2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 1/11

Em m a n u el Lev in a s (ph ot o

by Bra ch a Et t in ger)

Thinking About Death II: Levinas Thursday, Jun 7th, 2012 Books and Art

Who is Emmanuel Levinas?

If we were to try to invent a philosopher as different as possible from Heidegger in background and

temperament, we would create Emmanuel Levinas. He was a Jew from Lithuania, home of one of the greatest

of Talmudists, the Gaon of Vilna. Levinas grew up studying the Hebrew Bible and the great Russian writers —

Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. During World War II he served as an interpreter of Russian and German

for the French army, became a prisoner of war, and served as a forced laborer. His book Existence and

Existents (1978), with its descriptions of anonymous existence, insomnia, sleep, horror, vertigo, appetite,

fatigue, and indolence, was begun during his captivity.

His wife and child were hidden during the Holocaust in a French

monastery; most members of his family in Lithuania were murdered by

the Nazis. According to his own words, the forebodings, the reality, and

the memory of the Holocaust have always accompanied his thinking

(Hand, 1989a, pp. 1-2; Peperzak, 1997, pp. 2-3). Perhaps all his

differences with Heidegger can be summed up in a single tellingly

Levinasian phrase: “Dasein in Heidegger is never hungry” (Levinas, 1969,

p. 134).

Levinas is not easy to read. His writing is metaphoric, allusive,

suggestive, inconstant. He is far from being a systematic thinker; he is

not, as he himself would put it, a totalizing philosopher. Indeed, among

French philosophers, he is much less like Sartre than he is like

Bachelard. But while Levinas does not have a system, he certainly has

themes, which tie together his rich and complex work. Levinas is

constantly discovering new connections among his themes. His work is

like a great tangled ball of yarn. This makes him both difficult and exciting

to read; but the advantage is that, no matter which thread you follow, you wind up at the center.

One of these themes is his thinking of death, where he stands directly opposed to Heidegger. This thread, too,

leads to the center. Levinas’s “ultimate and exemplary challenge to the solitude of Being” turns out to be “a

rigorous and moving testimony of one’s infinite obligation to the other person” (Hand, 1989b, p. v).

“Ontology is an egology”

It is clear that Heidegger’s ideal is in fact a sort of spiritual solipsism (Philipse, 1998, p. 259). All the

Heideggerian virtues — authenticity, resolution, heeding the call of conscience — serve to isolate (vereinzeln)

us. Thus, for example, “Death, understood in authentic anticipation, isolates Dasein in itself” (Die im Vorlaufen

verstandene Unbezüglichkeit des Todes vereinzelt das Dasein auf es selbst) (1962, § 53, p. 308);

“Understanding the call of conscience reveals one’s own Dasein in the dreadfulness of its isolation” (Das

Rufverstehen [des Gewissens] erschließt das eigene Dasein in der Unheimlichkeit seiner Vereinzelung) (§ 60,

p. 342); “The call of conscience… implacably isolates Dasein” (Der Ruf des Gewissens… Unnachsichtig

vereinzelt er das Dasein) (§ 62, p. 354)

Heidegger’s philosophy is thus an egology: the relation with Being is more important than the relation with

other people. But where Heidegger finds significance in existence as a project, Levinas locates it precisely in

responsibility for the Other. “This is the question of the meaning of being: not the ontology of the

understanding of that extraordinary verb, but the ethics of its justice. The question par excellence or the

question of philosophy. Not ‘Why being rather than nothing?’, but how being justifies itself” (Levinas, 1984, p.

86).

