an experience like work. At first hand, work seems to confront me with
an Otherthere is something which is not myself. Take not that Levinas
uses work here in a very general senseany kind of action which seeks
to transform matter. It can be as simple as making a shoeone of
Aristotles favorite examples. When making shoes, the shoemaker
transforms leather into a human artifact. It could also be the work of
building a house which means domesticating a certain placewhat was
once simply an empty lot full of cogon grass is now defined humanly, is
now defined according to human needs in accordance with the
satisfaction of certain wants, certain desires, so that you no longer simply
have an empty field full of cogon where nature goes its own way, as it
were, but that space will now be re-defined, will be transformed according
to my ends, my goals, my needs. In other words, the Other will always be
in function of certain goals, certain ends I have in mind. The activity that I
call work is the transformation of matter according to my own image
and likeness, according to my own goals, according to my ideals, according
to my categories. This is what we do with an empty space, a vacant lot,
wood, stone, leather or any other thing when we work on them. We
transform, and thats the dignity and greatness of work precisely. Work
transforms nature into human nature, as it were, into a nature that is now
redefined by certain human intentionalities. But once more, in that
experience, the origin of meaning which imposes or gives meaning will
always be the self.
Even when we, Levinas says, come to the realm of thought, of
thinking or knowing, there is a movement of immanence. Those of us who
have a scholastic background would be familiar with this idea. What is
otherthis chair, this experience, this phenomenon, this object in nature,
by the act of knowing them becomes in me, becomes immanent. If one
were a Kantian, for example, one would say that ultimately, what
constitutes the object of knowing is its being situated within the
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published in 1968. Its longer, a bit more difficult, more dense, but I find it
more foundational. I would not recommend the second text, the difficult
text, for our students. That would be really more for the teacher and for
the graduate student of philosophy, but I think the first one, the short easy
text, would be accessible to an undergraduate student.
This experience of conversation, of simply speaking, is what the
analytical philosophers call the speech situation. In this speech situation,
in any kind of speech situation, you have at least three elements or three
poles and ones reflection can focus on any one of these poles. You have
the pole of the matter being talked about (pinag-uusapan). You have the
pole of the person doing the speaking (kumakausap) as well as the
interlocutor, the one spoken to (kinakausap). Levinass whole reflection
on the speech situation focuses on the interlocutor. What does it mean to
have to face someone? This is what happens when you speak to
someoneyou face someone. What is that experience all about? Here, the
focus is precisely on the face-to-face relation, on what he calls the vocative
situation. It is not so much the talking about the interlocutor as another
subject mattertalking of or talking about the interlocutor, but the
focus is the talking to. What happens there in that vocative situation, in
that talking, in that speaking to? It is a speaking to which cannot be
reduced to a speaking about, although in our discourse we can talk
about the other spoken to as spoken about. I may be engaged in
another conversation, for example, with Dr. Ibana. I can talk about this
conversation with someone else, for example with Rannie and therefore I
can talk about Rainier Ibana, but the Rainier Ibana I am talking about to
Rannie is not exactly the same as the Rainier Ibana I am talking to insofar
as I am talking to him. In other words, that Rainier Ibana who is my
interlocutor is irreducible to the Rainier Ibana I can talk about to other
persons or even to Dr. Ibana himself.
Focusing now on that vocative situation, Levinas says we have or
can have the experience of the other as otherthe experience of the
radical alterity or the otherness of the other, where the other is not
reduced, not transformed into an object. The other is not an object of my
enjoyment, of my possession, of my work, even an object of my thought,
but precisely is allowed to be there as other. At any point, and we shall go
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back to this, I can begin to talk about it, reduce him to an object. This is
where we shall have to reflect a little whilewhat this letting the other be
other precisely means. We shall see that it partakes of the nature of a
decision, an option. Its not something that is automatic.
