Inessential Solidarity: Rhetoric and Foreigner Relations (review)

Diane Davis would have us believe that "The condition for ontology, for epistemology, for ethics and politics . . . is rhetoric, as the limitless and underivable imperative to respond, which is irreducible to any principle or norm" (121). She makes her case primarily with the help of Emmanuel Levinas's philosophy of "the Other" (Autrui). Her reading of Levinas is advanced as she brings into the discussion such influential philosophers and critics as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Avital Ronell, Kenneth Burke, and Maurice Blanchot. Professor Davis is a well-read intellectual and an exceptionally talented writer. Inessential Solidarity is an outstanding piece of scholarship, a fine read, and controversial, too.

Davis writes for an audience that is already somewhat knowledgeable about Levinasian thought; that is, they at least have some understanding and appreciation of the traditions of continental philosophy and Judaism that inform and are challenged by Levinas's philosophy and its often complex and cryptic discourse. So, for example, reading and understanding Levinas without knowing some basic positions set forth in Heidegger's Being and Time, is, I submit, impossible. Levinas without Heidegger makes no sense. Levinas admits as much: "who undertakes to philosophize [today] cannot not have gone through Heidegger's philosophy, even to escape it. This thought is a great event of our century" (Ethics and Infinity, trans. Richard A. Cohen, Duquesne University Press, 1985, 42). But Heidegger without Levinas is dangerous. Unlike Levinas, Heidegger fails to develop an extensive appreciation of the ethical and moral issues that arise in light of our necessary relationship with others. This deficiency in Heidegger is the sine qua non of much of Levinas's work. Davis has a good deal to say about the matter, for her book is meant to convince readers that (1) Levinas's philosophy is the way to go if we want to be as open as possible to the needs of others as we build interpersonal relationships with them, and (2) following Levinas's understanding of the fundamental ethical and moral relationship that we have with the other, we can discover how a "primordial rhetoric" is at work in our social and political lives, thereby acknowledging the ontological and ethical significance of this "practical" art. I agree with both of these claims, for I have advanced a version of them throughout my work on three related phenomena: the call of conscience, the life-giving gift of acknowledgment, and human being's perfectionist impulse. With Davis, however, I have a passionate and much admired teacher and colleague who is more committed to Levinas than I am.

Davis deals with the matter in both her kind praise and welcomed critical response to certain aspects of my work. The criticism is essentially this: People like Hyde, who seek some philosophical guidance from Heidegger, are too often too quick to apply his observations to everyday practical rhetorical situations, thereby missing or not treating seriously enough Levinas's highly nuanced analysis of the "otherness" in our lives. I must admit that in a more appropriate venue, I would strongly declare my innocence and offer a rebuttal, too. But that is not the point of this review. Davis's work is robust with insights that bring clarity to Levinas's project. As she indicates in her introduction, she wants us to think about what she believes Levinas would praise: "a rhetoric of responsibility."

Davis discusses the nature of such a rhetoric as she turns to Levinas for guidance in investigating the topics of identification, figuration, hermeneutics, agency, and judgment. The discussion of these topics is superb. Along the way we are shown that even though Levinas lacks a full appreciation of the scope and function of rhetoric, he nevertheless proves invaluable for understanding the origins and natures of the rhetorical situations in which we find ourselves every day. In her chapter on hermeneutics, Davis makes her point by critically assessing the work of influential rhetorical theorist and critic Steven Mailloux. Davis admires Mailloux's project...