Introduction

Emmanuel Levinas criticizes the concept of human being found in Heideggerian philosophy. He accuses it as Egology, because Heidegger has left out an important problem, the problem of the Other. In its search for the pure being, Heideggerian philosophy brackets the Other and lands in a totalization or neutralization of beings.[1] The highest existence of the Other is totalized and the radical Otherness of the Other is lost. So each and every ‘being’in the world tells me don’t kill me, and don’t reduce me into the Being, because the Other is infinite. For Levinas’,crucial focus and central concern is the priority of Otherness that demands our ethical response. It can be said to begin with a fairly obvious fact of our everyday life, in whatever I do and say, I am faced constantly by the Other. My relationship among Others is primarily ethical.[2]

Ethics for Levinas does not mean a philosophical examination of the norms and standards of human behavior. For him, Ethics is Metaphysics of the human person, which describes subjectivity through its relationship with the Other. So the Other comes first; the task of the self is to respond to the Other’s initiative. Levinas’ Philosophy makes Ethics as first philosophy. He develops a philosophy not just of the dimensions of Otherness, but of the traces of infinity revealed in the face of the Other human person.[3] In this article, I would like to depict theLevinasian concept of real self in comparison with Martin Heidegger and also to propose the limits of their philosophical speculations.

2. The epiphany of the Face

The analysis of the face is central to Levinas. The way in which the Other presents himself or herself through the face. True essence of the human is presented through the face. The face manifests infinity.[4]The face of the Other rests me with its nakedness, with straightforwardness and defenseless eyes. It invites me to enter into relation with it, which is not based on power. The infinity which speaks from the face of the Other that does not paralyze my power, but as the result of the unprotectedness of the face. This ethical resistance opposes my secret egoistic tendency to take the power away from the Other. The infinite manifests itself in the defenseless and miserable person and it shows up with me as a stranger, as a widow, as an orphan and as a begger. The self and ‘Other’ is not a cognitive one, because the Other is not known, but stands beyond me. In the face-to-face, the Other is in His or her Otherness. The Otherness cannot be grasped from facts, such as Other’s history or background etc. The Other reveals himself/herself to me through the face and stands over me.[5] It is here that the Other stands over me in exalted position. Face is not in front of me, but above me. Thus the Other is infinite and transcendent.

For Heidegger, transcendence is not an alienation from self and not to be for the Other. But transcendence aims only at the perfection and fulfillment of human being in his or her individual person. Heidegger is of the opinion that transcendence is characterized by an essential going beyond the factual situation towards his/ her ontological or existential possibilities. Transcendence is an acquisition of a truer being by effectuating a fuller actualization of human possibilities. It is an expedition that opens inevitably into nothingness, because death is the ultimate possibility for human being.

 Levinas finds that there is a Cartesian heritage in Heideggerian Philosophy, which seeks cognitive certainty in the foundation of cogito. Cartesianheritage in simple sense means Cogito ergo sum. ( I  think, therefore I exist). The thinking self is the source of epistemological knowledge. Levinas criticizes that Descartes and Heidegger reduced the World and the Other to the thinking subject.[6] ‘I think’ becomes the hold and foundation of thought that was cleared to itself. Philosophy was the ‘Self’ of the philosopher. Self is the centre of the philosophical venture. In this sense, Cartesian and Heideggerian philosophy is having only self, which totalizes all the Other into being; and being, being impersonal, one can comprehend it and bring it into self. What is lost here is the Otherness of the Other person. Which is what make him or her Other. The Other becomes a theme or an object. We cut down the Other to mere be thought. According to Levinas, here relation with the Other is a reduction of the Other, reducing him or her what he or she is not. This is the destruction of transcendence.

Against self centered transcendence by Heidegger, Levinas says that theo-centric self-transcendence is given by God. He evinces that God only can open the infinite aperture that characterizes human being and to fulfill the immensely great project called human being. A reflective life must rediscover the theo-centric self- transcendence that is in us. Through a phenomenological study of the relation of the self to Other persons, Levinas argues for the primacy of the metaphysical character of the Other (infinite) over being.[7] For Levinas phenomenology is the way to discover meaning from within our lived experience. This phenomenological method helps to study a face-to-face human relation such as desire and love. From this point of self alienation towards the Other, Levinas depicts that human’s ethical relation to another person comes before his relation to himself, or to the world of beings. Face-to-face with Other human, I am obliged to take responsibility for the Other before myself; for this reason my relationship with Other human being puts myself in the position of hostage. Thus Levinas puts forward an ethics of obligation and self-sacrifice, dependent on a relation to the Other that is beyond totalization, beyond comprehension and expression.[8]