Against ontology

Levinas holds that ontology is fundamentally mistaken, because it

Most Popular Articles

A Victory for Santo Daime

22 comments | 26268 views

A Love Story 24

comments | 25844 views

Good Blogs: Psychedelic

Research 1 comments | 19107

views

Ayahuasca in the

Supreme Court 7 comments |

17841 views

How I Became a

Sorcerer 22 comments | 17601

views

Sex and Violence in

Amazonia 4 comments | 16812

views

Some Thoughts on DMT

Art 11 comments | 16658 views

The Collective

Unconscious 14 comments |

15657 views

Explore by Topic

Ayahuasca (87)

Books and Art (67)

Indigenous Culture (87)

Jungle Survival (15)

Legal Issues (9)

Plant Medicine (32)

Research Studies (25)

Sacred Plants (74)

Shamanism (112)

The Amazon (89)

The Medicine Path (27)

RSS Slide

Down

The

Book

The Blog

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 2/11

Lev in a s a t St ra sbou rg, 1928

Lev in a s a n d Jea n -Pa u l Sa rt re

Levinas holds that ontology is fundamentally mistaken, because it

elevates abstract being over the relations of actual beings.

Levinas states that he is “radically opposed to Heidegger who

subordinated the relation with the Other to ontology” (Levinas,

1969, p. 89), who forgot that “being is enacted in the relation

between men” (1969, p. 299). Ontology has it backwards. “This

‘saying to the Other’ — this relationship with the Other as

interlocutor, this relation with an existent — precedes all

ontology; it is the ultimate relation in Being” (1969, p. 48;

emphasis in original).

Levinas’s “radical inversion” from being to beings “would take

place in what I call an encounter with the face of the other.… [H]e

calls to me and orders me from the depths of his defenseless nakedness, his misery, his mortality.” It is in

this personal relationship, “from one to the other,” that he locates the ethical event, where “charity and mercy,

generosity and obedience, lead beyond or rise above being” (1987, p. 202).

Heideggerian ontology thus subordinates justice to freedom, places freedom before ethics, “rather than seeing

in justice and injustice a primordial access to the Other beyond all ontology” (1969, p. 89). Being before the

existent, ontology before metaphysics, Levinas says, is freedom before justice. It is a movement within the

individual before obligation to the other (1969, p. 47).

To affirm the priority of Being over existents is to already decide the essence of philosophy; it is to

subordinate the relation with someone, who is an existent (the ethical relation) to a relation with the

Being of existents, which, impersonal, permits the apprehension, the domination of existents (a

relationship of knowing), subordinates justice to freedom.… In subordinating every relation with

existents to the relation with Being the Heideggerian ontology affirms the primacy of freedom over

ethics (1969, p. 45).

This inversion makes ontology as first philosophy a philosophy of power, a philosophy of injustice. “Truth,

which should reconcile persons, here exists anonymously. Universality presents itself as impersonal; and this

is another inhumanity” (1969, p. 46). “Heideggerian ontology, which subordinates the relationship with the

Other to the relation with Being in general, remains under obedience to the anonymous, and leads inevitably to

another power, to imperialist domination, to tyranny” (1969, pp. 46-47).

Ontology is, in Levinas’s telling phrase, a philosophy of the neuter. Heideggerian freedom, he says, “turns out

to be obedience to insidious forms of the impersonal and the neuter” (1969, p. 272). Levinas has “broken with

the philosophy of the neuter,” “the Heideggerian Being of the existent,” “impersonal neutrality,” “the neuter

dimension of Being above the existent” — for, he says, “they exalt the obedience that no face commands”

(1969, pp. 298-299).

And this difference is seen precisely in their thinking of temporality

and death. Adriaan Peperzak expresses Levinas’s thought this way:

“The closed character of Heidegger’s Dasein follows also from his

analysis of death. If nothingness is the secret of time and the

authentic foundation of existence, the human person cannot rely on

anything other than himself. The rejection of any reference to the

Eternal and the insensitivity toward any otherness result in a tragic

form of liberty” (Peperzak, 1997, p. 49). Levinas directly confronts this

sort of authenticity: “But is the authenticity of the I,” he asks, “its

uniqueness, contingent upon that unadulterated possessive

‘mineness,’ of self for itself, that proud virility ‘more precious than life,’ more authentic than love or than the

concern for another?” (Levinas, 1988b, pp. 226-227).

