Something like a Phenomenon

Abstract

Phenomenology is a twentieth century school of thought that addresses philosophical questions by focusing our attention on the nature of experience. Emmanuel Lévinas combines this approach with the fundamentally ethical knowledge that there is another who is beyond us, who is exterior. My project examines Lévinas’ ethically informed phenomenological reflections on the structure of two specific experiences, namely love and forgiveness. Forgiving and being forgiven are everyday, familiar experiences. But what are we really doing when we forgive someone? My approach is exegetical in spirit; while attempting to remain faithful to Lévinas’ esoteric texts, I resort to combining Levinasian sources in order to survey and restate his ideas and to fill in some of the blanks that confront the reader. I extrapolate in good faith as a student of Lévinas, guided by shared intuitions and insights. I begin by exploring our intuitions about what may be considered a wrong that nonetheless can be forgiven. Then, I explore two paradoxes of forgiveness to illustrate the complexity of the process and indicate the path towards a solution. Before I arrive at this solution, I compare the experience of forgiveness to the experience of love and discover that what lies at the heart of the issue is the intentional altering of memory and history. This phenomenon turns out to be not only possible but commonplace in everyday experience. Through it the meaning of felix culpa, the happiness of guilt, can be revealed. This revelation will be the happy ending of my presentation.