The incomprehensible nature of the Other is called Infinite by Levinas. The aim of phenomenology is to let something show itself as it is. The infinity is presented through the perception of the face which demands from me a meaningful response. Levinas says that language is the means by which the Other communicates him or herself to me. Instead of squeezing the Otherness of Other human being into the cruelty of the self, the self has to recognize that the Other still transcends my existence. Levinas says that this ethical relation puts the ‘I’ in question.[9] The presence of the face of the Other is the essence of non-violence and peace. The peaceful welcoming of the Other is paradigmatic for Levinas. My welcoming of the Other is the ultimate fact. Meaning comes from Otherness and its language that conveys meaning. Language and philosophy are thus contingent upon an original moral experience. Language is the home of Self -Other relation, and moment of face-to-face encounter between Self and the Other is a dialogical moment, moment of address and response. Fundamental human activity is conversation, dialogue, response and address. Listener always stands outside the theme of discourse and renders me responsible for my using and my comprehension of Being. Genuine speech is a contact presupposing a relation outside the message it transmits. The language through which I come in contact with the Other is one of  understanding.[10]

Levinas is of the opinion that Heidegger’s philosophy has practiced a consistent suppression of the Other. The ‘Totality’ dominates.[11]In short, Levinas says that Dasein is ultimately both solipsistic and imperialistic and that Being-with can be nothing other than a totalitarian reduction of Otherness to Being. For Levinas, the Other is always beyond my totalization. Because the Other exists outside my totality or world, the voice of the Other breaks into my totality as something alien to it, and at the same time, the voice as the expression of the Other’s exteriority, demands justice. It demands that the Other is affirmed as ‘other than I’. To see a face is already to hear: ‘Thou shall not kill”. That means to do social justice. The face is the manifestation of the person; the five senses are gathered together in the face. It is from my face, the words issue forth.[12] The face is the most differentiated part of my body. The face is the primal manifestation of the I. To see someone is to see his or her face, and if death and burial are so painful to us, it is because Other takes the face forever from our sight. I cannot deduce a face, and it’s importance and its understanding will never be a conclusion of a syllogism.

Levinas says that human self is structurally designed for Otherness. The discovery of the transcendent nature of the Other brings relation of permanent question of the self, and the process demands self-denial (love). In giving and receiving, we get united with the Other. This becomes the point of orientation for journey into the Other. The manner of journey is going out of us to the Other. It is a path of self-stripping. The more we strip ourselves, the more we go to the Other. This is self-abnegation, self-abandonment.

3. The Other as Infinite

Heidegger says ontology is an inquiry about Being in its totality. Levinas is not to be confused with Heidegger. On the contrary he is very much critical of Heidegger. Levinas says that Heideggerian Ontology reduces the particular to the general and produces a relationship of reductive comprehension between subjects. Otherness as both particular and unavailable to comprehension becomes impossible. Any relationship with the Other becomes unrecognizable as a relation of Otherness.[13] Levinas makes a distinction between Ontology and Metaphysics. Unlike Heidegger, Levinas depicts that Ontology marks a philosophy of Being that always ends up reducing the Other to the self. Levinas says that Heidegger’s Ontology subordinates the relation with the Other to an impersonal relation of being. (This impersonal relation of being in Levinas’ view  is that Otherness is simply included in the sphere of essence of beings). Levinas claims that Heidegger’s ontology is the philosophy of the being which cannot do justice to the Other and is incapable of seeing the Other with an ethical response. Ontology is built upon the logic of a movement from the same to the Other,which is always returning to the same. In Heidegger, there is priority of Being over beings. This is so in the relation to Others. Ethical relation is understood in an impersonal way. The Other is reduced to Being. And subordinating every relation with existents to the relation of Being, his Ontology affirms primacy of freedom over justice (ethics).[14] For Heidegger, to know an existent means to comprehend the being of an existent. In this type of relation, there is always danger of impersonalization.[15] Levinas says that Metaphysics means a mode of thinking about the nature of the Other as Other, not simply for the same(self). By Metaphysics, Levinas implies a movement of thought that exceeds totality and see the infinity in the face of the Other and makes a face to face encounter with a thought provoking dialogue. In other words, Metaphysical thought goes from the same to the Other, but not in order to return to the self.[16] This metaphysical movement of the mind has always been a philosophical possibility, which considers Other as infinite.

