Finding Time for a Fecund Feminine in Levinas’s Thought

Abstract

On face of it, Levinasian time masculine. Emmanuel Levinas 's claim that locus of time found in relationships formed between individuals closely tied to his interpretation of fecundity. The theme of fecundity provides a framework for characterizing ethical relations between subject and Other, which from Levinas 's viewpoint, are required for constitution of time. But when discussing fecundity, Levinas adopts an expUcit male perspective and vocabulary - fecundity a masculine product produced via father's fecund relationship with his son. Levinas claims that time constituted according to category of father,1 and the way of being other while being oneself.2 The ego becomes other to itself, since it involves a relationship with a who both Other and Same - father both and not his son; part of father, but also separate and independent of him. The familial context of incorporates fecundity opens up for father possibiUties that both are and are not his. These possibiUties reveal a future that father's but also son's - it both and not father's future.3 Apparently, only father, through his relation with his son, fecund, and as a result we might conclude that feminine merely means for fecundity and in itself not fecund. As discussed by thinkers such as Luce Irigaray and Tina Chanter, this way of understanding fecundity raises problems regarding role of feminine in Levinas's thought. Luce Irigaray criticizes Levinas and claims that in his thought female deprived of subjectivity, of a face, and only supports temporal becoming of male, in producing a who, in being both Same and Other, allows male subject to become Other to himself.4 Tina Chanter claims that in privileging father and his relation to son, and subordinating feminine to properly ethical and infinite relation, for Levinas feminine serves as ground and condition of ethics, but itself excluded from ethical.5 Nevertheless, one of two aims of this essay to offer an interpretation of Levinas's concept of fecundity that allows a fecund and ethical feminine. The view of fecundity as embedded in also generates a difficulty regarding Levinas's interpretation of time as fecundity. It appears that for Levinas time meaningful to and relevant only for male. Such a view may entail that women are not part of Levinas's veritable time, and as Donna Brody claims, that feminine cannot enter infinite time of sociality.6 Kelly OUver, too, believes that Levinas's thought does not leave room for possibility that trans-substantiation7 of father will take place in relation to a and concludes that future produced by masculine.8 The difficulty here that understanding of fecund time as formed only through paternal relationships engenders a narrow structure of time, which constituted through limited forms of relationships. Consequently, Levinas's assertions such as the relationship with other time,9 and is not sociality something more than source of our representation of time: it not time itself?10 seem less forceful. From this perspective, Levinas's view of time as neither exterior to subject nor entirely contained in subject, but rather constituted by one's relationship with Other person, appears not as compelling. However, by focusing mainly on Totality and Infinity, second aim of this essay to offer an interpretation of Levinas's view of fecundity that enables us to consider time beyond limiting perspective of father-son relationships. Levinas's choice of language in presenting relationship of fecundity begs following question - why does Levinas use terms such as paternity and son rather than maternity and daughter, or non-gendered terms such as parent, child or offspring? …