Levinas is fond of quoting an epigram from Pascal’s Pensées — “‘That is my place in the sun.’ That is how the

usurpation of the whole world began.” It is this usurpation of the place of the Other — this violence — which is

at the heart of an ontology as a first philosophy; instead, Levinas proposes as a first philosophy an ethics, an

unquestionable and primary obligation to the Other (Hand, 1989a, p. 5).

Against Heideggerian death

Levinas nowhere systematically presents his arguments against the Heideggerian conception of death.

Throughout his work, however, he throws out challenges to the central themes of Heidegger — that death is

my ownmost; that all relations are undone at death; that I can run ahead toward my own death; that I can be

resolute in the face of death. Levinas condemns the abstract and academic view of death that is central to

Heidegger — that death is clean and heroic, that death does not take place in cattle cars. Levinas — the Jew,

Latest Comments

Discussing the article:

A Love Story

Lina V aldez said:

"I come late to the party too, but the

fact that he didn’t w ant to speak to

his daughter on the phone and that

he..." 24 Responses

Discussing the article:

How I Became a Sorcerer

the lit t le herb said:

"Self-control for me is nothing, if the

unconsciousnes s parts of me have

not been listened to and..." 22

Responses

Discussing the article:

A yahuasca and Cancer

Thomas Mas troianni said:

"Most of the cancer research

investigating harmine w as inspired

by the use of Syrian rue to treat it

in..." 14 Responses

Discussing the article:

Camalonga

V ero said:

"Can you please tell me the foods

that i should avoid if i start a

camalonga diet. Thanks!" 12

Responses

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 3/11

Lev in a s wit h h is l ifelon g

frien d Ma u rice Bla n ch ot

Heidegger — that death is clean and heroic, that death does not take place in cattle cars. Levinas — the Jew,

the Litvak, the prisoner, the forced laborer — decisively rejects this romantic view of death. On the contrary,

death is announced by sobbing; to die is “to be the infantile shaking of sobbing” (1947b, p. 41). Levinas

remembers the graves in the air, about which which Heidegger refused to speak.

There is a romantic strain in the European thinking of death — the idea that death is somehow productive,

strengthening, empowering. Thus, for Hegel, death is a necessary moment in the inevitable progression of

Spirit through the different forms of consciousness to absolute knowing. Even more, for Nietzsche, the

overman, free for the possibility of death, who maintains the pure essence of will in willing nothingness, is the

next step beyond resentment, bad conscience, asceticism (Keenan, 1999, p. 1). For Heidegger, too, the

authentic, resolute, determined, and decided assumption of death is, as Levinas says, “supreme lucidity and

thus supreme virility” (Levinas, 1947b, p. 40). Taking on the uttermost possibility of existence is precisely what

makes possible all other possibilities, and thus makes activity and freedom possible; death in Heidegger is an

event of freedom (1947b, p. 40-41). This is the tradition that Levinas seeks to subvert.

Death and relationship

Levinas particularly disputes the Heideggerian idea of the nonrelationality (Unbezüglichkeit) of death — that

death is the ownmost possibility of Dasein, that “being-toward-death discloses to Dasein its ownmost coming

to be” (Heidegger, § 53, p. 307; emphasis in original), that, in the face of death, “all relations to any other

Dasein have been undone” (§ 50, p. 294).

Levinas characterizes Heidegger’s view like this: “The uniqueness of the human I, which nothing should

alienate, is here thought in terms of death: that everyone dies for himself. An inalienable identity in dying! The I

exists in the world in relationship with others, but no one can truly die for anyone else.” Heidegger’s ideal,

says Levinas, is “an originary authenticity, but with nothing more, in which, for Heidegger, all ‘relations with

others’ are dissolved or ‘canceled,’ and in which the meaningfulness of being-there is cut short. Fearsome

authenticity!” And he adds: “You can see what I would reject” (1988b, p. 226).

