8 Levinas

The Ethics of the Face to Face Encounter: Schroeder, Levinas, and the Glance
Author(s): EDWARD S. CASEY

Source: The Pluralist, Vol. 1, No. 1 (SPRING 2006), pp. 74-97
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for the Advancement of
American Philosophy
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20708851 .

Accessed: 29/05/2014 10:46
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of Illinois Press and Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Pluralist.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Ethics of the Face to Face Encounter:

Schroeder, L?vinas, and theGlance
S. CASEY
EDWARD
Stony Brook University

[.'absolument
?Emmanuel
autre,
c'est i'autrui.
L?vinas, Totalit? et infini
The world isnot so profane as to refuseadmission to the

Infinite;but then,neither is it sacred enough to contain the
Absolute in its totality.
?Brian
Schroeder,
Altared
Ground
Introduction
Altared Ground: L?vinas, History, and Violence appeared in 1996, and I am
to draw attention to this extraordinary text a decade later. I shall ap
pleased
asmuch
close reading;
it
by indirection?by allusion and citation?as
proach
that I am any less prone to pay homage to it.On

the contrary: it is by linking this text to certain texts by L?vinas and to some
current concerns ofmy own that Iwill honor it.
but this does not mean
say a few words by way of introduction about Altared Ground

itself. It is a rare and timely contribution: rare, because it is the only text in
of his
English (or any language I know of) that explicitly poses questions
same
these
in
because
of
violence
the
aftermath
and
L?vinas; timely,
tory
not
are so
just of Levinas's work but of
pressing today, in thewake
questions
is violence? What
deconstruction and postmodernism more generally.What
to
How
is
it
is
it
historical events,
related
done?
forms does it take?To whom
tomany
or Vietnam or
not only major ones such as theHolocaust
Iraq but
somany must submit
that
and
the
humiliations
events,
slights
ongoing daily
to formost of their lives?What
is the relation of such undeniable historical
Let me
violence, such as war, to ethics: that is, towhat should happen
to
justice and
in
goodness?These arequestions takenup lucidlyand pursued insightfully
Altared Ground.
This singularbook puts a numberof leadingfiguresinphilosophyinto
conversation with each other?and
the
pluralist
with the author himself, who manages
Volume 1,Number 1 Spring2006 :pp. 74-97

?2006
by theBoard ofTrustees of theUniversityof Illinois

74
casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
75
to create a true theatricum

inwhich
skillfully
philosophicum
complex ideas
come alive and enter into intense
are
to Plato,
Two
devoted
dialogue.
chapters
to his concepts of
and
of
"the
especially
imagination
good beyond being."
Hegel receives sustained treatment in four chapters inwhich mediation, ab
solute knowledge, and the contrast between drive and infinity are discussed
with both accuracy and flair.
Heidegger's thinking about unconcealedness,
fundamental ontology, nothingness, and letting be are given incisive treat
ments.
as serious kibitzers, with

Throughout, Derrida and Nietzsche figure
Deleuze
and
Guattari speaking from
and
Merleau-Ponty, Adorno, Gadamer,
the sidelines.
Among the primary issues at stake in this groundbreaking book are the
nature of ethical space
as it is
to face rela
(especially
configured in the face
tion); the rethinking of ethics entailed by such space; the character of violence
(particularly the violence that stems from a certain characteristic Western
conceptuality); the role of theOther in relation to oneself; a new sense of
the inculcationof justice;theplace of religionafter

Nietzsche and
infinity;
L?vinas and Altizer (hence the "altar" inAltared Ground)-, and, above all, the
fate of the idea of ground itself as it is related to a new sense of
subjectiv
ity in the postmodern (Schroeder prefers to say "postmetaphysical")
Schroeder proclaims at the beginning of the text:
era. As
isproposed isan interrogation into the relation between the

philo
.
sophical concepts of ground {Gr?net), subjectivity, and violence. . .
at
is
what
issue
is
the
relation
between
alter
and
Specifically
infinity
What
ity,the determination of the origin of ethics, and thus the possibility

of a non-totalizingground
the ethical (intersubjective) relation that
the
the
preserves
autonomy of
subject, the principal legacy of theEnlight
enment. (i)1
And, indeed, in every chapter of this challenging book, the tension between
the irreplaceable but problematized human
subject and the equally prob
lematic ground provided by the human other is laid bare and
probed. For
this reason, I have decided to focus on that relation between self and other,
which is the seat of ethical life: the face to face relation that is the
unique and
scene of such life, its
where the
there
indispensable
territory,
proper/improper
ethical emerges and is realized.
Altared Ground
is an extended meditation
on the
ground of ethics and
(by implicationand sometimesexpressly)

politics.Refusingthemonolithic
reason found inAristotle's Nichomachean Ethics or inKant's

ground of
aptly
entitled "Groundwork of theMetaphysics ofMorals," Schroeder
navigates

THE PLURALIST
76
I : I 20 6
through the virtual Sargasso Sea of confusion that has all but scuttled previ
ous ethical
in theWest. In an ingeniously named series of chapters
thought
to IdeoGround,
that range from ForeGround to BackGround, UnderGround
to
toTransGround, and DiaGround
HyperGround, Schroeder
MystiGround
of
the
demonstrates, by
very hypertrophy
groundings entailed by the ethical
a
no
relation, that there is
single Ground of ethics, least of all rational ground
that can claim complete conceptual coherence. But he does not leave us in an
endless eddy either: by the end of the book, we are on the high and open seas
and
of chastened and clarified thinking about the things thatmatter?war
violence, the good and the just, self and other, person and God, eschatology
and apocalypse. These topics give ground (in both senses of this ambiguous
a vision in
to a vision of
postmetaphysical courage and rigor,
expression)
which philosophy finds renewed inspiration beyond deconstructionist

solutions and postmodern disillusions.
dis
a
Taking it in at Glance
I see someone in distress?in pain or sufferingof any kind, mental as
as
feel instantly obliged. Obliged, firstof all, to take notice,
well
physical?I
and obliged as well to take action if this is pertinent or helpful. How much of
When
ethical lifepivots on this pristine perception of distress is rarely discussed by

ethicists, who tend to regard itas a merely preliminary moment, a prelude to
a matter ofmere
proper action, something that precedes principled conduct:
not to be confused with the "comprehension" that being

"apprehension" and
an ethical person entails.2The (at least) implicit argument?an
argument that
our
in
commonsensical
has sedimented itself much of
thought about being
that it is one thing to observe a situation of distress, but quite

ethical?is
We presume that the
another thing to think about it,much less to act on it.
of
in
consideration
real action resides elsewhere: e.g.,
principles, memory of
past actions, and in the future action that is being called forth.
And yet Iwould like to claim that this supposedly minor moment con
tains, either actually or by adumbration, the entirety of the ethical phenom
enon. It is a moment of "the world of pure experience" inWilliam
James s
The
term,and as suchholdswithin itself
potentiallythewhole of ethicallife.
is already
is already the subsequent moment; apprehension
is reflection and not some dumb beginning: "in
comprehension; perception
firstmoment
my beginning ismy end."

