Plato and Levinas

The Ambiguous Out-Side of Ethics

Tanja Staehler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135214005
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

In the second half of the twentieth century, ethics has gained considerable prominence within philosophy. In contrast to other scholars, Levinas proposed that it be not one philosophical discipline among many, but the most fundamental and essential one. Before philosophy became divided into disciplines, Plato also treated the question of the Good as the most important philosophical question.

Levinas's approach to ethics begins in the encounter with the other as the most basic experience of responsibility. He acknowledges the necessity to move beyond this initial, dyadic encounter, but has problems extending his approach to a larger dimension, such as community. To shed light on this dilemma, Tanja Staehler examines broader dimensions which are linked to the political realm, and the problems they pose for ethics.

Staehler demonstrates that both Plato and Levinas come to identify three realms as ambiguous: the erotic, the artistic, and the political. In each case, there is a precarious position in relation to ethics. However, neither Plato nor Levinas explores ambiguity in itself. Staehler argues that these ambiguous dimensions can contribute to revealing the Other's vulnerability without diminishing the fundamental role of unambiguous ethical responsibility.

Part I
The Self

The first part is concerned with an account of the self or interiority. Throughout this part, it becomes obvious that interiority both precedes and presupposes exteriority. Although interiority is never entirely closed, it appears plausible to delimit it as a sphere for reflection since it is characterized by the fact that the Other plays no essential role in it. Levinas alerts us to interiority and its possibilities of enjoyment to show that the Other does not fill a gap or a lack but evokes an insatiable desire.

Chapter 1 discusses interiority through the Platonic myth of Gyges to show that there is a possibility of separation and radical egoism which does not in itself harbor a contradiction. Despite the fact that I am already obsessed by the Other, having the Other in me, I am capable of ignoring the Other. I can ignore the call of the Other, and even though I cannot be right as I do so, I can nevertheless enjoy myself.

This opportunity of the self is related to me having a body, which is the topic of Chapter 2. While Levinas takes up findings from previous phenomenologies of the body, especially regarding a primordial exchange between me and the world (or the elements), he stresses another aspect as most fundamental, namely, corporeality as exposure and vulnerability. Against the common assumption that we cannot learn from Plato about the body, it turns out that the main characteristics of the body already surfaced in the Platonic Phaedrus, albeit in more indirect ways.

Vulnerability turns out to be, in Chapter 3, at the basis of any alternative between enjoyment and suffering. The force of enjoyment is acknowledged in hedonism to which both Plato and Levinas ascribe a momentary truth. Hedonism fails because of the future, which comes to manifest itself differently in Plato and Levinas. Yet the most fundamental level on which any momentary truth of hedonism and any fear of suffering are based is passive sensibility, like the denuded “One without Being” in Plato’s Parmenides that cannot ever be detected in its pure form. Perhaps surprisingly, it turns out that mere selfhood without any other would not be happy, but would be suffering in the most inescapable sense.

1
Preliminary Reflections on the Self

Interiority must be at the same time closed and open.

Levinas (TI 149/123)

Throughout his philosophy, Levinas discusses the “inner life”; in Totality and Infinity, he calls this inner life “interiority.” In this first chapter, the inner life will be examined in a preliminary fashion before turning to more specific aspects of interiority (namely, corporeality and sensibility) in the following two chapters. An exploration of the self in Levinas faces certain difficulties. There are several questions about the status of the inner life and its relation to “exteriority,” which need to be taken up. Furthermore, complications emerge as Levinas’s account changes from Totality and Infinity to Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. When Levinas discusses the inner life as a “psychism” in Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, explaining that this term names an “otherness in the same,” we start wondering whether this is a response to possible misunderstandings which could emerge from the systematic account of interiority and exteriority in his early and middle work. However, Levinas maintained from the beginning that interiority does not precede exteriority in any straightforward fashion; nor has it ever been treated by Levinas as a sphere completely free from otherness.

In section (a) of this chapter, the Platonic myth of Gyges shall be our guide for exploring interiority, since Levinas states that this myth is not a fictional story but presents our human condition. It is possible, so Levinas claims, for us to sever our connection to the world and to others, to close ourselves off within ourselves, and indulge in egoistic enjoyment. This would be a state of seeing without being seen, observing without participating. Seeing without being seen neither creates internal contradictions nor can it easily be detected by others. Thus the ring of Gyges symbolizes a state of radical injustice at the core of our existence.