To see the other as other, Levinas says, is to see him or her in his
or her face. Levinas uses the notion of the face as a sort of figure,
something along the structure of metonymy. In other words, a part is
substituted for a whole. Its like when you say for example, thirty sails set
out instead of saying thirty ships. The sail stands for the whole shipa
part stands for the whole. In a similar fashion when he speaks of the face
as a rhetorical figure, a metonymy (the part is substituted for a whole), he
speaks of the whole personthe person as person, the loob. The notion of
loob itself is also a metonymya part is substituted for the whole. The
loobwhat is most personal for a person is not just a part of a person but
stands for the whole. So, to meet the other as other is to meet him or her
in the face. Levinas calls this encounter of the face an epiphany. He uses
the term epiphany which simply means manifestation. The Greek verb
means to manifest, to show. Something is shown, something is seen,
but he uses the word epiphany precisely to emphasize a certain
suddenness to it. In other words, its not something that can be arrived at
as a conclusion of a certain method, of a certain procedure. It is seen in the
way one looks at or studies a poem, for example. Once can read the poem,
analyze its structure and rhetorical devices following a procedure but
there will always be that element which is extra-procedural which doesnt
mean that the procedures are not important with the analysis of the
paraphrasing, the metaphors and others, but there will always be a certain
gap and that gap can only be bridged by a leap. You take for example an
abstract, nonrepresentational, nonfigurative painting. You cant make
heads or tails out of it, in fact, there is no head or tail, its just splashes of
color, a play of light and shadow but at a certain point, it makes sense. At a
certain point you can even begin to like it. Of course if you have to explain
it, if you were an aesthetics student and you have to write a paper about it
in class, youd have to bluff a lot. You have to use categories that you have
learned, but in that moment itself of the seeing, the moment itself of
epiphany there will always be something sudden, something unprepared,
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to mean that hes worthy of respect, but that is not what Levinas means
when he speaks of commanding respect. For Levinas theres really a
commandment. Theres a certain height from which he commands but at
the same time, he says, a certain humility. There is a certain poverty.
Dukha siya. Yung pagiging dukha niya, sa pagiging kataas-taasan niya,
nagtatalaban. He commands precisely in his poverty, in his misery, in his
weakness and he is weak precisely in his height, in his dignity, in his
ability to command respect.
I will now try to relate this to what youve already seen before,
though I wont do the whole survey that everybody has seen, such as
Thomas notion of natural law or even for example, Kants notion of duty.
One can ask, but where does one experience that? What area in human
experience can we see, not just know, not just understand, but really see,
experience yung may kagat, what Kant means when he speaks of duty, of
the imperative, of that I must do this because I ought to do it and simply
because I ought to do it not because it will make me happy, not because it
is useful, but because I simply ought to do it? Where does one experience
that? Even this notion of the natural law, the voice of reason, our
participation in eternal reason, the way Thomas puts it, where does one,
or can one experience that? Thomas doesnt speak of the experiential
locus. He takes it for granted, I suppose. Even Kant doesnt speak of the
specific loci, the different places, different situations where once can
really hear the categorical imperative. And I think this is one way of
understanding what Levinas is trying to point out here. He is not trying to
edict norms, but hes trying to show that whatever norms one follows,
what-ever moral principles one adheres to, it is in this experience where
those norms are ultimately rooted because it is here where they are
heard, where they are experienced.
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cannot offer any help. But you still say, Here I am. O kaya naman, meron
kang kapatidnagwawala, napa-drugs, nakabuntis ng dalawa, sabaysabay, at hindi niya alam kung paano pananagutan ang ginawa niya. And
then he comes to you since youre his older brother or sister. You do not
have any solution to his problems. Arent there problems in life which do
not have any solution at all? You may not have any solution but the
response hes looking for is simply to hear you say, Here I am. Youre not
alone. I may not have the solution, but, hey, I am here. This responsibility
for the other could be as minimal as that, without focusing on any or
resulting in any specific solution but simply, the responsibility manifested
in that Narito ako.
The other phrase that Levinas uses besides that Narito ako! is
Aprs vous. Ikaw muna. Its a formula of politeness. For example when you
go out of the door and theres a lady beside you, you say, Ikaw muna,
Kayo muna. The whole point here is that the Other is always ahead. It is
this, he says, which renders sacrifice possible. Reciprocity is not the
ultimate in moral life. Sacrifice is possible. If reciprocity is ultimate then
there would be no more room for sacrifice. Sacrifice would then be absurd
or it would even be immoral, but it is this notion of the Other as ahead, the
Other as more important somehow, that renders the very notion and
experience of sacrifice possible.
This responsibility however, for the Other, is not just an attitude,
it is also something very concrete. Levinas stresses the economic
character of this responsibility. Its the opening not just of ones heart
(loob), he says, but its also the opening of ones palm and furthermore, of
ones pocket. You therefore work, but its not just for the opening of ones
palms, its also the opening of ones homethe whole experience of
hospitality, of making the Other dwell in ones own dwelling place.it is the
opening of ones pocket. In other words, there is an economic dimension
to this, and very often he would quote at this point no longer the Jewish
scriptures but even the Christian scriptures, Matthew 25, the scene of the
Last Judgment. In other words, if there are norms to be spoken of here,
these would be the norms of feeding the hungry, giving drink to the
thirsty, clothing the naked, and the like. These point to the economic
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