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May 29, 2006
In the preface to Totality and Infinity, Levinas describes being and ontology as a condition of violence and war. One's own being is tied to self-interest to the exclusion of concern for the other. The question of being is not the question of the other.
Yet is there anything in being and in one's own being that allows one to be addressed by the other and that allows the ethical to interrupt and challenge self-interest? What is it about the face that singles me out and motivates me to act for the sake of that other? What of the possibility of a spontaneity which is intrinsically moral and inherently responsive to the concrete suffering and need of the other, no matter who they are?
Levinas argues that prior to all reflection and calculation one is compelled to answer to the other in acting for her, as when one leaps without thinking to save a child who falls into a well or river without considering the risks or rewards of such an action.
Doesn't such an example prejudge the situation. What if the other was a criminal with a gun? Surely my response depends on the other is, as well as their concrete suffering?
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While Levinas' connection to Heidegger is obvious complex, I've long thought that Heidegger's notion of polemos is interesting in context to Levinas' notion of violence. Although clearly one of the dominate factors to Levinas is WWII and how that makes him look at many German philosophers, especially Heidegger.