The topic of an “otherness in the same” has been very prominent in contemporary philosophy, and recent texts have related this question to Levinas in an effort to expand on his philosophy. In section (b) of this chapter, our discussion will take into account a recent text by Judith Butler, namely, her “Adorno lectures” published in English under the title Giving an Account of Oneself. We shall see that this topic itself already existed before Levinas (in authors like Hegel and Husserl, to name just two), but that Levinas takes a very specific approach which, for various reasons, would reject Hegel and Husserl’s treatments of alterity as well as more recent variations on the theme.

a) INTERIORITY AND THE MYTH OF GYGES

The myth of Gyges will be considered here because it will help us to discuss some important questions about the dimension Levinas refers to as “interiority.” What is interiority? Is interiority a state that precedes my encounter with others, and perhaps even my encounter with the world? Why does Levinas deem it necessary to investigate interiority, and do such investigations not run counter to his “philosophy of alterity”?

A provisional response to the first question could take its departure from terms Levinas brings up as he explores interiority—most importantly, “separation,” “closing oneself off,” and “being at home with one-self.” Separation designates a division, a severance of the ties between me and the world that surrounds me. Such a manner of speech, along with the expression “closing oneself off,” indicates that this separation severs a connection and is, in that sense, secondary or derivative in relation to the original connection. Levinas strengthens this impression when he says that separation “breaks” with participation, or “no longer” participates (TI 61/32, 90/62). However, a response to the second question will be more complicated than these preliminary remarks may suggest: the state of interiority is primordial as well as secondary, it is both anterior and posterior—and it is this paradox that Levinas imposes on us and our ways of thought.

Furthermore, it seems that interiority is not a “real” state that occurs in any “pure” form. If I ever exist as a true interiority, it would be in a moment of egoistic enjoyment, a moment in which I do not lack anything. It is this observation, namely, the fact that “in a certain sense one lacks nothing” (TI 61/32) that the idea of interiority expresses. Ultimately, Levinas explores this dimension to show that at the basis of my existence there is not a lack but self-sufficiency. Thus, my encounter with otherness is not based on deficiency; the Other does not complement me, but rather ruptures my interiority.

After these very preliminary remarks on interiority, which need to be fleshed out, we will explore the myth of Gyges in order to elucidate the human condition as Levinas sees it. The myth tells a story about Gyges, who was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia (Rep. 359d–360b). One day, after a thunderstorm and an earthquake had broken open the ground, Gyges finds a corpse in a chasm that has been opened by the earthquake.¹ The corpse is wearing nothing but a golden ring, which the shepherd procures. After some time, he realizes that the ring makes him invisible if he turns it inward and visible again if he turns it outward. Gyges abuses the power of the discovered ring by seducing the king’s wife, killing the king with her help, and taking over the kingdom.

Glaucon tells this story to Socrates to show that we only act in a just fashion because we want to avoid punishment. Nobody, so the common opinion goes, would stay on the path of justice if given the chance to do whatever they wanted without being seen—and thus without having to be accountable for it. This, of course, is not Socrates’ conviction; he wants to show that we not only want to appear just but in fact to be just. However, the myth makes it obvious that Socrates has a very difficult task if he wants to show that justice indeed belongs to the highest goods, which are valued both for their own sake and because of their consequences.

The function of this myth for Levinas, on the most general level, is the following: it represents our condition of being separated from each other, being enclosed in ourselves, and not acknowledging the call of the Other. But before going more deeply into Levinas’s interpretation, let us examine the context in which this myth comes up in Plato’s work. Glaucon tells the myth of the ring of Gyges because he wants to represent the common opinion about justice. According to the common view, justice is an intermediate between two extremes. The best would be to do injustice without being punished, the worst to suffer injustice without being able to take revenge (Rep. 359a). Out of fear of suffering injustice, people make laws and contracts. So the myth of Gyges is told in the context of a discussion about justice, the main topic of the Republic. More precisely, the myth marks the transition between the ordinary views of justice as they are represented by Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus in Book I of the Republic, and Socrates’ account of what justice is as he develops the idea of a perfect polis.

While Socrates argues that injustice brings about a conflict in the soul, Levinas maintains that injustice is so powerful because it does not involve any apparent contradiction that would force us out of this condition. Levinas calls this state the ego’s interiority or separation, and he says that the myth of Gyges is a myth of the I and interiority.

