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The Mystery of Death Alterity and Affectivity in Levinas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Michael Purcell
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In years gone by, November was the month most closely associated with death. The month, which Ted Hughes appropriately describes as the ‘month of the drowned dog’, opened, having remembered All Saints, with the Commemoration of All Souls, the black draped catafalque in the aisle, the three Masses, and a hymnody recalling death’s pains and anguishes. Think of the words of the popular hymn, O turn to Jesus, Mother, turn, in which it was recalled that those who died,

      ... have fought a gallant fight;
      In death’s cold aims they persevered;
      and, after life’s uncheery night.
      The arbour of their rest is neared.

Death was cold; death was pain and loss; sickness unto death was struggle.

Now, it seems, we have possessed death, we have brought it close and made it our own, not to be feared and fled from, but friendly and familiar. The theology of death has come of age and now faces death with that anticipatory resoluteness of which Heidegger speaks. Thanatology speaks the language of ontology. Subjectivity, formerly snuffed out in death, now appropriates, as integral to its own life, death, and reasserts its mastery. Mature in Christian faith, we have authentically managed to appropriate what otherwise we would rather forget. What I would like to suggest in this article is that this repatriation of death into life, rather than yielding death’s meaning, actually leads to a situation in which, as Blanchot says, we have lost death, and obscured its significance.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 76 , Issue 899 , December 1995 , pp. 524 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Maurice Blanchot writes in his essay. The Great Refusal, (The Infinite Conversation, 5 Hanson, (tr.). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993Google Scholar; originally published as L'Entretien Infini, Gallimard, Paris, 1969) ‘We have lost death.’(p.34) Referring to the ‘already decomposing remains of Lazarus’, Blanchot notes that the confrontation of Lazarus in death by 'he who… is able to name it, “comprehend” it, and by this understanding, pronounce the Lazare veniforas‘ (p. 35) is a confrontation in which death is deprived of its true significance. In an implicit criticism of Heidegger, Blanchot writes that the restoration of Lazarus is ’death comprehended, deprived of itself, become pure privative essence, pure negation;‘ (p.36) it is a ’death that… affirms itself as a power of being, and as that through which everything is determined, everything unfolds as a possibility.‘ (p.36). But, then, he goes on to ask, ’But how can one not sense that in this veritable death, the death without truth has entirely slipped away: what in death is irreducible to the true, to all disclosure, what never reveals itself, hides, or appears?' (p.36)

2 Heidegger writes, ‘If “death” is defined as the ’end' of Dasein – that is to say, of Being–in–the–world – this does not imply any ontical decision whether ‘after death’ still another Being is possible, either higher or lower, or whether Dasein ‘lives on’ or even ‘outlasts’ itself and is ‘immortal.’ (Heidegger, M, Being and Time, McQuarrie, J & Robinson, E (trs.), Harper and Row, New York, p.292Google Scholar; hereafter, BT)

3 ibid., p. 286.

4 ibid., para. 52.

5 ibid., p.299.

6 ibid., p.300

7 ibid., p.299.

8 ibid., p.301; 'Man. sagt: es ist gewiss, doss “der” Tod kommt.'

9 loc. cit.

10 ibid, p 302.

11 ibid.p.303.

12 Cohen, R, Time in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Ph.D. Dissertation, State University of New York, 1979, p. 128Google Scholar.

13 M. Heidegger, op. cit., p.284.

14 Manning, R J Sheffler, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger: Emmanuel Levinas's Ethics as First Philosophy, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, 1993, p.69Google Scholar.

15 R J S Manning, op.cit., pp.68–69.

16 ibid, p.70, quoting A Lingis, Introduction to Collected Papers, (M Nijhoff, The Hague, 1987, p. x, n.7.

17 See M Heidegger, op.cit, p.33.

18 M. Blanchot, Entretien Infini, pp.59–60.

19 Cf. M Heidegger, op.cit, p311. Heidegger, speaking of the existential constitution of Dasein which is yet to be addressed in the face of being–unto–dealh, asks 'whether the anticipation of [zum] death, which we have hitherto projected only in ils ontological possibility, has an essential connection with that authentic potentiality–for–Being which has been attested.‘ (p 311) For Heidegger's understanding and definition of ’resolution' (Entschluss), see SZ, 270, 296, 298. 301, 305, 329, 382, 391f.

20 Boros, L, The Moment of Truth: Mvsterium Mortis, Search Press. London, 1973Google Scholar

21 ibid., p, ix; see also, pp.84, 165

22 ibid., p. 8.

23 ibid., p.25.

24 ibid., p.9.

25 ibid., p.23.

26 Rahner, K, Foundations of Christian Faith, Dych, W V (tr.), Darton Longman & Todd, London, 1978, p.270Google Scholar.

27 M Heidegger, op. cat, p. 307

28 Phaedo, 63e, Tredeimick, H & Tarrant, H (trs.), Penguin Classics, London, 1993.Google Scholar

29 Phaedo, 115e.

30 Levinas, E, Dieu, la Mart et le Temps, Editions Grasset, Paris, 1993, p. 17Google Scholar.

31 loc. cit.

32 ibid., p.18.

33 Phaedo, 117e–118a.

34 E Levinas, Dieu, la Mort et le Temps, p. 17.

35 loc. cit.

36 Phaedo, 117d.

37 E Levinas, Dieu, la Mori et le Temps, p.18.

38 ibid., p.27.

39 Levinas, E, Le Temps et L'Autre, Fata Morgana, Monrpellier, 1979, p.60Google Scholar.

40 Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I, 71.

41 Macbeth, Act TV, Scene I, 80.

42 Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I, 92.

43 Macbeth, Act V, Scene III, 34.

44 E Levinas, Le Temps et L'Autre, p.60.

45 Macbeth, Act V, Scene VII, 44.

46 E Levinas, Le Temps et L'Autre, p.60.

47 ibid., p.61

‘Though Bimam wood be come to Ounsinane, and thou oppos'd, being of no woman bom, yet will I try the last.’ (Macbeth, V, VII, 59).

48 ibid., p.58.

49 R J S Manning, op. cit, p70, quoting E Levinas, Le Temps et l'Autre, p.59 50. ibid., p.71.

51 loc. cit.

52 E Levinas, Le Temps et L'Autre, p.57.

53 Levinas, E, Sur Maurice Blanchot, Fata Morgana, Montpellier, 1975, p.16.Google Scholar

Cohen argues this point in Tune in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. When death is the possibility of impossibility, as in Heidegger, then it is 'intrinsic and essential to Dasein' since it enables Dasein to project itself towards the future and the possibilities for Dasein available therein. However, if death is the ‘impossibility of possibility’, then it is ‘extrinsic or external to subjectivity.’ (See pp. 138–139).

54 E Levinas, Le Temps et L'Autre, p.73.

55 E Levinas, Sur Maurice Blanchot, p. 16.

56 E Levinas, Dieu, la Mort et le Temps, p.26.

57 ibid., p.27.

58 ibid., p.26.

59 ibid., p.21.

60 Levinas, E, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Lingis, A (tr.), Nijhoff, M, The Hague. 1981, p. 103Google Scholar.

61 ibid., p. 105.

62 ibid., p. 112.

63 ibid., p. 114

64 ibid., p. 112