Aspects of Alterity: Levinas, Marcel, and the Contemporary Debate

6. The Other and God

6 The Other and God One of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another , and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, ‘‘Which commandment is the first of all?’’ Jesus answered, ‘‘The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’’ Mark 12:28–32 Assurance of resolution is always the covert reason for paradox: in a certain way we are always confident of the unity of what we break up as we conceive of it. Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature The preceding chapters have portrayed Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel as two philosophers who share a similar vocation, although it is a vocation that manifests itself in dissimilar—even contradictory—ways in their respective philosophies. This shared vocation reveals itself in the emphasis, common to both thinkers, placed on the other. However, in spite of this common inspiration, significant discrepancies remain. If one examines the intractable differences between Marcel and Levinas, it quickly becomes apparent that these issues all derive from divergent conceptions of otherness. 150 Of course, differences also arise from other sources, such as those stemming from their dissimilar approaches—respectively transcendental and concrete—to philosophy. Nevertheless, the impasse between Marcel and Levinas can, without oversimplification, be addressed in terms of the way in which each thinker characterizes otherness. Obviously, the nature of the other’s alterity dictates the kind of relationships possible with the other. The kinds of relationships possible with an other who is absolutely other are different than the kinds of relationships possible with an other whose alterity is less-than-absolute. Furthermore, the way in which one conceives of otherness plays a significant role in determining which relationships have, or ought to have, precedence over others; it helps us to form a hierarchy of relationships and responsibilities. For example, Levinas’s insistence on absolute otherness leads, in ethical terms, to a concern for maintaining the alterity of the other and, thus, to an emphasis on justice. In contrast, Marcel’s view of otherness as relative leads to a hope for communion with the other and, thus, to an emphasis on love.1 We should begin by addressing alterity in terms of intersubjectivity . Is the autrui, the other person here before me, ‘‘l’absolument Autre’’; or is he rather an ‘‘alter ego,’’ an other like me but with his own ‘‘center’’? One might be tempted to minimize the importance of this question based, for example, on the practical similarity of the two positions. It is not at all clear that the actual ethical conduct of a ‘‘Levinasian’’ and a ‘‘Marcelian’’ would be substantially different; therefore, reconciliation might still be possible in ‘‘pragmatic’’ terms. In addition, the claims of both Marcel and Levinas seem to have been moderated by the dialogue between their respective positions in chapters 4 and 5, which address the concerns of each thinker and the criticisms each could (or did) level against the other. Chapter 4 located a sense of absolute otherness in Marcel in the emphasis on the other as his or her own ‘‘center,’’ and chapter 5 made a concomitant attempt to locate a sense of reciprocity in Levinas by discussing the sense in which my other (autrui) is himself part of a web of responsibility in which he is also responsible for other others (the third) and, perhaps, for me. Nevertheless, if the previous chapters have given us hope for a kind of philosophical détente, they also illustrate how persistently the differences between Marcel and Levinas reappear, frustrating full reconciliation. Pragmatic correspondence and partial reconciliations notwithstanding, Marcel and Levinas remain incompatible on a funThe Other and God 151 damental level. The extent to which these philosophies resist full harmonization is directly related to the way that each philosopher conceives of otherness and the degree to which these conceptions are incompatible. It is precisely the different conceptions of otherness— and, correspondingly, the possibilities for relating to others—that form the barrier that prevents a full reconciliation between these two thinkers. Ultimately, any attempt to deal with Levinas and Marcel must come to terms with the underlying difference...