Is the Other radically ‘other’? A critical reconstruction of Levinas’ ethics

1 Introduction: radical Otherness

In The New Constellation, Bernstein laments the ‘facile “postmodern” temptation to lump together all differences under the general rubric of the “Other”’. ¹ It is not without a certain irony that differences of gender, ethnicity, religion (and so on) are homogenized in this way; as if there were not different kinds of ‘difference’, some ethically and politically significant, some not. ² Rorty expresses much the same apprehension when he jibes that the concept of the Other is ‘gawky, awkward, and unenlightening’, for ‘[n]either my child nor my country is very much like a Levinasian Other’. As such, the difficulties of making concrete ethical and political decisions are poorly explained ‘by reference to an Abyss that separates me from the Other’. ³ This type of theoretical posturing thus strikes Rorty as little more than ‘pointless hype’ (D&P, 42) and a regrettable distraction from real social injustices.

In much recent theory (not only in certain areas of philosophy ⁴ ) appeals to the ‘absolute’ or ‘radical Otherness’ of the Other are made as if they were magical incantations or unassailable argument-stoppers. Indeed, merely posing the question ‘Who is this “Other”?’ ⁵ can be sufficient to end the conversation before it has really begun. ⁶ While Bernstein bemoans how the rhetoric of Otherness has permeated contemporary theory more generally, Rorty’s criticism is levelled at those explicitly Levinasian moments in Derrida’s later work. That Rorty targets Levinas here (albeit indirectly) is unsurprising. For while Levinas is not responsible for the vocabulary of ‘Otherness’, he is generally considered to be the philosopher of ‘the Other’. ⁷ I think that Rorty is partly correct in his diagnosis of Levinasian ‘Otherness’, if, that is, one expects such concepts to be of tangible ethical-political utility. But of course, we may simply be misguided in having those sorts of expectations. If we are looking for sound practical advice (surely not what Rorty wants from any philosopher) then reading Levinas is unlikely to be helpful. I take it that Rorty’s real gripe is not that philosophers like Levinas and Derrida are insufficiently pragmatic, but rather that they (or at least some of their admirers) have a tendency to mistake armchair theorizing for concrete political engagement. ⁸

Like Rorty, I similarly doubt that ‘radical Otherness’ is a very useful tool for dealing with concrete ethical-political issues. (Of course, the same general criticism can be levelled at moral theory much more widely.) But the difficulties that arise here cut significantly deeper than those of efficacy. This becomes apparent in the extravagant conclusions drawn by some theorists of radical Otherness. One striking, though not atypical, example of this is Readings’ ‘Pagans, Perverts or Primitives?’ In brief, Readings there argues that the difference between western and Aboriginal cultures is so radical that it is fundamentally unjust (for westerners) even to ‘presume that they [Aborigines] are human’. Such an assumption, he maintains, simply ‘lights the way to terror’. ⁹ Now, Readings would have been on firmer ground had he merely said that defining ‘the human’ too narrowly ‘lights the way to terror’. ¹⁰ But then the fact that any definition of ‘the human’ can facilitate dubious political objectives is hardly news. Of course the category of ‘the human’ can be employed to ground racism, sexism and (arguably) speciesism. But it does not follow that we should, or even could, simply abandon this category altogether. And even if such drastic conceptual revision was possible, it is doubtful that notions of the ‘absolute’ or ‘radical Otherness’ of the Other are any less hazardous in this regard. 

What then of Levinas? Does he have a similar weakness for hyperbole? The short answer, I think, is yes. Although examples are not hard to find in Levinas’ work, one will suffice for the moment. In ‘Transcendence and Height’, Levinas maintains that the Other is not merely the proximate neighbour (geographically speaking), but she or he who is ‘very distant’, or ‘the one with whom … I have nothing in common’. Now, this is a reasonable claim (one famously made by Singer ¹¹ ) if the second part is not taken too literally. For it is at best misleading to say that I have nothing in common with distant Others. But far from qualifying this point, Levinas instead proceeds to warn against even employing ‘the words neighbour and fellow human being’. His reason for this caution is that such terms ‘establish so many things in common … and so many similarities’; namely, that ‘we belong to the same essence’. The Levinasian Other is therefore he or she ‘with respect to whom we are absolutely different’. ¹²