Separation would not be radical if the possibility of shutting oneself up at home with oneself could not be produced without internal contradiction as an event in itself, as atheism itself is produced—if it should only be an empirical, psychological fact, an illusion. Gyges’s ring symbolizes separation. Gyges plays a double game, a presence to the others and an absence, speaking to “others” and evading speech; Gyges is the very condition of man, the possibility of injustice and radical egoism, the possibility of accepting the rules of the game, but cheating. (TI 173/148)

The state of the ego that closes itself off is not a contradictory state but a self-sufficient one. There are no internal contradictions because there is no lack that the presence of the Other would fill. If egoism is interrupted, this happens not because there are logical contradictions in this position or because I realize that I want to live my life differently but because the Other makes me aware of my egoism. It is not possible to develop an ethics grounded in egoism; rather, ethics happens as the Other calls my selfishness into question. Egoism will then still be a moment in ethics; yet it will not be the basis of ethics. It is the possibility of—and temptation toward—playing the game of Gyges.

The ego’s interiority is ambivalent; it opens the possibility of error and of truth. Gyges is the very condition of man because we can radically close ourselves off from others. We have the option of seeing without being seen. We can turn away, lower our heads, remain inconspicuous. And we can excel in this attitude to such an extent that we do not even notice the imbalance between seeing and not being seen.

We can be invisible; we have the ability to act as an invisible person in the realm that we take to be the realm of the visible. Being on the threshold between visibility and invisibility, being present in absence and absent in presence is what Levinas calls “phenomenality.” The phenomenon is the being that “appears, but remains absent” (TI 181/156). In order to explain this absence, Levinas refers to another Platonic myth that figures prominently in his work, namely, the myth of Theuth from the Phaedrus.² In the case of a written speech, the author does not come to the assistance of his speech but remains absent, opening the possibility of misunderstanding and misuse. Similarly, the state of interiority means that I am not taking responsibility for my actions but hiding away like Gyges. “As long as the existence of man remains interiority it remains phenomenal” (TI 182/158).

The absence that characterizes phenomenality is an essential absence, a shadow “which is not simply the factual absence of future light.”³ Some things cannot be drawn into any light; others can, but are not meant to be drawn into the light. Levinas is suspicious of vision in general. Gyges exploits the possibilities of visibility and invisibility that speech and silence, for example, do not offer. Vision gives us the illusion of power; it means to have things on display, at our disposal. And Levinas believes that the visual metaphors in the history of Western philosophy (among which theoria is the most prominent, but certainly not the only one) had a major influence on the violent and totalizing character of philosophy.

To illustrate such dangers, it might be helpful to consider briefly another version of the myth of Gyges, told not by Plato but by Herodotus.⁴ According to Herodotus, a strange episode occurred in Lydia when King Candaules had the idea of asking Gyges, his favorite spearman, to confirm how beautiful Candaules’s wife was. The tale goes that Candaules was so in love with his wife that praising his wife’s beauty was not enough; he suggested that Gyges hide behind the door to watch the queen undress and see with his own eyes how beautiful she was. Gyges, though reluctant at first and quite willing to confirm that he completely trusted the king’s judgment, finally agreed. But when he left the bedchamber, the queen spotted him. She was ashamed, and yet she remained silent. The next day, she called Gyges and gave him the choice to die himself or to kill the king and take his place. She said: “Either he must die who formed this design, or you who have looked upon me naked.” So Candaules was killed and Gyges became king. A story about the ambiguity of love, about shame, secrecy, and possessiveness—and a story about visibility and invisibility, about breaking the secret of Gyges, in this case not broken by Gyges himself, but by the queen who discovers his secretive looking. The king who succumbed to the power of vision in the end loses it all.

The myth of Gyges plays a significant role throughout Levinas’s thought. Yet Levinas undertakes some modifications and even reversals in regard to the original Platonic myth. For him, the myth is not about an unreal thought experiment, but it actually presents an ability that we, as humans, have. We can hide in our invisibility, in the interiority of the ego. We can do so—but we cannot be right as we do so. Using the ring of Gyges is radical injustice.

In Totality and Infinity, Levinas examines interiority to emphasize that it is possible to ignore the call of the Other. Such ignoring is itself a response, namely, the response of denial. Analyzing this possibility is important since Levinas has to acknowledge the fact that the command coming from the Other is frequently denied on an everyday basis. Yet such denial does not refute Levinas’s ethical philosophy, which shall be examined below. Moreover, he points out that I encounter the Other not o...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I The Self
• Part II The Other
• Part III The Others
• Part IV Historical–Cultural Worlds
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index