And Iwant to take a further step and argue that this firstmoment is itself
condensed into a quite singular activity, that of ?ve glance, which despite itsap

casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
77
paren tlyexiguous character is capable of bearing ethical matters on its slender

shoulders. After all,we do take in theworld at a glance, as we know whenever
we let our look flit across the surfaces of

to
a
things in order
gain
sweeping, if
is
closely affiliatedwith what
altogether momentary, view of them.The glance
both Kierkegaard and Heidegger call "themoment of vision," theAugenblick,
wherein Blick means "look" or "glance." It isalso closely related towhat Husserl
calls the "source point" and James the "saddle back" of the present. All four
thinkers conjoin in regarding the present moment as nonpunctiform, as open

and extended, as capable of conveying content of undelimited expansiveness.
It is as if the very concentration, the focus, provided by the present moment
allowed it to be the purveyor of all thatwe experience.
As thismoment is theArchimedian point of our temporal experience,
as if its very meagerness, its
so the
glance is the fulcrum of ethical life. It is
status as a mere
is itsvery advantage. For it is inmerely

"peri-phenomenon,"
we
in
ethical
take
the
equivalent ofwhat Dewey would call "the
glancing that
so
so
unselfconsciously
problematic situation." We do this
frequently and
thatwe rarely pause to consider its larger significance.
Glancing Differently
If you are as skeptical as I imagine you may be regarding what I have said so
far,consider a few cases in point. I encounter a woman on a plane that isflying
between Chengdu, China, and Lhasa, Tibet. She is in an advanced state of
a
moves
crippling disease, perhaps multiple sclerosis. Her twisted body
only
with great difficulty, but she insists on moving herself. She walks down the
aisle, resting heavily on a cane at each step.Her glance engages mine, and in
that briefmoment (which I have never forgotten) I perceive her distress: her
need for support from others, yet her proud defiance of this same support
as
as she can walk on her own. In this case, there is
can do
long
nothing I
on
I
ethical
except look back sympathetically and realize that have been put
notice: I have grasped human frailtyand mortality, mine as well as my fellow

passengers, and I have been reminded of the fact that, at some point in life,
each of us will require the concrete assistance of others.
Or take a lessmelodramatic case, that of happening upon two colleagues
in heated dispute. One sees at a glance?one
knows at a glance?that
they are
an
own
ancient
intervention is indeed called
re-enacting
quarrel. Here, my
for, and I try to intercede (inmy capacity as friend as well as chairman ofmy
to alleviate the
acrimony. I point out the unsuspected
department) in order
common
are not
as antithetical to
ground they share, and how they
nearly

THE PLURALIST
78
I : I 20 6
each other as they take themselves to be. My action follows forthwith from
my initial glance at their locked-in conflict; no separate act of reflection is
am
start: I understandthe
already reflective from the
dispute
required, since I
even as I come upon it unbidden.
But what of situations not known
in advance, ones that do not have a

too, the glance is often definitive. Once, inChicago, I
heard cries from the other side of the street; glancing over, I saw a man beating
up a woman, holding her against a car with one hand as he pummeled her
with the other. I knew, at a glance, that thiswas not a mugging but a lover s
familiar history?Here,
quarrel: something about the intensity of the interaction betokened this.And

I also knew what I had to do, without any time to ponder the circumstance:
cross the street,walk

to
directly toward the couple, yet without threatening
was
on
the embarrassment of the other
do anything in particular. I
banking
inmerely being perceived in his violent behavior, which
is exactly what hap
and thenhe
pened.He glimpsedme coming towardhim and his girlfriend,
was not heroism on my

stopped hitting her, walking away abruptly. This
an
sense
was
it
instinctive
that
any interference, even just approaching
part;
an
a
or
without saying word
arm, would effectively undermine the
lifting
basic action.
Of course, glances dont always work to constructive effect.They can be

or
as we realize every time we are the
an
quite damaging:
object of
insulting
more
we
ex
A
look.
of
social
than
deal
much
life,
great
usually
supercilious
pect, arises from glances being exchanged, often in hurtful ways. Whenever
as "not
or
we "size
someone as
possessing inferior character
breeding,
up"
worth our time," we are contributing to social malaise by disaggregating the
not so much reveal what needs to
body politic. In this case, the glance does
be done from an ethical perspective (as in the incident on theChicago streets)
a
as it is the
doing itself. Instead of being acutely percipient, it has become
it can be both at once, as occurs when a glance takes in

itself altering that scene by its very surveillance.
form of action. And
a scene while
A lastvariation occurs when the glance isused to detect what ishappening

but itselfgoes undetected. A friend ofmine described this situation recentlyby
a man
a woman friendwere both
having dinner with
recounting that she and
was now
seeing
("George") who had formerly dated the friend ("Carol") but
her ("Martha") but on the sly, since neither wanted to hurt Carols feelings.
Nevertheless, George was attending to her,Martha, in an intense way at the
dinner; and Martha stole a glance at Carol at one point to see ifCarol was
upset over the extra attention given her by George. In fact,Carol was visibly
much so that later,afterGeorge had left,Carol lit intoMartha
unhappy?so

casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
79
for having let him approach her so warmly at dinner. Thanks to her glance,
Martha had anticipated this attack and was prepared for it. In this case, the
to ameliorate a later
was
develop
interpersonally informative, helped
glance
ment thatwould
have turned out much worse had she not been forewarned
of her friend s unhappiness. A single glance, one thatwas itselfunreturned,

took in a complex social dynamic and played an integral role in the eventual
resolution of an inherently conflictual situation. It ismy contention that this
and other variations happen more often than we may imagine.
Getting
to theOther
Even given such instances?and

doubtless many others, as we can detect in
or
an entire dialectic
novels
byHenry James Marcel Proust, inwhich
reading
of glancing is often at play?we
ethical force of the glance. How
source of the
might stillwonder about the
could such a diminutive act have somuch to
do with what is, arguably, the heaviest, most burdened part of our lives?that
is, the realm of ethical commitments and obligations? I would suggest that
it is because the glance is an intrinsic part of the face to face encounter with
others that itpossesses such enormous ethical import. But this indicates that
we must firstgrasp what it is about the face to face encounter thatmakes it
so
ethically significant.
to face encounter, insists L?vinas, do we
experience hu
Only in the face
man others (autrui) in their true
exteriority, their absolute alterity.All other
of
reduces
them to forms of being that are subject
others
ways
encountering
to appropriation and domination
that
by ontological categories?categories
and totalize these others. Instead of grasping others as
at once
comprehend
is to say, in their goodness (for theGood is,once
otherwise-than-being?that
con
more, "beyond Being" in the Platonic phrase relished by L?vinas)?we
strue them in terms of stratified and neutralized concepts that fail to capture
ismost arrestingly specific about them: their ethical claim on us. This
claim isnot conveyed by concepts such as "theKingdom of Ends" or "enlight
ofwhich
ened self-interest"or "the greatest good for the greatest number"?all
what
are
only designations
of planiform probability, projections of what certain
wish tobe thecase forallhumanbeings?but by

philosophersor politicians
the actual encounter with other human beings in their intrinsic destitution.
an encounter do we
to
Only in such
suspend the universalizing tendency
think of others in terms ofwhat L?vinas calls "the imperialism of the Same"3
race, gender, nation, language,
(i.e., as just another version of ourselves?our
as not assimilable (or
as
and
these
others
mores)
radically other:
apprehend

