Beyond Intentionality?

Abstract

In one of the sections of Of God Who Comes to Mind, Levinas expressly mentions the need to go as far as the description of the ethical rapport goes.1 In the paragraphs that follow this statement, Levinas exposes the fact that the Husserlian account of intentionality-as an act of representation on the part of a subject-cannot account for the proximity of the face to face,2 that is to say, for the alterity of the human other. The Husser- lian version of is one where the alterity of the other is essentially recuperated by consciousness. The human other, however, necessarily resists the indiscretion of intentionality,3 according to Levinas, and refuses any attempt to grasp or master her alterity. Thus, it would seem that, according to Levinas, the phenomenological language of description must be abandoned in order to ac- count for an encounter with the human other. As far as ethical discourse, it seems necessary, from these passages, to go and resort to other means of description as far as the human face is concerned.It is such language on the part of Levinas that compelled certain com- mentators such as Vasey to maintain that Levinas has gone beyond the notion of intentionality.4 This abandonment of phenomenological description brings to the fore, however, a number of problems. Indeed, if the other does not allow herself to be reduced to a phenomenological description, how then are we to account for that other? can a discourse be possible about that other if there is no phenomenalization possible of that other. This is also Drabinski's ques- tion to Levinas: How can alterity signify without the constitutional apparatus? can appearance be thought without the structures of the subject to whom something appears?5 Other commentators have also objected to this seeming abandonment of phenomenology on the part of Levinas. DeGreef, for instance, wonders how Levinas can maintain a discourse on the other while transgressing all phenomenological conceptuality.6This essay will attempt to respond to these questions and show that, while Levinas does rework phenomenological conceptuality, he does not abandon phenomenological discourse in his descriptions of the ethical encounter. Our demonstration will focus more precisely on the concept of which, we shall show, is never abandoned by Levinas. Rather, it is reworked by Levinas in order to account for the other in a way that respects her alterity. It is thus for an intentionality of a wholly different type7 that Levinas strives, and our work will attempt to articulate the structure of that in Levinas. Interest- ingly, we shall find that in the development of this Levinas never abandons the hyletico-noetic structure described in Husserl but adopts that very same structure, albeit in a profoundly different sense, in his own descriptions of the intentionality of transcendence.8 Thus, our interpretation rejoins that of Colette who maintains that it is in deepening the transcendental question, and not abandoning it, that Levinas finds ethics.9Our essay will endeavor, first, to outline the structure of as presented in Husserl's work and as commented upon by Levinas in his Theory of Intuition. We shall first examine the dual hyletico-noetic structure of as exposed by Husserl, only to find that this structure is not adapted, according to Levinas, to the dimension of the face. We shall then address Levinas's seeming desire to depart from the field of phenomenology and to abandon the concept as expressed in several of his works. Finally, we shall argue that, although Levinas remains critical of the Husserlian intentional structure, he nevertheless draws precisely on that structure and remains profoundly faithful to Husserlian analyses in his descriptions of the encounter with the face.I. HUSSERL'S INTENTIONALITYThe concept of is not, of course, the intellectual property of Husserl. …