Responsibility and Death

Abstract

The crypto- or mysto-genealogy of responsibility is woven with the double and inextricably intertwined thread of the gift and of death: in short of the gift of death. Derrida, The Gift of Death Responsibility, like many words in Emmanuel Levinas's work, lends itself to being too easily read. It is, for Levinas, a profoundly enigmatic concept. This concept-again, like many in Levinas's work-possesses a genealogy and calls for being read accordingly. It possesses a genealogy that turns back upon itself, calls an initial reading into question, thereby calling for a reading that necessarily, yet impossibly, thinks together two otherwise contradictory moments. I would suggest that the genealogy of responsibility be read alongside the genealogy of death. Derrida's The Gift of Death will initially provide the framework for this reading. Despite the fact that the part of The Gift of Death that I am considering is overtly a reading of Jan Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, it is also, I would suggest, a supplement to Derrida's other readings of the work of Levinas. The Gift of Death begins with a reading of one of the Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History of the Czech philosopher Jan Patocka: Is Technological Civilization Decadent, and Why? The reading traces a genealogy of responsibility: demonic or orgiastic mystery, Platonic mystery, Christian mystery. Each conversion from one mystery to the next conserves something of what is interrupted. This logic of conservative rupture, Derrida suggests, resembles the economy of a sacrifice and sometimes reminds one of the economy of sublation [releve] or Aufhebung. In order to describe this double conversion, turns to incorporation (pfiveleni) and repression (potlaceni): Platonic mystery incorporates demonic or orgiastic mystery and Christian mystery represses Platonic mystery. This vocabulary indicates-if, as Derrida asks, meant to give these words the meanings that they possess in psychoanalytic discourse-that in the conversion from one mystery to another the first is not destroyed, but kept inside unconsciously, after effecting a topical displacement and a hierarchical subordination.1 This language also suggests-again, if these words were meant to be given the meanings that they possess in psychoanalytic discourse-that conversion amounts to a process of mourning, to keeping within oneself that whose death must be endured (DM 18/GD 9). Even if these words were not meant to have these meanings, nothing prevents one, Derrida suggests, from experimenting with a psychoanalytic reading, or at least a hermeneutics that takes psychoanalytic concepts corresponding to these words into account. This is especially true given that Derrida's reading concentrates on (or mystery), which cannot remain immune to the psychoanalytic ideas of incorporation and repression. At various moments in genealogy Derrida draws attention to structures in the work of Heidegger and Levinas that are to structures in the work of Patocka. In what follows I will not only remain attentive to the analogies mentioned by Derrida, but also suggest others. It is important to point out, however, that I am not suggesting that one can reconcile the work of Patocka with the work of either Heidegger or Levinas. When Derrida suggests that a structure in Patocka's work is analogous to a structure in Heidegger's work, he prefaces his remark by writing: wanting to neglect the essential differences (DM 23/GD 15). When I suggest that Derrida's reading of Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History is a supplement to Derrida's other readings of the work of Levinas, or when I suggest that there are certain structures in the work of Patockaa and Levinas, I (like Derrida) do it without wanting to neglect the essential differences. What is at stake in the genealogy of the conversion from one secrecy (or mystery) to another is the gift of death. …