Despite all of this, I do not think that we should reject the category of ‘Otherness’ out of hand – assuming that would even be possible. ¹³ Rather, what concerns me is the tendency to get carried away with the rhetoric of Otherness. There are two reasons for this worry. (1) As Derrida suggests, it is far from clear that ‘radical Otherness’ even makes sense. ¹⁴ For the mere identification of the Other as an ‘Other’ presupposes some, albeit minimal, commonality between us. After all, if there really was a radically ‘Other’ Other, then they (it?) would not even register on our affective, perceptual and/or cognitive radar. ¹⁵ Indeed, it is here worth noting that, despite his aforementioned reservations about the concept ‘other human being’, for Levinas it is only ever other human beings who count as genuine ‘Others’; non-human animals do not qualify. It is of course true that when encountering an Other (human) we do not normally encounter a mere ‘instance of humanity’, ¹⁶ ‘specimen of a species’, ¹⁷ or an ‘individual of a genus … [of] “such and such a type”’ (BPW, 166). Nevertheless, it requires a significant philosophical leap to conclude that the Other is thereby essentially mysterious. (2) The second reason for my apprehension about appeals to radical Otherness is this: even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that the notion of the ‘radically Other’ does make sense, nothing of any ethical significance obviously follows. Why would encountering such an Other produce anything distinctively ethical, rather than epistemic perplexity, aesthetic wonder, or comic incongruity?

Mindful of these points, the purpose of the following discussion is twofold. First, in sections 2 and 3, I offer a reading of Levinas that provides an answer to this latter question: Why is the encounter with the (Levinasian) Other distinctively ethical? – or, put slightly differently, what motivates the ethical relation if not mere ‘Otherness’? Second, in section 4, I suggest how this reading of Levinas bears upon the former question: Is the Other radically ‘Other’? Before beginning, however, let me briefly say something about methodology.

Although there are various ways one can approach Levinas’ ethics, most commonly he is read against the backdrop of Husserl and Heidegger. My own approach is rather different. Although I will turn to some broadly phenomenological considerations in section 4, I here suggest that we read Levinas as a ‘post-Holocaust’ thinker. I am inclined to this interpretation because it captures something essential, though frequently overlooked, in his writings; namely, the central role bad conscience plays therein. Moreover, this reading offers a way of answering the aforementioned question regarding the ethical significance of encountering the Other. In the next two sections of the article I will explain why this interpretation is, at the very least, plausible.

2 The face and bad conscience

Whatever precise role embodiment plays in Levinas’ ethics, ¹⁸ there is an obvious sense in which it remains central. After all, he is clearly preoccupied with the Other’s finitude, vulnerability and ‘material misery’ (IRB, 52), ¹⁹ and, not least, with caring for ‘the poor one and the stranger’. ²⁰ Moreover, regarding the ethical subject, Levinas insists that the mortal ‘body is the very condition of giving, with all that giving costs’. Generosity ‘implies a body’, he maintains, because ‘to give to the ultimate degree is to give bread taken from one’s own mouth’ (GDT, 188). ²¹ Embodiment, we might therefore say, is the condition of possibility for Levinasian ethics. But what I want to focus on here are specific aspects of Levinas’ account of the ‘face-to-face’ encounter.