THE PLURALIST
8o
I : I 20 6
only) to the leveled-down categories of history, sociology,

of previous ethical theories themselves.We come up against
and
psychology,
as
as
as
the others
metaphysically different,
deeply disparate from ourselves,
the Different itself.Regarding these others, no description or inclusion in
terms is possible; if such description or inclusion is attempted, it is
generic
tantamount tomisrepresentation and is the very basis of injustice and war.
These latter represent the inevitable outcome of regimenting the other
not assimilable
into ontological terms that always fail to fit the particular other with whom I
am confronted in a
such as "white male intellec
given circumstance?terms
tual," "Marxist female," "migrant laborers," etc. True as these are historically
(and essential as itmay be to use them for strategic political purposes), they
miss utterly the specificity of the encounter with what Kierkegaard called,
is to
To do justice to the thatness?which
prophetically, "that individual."
once
at
own
to
must
L?vinas?I
do justice, period, for
up
prior
something
and particular. This is the others face (visage).
Ethics, then, resides in the face to face encounter, in itsunguarded open
ness and transparency, in its abrupt actuality. For only then and there do I
find the other as Other, as existing in separation fromme even as we share
the fact and fate of being members of the same species. Facing the Other
is thus a facing up to the Others
transcendence, to his or her refusal to
be drawn into the web of the Same, to be alter to every ego. As Schroeder
shows so illuminatingly inAltared Ground, this face to face encounter is not
to be confused with the anxious engagement with ones own nothingness,
lack of ultimate foundation, ones thrownness into theworld

a facelessness that
In
(92-94).
precludes
particular, this engagement possesses
an ethical relation: "What does itmean to say," asks Schroeder, "that one is
able to have a face to face 'relationship with thatwhich does not have a face
([i.e., the] nothing)?" (98). Schroeder puts "relationship" into scare quotes in
order to indicate that there is no genuine relation here: as Sartre might put
it, one is one s own nothingness (this is precisely why one is so anguished
over it),whereas a relation is between distinguishable items, however closely
connected theymay be. As L?vinas says himself: relationship "implies terms,
one s uncanny
substantives. It takes them to be coordinated,
but also independent" (cited

in Schroeder 99). This is justwhat happens in the face to face encounter: I
and theOther are independent of each other, metaphysically "separate," yet
at this very moment. "The same and the other at
we are intensely
engaged
the same timemaintain themselves in relationship and absolve themselves of
this relation, remain absolutely separated" (L?vinas, Totality 102).4 In other
words, L?vinas wants to have it both ways, not because it is easier or repre

: The Face
casey
toFace Encounter
81
sents some sort of compromise

(just the opposite!), but because this is the
of
the
itself.As Schroeder aptly puts it: "Ethics,
ethical
relation
character
very
thewelcomingof theOther by the self,isonly accomplishedthroughthe
recognition and maintenance
of subjectand object" (97).
of the radical disjunction
of same and other,
over ones uncanny thrownness into theworld is therefore not

Anxiety
at stake when I encounter theOther face to face on his or her own terms.
Instead of being
and Sartre would
an occasion
for realizing my freedom (as both Heidegger

thus
for personal empowerment, this encoun
claim) and
in debt to the Other and makes me realize my responsibility
ter puts me
for thatOther.
In short, I am placed in an essentially "apologetic" position

Imust make amends to theOther, tacitly ifnot explicitly, for not
a
more to
help that other. It is circumstance of "the asymme
having done
as
comes
to
it in Otherwise than Being (158).
L?vinas
call
of
try proximity,"
inwhich
for thatmatter, fraternity?is at stake

freedom nor equality?nor,
as I encounter the other face to face. For then I am
brought up against the
Neither
Other not as a partner, a copain (i.e., a chum or pal of equal standing), but
as incommensurable, as
over me, as absolute in his or her
towering
"height."
This Other is unique and does not submit to the generalities and platitudes
of collectivities; instead of consolidating itself into something conceptually

or
just tome but to
historically coherent, it is radically heterogeneous?not
other Others as well. In Schroeder swords: "It is not the individual, the I,
her or his freedom renounces all systems or totalities
that impinge upon that radical freedom [i.e., as inKierkegaard or Sartre]; it
is theOther (Tautrut) that refuses such systemization or totalization" (96).
Let s note where we are. Our best guide remains Altared Ground, which
who
in acknowledging
of the perplexities as well as the strengths of

Levinas's take on the face to face relation. On the one hand, this relation
an acute sense of
as
out in the
subject, the self witness of theOther,
brings
as
of
toward
the
desire
transcendence
Good, which is
obligation and justice,
revealed only in the face of theOther. Schroeder writes: "In its nudity and
defenselessness the face [of theOther] is an appeal for justice and a call to
responsibility for the sake of theOther. This obligation towards theOther is
is unerring in its delineation
the calling into question of the freedom of the selfsame, of rationality's claim
comprehend the other" (96). The critique of freedom and rationality is
not made in the name of the autonomous
subject but is based precisely in
to
the subject's heteronomy, its reliance on the Other to set the terms of the
ethical relation. This is to undo modernity at itsown game of enfranchising
the subject at the expense of theOther, whether thisOther be the colonized

82
THE
PLURALIST
I : I
20
Other of extra-European origin; theOther gendered as Temale'; theOther as

or retarded; in short, theOther in its
mentally ill
"heterogeneous multiplicity"
(to adapt a term Bergson applied to time). Now theOther is given not just
or
or
more
"respect"
"rights"
"recognition" but something much
powerful
than thesemodernist concessions in the guise of universality, these forms of
cosmopolitanism.
The Other is endowed with a Goodness
that belongs only to theOther

can
not
as other, that
in oneself. The self,as "psy
be desired only in theOther,
chism," is called to bear witness to theOther in its transcendent Goodness,
[from theOther] is produced within the self as a psychism"
(Schroeder 96); but ethics is not about the interest or prospering or perfect
on the
one has
ing of the self. It bears exclusively
unmitigated obligation
toOthers. On the other hand, and
from
the position of abjection
precisely
and "separation
thus underlined by L?vinas, the prospect of a new tyranny emerges. To the

tyranny of neutrality, of conceptual comprehensiveness, of ontology?all of
which belong to the self, to the same?there

is to be added themenace of a
different tyranny: that imposed by theOther towhom one is subject in the
ethical relation.With
thisOther, one has an asymmetrical and irreversible
relation: itmakes theOther ones "master," a word L?vinas does not hesitate
to use in this context. Schroeder articulates the threat of this second tyranny
in the form of two questions: "[D]oes the insistence on absolute separation,
themaintenance
is ethics, result in an ideology that ends in a tyr

would prevent such an other from committing the
of which
anny of the other?What

violence of coercion?" (97).
These are exactly the right questions
who makes
to ask of L?vinas,
indeed of anyone
the face to face relation the clue to ethical life.How are they to
be answered?
a
Overcoming Separation in Glance
One way to answer the questions is to emphasize the factorof separation itself:
its very absoluteness means that theOther, however much he or she stands
over me
like a Colossus of sheerDifference, cannot absorb me entirely, can

not swallow me as I
a
might fear, if I have what Sartre calls "Jonah complex."
This is the direction Brian Schroeder takes when he writes, "The notion of
distance or separation functions in a critical capacity for an understanding
of freedom [i.e., as not wholly abrogated] and the constitution of subjectiv
ity.One interprets theworld only in distancing oneself from it" (97). One
protects oneself from the possible violence of theOther
by recourse to the

casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
83
that one is apart in the very

paradox of asymmetrical proximity?namely,
most
intimate ethical bonding with theOther. The violence of
midst of the
same means bywhich one
being incorporated by theOther is averted by the
avoids doing violence to thatOther: separation itself.Thanks to thismeta
one neither crushes theOther nor is crushed
by thisOther.
physical fact,
To be subject to theOther, and subjected precisely for one's ethicality, is not
or
to be the
(necessarily)
prisoner, of thatOther. One
abject subject, the slave
can be
to otherness and yet not be itspawn.
subjected
But there is a second way out, one that is enacted daily, so often indeed
its diminutive
that we rarely stop to notice it.This is the glance. Despite
opposes the tyranny

physiologyand delimitedscope, theglance effectively
It does so most dramatically inmoments of defiance, as when
a
(in passage from Faulkner's Light inAugust) Joe Christmas looks back at
those who have just castrated him, undoing their sadistic tyranny for one
moment:
poignant
of theOther.
But theman on the floor had notmoved. He just lay there,with his eyes
open and empty of everything save consciousness, and with something,
a shadow, about his mouth. For a
at them
longmoment he looked up
with peaceful and unfathomable and unbearable eyes. Then his face,
to fall in upon itselfand from out the
to
body, all, seemed
collapse,
slashed garments about his hips and loins the pent black blood seemed
to rush like a released breath. (407)
Sartre comments:
"[T]his explosion of theOther's look in theworld of the

causes
sadist
themeaning and goal of sadism to collapse. The sadist discovers
that itwas thatfreedom which he wished to enslave, and at the same time he
realizes the futility of his efforts" (382).
But even short of such melodrama,
the glance is an effective response
to the Other's tyranny. It intercedes to support the self from the
killing
scrutiny of theOther, from being overwhelmed by the height and mastery

possessed by theOther.5 For all its unrehearsed and spontaneous character,
it is a powerful form of resistance. It also acts as a force of collusion with the
in opposing, with thatOther, a larger totality such as that of class or

state; hence, the telling phrase "conniving glances." Short of this, even just
to alleviate
to
"exchange meaningful glances"?another
telling locution?is
the pressure brought by theOther, including the pressure to be ethical at
all costs. The glance, as the gestural equivalent of theAugenblick, allows one
themomentary luxury of distancing oneself from such pressure. And, by its
Other
very return action (every glance is at once a glance out and a glance back, a
two-beat action I have examined elsewhere6) a glance effects a retreat into the

