Theoretical Responsibility

Abstract

1Ethics as first could mean that the conscious taking up of burdens is precede theoretical inquiry, or it could mean that is the area of inquiry with which the theoretical enterprise should commence. We can then ask: in which of these two senses is Levinas's philosophical ethics? Is it the theoretical description of ethics, or is it an attempt take up the burden in lieu of or before the theoretical-ontological proj- ect? What is the relationship between life and the theoretical enterprise?Levinas claims throughout Totality and Infinity that the relationship is not one of knowing; and in his preface Outside the Subject Levinas claims that the subject precedes erudition.1 Levinas often says that is something other than knowing, where to know would rather appear be the task of philosophy.However, of course, Levinas made a career and lifelong pursuit of philosophy; and in Otherwise than Being he says that it is the task of philosophy convey the Saying, the moment of language, in a Said, in the ontological dimension of language, with the least betrayal possible. Still, it is unclear whether this itself constitutes an attempt take up the burden, whether that task is ethical, or philosophical and theoretical. No more illuminating is Levinas's claim that his own philosophy is an attempt describe the meaning of rather than prescribe an ethical program.2But there is good reason think that for Levinas as first philosophy is intended say that one ought begin the theoretical enterprise with an inves- tigation of the topic ethics. In a Talmudic lecture Levinas recounts a story in which a rabbi slights another in a trivial, forgettable way, but is never forgiven. As a wise sage-as an erudite and learned person-he should have known bet- ter than commit even such a small infraction. Likewise, Levinas adds in an often-quoted passage, it is difficult forgive Heidegger.3 But in what sense should Heidegger have known better than most? Why should he have been especially responsible-Heidegger who never developed an ethics? Surely as a brilliant (as the unforgiven Rab is described) ontologist. Thus although precedes knowing such that knowing (erudition, learnedness, ontology) is either extrane- ous or contrary ethics, we would apparently demand that Heidegger be more responsive an burden than most on the strength of his prowess in the ontological sciences.The strange inverted case is in Levinas's quasi-ethical repudiation of Socratic maieutics and Plato's doctrine of recollection. Despite the fact that Socrates (the historical and Platonic versions, seemingly) is invested in nothing above the face- to-face relation, he is censured for holding a theoretical model of learning that suggests that in the last instance absolute truth does not come from the other but from within the subject or the same. Plato's Socrates would seem be ethi- cally committed the other but is yet rebuked on account of his ontology. His apparent attempt be responsible the other falls short for his holding certain theoretical-ontological views. This could be thought mean that ethics as first means that the first task of philosophy is work out a theory of meaning.I will inquire into the relation between and ontology, or between responsibility and the philosophical enterprise that will seek articulate such an burden. I will do so by way of an account of the development of Levinas's philosophy of language throughout his oeuvre, which I see as the locus of both and philosophy. It is with his articulation of the Saying and the Said that Levinas is most engaged in the question of how the philosophical enterprise relates an relation the other. In a later interview Levinas claims that Philosophy is primarily a question of language. …