Part of Levinas’ interest in the face concerns its expressive capacities. ²² For what the face expresses ‘is not just a thought which animates the other; it is also the other present in that thought’. ²³ Reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s demarcation between having ‘an attitude towards a soul’ and being of the mere ‘opinion’ that the Other ‘has a soul’, ²⁴ Levinas thus claims that ‘expression does not speak about someone, is not information about a coexistence, does not invoke an attitude in addition to knowledge’, rather, ‘Expression is … the archetype of direct relationship’ (CPP, 21). ²⁵ Moreover, such access to the Other is ‘straightaway ethical’. ²⁶ In what precise sense this access is distinctively ethical remains to be seen, for simply grafting ethics onto the very concept of ‘the Other’ is not a particularly convincing strategy. But one might here object that it is mistaken to construe Levinas’ remarks on the face as pertaining to the literal, empirical face. Such an objection would not be entirely unwarranted, for Levinas does indeed warn that the face cannot be given ‘an exact phenomenological description’ (at best such a portrayal would be ‘negative’ ²⁷ ). And yet, while he cautions that ‘the word face must not be understood in a narrow way’, ²⁸ it is also clear that ‘the face’ is not entirely separate from the palpable face of bone, muscle and ‘skin’ (E&I, 86). Levinas’ warning is therefore best understood as pertaining to the reduction of the meaning of ‘face’ to a mere ‘plasticity’, ²⁹ a collection of distinguishing features, ³⁰ or, as Wittgenstein puts it, ‘the distribution of matter in space’ (CV, 82). Of course, we can treat the face as one object among many, and this need not be morally suspect. (Presumably, surgeons and photographers do so all the time.) But here, Levinas insists, one does not truly ‘encounter the face’ (IRB, 48). Treating the face as an object – albeit an especially interesting or beautiful object – overlooks the active dimension of the face; namely, that I am faced by the Other’s face. ³¹

Levinas’ opposition to such a reductive analysis becomes even clearer when he broadens the meaning of ‘face’ to encompass the ‘whole sensible being, even in the hand one shakes’ (OTS, 102). Indeed, he thinks that the ‘whole human body’ is ‘more or less face’ (E&I, 97). But there is something else going on here. For Levinas proceeds to characterize the face in auditory rather than visual terms; that is, as a face that in its facing ‘commands’, ‘appeals’ and ‘accuses’. (‘[T]o encounter a face is straightaway to hear a demand and an order’ [IRB, 48].) What then does the face of the Other (albeit silently) say? Primarily, Levinas claims, it issues the biblical command ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (E&I, 89); an injunction that constitutes the ‘original language’ of the Other’s ‘defenceless eyes’ (BPW, 12). Indeed, insofar as the Other’s face ‘demands me, requires me, summons me’ it can be aligned with ‘the word of God’ (A&T, 27). ³² At this juncture, however, Levinas complicates matters by suggesting that the face is both ‘exposed’, as though ‘inviting … violence’, and simultaneously as ‘what forbids us to kill’ (E&I, 86). ³³ There is then a coexistence of ‘frailty’ and ‘authority’ (POM, 169) in the face of the Other. More precisely, the face both commands ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and at the same time appeals ‘Do not kill me’ ³⁴ – or, less dramatically, ‘Do not leave me in solitude’ (FPC, 15). As noted above, Levinas also maintains that the face is accusative. But in order to understand the specific sense in which I am ‘accused’ (A&T, 21) by the Other’s face, we must first consider why he insists that the face ‘calls me into question’. ³⁵

Although this is a recurrent theme in Levinas’ work, its importance is often underestimated. ³⁶ Indeed, Levinas himself is not always clear in explaining these allusions to being ‘called into question’. Thus, in a number of places, he sounds very close to those ethicists who reject the acts and omissions distinction, and thereby the moral demarcation between killing and letting die. ³⁷ There are independent reasons for questioning this distinction. But there are also textual reasons to think that the responsibility for killing by omission – that is, our ‘everyday killing with a good conscience’ (IRB, 132) – is part of Levinas’ own concern. Still, this is clearly not the whole story. ³⁸ For on his account, my asymmetrical responsibility precedes and transcends those responsibilities arising from our respective material inequalities. ³⁹ Indeed, it is apparent that Levinas’ – and subsequently Derrida’s – understanding of responsibility disrupts the orthodox philosophical principle that ‘ought implies can’ ⁴⁰ insofar as ‘I am never in the clear toward the other’ (IRB, 55). We begin to get a clearer sense of what Levinas has in mind by being ‘called into question’ in the following passage:

Here then, like Singer, Levinas problematizes our relation to those distant Others who suffer from poverty, famine, exploitation, disease (and so on). But he also makes a much more general claim. The face of the Other ‘calls me into question’ in the most elementary way, for it is not merely my acts (or even omissions) that are challenged in this regard. Rather, what is at stake here is my right to be. Accordingly, it would be mistaken to think of Levinasian responsibility as a mere ‘attribute of subjectivity’ (E&I, 96). Rather, to be an ‘I’ (more precisely, to be me) is to be ethically compromised from the start; that is to say, the ‘I is a being who asks if he has a right to be!, who excuses himself to the other for his own existence’ (EOI, 62–3). On Levinas’ account then, the Other ‘brings into question my freedom’; a freedom that is ‘murderous and usurpatory’ (DFE, 294).

