Abstract
ABSTRACTThe present paper examines the Eckhartian motives in Derrida's critique of Levinas’ concept of the “Other”. The focus is put on the Husserlian concept of alter ego that is at the core of the debate between Levinas and Derrida. Against Levinas, Derrida argues that alter is not an epithet that expresses a mere accidental modification of the ego, but an indicator of radical exteriority. Interestingly enough, this position is virtually identical with Meister Eckhart's interpretation of the famous proposition from Exodus 3:14 “I am who I am”. Eckhart claims that the pronoun ego denotes the absolutely simple substance of the uncreated intellect, which can, by definition, never receive any accidental determination whatsoever. The reduplication of the “I am” is by no means tautological, but expresses the intra-divine dynamic of the Father who engenders the Son as his perfect equal and alter ego. This transcendental conception of egoity also governs the relationships between human beings: the ethical encounter with the “Other” requires that we consider them not primarily in their empirical, contingent existence but in the transcendental purity of their indeclinable ego, which is identical with the incessant act in which God knows himself in the Son as his absolutely Other. Thus, Meister Eckhart's approach proves, against Levinas, that it is possible to develop an “egological” philosophy that avoids the pitfalls of a naturalistic and potentially violent ontology of the subject.
Highlights
One of the most prominent features of twentieth-century philosophy is the profound crisis of the traditional paradigm of rationality that has been predominant in European culture since the beginnings of ancient Greek philosophy
The focus is put on the Husserlian concept of alter ego that is at the core of the debate between Levinas and Derrida
The reduplication of the “I am” is by no means tautological, but expresses the intra-divine dynamic of the Father who engenders the Son as his perfect equal and alter ego. This transcendental conception of egoity governs the relationships between human beings: the ethical encounter with the “Other” requires that we consider them not primarily in their empirical, contingent existence but in the transcendental purity of their indeclinable ego, which is identical with the incessant act in which God knows himself in the Son as his absolutely Other
Summary
Apparently subordinates it to the constitution of a world of material objects seems sufficient evidence to conclude that Husserl still considers the relationship with the Other as the unfolding and the actualization of a potency already present in the subject itself, rather than an experience of truly heterogeneous exteriority that disrupts the immanent consistency of the monadic ego.[21] Despite his efforts to analyze the phenomenological specificity of the experience of a foreign subjectivity, as well as its profoundly ethical implications, Husserl still talks about the alter ego according to the classical form of philosophy as theoretical epistêmê.[22] Levinas’ claim that the blind spots of Occidental philosophy cannot be cured from within the Greek paradigm of thought – to which he is convinced Husserl still belongs – but only from the viewpoint of the Jewish-biblical tradition that envisages the Other already in terms of ethical concern and not indirectly via the cognitive relationship with inner-worldly objects.[23] From this perspective, Levinas’ paradigm of paternity and sonship has undoubtedly the merit of emphasizing the creative character of intersubjective relationships, but its argumentative power is somewhat diminished by the fact that it appears as a contingent counter-example taken from the factual world and, devoid of any transcendental necessity whatsoever. Eckhart’s speculative interpretation of the relationship between ego and alter ego is accompanied by the development of a transcendental syntax and grammar that pre-figures Derrida’s analysis of the Husserlian notion of alter ego as expression of true exteriority and non-accidental difference
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