THE PLURALIST
84
I : I 20 6
sanctuary of the self: to the open-eyed, outward look with which it begins,
it always adds, by way of necessary supplement, the closing of the look that
one back into the
interiority of the psychism.
brings
In these various ways, whether through direct opposition, subtle collu
sion, or withdrawal into oneself, a glance, amere glance, effects an extrication
from theOthers
tyranny. But there is an even stronger point to be made
of theglance (whichcan itself

be quite imperious
regardingtheantityranny
on occasion): its
to face relation itself. Ifit is means
by
ingredience in the face
of this relation that the tyranny of theOther over oneself at once presents
itself and is resolved (i.e., thanks to separation), and that tyrannizing of the
overcome (thanks to the r?barbative
by oneself is also
nudity of the
Others face, which refuses conceptualizing and ontologizing just as much
Other
as it
are
pleads "dont murder me!"), both of these vanquishings of tyranny
the glance. The glance,
often outright implemented?by
facilitated?indeed,
we
to
is
the
of
the
face
relation
face
and thus the very
saving grace
might say,
vehicle of ethical realization.
we shallonly rejoinBrian Schro

Ifwe begin to thinkin thisdirection,
eder once again. Although he does not focus on the glance per se, he makes
one remark that is very
context:
suggestive in this
The neutrality of the third term, of thought that becomes themode of
identificationbywhich the other is reduced to a moment of the same, is
criticized [byL?vinas] as a light that illumines not a particular existent
but all beings, bringing them into full presence, naked under the lidless
eyeofSpiritorBeing. (97)7
To be "naked under the lidless eye of Spirit or Being" is to be in a situa

tion inwhich glances have been altogether foreclosed. In the floodlight of
one cannot escape
ontology, in the glaring light of its supposed neutrality,
out of the
by glancing?either
by glancing
compound of comprehension
inwhich one has been rigorously enclosed or by glancing back into oneself
on the near side of the
or
glare. Nor is the sphinx of "Spirit
Being" capable
of glancing out or back either. For a look to be lidless is for it to lack the
capacity to glance, which requires not just themovement of the eye but its
closure or "cut." As Derrida says ? propos of theAugenblick: it is, literally,
"blink of the instant":
Nonpresence and nonevidence are admitted into theblink of the instant.
There is a duration to the blink, and itcloses the eye.This alterity is in
fact the condition for presence, presentation, and thus for Vorstellung
in general. (65)8

casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
85
the blink is to be fixed in a stare: the everlasting stare of noetic

as
stare of the scientist, the stare of the
the
spirit of gravity
scrutiny,
steady
vacant
stare
in
relentless
of
the
the
but
Egyptian sphinx.Moreover,
epitomized
Derrida here suggests that the blink, that close ally of the glance, is itself a
form of alterity,with every bit as much right as the alterity of the Levinasian
To be without
Other. For itbrings the sling blade of nonpresence into the sloe-eyed openness
of pure presence, being the condition of possibility for the latter.Just so, the
is equally the condition
glance effectsnonpresence by itsbackward beat and
out
and constitutes. The
of possibility for pure visibility, which it searches
glance, abetted by the blink, insinuates nonpresence and nonevidence into

the heart of the face to face relation, which, construed as "nudity" and "rev
elation," threatens to be itself a form of unexamined full presence.9
To make my case more completely than I can in this essay, Iwould have
to show how the blink and thewink, as well as the sly look (not to be con
fused with the petrifying regard o(Sartre's description), all contribute to the
to face relation ismost richly realized. The

glancing world inwhich the face
or
a part of such a relation; it extends it be
an
not
instrument
just
glance is
even the
yond sheer staring confrontation into subtle variations. It is
living
medium
inwhich
this relation grows and prospers, feeling its own way and
own truth.
finding its
Questioning
theFace
But you may be wondering: why all the fuss over the face to face encounter,
so
special, after all? Granting its importance for
including the glance? Is this
concrete human interaction, is it really necessary for ethical life?Kant, for
one, would be quite skeptical of any such intimate arrangement as it bears
are confronted with each other
on ethics. The
actuality of human beings who
in person ismore apt to bring out their individual interests and empirical
needs and desires. It certainly does not guarantee (nor does it necessarily
foster) their ethical reality,which is independent of all such interests, needs,

and desires. The only community thatmatters for ethics is a community of
a
beings, namely, the Kingdom of Ends, which is gathering of
not confront one another (nor do
wholly spiritual entitieswho do
they glance
at each other, so far as I know). Even the
community at stake in aesthetic
noumenal
not in a face
judgment, the imputed group of like-minded judgers of art, is
a
to face relation, since it includes all who
work
of art. In
might judge given
art as in ethics, the face to face encounter is
ideal
communities
replaced by
of non-present beings.

I : I 20 6
THE PLURALIST
86
Jacques Derrida, doubtless Levinas's most trenchant critic, rejoins Kant,

otherwise a most unlikely ally, in being equally skeptical of the face to face
as a basis of ethical action. In particular, the sheer presence entailed by the en
is
since itonly serves to reinforce
face relation of dubious valence forDerrida,
the priority of presence that has been the bane ofWestern metaphysics since
Parmenides and Plato: "Le visage est pr?sence, ous?a (Derrida, "Violence and
149). L?vinas and Derrida join forces in their common critique
Metaphysics"
of "ontology" as the ultimately totalizing enterprise in theWest, even as they

or prox
part ways when it comes to the virtues of direct presence?nearness
s
imity?as this figures into ethics. L?vinas belated introduction of the trace,
even
if it does not eliminate it,would seem to
which complicates presence
to Derrida; yet the face remains the bearer of the trace of
bring him closer
or what Schroeder, who
a trace of a
"illeity" forL?vinas: it is
higher presence
at
many reprises,would call "hyperground."
compares Derrida and L?vinas
For L?vinas, either the face is itselfan ultimate form of presence or itpresents
the trace of another presence, that of God (who does not present His face).
Derrida would urge us to deconstruct both modes of presence.
Other contemporaries of L?vinas are just as skeptical as Derrida of the
a proponent of the
primacy of the face to face encounter. Merleau-Ponty,
never present face to
"primacy of perception," maintains that "the other is
face" (cited in Schroeder 114).Merleau-Ponty s point is that the other need not
be present in this special revelatorymode, since I am already conjoined with
the other through sharing in theworlds flesh, both being figures in the same
are like two
can
scene:
nearly concentric circles which
"myself and the other
be distinguished only by a slight and mysterious slippage. . . [with the result
that] themystery of the other is nothing but themystery of myself" (cited
in Schroeder 113-14). As Schroeder remarks, it follows that "the chiasmatic
self-Other relation is a reciprocal and reversible event forMerleau-Ponty"
(114). It is just such reciprocity and reversibility that L?vinas denies in the
a
face to face relation, a relation of "instruction" and not exchange?hence,
relation inwhich one party must be in a position of "vigilant passivity to the
call of the other" (Schroeder 102).10
Still another take on the face to face relation is that ofDeleuze
and Guat
tari,who speak of "faciality" inA Thousand Phteaus. On their reading, the