Famously, Levinas maintains that it is ethics, rather than ‘ontology’, that constitutes ‘first philosophy’. ⁴² Now, this formulation is as ambiguous as it is arresting. To allege that western philosophy as such systematically ‘assimilates every Other into the Same’ (BPW, 13) ⁴³ is too sweeping to be either plausible or enlightening. But perhaps, in the present context, we can offer a more charitable reading of Levinas’ prioritization of ethics over ontology. What is being suggested in the previous remarks is that in my very being-in-the-world – in the ‘Da of Dasein’ – we already discover ‘an ethical problem’ (OTS, 48). Levinas’ use of Heideggerian terminology here is not incidental, for as he notes: ‘Dasein never wonders whether, by being da, “there”, it’s taking somebody else’s place!’ (FPC, 19). ⁴⁴ Simply by being then, ‘I have already usurped the earth’ (IRB, 53). (‘It is as if, by the fact of being there, I deprived someone of his vital space, as if I expelled or assassinated someone’ [IRB, 128].) So, ethics is ‘first philosophy’ insofar as it calls ontology into question; not in some ‘ethereal’ or ‘abstract’ (IRB, 225) way, but in the very concrete sense of calling my being into question. To pose that eminent metaphysical question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ ⁴⁵ is therefore presumptuous, for it takes for granted that I (the questioner) have a right to be ⁴⁶ – not to mention a right to ask that question (or indeed any question) rather than attending to the Other’s ‘material misery’ (IRB, 52). All of this is why Levinas claims that ‘remorse’ (OB, 114) or ‘bad conscience … comes to me from the face of the other’ (ENO, 148). Indeed, this is why he explicitly describes the question of one’s ‘right to be’ as his ‘principal theme’ (IRB, 225).

What I am arguing then is that bad conscience plays a central, though not always obvious, role in Levinas’ work. But at this juncture one might reasonably point out that Levinas criticizes Heidegger’s own allusions to guilt and conscience in Being and Time. ⁴⁷ Indeed, is it not also the case that Levinas wants to think of ethical responsibility as ‘preceding a notion of a guilty initiative’; as a ‘responsibility without guilt’ (IRB, 52)? Both claims are of course true, and yet I still want to maintain that bad conscience is pivotal in his conception of ethics. Why? First, because Levinas does not always shy away from this vocabulary. ⁴⁸ Indeed, in his favourite passage from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, ‘guilt’ (IRB, 56) is one of the central motifs. ⁴⁹ Second, because Levinas’ caution here pertains to what might be called an economic conception of guilt; that is, of one’s owing something on account of one’s in/action. ⁵⁰ But the guilt he has in mind is a ‘debt that precedes all borrowing’ (IRB, 192) and transcends all recompense. In other words, Levinasian ‘guilt’ (BPW, 144) is a constitutive part of the human condition; ⁵¹ I am, in Derrida’s startling formulation, ‘a priori guilty’ (AOR, 384). ⁵²