On the contrary, Levinas argues forcefully that the encounter with

death is an encounter with the Other, that death in fact is

paradigmatically relational. “Death threatens me from beyond. This

unknown that frightens, the silence of the infinite spaces that

terrify, comes from the other, and this alterity, precisely as

absolute, strikes me in an evil design or in a judgment of justice”

(1969, p. 234; emphasis added). “This approach of death indicates

that we are in relation with something that is absolutely other,

something bearing alterity not as a provisional determination we

can assimilate through enjoyment, but as something whose very

existence is made of alterity. My solitude is thus not confirmed by

death but broken by it” (1947b, p. 43; emphasis added).

Death is not my ownmost; instead, it is encountered as a hostile, foreign, alien will set against me. “This

nothingness is an interval beyond which lurks a hostile will. I am a passivity threatened not only by

nothingness in my being, but by a will in my will” (1969, p. 236).

In the being for death of fear I am not faced with nothingness, but faced with what is against me, as

though murder, rather than being one of the occasions of dying, were inseparable from the essence

of death, as though the approach of death remained one of the modalities of the relation with the

Other. The violence of death threatens as a tyranny, as though proceeding from a foreign will. The

order of necessity that is carried out in death is not like an implacable law of determinism governing a

totality, but is rather like the alienation of my will by the Other (1969, p. 234).

That is why, to Levinas, all death is murder — because in death I am faced with another, a foreign will, an evil

design, a judgment of justice, a will in my will, alterity. Thus, for Levinas, we do not die in Heideggerian

isolation, but face-to-face with an enemy, a powerful other who remains invisible, who intends us as victims —

not before nothingness, but over against an opponent. “In death we are seized without the possibility of

retaliating against our attacker. We are exposed to ‘absolute violence, to murder in the night’ (1969, p. 233).

But herein lies the great paradox of death. Precisely because it is absolute alterity, death is human, relational;

death “maintains an interpersonal order” (1969, p. 234); “a social conjuncture is maintained in this menace”

(1969, p. 234). “Murder, at the origin of death, reveals a cruel world,” Levinas says, “but one to the scale of

human relations“ (1969, p. 236). And that is precisely why “death cannot drain all meaning from life” (1969, p.

236). Death does not subvert the interpersonal order, but is, as philosopher Edith Wyschogrod puts it, “the

most fundamental experience of the personal order” (Wyschogrod, 2000, pp. 120-121). Indeed, what is

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 4/11

Lev in a s wit h h is wife Ra ïssa

a n d da u gh t er Sim on e, wh o

were sa v ed from t h e Na zis by

Bla n ch ot

common to death and social life is an encounter with radical alterity. The encounter with the alterity of death is

like nothing so much as the encounter with the alterity of the other person.

Levinas quotes II Samuel 1:23, a verse of the funeral chant of the prophet weeping for the death of King Saul

and his son Jonathan in combat: “Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death

they were not divided.” And Levinas adds, “As if, contrary to the Heideggerian analysis, in death, all

relationship to the other person were not undone” (1988a, p. 215).

Authenticity and virility

According to a typically Levinasian inversion of Heidegger, you cannot run toward death; death runs toward

you. You can “go toward death,” Levinas says. You can “learn to die,” you can “prepare for the last extremity.”

But in the last quarter of an hour, or the last second, death completes the last leg of the journey by itself, and

is a surprise. In this sense, death “is not a possibility like all the other possibilities, in which there is always a

preliminary, always a project.” To be “unassumable” belongs to its very quality; the “project” one may have of

death is undone at the last moment. “It is death alone that goes the last leg. Not us. We do not, strictly

speaking, meet it” (1982b, p. 155). Levinas calls this final gap an “infinitesimal — but untravelable — distance”

(1969, p. 235).

Death is a menace that approaches me as a mystery; its secrecy determines it — it approaches

without being able to be assumed, such that the time that separates me from my death dwindles and

dwindles without end, involves a sort of last interval which my consciousness cannot traverse, and

where a leap will somehow be produced from death to me. The last part of the route will be crossed

without me; the time of death flows upstream (1969, p. 235).