face is a field of alterity and is not limited towhat is grasped directly in the
immediate presence of the other. On the contrary, what ismost important

about the face is its correlation with the larger landscape inwhich it is set;
and Guattari recom
instead of bearing down on the face proper, Deleuze
mend
an escape from the face into the

landscape within which
it is set.Thus,

casey
: The Face toFace Encounter
87
a face is not individual but a neutral location of social

assemblages: "the face
. . the
... to bounce off of" (Schroeder
constructs thewall.
needs
signifier
126). In thisway, the face signifies "something absolutely inhuman" (Schro
eder 126). It is true, as Schroeder remarks, that L?vinas, along with Deleuze
and Guattari, rejects modernist conceptions of subjectivity; but it remains
the case that the latter thinkers want
to put the face "on the road to the

to say, to put us in a direction that
asignifying and asubjective" (126), that is
exceeds any particular face to face encounter. As with Derrida, the intense
intimacy of this encounter, its aura of privileged presence, isquestioned; and
a more
as with
a field
comprehensive field is charted out,
Merleau-Ponty,
on the part of
as
term
the
"landscape"
Merleau-Ponty
aptly designated by
well as Deleuze and Guattari.
Glancing
v.
Looking
I cite these various figures from contemporary French thought to indicate

that they, like Kant before them, would question the exemplary character
of the face to face relation, proposing other paradigms for ethics (and poli
tics) that exceed the confines of this relation. L?vinas is not left,however,
without resources in responding to these critiques. His tactic overall is to
insist that the face to face relation contains farmore
than appears on a first

consideration. Not only does it involve a complex asymmetry and elements
ofmastery, passivity and height, but it also includes a linguistic component
thatfillsout therelationand allows ittobear thefullloadof theethical.For

the face of the Other
in the ethical relation is not mute:
it is not a dumb
an inarticulate
not
only
object,
visage. From the very beginning it speaks; it
a
looks back atme, itputs its thoughts into discourse: it is talking face. Such
most important, it is
speech renders itarticulate in itsdemand upon us, and,
the basis for the dialogue whereby I can relate to itnow and in the future. In
Schroeder's words, "The ethical self isdesirous of theOther, not for the sake
of possession or dominance, but to formulate a dialogical relation. . . .The
absolute separation between the self and Other is ethically maintained
face to face relation that is the essence of speech, of discourse" (108).
in the
The point is not just that the face is an effective communicative vehicle,
as on certain
expressive theories of language (forwhich other parts of the
are also
us in the
expressively pertinent); it is that the face that faces
body
ethical relation comes already speaking, speaking before speech as itwere.
Thus, Levinas'sclaim inTotalityand Infinity:"Meaning is thefaceof the

Other,
and all recourse to words
takes place already within
the primordial

THE PLURALIST
88
I : I 20 6
face to face of language" (206). Thus, too, his claim inOtherwise than Being
a
that the face is the scene of the saying that precedes the said?
saying that
is at one with the face and enters into a "spiraling movement" (un movement
en vrille) with the said.11As Schroeder

to
specifies this situation, "antecedent
towords in the order of the said,
[fully constituted] speech,
saying signifies
in the distinct relationship of proximity" (112).
Such saying is at once enigmatic and epiphanous. It is enigmatic insofar
or thesis to be found in the

as there is no
simply statable message
saying of
the face. For intelligible meaning to emerge, the saying has to enter the realm
of the said; short of this, one experiences the expressivity of prediscursive

even ifnot in somany
speech, inwhich the ethical imperative is contained,
(When it isput into somany words, we have to do with the categorical

terms
imperative and other fully formulated imperatives.) What Schroeder
"the enigmatic paradox" refers to this ambiguous status of saying in the face
to face relation: we are summoned by theOther to be
responsible for that
words.
even to sacrifice and substitute ourselves for him or her, and yet this
summons
sentences. In fact,
being put intowell-formed
happens without the
is
this
the
Other
when
translation
the infinityof
occurs, even if
"betrayed"
Other,
this betrayal is (again in Schroeder's words) "necessary for the revelation of

the ethical imperative expressed in the face."12
The saying at stake here is epiphanous
inasmuch as it escorts in the
revelation of theOther that is not to be confused with the disclosure of that
Other.
"Disclosure"
intowhat Husserl
a
signifies the uncovering of phenomenon, bringing it
to
call "the brightly lit circle of pure presentation."
liked
It is part of theWestern obsession with illuminational models of truth, an

endorsement of the "clearing"
obsession still to be found in Heidegger's
rev
as the
in
which
of
the
truth
Being is disclosed. But in
place
(Lichtung)
we
a
an
witness
elation
literal epi-phenomenon,
appearing beyond appear
ance
itself, something other than being. This is the infinity of the Other.
"The epiphany of the face," writes Schroeder, "is the breaking forth of the
Infinite into the finite order of history" (116). This means that the Infinite,
or more
exactly, the idea of the Infinite, breaks up the totalities of the finite
In this breakup, in the epiphany of
of conceptual comprehension.
the saying face, is to be found the essence of the ethical, which can never be
reduced to the phenomenal order of interest or utility, of goods or services,
world
stated (said) commands or imperatives. The enigmatic paradox, restated

to include the
epiphanous face, is that "the infinite overflows the totality of
history and of thought and that the meaning

is ethical" (125).13
of this surplus or plenitude

: The Face
casey
toFace Encounter
89
In these two ways, then?by way of saying and of revelation?the

face
to face relation shows itself to be the appropriate locus of the ethical: where
else, asks L?vinas, can the infinityof theOther, thus his or her Goodness
(an
infinite property), emerge? Certainly not in any group or tradition, which
to a
level down Infinity to the finite and Goodness
given good. How else
can itbe made known except in the expressive face of this same Other, who
tome of my
not
responsibility (for example, in the basic imperative
speaks
not in the
tomurder him or her)?
utterances
clas
of
Certainly
apophantic
sicalethics,which telluswhatwe shouldfinallybe (typicallyin relationto
we should act in relation

some abstract ideal of
being good) instead of how
now
we
to
to a
encounter
whom
face
face. Ethics starts in this
specificOther,
no
not
encounter, and italso ends here: there is
largerplaying field,
landscape,
more
are
not
not society, not
history,
exactly, there certainly
ontology. Or,
such encompassing fields, but they are not the ones peculiarly pertinent to
the ethical. The playing field of ethics is here and now and always?in
the
moment
of encounter with theOther
call to us and a demand upon us.
in destitution and distress, making
It ismy contentionthat in thisdelimiteddomain of theethical,the
an
more so in any case than has
extremely important player, much
glance is
been previously recognized by previous ethicists. This includes L?vinas, who
is strangely silent on the specificmodalities of the face to face encounter and
who may have been motivated to overlook the significance of the glance in
of the notoriety that came to accrue to the "look" as a result of
Sartre s celebrated description of it inBeing and
Nothingness. Nevertheless, the
of
le
the
Medusas
head, is precisely
petrifying power
regard, exemplified by
sense
to
the
theWestern obsession with illumi
of vision L?vinas would link
the wake
nation and comprehension?that

is, the effort to bring things into the light
of day where they can be scrutinized with neutrality and objectivity. Just this
sense of
to the ethical relation, wherein we are
seeing is antithetical
enjoined
to grasp theOther in his or her
distress
and
and as a
also,
fragility
(though
function of this very need, as an uncompromisable obligation placed on us
towitness theOther).
The glance is something else again from the look. Unlike the look,which
freezes intimacy or overlooks it altogether, the glance iswell suited to the
close quarters of the face to face circumstance. It gains impressions and picks
up nuances in an especially skillful way. It can increase intimacy itself, as
when welcoming and seductive glances are exchanged directly between two
even short of this, and apart from
parties; but
alienating glances, the glance
can discern
on the
sort that are
signs of distress of the very
ethically relevant

