The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas

2. Original Plurality: The Terms of Discourse

Original Plurality: The Terms of Discourse IN OUR OPENING CHAPTER we argued that the traditional notion of dialogue as zyxwvuts din-logos fails to help us make progress in understanding the conditions of possibility for interparadigmatic dialogue insofar as (1) in those situations that we are claiming are qualified by interparadigmaticity, the common logos that would be called upon to mediate the difference between interlocutors is precisely that which is in question, that which defines the difference so encountered, such that we are left with appealing to that which is precisely in question, and, thus,with a vicious circle; zyxw (2) in presupposing the commonality it is precisely the role of such a dialogue to locate, dialogueas din-logos eliminates itsown possibility /necessity; (3) this model precludes a priori the possibility of any genuine alterity, thus violently reducing to the same any alterity with which it would appear to be the task of dialogue to open and sustain relations. We shall argue that in providing us with an accountof the possibility of a dialogue that begins not with commonality (that presupposed by the tradition), but with original difference, that is, with a nonintegratable plurality, Levinas gives us a model for understanding dialogue that responds precisely to the exigencieswe encounter in the challenge of interparadigmatic dialogue, that is, when we arechallenged to engenderadialoguewherethe commonality the tradition presupposes is precisely that which is in question. So (recalling our argument in the introduction of chapter 1 that dialogue requires both a commonality, a shared logos, that would makedicc-logos possible, and a difference between interlocutors that would make the relation, as a relation, necessaly ) zyxwvuts ,if the problem for the tradition is in explaining thepossibility of an effective difference (sufficient to warrant thenecessity of dialogue) given an original identity (an original identity that, as 58 THE IDEA OF DISCOURSE zyxwvu we have seen in the opening chapter, Levinas argues erodes the differencerequisiteforagenuinedialogue,that is, adialogue that would not be the integrative unfolding of an a priori logic but a meeting of terms in difference), the problem for Levinas would appearto be in describing the possibility of a relation (and a relation capable of yielding the commonality requisite to dialogue ) from out of an original (and, as it will turn out according to Levinas, irreducible) difference. Such a relation Levinas will call discourse. Inthis chapter and the next, which are of apiece, we shall present Levinas’s idea of discourse, as this idea is proposed in the pages ofzyxwvuts Totality and Infinity, as providing us with a description of the conditions of possibility for interparadigmatic dialogue, that is, for engendering a dialogue in those situations where the common logos that would mediate a diu-logos cannot be effectively located , and thus cannot performits mediatory function.We shall, following Levinas’sown definitions, define discourseas “an original , non-allergic, ethical relationship with alterity productive of a meaning capable of founding communal meaning,”’ and our exposition will follow the elements of this definition in dealing with, in this chapter, the way in which the separated terms requisitefordiscourse (therelation as “non-allergic”)(2.1)are,for Levinas, evinced, first, in the ethical separation (transcendence) of the other from the same and from the system that, as the same, it operates (2.11), and, secondly,in the separation of the same from any system of totality (2.111) zyxwv ,and then, in the next chapter, how the existence of these distinct and separated terms opens up the possibility fordiscourse as an “original,” “ethical” relation (3.1),how, from outof this relation, the common logos (required for diu-logos) is produced (3.11), and how the possibility of dialogue as diu-logosis therefore, and remains, rooted in the original relation of discourse (3.111). That is, we shall argue over the course of the nexttwo chapters a central thesis, namely, that the condition of possibility of dialogue (and interparadigmatic dialogue in particular) is “discourse ” conceived of as a unilateral, ethical responsibilityof theone -for-the-other. We shall argue, following Levinas, that what is required, if interparadigmatic dialogue is to be possible, is not that we be, as the philosophical tradition requires, “more clever” ORIGINAL PLURALITY: THE TERMS OF DISCOURSE zyxw 59 (that is, more consistently “rational,” more attentive to the zyxw logos), but “more good” (that is, ethically “better,” more attentive to, indeed, in the service of, the other). Interparadigmatic dialogue opens itself up as a possibility, then...