Levinas criticizes that Heideggerian Philosophy subordinates entity to Being and in so doing makes violence inevitable consequence whenever entity refuses to submit. That is to say that, Dasein’s search for pure being makes a fight in order to capture its essence when the actual entity refuses its submission into Being. The Other is present as the world as the backdrop against which the entities are caught up. That means, the Otherness of the Other is mixed up with the essence of other entities. Levinas claims that in Heideggerian Philosophy, Dasein as human being, as a heroic subject, a self-sufficient subject, who accepts anxiety, receives death as a ontological existential possibility and in this way hopes to remain free from death.[17] Levinas says that Heidegger’s philosophy is closed philosophy and argues that Heidegger had never put ‘being itself into question’. Levinas establishes his thought concretely and argues that real self is the self who is always questioned by the Other. Levinas puts forward a question before us that not why there is a being rather than nothing but how being justifies itself? On this sphere of closed philosophy of Heidegger, Levinas finds that the permanent urge for domination follows from the fact that freedom is never radically questioned, not even by death. For Heidegger, freedom is the ultimate foundation of all truth and every act of grounding of reality.[18] Unlike Heidegger, Levinas says that justice is subordinated to freedom. Freedom is inconceivable apart from justice, since justice demands that the Other be allowed to express himself or herself as unique. Levinas says that Heidegger appropriates Otherness into identification. This results in the disappearance of the Other.[19]

Heidegger says that Dasein ek-sists (stands out) towards its future. This existential temporality refers to the fact that Dasein is always and necessarily becoming itself and ultimately becoming its own death. If Dasein’s being is thoroughly temporal, then all of human awareness is conditioned by this temporality, including one’s understanding of Being. Being is disclosed only by finality within Dasein’s radically finite awareness. Heidegger argues that Dasein opens up the ground of significance by anticipating its own death. Disclosure is always finite.[20] We understand entities in their Being, not fully and immediately, but only partially.We know things not in their eternal essence but in the meaning they have in a given situation. Unlike Heidegger’s Dasein, which seizes on the possibility of existence and makes itself authentic thereby, Levinas emphasizes that existence is there prior to our entry into the world. Existence is not synonymous with the relationship with a world; it is antecedent to the world.[21] In short, Heidegger says that I know my existence only in and through the analysis of my Dasein (my existence in the world). Every day I must be questioned by myself. I get a meaningful authentic existence only when I take the best choice in the midst of various possibilities. Whereas Levinas says that I know myself only in and through the Other human being. I find the meaningful authentic existence only when I am standing in front of the Other with a smiling response.

4. The Drama of Death

When we analyze the reality of death, a comparison can be drawn between Heidegger and Levinas. In Being and Time, death is conceptualized by Heidegger not as a realizable empirical event, but as primordial, impending and inevitable possibility which we are forever thrown into the horizon of nothingness. And for Levinas, in Time and the Other, the approach of death becomes a relationship with something that is absolutely Other in which the individual is made fully aware of the respect for possibility and contingency, if the totalizing, homogenizing tendencies of thought are to be resisted. For Levinas, death is an experience of the self-sacrifice of the subject, which shadows the greater, but this self- sacrificing experience by the I in his or her encounter with the Other. In both cases death is recognized as the ultimate trait characterizing subjectivity, whether as being-toward death or as an absolute passivity. Thus by examining the nature of Time, Levinas wants to show that time is not a solitary experience of an individual, but a way of relating to Others. It is not a horizon of being, but a mode of going beyond being, opening up to the Otherness.[22]

Conclusion

French Jewish- Lithuanian Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas became a celebrated thinker for his sincere philosophical attention to the Other, which puts into question the primacy of metaphysics for its propensity to culminate in an egological and totalizing Being as the self. With his conviction of Ethics as First Philosophy, Levinas provoked the need of the self to meet the face of the Other and be ushered towards the ethical order where human responsibility eventually transformed into social commitment and the encounter with the Other human being with a meaningful response.  In his entire contrast with Martin Heidegger, Levinas vehemtally argues that the Self gets its authentic existence in and through the questioning face of the Other. In his master piece Totality and Infinity, we could see that Levinas is locating the basis of Ethics in the face to face relation where the Other puts me into question. I do not contradict my obligations to the Other. Levinas claims that the self gets its authenticity by giving a positive response to the Other with a smiling face.

Primary Sources

• Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time (1927). Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978).

• Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis, (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969).

• ……………Time and the Other. Trans.Richard A. Cohen, (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1987).

 Secondary Sources

• Brown, Stuart. eds, One Hundred Twentieth Philosophers (London: Routledge, 1998).

• Cazeaux, Clive. The Continental Aesthetics Reader (London: Routledge, 2000).

• Moran. Dermot, Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge,2000).

• Therukattil, George. Becoming Human (Bangalore: JIP Publications, 1999).

• Wingenbach, E.d. “Liberating Responsibility: The Levinasian Ethic of Being and Time”, in the International Philosophical Quarterly. Vol. 36, ed, Joseph W. Koterski( new York: Fordham University Press, 1999).

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