THE PLURALIST
90
I : I 20 6
at the way inwhich my friend has dressed

paradigm. Glancing
in a semideliberately unattractive way, I read right away the self-effacement
she is feeling at her current lot in life.The distress isworn on her sleeve
Levinasian
a
to
quite literally,and itonly takes glance
apprehend and comprehend it all
at once. In fact, it is this very "all at once"
structure of the
temporal
glance
that renders it so valuable for grasping the face to face situation inwhich I
so often find
is right?that anxiety arises from the
myself. Even ifHeidegger
own
facelessness of one's
anxiety itself is seen all at once
nothingness?the
on my other friend's face as I see him
to articulate his
struggling
difficulty
with certain colleagues in a philosophy department.
most
Perhaps
important is the factor of surprise, which is part of the
game of glancing. It is not that I always glance in order to be surprised; but

whenever I do glance, I find myself surprised to some significant degree
we
to
(Casey, "World" 13-37). A glance,
surprise and
might say, is open
has a special sensitivity for it. I take things in at a glance not to understand
is better done by the never closing eye of social
things in their essence?this
or natural Science,
exhibiting the "overarching self-imposed sovereignty of
theorta (Schroeder 122)?but to follow out their incursions and immersions
in unexpected corners of theworld. In short, there is a spontaneous alliance
between the glance and the face to face encounter, an alliance evident in the
internal connection between revelation and surprise. As Schroeder remarks
in commenting on this connection, "Revelation [of theOther in the face to
face encounter] is always surprise, [something] non-thematizable and non
totalizable. . . .The non-violent rupture of the totalitywill be a moment of
surprise" (115,127).14The glance delivers surprise by piercing the pretenses and

samenesses and egoities,
dissevering the defenses of the identities and unities,
we
which
hide
ourselves
and
protect ourselves, from each
by
compulsively
other and from ourselves. It has a specifically disruptive power thatmakes
it an efficacious, vanguard force in the critique of totality (and thus of war
and violence, which always attend totality) that is the ultimate aim of the
book entitled Totality and Infinity.What better agent of detotalizing than
the glance, which cuts through cant and convention alike?
The subtitle of Levinas's masterwork is "An Essay on Exteriority." Here
as well, in the difficult realm of absolute
an active
separation, the glance is
am needed to grasp and maintain the alter

ally. For I, this lonely psychism,
to
of
the
the
Other
other, exterior tomy needs ifnot tomy
Other,
ity
keep
desire. As L?vinas puts it in Totality and Infinity, "it is in order that alterity
be produced in being that a 'thought' is needed and an I is needed" (cited in
Schroeder
122).15The
relation to theOther
comes
irreversibly from myself

casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
91
to thatOther, and not the other way around: I

to the Other as I
respond
me. In
see that other in need and thus
needing
effecting this response, the
across
not tomen
personal and social space,
glance is indispensable; cutting
tion prejudice and dogmatism, the glance reaches out to the needful alterity
of theOther. L?vinas puts it thisway:
termsdo not form a totality can hence be produced
within the general economy of being only as proceeding from the I
as
a distance in
to the other, as a
to
depth?that
delineating
face face,
to the distance
of conversation, of goodness, of Desire?irreducible
A relationwhose
[which] the synthetic activity of the understanding establishes between

thediverse terms,otherwith respect to one another, that lend themselves
to its synoptic operation. (Schroeder 122)16
So, too, the glance proceeds from me to you, delineating a distance in the
a
to
our relation,
depth of
being irreducible
anything like "synoptic gaze"
(L?vinas, Totality 53).
in his book Altared Ground, Brian
In the chapter entitled "DiaGround"
asks: "What are the ways in which plurality and multiplicity,
to face relations, keep
namely, the face
getting co-opted by the unities of
answer
One
is
that the foreclosure of the glance,
like
persons?" (125)
things
Schroeder
the failure to take in theOther with openness and surprise, and the suspen
sion of the glance s spontaneous deconstruction of doxa and hexis, "belief"
these cessations of the power of the glance, the unifying

and totalizing of heterogeneous multiplicity become dominant. And yet,
all it takes to reverse these seemingly ineluctable processes is a glance at,
or toward, or with, an Other with whom we are in close proximity, face to
and "habit"?with
face. Then
of what Sartre calls "detotalized totalities" arises,

the ontosclerosis of institutions and personal relations Sartre
the production
undermining
himself considers inevitable. All that has become all too solid dissolves?with
a mere
glance.
As Schroeder says: "Even if it is the case that the face to face relation is
a
not exterior
continually corrupted [insofar as] it is relation within being and
a
to it, there is
always possible surprise assessed beyond the reconceptualiza
tions of theOther" (127). Can it be that themost effective surprise ismade
hope
possibleby the leastobviousact?Does thisdemureact give surprising
to an otherwise
hopeless circumstance of neutralization and indifference?
Schroeder asks: "How can it be that hope is given, on the one hand, in the
slenderest and most distant projective terms, and on the other, experientially in
themost concrete and ordinary manner, namely, in the face to face relation?"

THE PLURALIST
92
I : I 20 6
(127) How can hope be given, indeed, ifnot by the glance, thatmost slender
of projective acts, occurring as it does in "the most concrete and ordinary
manner"? Is the true epiphany not thatwhich is realized by the glance?
Leading Questions
You will doubtlessbewonderingwhetherI havedoublyconfinedethics,first
to face encounter is the very scene of
by agreeing with L?vinas that the face
ethical conduct: the place where ethical dilemmas first arise and where, too,
am
are resolved (if
ever are resolved).
they
they
taking
Following L?vinas, I
the face to face situation as the very seat of morality, the site of Sittlichkeit.
I am proposing one further apparent confinement: that this scene of
the ethical occurs concretely and specifically in and through the glance, con
strued as the gestural basis of moral interaction, the bodily linguafranca of
ethical interchange. Beyond spontaneous speech as the expressive vehicle of
And
demand upon me, there is a second form of expression, this one

not less effective and no less articulate in itsown
altogether prediscursive yet
a
is
with
allied
way. Language
theory, i.e., spectatorial viewing (a theoros is
theOthers
person who observes spectacles in nearby cities). Stopping short of propo

sitional language, the glance has nothing of the studied look, the patient
on
observation, so prized inWestern
theorizing, which prides itself
being
as
is already emphasized
independent of practice, including ethical practice,
by Aristotle. The glance itself is altogether part of practice?so much so, so

immersed in it, thatwe rarely pause to notice its importance; and it is part
of ethical practice in particular, again a much more important part than has
been previously recognized. The importance is found in its role as the con
veyor of ethical intentions, as the purveyor of ethical discourse, and as the

watchful surveyor of the ethical scene. By simply glancing at the other s face,
we detect what he or she is about to do, both in terms of express aims or tacit
wishes; and by exchanging significant glances, we display our own intentions
in such a way as to engage the other before, or under, or through explicit
verbal exchanges. The entire face to face encounter is tessellated with glances,
tracked and traced by them. If the face to face encounter is as indispensable
to ethics as L?vinas claims it is?and as Schroeder also assures us it is, here
versus
as
skeptics such Merleau-Ponty, Derrida,
allying himself with L?vinas
itbehooves us to own up to the dense fabric
and Delueze and Guattari?then
of glances fromwhich it is composed and by which it is sustained.
The encounter in the agora, supposedly the scene of themost highly theo
retical endeavor, was also a scene inwhich glances were transmitted. People

