Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Beyond of Language by Hughes Robert;

Author:Hughes, Robert; [Hughes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3407174
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2010-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

For Levinas, then, there can be no other, no authentic encounter with exteriority or alterity, within the solitude of the ego's “own” universe. For any properly ethical event, wherein the subject encounters and respects the alterity of the other, solitude must be escaped and surpassed. Yet one must wonder what the relation of subject and other would look like, for what can it mean for the subject to encounter the other without grasping the other? Somehow, this must be a “relation of non-relation,” where there can be no possibility or power of grasping, such that the subject is no longer “able to be able,” so to speak, and is unseated (Temps 62f, 74e). Consequently, an ethical event must not only transpire outside of the realm of knowledge, since “knowledge [la connaissance] never encounters anything truly other in the world” (Temps 53f, 68e), it must be outside reason itself:

By encompassing everything within its universality, reason finds itself once again in solitude. Solipsism is neither an aberration nor a sophism; it is the very structure of reason. This is so not just because of the “subjective” character of the sensations that it combines, but because of the universality of knowledge [connaissance]—that is to say, the unlimitedness of light and the impossibility for anything to be on the outside. Thus reason never finds any other reason to speak. The intentionality of consciousness permits one to distinguish the ego from things, but it does not make solipsism disappear: its element—light—renders us master of the exterior world but is incapable of discovering a peer for us there. The objectivity of rational knowledge [savoir rationnel] removes nothing of the solitary character of reason. (Temps 48f, 65e)

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