~ Zane Yi was raised in the Christian tradition and is fascinated by the
interplay of philosophical and theological thought through history. He
teaches and studies philosophy at Fordham University, where he is a
graduate student. Zane and his wife, Angela, live on the Upper East
Side of Manhattan.
If you’ve browsed this website, you’ve most likely come across the frequent use of the term “the Other.” You may have wondered, “What does it mean? Where does it come from?”
The term has been developed by European philosophers and came into usage through the work of Jewish/French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), an extremely influential, some might call quintessentially “post-modern”, thinker. Levinas fought in World War II, taught philosophy at the University of Paris, and is also known for his Talmudic scholarship. Levinas’ extensive writings are permeated with this term, but are notoriously hard to digest. Here is a short overview of the meaning of the term.
According to Levinas, when we encounter another human being, the face of the Other speaks to us and ethically obligates us.
The innovative nature of this claim becomes more evident when Levinas’ thought is compared with the thought of a Frenchman that is more familiar to many people--Rene Descartes. In his quest for absolute certainty, Descartes infamously describes his method of radical doubt. One must doubt everything—the beliefs inherited from one’s parents and teacher, and even one’s own senses! After demolishing this shaky edifice of beliefs, one can reconstruct a stable building of knowledge built from indubitable facts.
What is the indubitable and, therefore, foundational fact? Descartes claims that he cannot doubt the fact that he is doubting. “I think, therefore I am,” he purportedly claimed. Starting from this point, one begins to work one’s way to other certain facts.
Following Descartes’ lead, many philosophers seem to think that the primary task of philosophy is an epistemological or metaphysical one. What we desire most is absolutely certain knowledge. How do I know that the external world and others exist? (Believe it or not, philosophers have spent much time and energy trying to answer this question!) With the proper method of acquiring knowledge (epistemology), one can ascertain what is real (metaphysics).
Ethics, or “practical philosophy”, is a secondary concern; “knowing” (epistemology) and “reality” (metaphysics) take priority. Once we know what is real, we can find out what is good and right. Furthermore, figuring out the good and right is reduced to the derivation of principles or maxims from abstractions.
In contrast to this, Levinas treats ethics as a "first philosophy." According to Levinas, we are immediately aware of the Other through our encounters with him/her (and their "face") and the Other places obligations of care and respect on us, before we begin to theoretically speculate on things, people, life, truth, ourselves, or anything at all! This obligation towards the Other cannot be reduced to linguistic formulations and commands, and transcends race, gender, or religion.
Levinas’ innovative claim is powerfully illustrated by one of my professors, Merold Westphal, who uses an excerpt from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front to help readers understand Levinas’ insight.
The following is taken from Westphal’s new book Levinas and Kierkegaard in Dialogue (p. 3-4). (The pagination is from Remarque’s book.)
On a foray between the trenches, I have become separated from my comrades and have found refuge in a crater filled with water and mud. Suddenly a question occurs to me. "What will you do if someone jumps into your shell-hole? Swiftly I pull out my little dagger, grasp it fast and bury it in my hand once again under the mud. If anyone jumps in here I will go for him...stab him clean through the throat, so that he cannot call out; that's the only way; he will be just as frightened as I am; then in terror we fall upon another, then I must be first" (184).
As suddenly as the question arises, a body falls on top of me. "I do not think at all, I make no decision--I strike madly home, and feel only how the body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp and collapses. When I recover myself, my hand is sticky and wet. The man gurgles....It sounds to me as though he bellows....I want to stop his mouth, stuff it with earth, stab him again, he must be quite, but [I] have suddenly become so feeble that I cannot anymore lift my hand against him" (185).
Overcome by the desire to get away, I move as far away as possible in the shell-hole, watching and listening. Morning comes, and the gurgling continues, drawing first my unwilling gaze and then my whole body is a crawling journey to the side of the dying man. "At last I am beside him. Then he opens his eyes. He must have heard me, for he gazes at me with a look of utter terror. The body lies still, but in the eyes there is such an extraordinary expression of fright that for a moment I think they have the power enough to carry the body off with them...the gurgle has ceased, but the eyes cry out, yell, all the life is gathered together in them....The eyes follow me. I am powerless to move so long as they are there" (187).
When I am finally able to move, I strain some muddy water from the bottom of the crater, give it to my dying enemy, and then dress his wounds as best I can. The gurgling resumes. After the passing of an eternity, the young Frenchmen passes into eternity at about three in the afternoon. "I prop the dead man up again so that he lies comfortably...I close his eyes. They are brown, his hair is black and a bit curly at the sides. The mouth is full and soft beneath his moustache; the nose is slightly arched, the skin brownish; it is now not so pale as it was before, when he was alive. For a moment the face seems almost healthy;--then it collapses suddenly into the strange face of the dead that I have so often seen, strange faces, all alike" (190).
Just as the compulsion to help had followed the compulsion to flee, now the compulsion to speak takes over. "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible, too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of you bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late...I will write to your wife" (191).
Who is the Other in a religious context? We have many terms for her. The unbeliever. The religious fanatic. The liberal. The fundamentalist. The pagan. The goy. The kafir.
Such labels are usually based on a theoretical understanding of the Other (often a misconception), but actually prevent us from a genuine encounter with her. Sadly, in the end, this only impoverishes our own humanity and our experience of the depth and power of our own religious traditions.
We know ourselves most fully in the presence of the Other.
It’s my hope and prayer that Faith House will become a place where encountering the Other, not thinking or talking about him or her or them, is “first philosophy.”
Recent Comments