casey
: The Face
toFace Encounter
93
were then face to face, often

by chance (as Aristotle explicitly mentions in
his discussion of tuch? in his Physics), and spoke about matters of ethics and
politics. Yet this public space, paradigmatic for constructive discourse about
thesematters (as emphasized byHannah Arendt), was riven by glances as well
as
two
by words?the
together intertwined inways that added depth and
to the bones of abstract

to the encounter,
subtlety
giving flesh
thinking. And
if it is true (as Derrida claims) that "all the classical thoughts interrogated by
L?vinas are drawn toward the agora"17 so the face to face encounter always
draws us toward a comparable scene of active engagement inwhich glancing

is as crucial as speaking, the two together co-constituting the place where the
ethical happens.
If thisis so,my firstquestion toBrian Schroeder

would be this:does he
agree that the face to face encounter as set forth by L?vinas calls for supple
mentation of the sort forwhich I have here been arguing? (Where I am using
the concept of "supplement" inDerrida's own sense of being not just an ad
dition but something necessary to the very matter one is supplementing.)
From here, I have a series of other questions to pose, which are directed
at once to Schroeder and to L?vinas:
. Does
ethical obligation obtain toward the nonhuman realm (i.e.,

animals and treesand mountains)? This is a realm I know Schroeder
is deeply concerned about, with his longstanding interest in envi
ronmental matters. If the face to face is indeed the sine qua non of
ethical life,and if it is exclusively between human beings, how shall

we
our
we do not encounter face
regard
responsibility toward those
to face? (My own suspicion is that, precisely in the absence of dou
bly articulated language, the significance of glancing becomes only
more
as concerns theworld of animals and
heightened, particularly
as
perhaps the inanimate well.)
2. Does ethical responsibility entail the renunciation of political power?
Schroeder cites L?vinas: "What is thisoriginal trace, thisprimordial
desolation? It is the nakedness of a face that faces, expressing itself,
interruptingorder [including political order]," then comments, "The
ethical power or resistance that is conveyed through the face ispara
doxically the absolute renunciation of power in the political (broadly
construed) sense of domination of theOther" (116). Schroeder gives
as a reason for thisdiremption between the ethical and the
political
the lack of mediation in the former: "There is no sense of media
tion in ethical intersubjectivity, though there is [mediation] in all
democratic political and legal relations" (121).18Here Iwould only
askwhether such an absolute difference between the ethical and the

THE PLURALIST
I : I 20 6
or is in fact the case.

political is reallynecessary,
Certainly, ifpolitics
it is always the politics of The Prince?then
entails domination?if
one would hope that the ethical points in quite a different direc
tion. But if it only calls for a more extensive mediation than does
the ethical, one might hope that the ethical and the political were
ultimately conterminous and cooperative. Put otherwise: is not the
face to face alreadymediated to a significantdegree such that itdoes
not constitute an entirely closed domain? Does not the presence
of speech therein already introduce mediation in the verymidst of
desire and goodness? Indeed, does not the face itself (including its
as is im
glancing powers) importmediation in the form of history,
statement fromAltared Ground: "As a historical entity,
in
this
plied
theOther is present to consciousness via the face; but as the trace
of the transhistorical Infinite, of the absolutely other, the Other

conveys the invisible passivity of ethical obligation" (120).19 Here
mediation isbrought into the face to face encounter, and yet, by the
same stroke, excluded once again within that same encounter. Can
we have itboth ways?
We have just been brought to history, about which Schroeder poses
s
a
at the
pointed question
beginning of his book: "Does L?vinas
.
.
.
.
.
.
as theOther
not mean
conception of the absolutely other
that everymetaphysical category is totally abstract and non-actual
a
including, above all, the category of the infinite? [Such question]
indict[s] L?vinas of a certain, ifnot radical, a- or even non-historicity
of thought" (18).Derrida, in "Violence etm?taphysique," isdeeply

worried about this, too: "It is evident thatL?vinas thus describes his
toryas blindness to the other and laborious procession of the same.
One could ask oneself ifhistory can be history, if there is a history,
when negativity is confined to the circle of the same . . . [and] if
commence with this relation to the other
history itselfdoes not
which L?vinas posits beyond history."20My question here is closely
related tomy earlier concern with the problem of two tyrannies: If
the same is indeed closed off from history (or the political), will it
not only sufferfrom abstraction and seclusion (and thus ineffective
ness), but will itnot also become despotic in itsown domain? To be
without history isnot only to be powerless inhistory; it is to garner,
a
surreptitiously, spurious but dangerous power that is self-aggran
and
self-fulfilling,that says, in effect, "whatever historymay
dizing
to be the case, I know this to be
right."Granting that histori
judge
cal judgment must always come after the fact?the historian is the
"survivor," as L?vinas says in Totality and Infinity (220-47)?does
thismean that the face to face encounter ishistoryless?Does itnot
in some significant
have to contain?indeed,
engender?history

casey
: The Face toFace Encounter
senseifitis indeedthepivotof theethicallife?Isnot thislifea life
in a concrete life-world,hence a world with itsown history, albeit

one quite different from national orworld history of the sort about
which L?vinas is justly suspicious? Recalling Derrida s claim that,
forL?vinas, "the infinitepassage through violence is called history"
(Violence 130), I am moved to ask: is there not another sense of his
tory than that of violence?

4. Speaking of violence, I want to return to Schroeder a question he
asks of L?vinas midway throughAltared Ground: "But does L?vinas
constitute a violence towards the very alterity he seeks to preserve
in that he places the signification of otherness beyond history and
thereforede-existentializes the sufferingand oppression of theOther?

the opposition of ethics and history,ofmetaphysics and ontol
. . . ethical
ogy, of infinityand totality,negate
praxis itself?" (116) In
otherwords, has L?vinas s commitment to the face to face,which is
Does
the situs of the firstmembers of each of the dyads justmentioned,

a
estranged him permanently from model of effectiveaction in the
world? Certainly so, if theface ?face ishermetically sealed from the
uncomfortable intrusions of theworld; certainly not, if it is not so
sealed but brings those intrusions into thepurview of the same. That
the latter is the case is suggested by the fact thatL?vinas starts from
the undeniable facticityof sufferingand distress?from destitution?
as the firstmoment of the ethical. But are the latermoments?those
of the demand for justice, the invocation of goodness, the call to
substitute oneself for the other?shielded from the harsh realities of

history and politics? Do they signify retreat intowhat Derrida calls
(with a slightlydifferent inflection) "a pure non-violence"21?
5. Finally, and to come full cycle in these remarks,we need to return to
thequestion ofground. How shallwe, how canwe, use this termafter
so
thoroughly deconstructed it?Does
Heidegger and Derrida have
L?vinas allow us to hazard itagain, this time on a differentbasis? Such
would seem to be at least a tacit claim throughoutAltared Ground, a
titlewhose punning character ishere especially pertinent. Is the face
or
to face a
to
groundless ground for ethics?for ethics
begin again,
recover
on
to
it
the
rather
which
has always stood?
abyssal ground
Twice, at least, Schroeder points in this direction: once, when he
an "an-archic
as
speaks of
past"?that is, "revealed thenon-grounding
of
is
ethical
This
the
(123).
past that is revealed
ground
signification"
never a present,
to
was
trace
the
the
face:
the
that
past
by
belonging
thus never a ground for itspresent recollection.Then, when he states
that "the enigmatic ground' of the ethical relationship, ofmeaning
itself, is paradoxically, the absence of all grounds" (147), the scare
quotes associated with the firstuse of "ground" in this sentence are

