Agape and Hesed-Ahava. David L. Goicoechea

criticized by

      Levinas for four reasons: (1) it is reciprocal (2) it is a private

      relation between two (3) it is a reality that can change into its opposite

      and (4) it makes ethics depend upon theory so it is not first philosophy.

      The four characteristics that make the I-thou relation different

      from the I-it relation are each critically destructed by Levinas.

      Buber’s mutual, exclusive, direct and present I-thou relation

      is not at all like the ethical responsibility of Levinas for the

      face of the other who teaches me his paradoxical destitute-height

      demands of me to give to him and others the bread out of my mouth.

      Derrida mentions Buber on page 105 of his essay and shows

      how Levinas is opposed to Buber because Buber has his

      intimate reciprocity and does not start with any ethical relation.

      Derrida is doing a very careful reading of Levinas looking

      at him from many angels and helping his readers read Levinas.

      Derrida takes up Levinas’ thinking about the face of the other

      which calls me before I think and by page 108 he is thinking

      the face of God or the face of Yahweh who is never named in

      Totality and Infinity and Derrida discusses the face of Yahweh

      that is hidden from Moses and quoting Jabes on page 109

      Derrida wonders what Levinas would think:

      “All faces are His; this is why He has no face.”

      Buber’s I-thou always reveals the eternal Thou but

      Levinas’ infinite face of the other does not reveal the Face of God.

      So are there some insights of Buber that might help us in

      questioning Levinas as Derrida seems to be questioning him?

      Levinas with his destruction of metaphysics which is like

      Heidegger’s leads Derrida’s to a deconstructive reading

      instead which comes out of Derrida’s aporetic first ethics which

      does not simply treat Buber as right or wrong but lets Buber

      by way of Jabes help us with a better reading of Levinas.

      II,2.4 And Levinas’ Deconstruction of Husserl’s Phenomenology

      As Derrida treats Levinas’ use of Husserl’s phenomenology

      he primarily concentrates on three main points: (1) It is

      a theory of consciousness which sees all consciousness as being

      intentional. (2) It is an attitude of respect for the concrete.

      (3) It is a method of description. Husserl’s first philosophy

      was to go to the things themselves and to describe them in their

      great variety of relationships with the sciences and philosophy.

      Husserl saw all consciousness as consciousness of something.

      As Levinas used phenomenology to develop his ethics as first

      philosophy he saw consciousness not as intending an object

      but rather as being intended by a subject whose face is

      calling out to me and teaching me of the one who needs my care.

      In the Preface to Totality and Infinity Levinas writes on page 27:

      This book will present subjectivity

      as welcoming the Other, as hospitality;

      in it the idea of infinity is consummated.

      Hence intentionality, where thought remains

      an adequation with the object, does not

      define consciousness at is fundamental level.

      All knowing qua intentionality

      already presupposes the idea of infinity,

      which is preeminently non-adequation.

      Derrida discusses Levinas’ critique of Husserl and on page 87

      of Violence and Metaphysics writes:

       In his critique of Husserl,

      Levinas retains two Heideggerian themes . . .

      Husserl perhaps was wrong to see

      in this concrete world,

      a world of perceived objects, after all.

      As we will now see in looking at Derrida’s treatment of Levinas

      on Husserl and Heidegger Derrida will try to be non-violent.

      II,2,5 And Levinas’ Deconstruction of the Heidegger’s Ontology

      Derrida develops his practice of deconstruction out of

      Heidegger’s practice of the destruction of metaphysics that enabled

      him to move from Husserl’s phenomenology to his hermeneutical way.

      In Being and Time Heidegger did a hermeneutical phenomenology

      of the existential in order to develop his ontological way of thinking.

      Heidegger made a fresh start as he identified the metaphysical

      preconceptions that underlay Husserl’s theory of consciousness.

      Heidegger thought that words such as “consciousness”, “subject”

      or “substance” are the results of metaphysical theories which

      keep us from really getting to the phenomena of human being.

      Thus Heidegger had to destroy the history of metaphysics

      in order to get a view of human being or Dasein and thus

      on page 41 of Being and Time he writes:

      The thing-in-being whose analysis

      is our task is we ourselves.

      The being of this thing-in-being

      is each one’s “mine” (je mines)

      This jemeinigkeit or Ipseity helps Levinas move toward

      the me who is responsible to the face of the other and Heidegger

      also moves towards ethics as he analyses Dasein in his or her

      mood-discourse-understanding for we can be in the world

      inauthentically in ambiguity, idle talk or curiosity or we

      can become authentic and have a proper care for being itself.

      Heidegger did develop a philosophy of responsibility and saw

      man as the shepherd of Being and thought of thinking as thanking

      with a sort of Nietzschean affirmation Heidegger thought that

      we should be grateful for all that is and that is responsibility.

      So Derrida points out how Heidegger moved beyond Husserl

      toward and ethical viewpoint, but Levinas must still move

      beyond Heidegger to develop a philosophy of love for

      others who call me from desire to possess to desire to serve.

      II,2.6 And Levinas Destruction of Plato’s Metaphysics

      The