According to Levinas then, the murderousness of my being-in-the-world (the ‘discovery of corpses beside me and my horror of existing by assassination’) is the primary meaning of human ‘conscience’ (DFE, 100). ⁵³ But in addition to my guilt for simply being-here, there are other dimensions of Levinasian guilt worth mentioning. For on his account, even the most generous act cannot escape the stain of dirty hands. There are two main reasons for this. (1) The first is because, in the face-to-face encounter, I could always be more responsible toward this singular Other facing me. Notwithstanding psychological fatigue, to declare that I have satisfied my ethical responsibilities is, for both Levinas and Derrida, presumptuous in the extreme. Just as genuine religiosity is incompatible with one’s claiming to possesses enough faith (or that one has now fulfilled all of one’s duties to God), so too does genuine ethics prohibit the possibility of one legitimately claiming to have exhausted one’s responsibilities. Such declarations would indulge in what Derrida denounces as the ‘scandal … [of] good conscience’. ⁵⁴ (2) The second dimension of guilt worth highlighting here pertains to the realm of justice. For while Levinas is often criticized for being overly preoccupied with the singular Other, he has a significant amount to say about the relation between the ethical and political; that is, between my responsibilities toward this Other and all the other Others or ‘third party’. ⁵⁵ Thus, Levinas emphatically denies that his emphasis on the face-to-face encounter constitutes a ‘repudiation of politics’ (ENO, 195). Why? Because we are always already in the realm of politics and justice insofar as the ‘third party’ is co-presented in the face of the singular Other. That is to say, the ‘human face is the face of the world itself, and the individual of the human race’ (BPW, 73). ⁵⁶

With this in mind, we begin to see how ‘proximity’ becomes even more ‘problematic’ on Levinas’ account. For we must do justice to the other singular Others, which in turn calls for ‘comparison … between those who cannot be compared’ (GCM, 82), and even a ‘measure of violence’ (ENO, 105). ⁵⁷ In the realm of justice then, Levinasian guilt is amplified insofar as we must ‘calculate with the incalculable’ (AOR, 244) in order to decide ‘which of the two [or more] takes precedence’ (ENO, 104). ⁵⁸ In this way a ‘measure superimposes itself on the “extravagant” generosity of the “for the other,” on its infinity’ (ENO, 195). But no matter what I decide to do, I always sacrifice one for the Other, prioritize her over him, favour these Others over those (and so on). ⁵⁹ In the ‘augmentation of guilt’, Levinas thus maintains, ‘there is no rest for the self’ (BPW, 144). It is no mere rhetorical flourish then when he characterizes my being-in-the-world as an ‘exclusion’ and ‘exiling’ (TLR, 82) of an Other. ⁶⁰

There are, of course, many ways I might be said to ‘usurp’ or ‘take the place of’ an Other. For example, my domestic space accommodates me at the expense of countless Others. (It is unsurprising that home and hospitality are central themes for both Levinas and Derrida. ⁶¹ ) Likewise, the job I have is mine at the expense of someone else. Similarly, the natural resources I use on an hourly basis cannot be conjured back into existence; I consume them to an Other’s detriment (and so on). As noted earlier, there is a sense in which Levinas’ concern about my ‘usurpation’ of the Other encompasses all of these concrete factors. But this is only part of the story. What really preoccupies him is how simply by being I am guilty of excluding the Other. Indeed, it is this latter existential sense of being-guilty by ‘occupying someone else’s place’ (TLR, 82) that is presupposed by all the other aforementioned ways in which I am guilty of usurpation.

In summary then, the Other’s face commands, appeals and accuses. It commands ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and appeals ‘Do not kill me’. At the same time, the face accuses me: ‘You are a murderer; you have already killed and continue to do so.’ With this in mind, I now want to say something about reading Levinas as a post-Holocaust thinker.

3 Guilt and the sin of existing

It is well known that Levinas dedicated Otherwise than Being to the millions ‘assassinated by the National Socialists’ (OB, dedication). What is less well acknowledged is how, for him, the significance of the Holocaust extends beyond the merely autobiographical. That is to say, the ‘explicitly Jewish moment’ in Levinas’ thought – namely, the ‘reference to Auschwitz’ (POM, 175) and persistent ‘memory of the Nazi horror’ (DFE, 291) – requires serious philosophical attention. ⁶² Indeed, there is a notable intertwining of the autobiographical and philosophical genres here. For example, Levinas openly laments:

These reflections, though clearly of deep personal significance, are also pertinent when reading Levinas philosophically. In particular, his allusion to feeling ‘guilty for surviving’ ⁶³ is of paramount importance here. ⁶⁴ For not only does Levinas refer explicitly to the Holocaust and feeling ‘oneself to be already a responsible survivor’ (A&T, 162), he describes his conception of ethics in terms of ‘the responsibility of the survivor’ (GDT, 17). Why does Levinas do this? Because in my very being I am a ‘survivor’; that is to say, surviving (at least thus far) is the condition of possibility for being an ‘I’. ⁶⁵ Extending this point, one might therefore say that simply by being-here I find myself in the confessional mode; hence: ‘Apology … belongs to the essence of conversation’ (T&I, 40). ⁶⁶ Indeed, it is this Levinasian point that motivates Derrida’s claim that ‘One always writes in order to confess … in order to ask forgiveness’ (QUG, 49), ⁶⁷ and his linking this request for forgiveness to the ‘guilt … for living, for surviving … for the simple fact of being there’ (AOR, 383). ⁶⁸

It is worth noting here that Levinas’ (and Derrida’s) conceptual vocabulary echoes that of more explicitly confessional Holocaust writers. So, for example, Levi recalls how ‘almost everybody feels guilty of having omitted to offer help. The presence at your side of a companion who is weaker … or too young, hounding you with his demands for help or with his simply being there, which is itself an entreaty, is a constant in the life of the Lager.’ ⁶⁹ A few pages later, Levi interrogates himself:

Levi’s reference to the Other’s ‘entreaty’ through ‘his simply being there’ is particularly striking in the context of what I have said about Levinas’ work. Similarly, Levi’s gnawing suspicion that he unwittingly ‘usurped his neighbour’s place’ has clear Levinasian resonances. It is with all of this in mind that we can better understand Levinas’ general claim that the Other ‘haunts our ontological existence’ to the point that ‘we remain forever accused, with a bad conscience’ (EOI, 63–4).

Now, according to Jankelevitch, the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis, not for any specific reason or perceived offence, but rather for their very being. That is to say: ‘A Jew does not have the right to be, existing is his sin.’ On this specific point, Derrida suggests that such ‘sin of existing’ possesses a ‘horizon of possible generality’ where the ‘guilt … of being-there’ is ‘constitutive’ (QUG, 43) not only of the Jew in Nazi Germany. I mention this here because it raises a question pertinent to my reading of Levinas. For if, as I have argued, Levinas extends the significance of survivor’s guilt beyond the confines of the historical death camps, then does this in turn undermine the singularity of the Holocaust? Surely such ‘horizon of generality’ trivializes the unspeakable horror of Auschwitz. This is a difficult issue, and one that cannot adequately be dealt with in the present discussion. Nevertheless, I would like to offer two very brief responses to this possible objection. First, I think it wise to suspend judgement regarding whether or not the Holocaust was truly unique. Just as Levinas repudiates the tradition of theodicy for justifying ‘the suffering in the other’ (ENO, 94) (‘the justification of the neighbour’s pain is certainly the source of all immorality’ [ENO, 99]), it seems equally questionable to rank moral horrors. Was Auschwitz ‘worse’ than the Soviet Gulags or Rwandan genocide? It is simply unclear what kind of question this is, and what kind of answer is being sought. Second, on a point of clarification, it is notable that in conversation Levi repudiates the idea that the Nazi death camps were ‘not an abnormal condition’, but rather the ‘condensation of a condition common in the world’. ⁷¹ But Levi’s revulsion concerns the suggestion that, for example, the ‘factory is a concentration camp, or that the psychiatric hospital is a concentration camp’ (CPL, 20). These sorts of claims are not, however, what I am attributing to Levinas’ work. It is not that our habitual daily activities mirror the awful routine of ‘useless suffering’ ⁷² that permeated the death camps. Levi is surely right to object to such comparisons. Rather, what we find in the Nazi death camps (though arguably not only there) is the ‘violence of being’ ritualized, mechanized, and even celebrated.

Thus far I have tried to explain what it means to read Levinas as a post-Holocaust thinker, and why we might want to do so. What I want to do next is return to the question with which I began; namely, Is the Other radically ‘Other’? My interest here concerns what is presupposed in the claim that I ‘take the place’ of an Other simply by my being-here. That is to say, I want to explore in more detail what, phenomenologically speaking, my ‘usurpation of spaces belonging to the other man’ (TLR, 82) hinges upon, and what this in turn suggests about the nature of the (Levinasian) ‘Other’. Although Levinas’ relation to the phenomenological tradition is complex, I will argue that there is (at least) one idea that persists in his work; namely, the ‘interchangeability’ of finite, embodied subjects. To do this I am going to draw on Schutz’s account of ‘the life-world’.