95
THE PLURALIST
96
I : I 20 6
one and the same

telling: theword is affirmed,yet also retracted, in
This
would
that
every timewe look
suggest
typographical gesture.
into the source of ground, what grounds ground itself,we find an
or the uncanny (as
abyss (as Derrida would say)
Heidegger would
one
in
is
which
is
That
altered/altared, changed/
way
put it).
ground
honored. But there is another way, one suggested by the chapter
titles of Altared Ground, which proliferate grounds: BackGround,

and the
IdeoGround, WarGround, TransGround, MiddleGround,
like.Here, ground isungrounded differently:by a sheer proliferation
of grounding terms, showing that ground itself isno single thing, as
if to say that ground is not somuch abyssal or uncanny as it is self
to a
heterogeneous multiplicity that defies
engendering, giving rise
and
This way lies the smooth space
closure
unification.
ontological
of A Thousand Plateaus, with its rhizomatic root system: another
degrounded ground.
textAltared Ground, we are
By the end of the elegant and extraordinary
the pit or into the rhizome,
leftwondering: which way are we to go?into
and will we be able to take L?vinas with us?Where does the face to face en
can say,
just glancing at it?Or will the glance
take us out of the pit and beyond the rootstalk into the plant that exfoliates
that characterize the
above the ground, in theHelioSpace
and HyperPlace
counter take us, after all?Who
face to face encounter and its ethical bearing?
NOTES
. Italics in the
original.
2.On apprehensionvs. comprehension in itsoriginally
Hegelian acceptation, seeHegel
12.
are sketched
sect. 90. The ethical
in Schroeder
of this distinction
implications
other is other with an alterity that is not formal,
3. L?vinas writes, "The metaphysical
isnot the simple reverseof identity,and isnot formedout of resistanceto the same,but
isprior to every initiative,to all imperialismof the same" (Totality38-39).
With his usual acumen, Schroeder spellsout thissame paradox
4. Italics in theoriginal.
by simultaneouslyaffirming"both the concretepersonal nature of the face to face and
the absolute distance or separation thatremainsbetween the selfand Other" (96; italics
in theoriginal).
5.L?vinas writes: "Ontology as firstphilosophy is a philosophy of power. It issues
from theState and in thenon-violence of the totality
without securing itselfagainst the
violence fromwhich thisnon-violence lives,and which appears in the tyrannyof the
State" (Totality46, cited in Schroeder 97).
6. Compare
with Casey
46-73.
7. Italicsadded.
8. "Blink of the instant"is in italics in theoriginal.
9. Itwas perhaps in recognitionof thedanger of construingtheface to face relationas

casey
: 77?^Face
a matter
of pure presence
toFace Encounter
that L?vinas
97
the idea of "trace"
introduced
into its constitution
comparewith L?vinas "Trace."

shortlyafterthepublication of Totalityand Infinity-,
io. This
s
is L?vinas
phrase.
see L?vinas Otherwise
this spiraling movement,
44.
12. Italics in the
speaks of "enigmatic
paradox"
original. Schroeder
l?. On
(112).

which paradoxicallyarisesfrom the
14.Schroeder speaksof "the surpriseof exteriority
interioritythat theface signifiesat the traceof the Infinite"(13). Italics in theoriginal.
17. Derrida
vers
Xagorai
145: "Toutes
les pens?es
interrog?es par L?vinas
classiques
sont ainsi tra?n?es
18. Italics in the original. Schroeder also remarks:"There appears to be an internal

of ethical transcendenceand the refusalof histori
contradictionbetween theaffirmation
to categorizationby thought;theOther
calmediation. The Other isnot only refractory
is also
'flesh', to borrow Merleau-Ponty
s term. Does
of mediation
the denial
as a
path
to the 'royalroad of ethics' [Derrida] render the problems of injustice, suffering,and

murdermeaningless?" (117)
21. "Violence" 146-7: "Pure violence, a relationshipbetween beingswithout faces, is
not yet violence, ispure nonviolence.And inversely:pure nonviolence, thenonrelation
of the same to the other (in the sense understood by L?vinas) ispure violence.Only a
face can arrestviolence, but can do so, in thefirstplace, only because a face can provoke
it."
REFERENCES
Casey, Edward. "TheTime of theGlance." Becomings.Ed. ElizabethGrosz. Ithaca,N.Y.:
Cornell
-.
SUNY
Derrida,
-.
UP,
2000.
46-73.
at a Glance."
"World
Chiasms.
Fred Evans
Ed.
and Leonard
Lawlor.
, 1999.13-37
Jacques.
Speech
UP, 1973?
"Violence
and Phenomena.
and Metaphysics."
Trans.
Writing
D. Allison.
Evanston,
and Difference.
Trans.
Albany:
IL: Northwestern
A.
Bass.
Chicago:
U ofChicago P, 1978.
William. Light inAugust.New York:Mod. Lib., 1959.
Faulkner,
Hegel, G. W. F. PhenomenologyofSpirit.Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977.
-.
-.
-.
L?vinas,
Emmanuel.
Existence
and Existents.
Trans.
A.
Lingis.
The
Hague:
Nijhof,
1978.
Otherwise thanBeing.Trans.A. Lingis.The Hague: Nijhof, 1981.

Trans.A. Lingis. Pittsburgh:Duquesne UP, 1969.
Totalityand Infinity.
"The Trace of theOther." 1964.CollectedPhilosophicalPapers.Trans.A. Lingis.
The Hague: Nijhof, 1987.

Sartre,Jean-Paul.Being andNothingness:An Essay inPhenomenologicalOntology.Trans.
H. Barnes.New York: Citadel P, 1964.
Schroeder,Brian.AltaredGround: L?vinas,History,and Violence.New York: Roudedge,
1996.


8 Levinas

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

8 Levinas

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

The Ethics of the Face to Face Encounter: Schroeder, Levinas, and the Glance

Author(s): EDWARD S. CASEY

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20708851 .

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

The Ethics of the Face to Face Encounter:

Stony Brook University

L?vinas, Totalit? et infini

The world isnot so profane as to refuseadmission to the

that I am any less prone to pay homage to it.On

but this does not mean

say a few words by way of introduction about Altared Ground

violence, such as war, to ethics: that is, towhat should happen

This singularbook puts a numberof leadingfiguresinphilosophyinto

conversation with each other?and

with the author himself, who manages

Volume 1,Number 1 Spring2006 :pp. 74-97

by theBoard ofTrustees of theUniversityof Illinois

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

to create a true theatricum

as serious kibitzers, with

the inculcationof justice;theplace of religionafter

isproposed isan interrogation into the relation between the

ity,the determination of the origin of ethics, and thus the possibility

(by implicationand sometimesexpressly)

reason found inAristotle's Nichomachean Ethics or inKant's

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

which philosophy finds renewed inspiration beyond deconstructionist

ethical lifepivots on this pristine perception of distress is rarely discussed by

not to be confused with the "comprehension" that being

that it is one thing to observe a situation of distress, but quite

my beginning ismy end."

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

paren tlyexiguous character is capable of bearing ethical matters on its slender

we let our look flit across the surfaces of

thinkers conjoin in regarding the present moment as nonpunctiform, as open

is itsvery advantage. For it is inmerely

notice: I have grasped human frailtyand mortality, mine as well as my fellow

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

in advance, ones that do not have a

quarrel: something about the intensity of the interaction betokened this.And

cross the street,walk

is exactly what hap

was not heroism on my

Of course, glances dont always work to constructive effect.They can be

it can be both at once, as occurs when a glance takes in

form of action. And

A lastvariation occurs when the glance isused to detect what ishappening

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

of her friend s unhappiness. A single glance, one thatwas itselfunreturned,

Even given such instances?and

of planiform probability, projections of what certain

wish tobe thecase forallhumanbeings?but by

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

only) to the leveled-down categories of history, sociology,

lack of ultimate foundation, ones thrownness into theworld

substantives. It takes them to be coordinated,

but also independent" (cited

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:49 AM

sents some sort of compromise

thewelcomingof theOther by the self,isonly accomplishedthroughthe

recognition and maintenance

of subjectand object" (97).

of the radical disjunction