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INFINITY Before we return to the subject of the face, we are at this point drawn to look more closely at the subject of infinity and itsjuxtaposition with the idea of totality in Levinas's central work Totality and Infinity. I have thus far purposely avoided using the word lIinfinity." We have come to understand that the problem of totality, the problem bequeathed by Rosenzweig to Levinas and that both thinkers identified as the problem par excellence of Western thinking from Parmenides to Heidegger, is none other than our inability to respond to the face of another. On the contrary , the thrust of Western thought is to see, pre-eminently, the reflection of ourselves in the face of another. What we have called being-in-general, or the flow of being, is to be distinguished from abeing, our being, by consciousness. The meaning of that consciousness is located in its ability to see another who interrupts its solitude with a glance. In this glance, in the face of another, we recognize, if only fleetingly, what Levinas calls a "trace." The trace is a memory of being-in-general, of the infinite. It is a memory of a past we cannot have experienced, for "we" can only exist as creatures separate from the infinite. Nevertheless, we recognize the infinite, recall it. The other person and the infinite Other that is never present for us reveal themselves together in the human face. There is, thus, in every meeting between two people, a third person: a trace ofthe Infinite, a memory of an always absent past. The other person and the Other face me together. They face no one else at that moment. Be it in a smile, a sigh, or a tear, they open themselves to me, and I cannot in conscience turn away-I am chosen at that moment. Like it or not, I must respond. The nature of that response will occupy us next. 16 ...

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