4 The face-to-face and interchangeability

Schutz’s work is complex and detailed. For our purposes, however, only a few main themes need to be outlined. First of all, Schutz maintains that embodiment provides one’s ‘centre of orientation in the spatio-temporal order of the world’. ⁷³ That is to say, my bodily location within the world, ‘my actual Here, is the starting point from which I take my bearing in space’ (CP1, 222). Each situation and experience is therefore ‘presupposed’ by the ‘prior givenness of my body’ which is ‘always “there”’. As such, my body is poorly understood as ‘an object in space’; it is not just one material thing among others in the environment, but rather ‘the condition for all my experience of the spatial arrangement of the life-world’. ⁷⁴

For Schutz, as for many other theorists, the world is ‘from the outset’ (CP1, 218) ⁷⁵ intersubjectively structured, not least because each of us is born into a linguistic, cultural and historical world not of our own making. ⁷⁶ In the attitude of everyday life one therefore ‘takes for granted’ (among other things) the ‘bodily existence of fellow-men, their conscious life’, and ‘the possibility of intercommunication’ (CP1, 313). Not only do worldly objects indirectly refer us to Others as past or potential makers, users, possessors and perceivers, ⁷⁷ in this intersubjective world Others constantly ‘confront me in face-to-face situations’ (CP2, 25). ⁷⁸ Schutz thus insists that the face-to-face encounter is not a ‘judgement by analogy’ (CP2, 24) (in fact, not a ‘conscious judgement’ [PSW, 164] at all), but is rather ‘essentially direct’ (CP2, 37). ⁷⁹ In other words, ‘temporal and spatial immediacy’ constitute basic characteristics of the ‘face-to-face situation’ (CP2, 23). These proximate Others ⁸⁰ thus share with me a ‘community of space’, which implies that ‘a certain sector of the outer world is equally within the reach of each partner, and contains objects of common interest and relevance’. (Indeed, these proximate Others are ‘mutually involved in one another’s biography; they are growing older together’ [CP1, 16–17].) ⁸¹ Moreover, in what Schutz calls the ‘community of space and time’, our intersubjective experiences are mutually ‘coordinated’ and ‘reciprocally determined by continuous cross-reference’. In brief, ‘I experience myself through you, and you experience yourself through me’ (CP2, 30). ⁸²

Developing themes already present in both Husserl ⁸³ and Heidegger, ⁸⁴ Schutz cashes all of this out as follows: despite the biographical singularity of self and Other (the specificities of our personal histories, psychological and emotional make-up, and so on), there is nevertheless a fundamental ‘interchangeability of … standpoints’ (CP1, 12) ⁸⁵ or ‘reciprocity of perspectives’ (CP1, 316) ⁸⁶ between us. In face-to-face encounters there is an ‘immediate reciprocity of my experiences of the Other and of the Other’s experiences of me’; namely, ‘if he were in my situation, his experiences would be roughly identical with mine’ (CP2, 54–5). Thus:

So, in face-to-face encounters, the Other and I are presented with a world that is, at least in principle, mutually accessible. We both take for granted that if we changed places – exchanged our respective ‘Here’ and ‘There’ – then my access to the surrounding environment would become as hers ‘actually’ (CP1, 11–12) is now, and vice versa. ⁸⁸ As finite, embodied beings, you and I cannot simultaneously occupy the same spatio-temporal location. ⁸⁹ Still, this does not mean that our respective situatedness is radically singular. Rather, to borrow Derrida’s phrase, self and Other are both ‘singular and universal’ (DEM, 41); that is, both ‘unique’ (SLW, 79) in their particular biographical, perspectival ‘Here’, and (at least potentially) interchangeable.

As already noted, Schutz’s claim about the interchangeability of embodied subjects’ ‘Here’ and ‘There’ can be found in both Husserl and Heidegger. But what about Levinas? Surely, one might object, this phenomenological emphasis on the reciprocity or interchangeability of self and Other sounds profoundly unLevinasian. ⁹⁰ In one sense, this is true. After all, Levinas constantly emphasizes the asymmetry of the face-to-face encounter; insisting, for example, that in being accused by the Other I am ‘non-interchangeable’ (TLR, 84), for in facing me the Other singles me out as the ‘unique and chosen one’ (A&T, 27). As such, for Levinas, ‘no one can take my place when I am the one responsible: I cannot shrink before the other man, I am I by way of that uniqueness, I am I as if I had been chosen’ (OTS, 35). ⁹¹ It is precisely because of this uniqueness then that ‘I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity. … Reciprocity is his affair’ (E&I, 98). Indeed, this is why Levinas goes so far as to maintain: ‘What I say here … only commits me!’ (E&I, 114). These provocative formulations clearly run counter to traditional moral theory, not least because they seem wilfully to blur the line between philosophical and autobiographical genres. I suggested earlier why drawing a neat demarcation between these genres is problematic when reading Levinas insofar as his work is both about the apologetic nature of being-in-the-world, and also itself apologetic. ⁹² Nevertheless, there is an important sense in which Levinas’ conception of ethical responsibility, as radical as it might be, must presuppose Schutz’s general phenomenological point about the ‘interchangeability of … standpoints’ (CP1, 12). Now, here one might reasonably point out that Levinas is clear that the fact that I am ‘in one place in space and the other is at another place in space … is not the alterity that distinguishes you from me’. As he proceeds: ‘It is not because your hair is unlike mine or because you occupy another place than me – this would only be a difference of properties or of dispositions in space, a difference of attributes’ (IRB, 49). Let me be clear then what I mean by saying that Levinas presupposes the interchangeability thesis. I am not suggesting that the Other’s Otherness (whatever that amounts to) can be reduced to such ‘spatial differences’. However, these differences cannot be so casually dismissed as mere differences of ‘attributes’ – such as hair colour. The given fact of my embodied being-here and your embodied being-there is of fundamental importance because it is only on this basis that Levinas could meaningfully claim that, in my very being (in the ‘Da of Dasein’ [OTS, 48]), I ‘usurp’, ‘exile’, or ‘take the place of’ an Other’s ‘vital space’ (IRB, 128). The conclusion we have to draw here is this: I can only be said to ‘usurp’ the Other’s place if our respective ‘Here’ and ‘There’ are indeed (in principle) interchangeable. Likewise, the third party can be ‘represented in the [singular] other’ (GCM, 82) only insofar as this Other facing me is (in principle) interchangeable with the other Others – be they proximate ‘neighbours’ or Others who are ‘very distant’ (BPW, 27). ⁹³ None of this entails that we are thereby ethically interchangeable in the way Levinas is keen to resist, for (arguably) no one else can take on my responsibility. The crucial point is rather that self and Other are interchangeable in their embodied being-in-the-world. This is relevant to our understanding and critical evaluation of Levinas’ ethics because if our ‘places’ are indeed interchangeable in this latter sense, then there must be some commonality between us. If this was not the case then Levinas would have to accept (which he patently does not) that my being-here also ‘usurps’ the place of non-human animals. ⁹⁴

5 Conclusion

In the previous discussion I have attempted to do three interconnected things. (1) First, I explained what it might mean to read Levinas as a post-Holocaust thinker, and why this helps clarify the motivation for his ethics. Specifically, this motivation lies in his characterization of my being-in-the-world as ‘usurpatory’; that is, in my simply being I take the place of an Other. Indeed, this accounts for why Levinas describes the Other’s face as accusing me of violence. (2) Second, by drawing on Schutz, I suggested that such ‘usurpation’ only makes sense if we presuppose the (broadly) phenomenological point that my embodied being-here is in principle ‘interchangeable’ with your embodied being-there. Such brute facts of embodiment are not, as Levinas sometimes appears to suggest, mere ‘attributes’. (3) And finally, I argued that the ‘interchangeability’ thesis only makes sense if the Other is not radically ‘Other’. In summary then, if my reconstruction of Levinas’ ethics is plausible, then we have a more pressing reason than that offered by Bernstein and Rorty to be wary of appeals to the radical ‘Otherness’ of the Other.