In the same way, Heideggerian being-toward-death is, says Levinas, “a supreme lucidity and hence a supreme

virility.” Authenticity, being-toward-death, resoluteness — what Levinas sarcastically, virility — is made

possible for Heidegger only because he posits a “the hypostasis at the heart of anonymous being.” But death

is never now. Levinas adopts Epicurus’ argument and, typically, inverts it: “When death is here I am no longer

here, not just because I am nothingness, but because I am unable to grasp. My mastery, my virility, my

heroism as a subject can be neither virility nor heroism in relation to death.” Death becomes the limit of the

subject’s virility.

It is not just that there exist ventures impossible for the subject, that its powers are in some way finite;

death does not announce a reality against which nothing can be done, against which our power is

insufficient — realities exceeding our strength already arise in the world of light. What is important

about the approach of death is that at a certain moment we are no longer able to be able. It is exactly

thus that the subject loses its very mastery as a subject (1947b, pp. 40-42).

“My mastery, my virility, my heroism as a subject can be neither virility nor heroism in relation to death.” For

Levinas, the limit of the possible is reached in suffering. At the heart of suffering, where we grasp the nearness

of death, activity becomes passivity. “The subject finds itself enchained, overwhelmed, and in some sense

passive. Death is in this sense the limit of idealism” (1947b, p. 41).

The death of the Other

The foundational error of the ontological analysis of death is that it

looks at the wrong death. The key death is not mine. Instead, “contrary

to the view of contemporary philosophy which remains attached to the

self’s solitary death,” death is the death of the Other (1947a, p. 164).

“Heidegger deduces all conceivable meaning from the attitude of man

toward his own death. He thinks to the very end, in the senses of the

term. He carries out his thought to its ultimate consequences, and he

thinks that my death for me can be nothing but the ultimate self.… Is

there not a manner of thinking that goes beyond my own death to the

death of the other man, and does not the human consist precisely in

this thinking beyond one’s own death?” (1982b, p. 161).

Levinas holds that “the Human consists precisely in opening oneself to

the death of the other, in being preoccupied with his or her death.… I

am persuaded that around the death of my neighbor what I have been

calling the humanity of man is manifested” (1982b, pp. 157-8). Death for

Levinas is something absolutely unknowable that comes at me from

beyond my possibilities. The mystery of death forces me to recognize

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 5/11

Em m a n u el Lev in a s

(dra win g by Da v id Lev in e)

my relationship with the Other.

For Levinas, the fundamental human experience is the face, naked and defenseless, mortal, the face facing

death. “To begin with the face as a source from which all meaning appears, the face in its absolute nudity, in

its destitution as a head does not find a place to lay itself, is to affirm that being is enacted in the relation

between men, that Desire rather than need commands acts” (1969, p. 299). I do not grasp the other in order to

dominate; I respond, instead, to the face’s epiphany. “The Other does not affect us as what must be

surmounted, enveloped, dominated, but as other, independent of us: behind every relation we could sustain

with him, an absolute upsurge” (1969, p. 89).

As such, what is produced in a concrete form is the idea of infinity rather than totality.

Always the face shows through these forms. Prior to any particular expression and beneath all

particular expressions,… there is the nakedness and destitution of the expression as such, that is to

say extreme exposure, defenselessness, vulnerability itself.… It is as if that invisible death, ignored by

the Other, whom already it concerns by the nakedness of its face, were already ‘regarding’ me prior to

confronting me, and becoming the death that stares me in the face. The other man’s death calls me

into question, as if, by my possible future indifference, I had become the accomplice of the death to

which the other, who cannot see it, is exposed; and as if, even before vowing myself to him, I had to

answer for this death of the other, and to accompany the Other in his mortal solitude. The Other

becomes my neighbor precisely through the way the face summons me, calls for me, begs for me,

and in so doing recalls my responsibility, and calls me into question (1984, p. 83).

The relation to the face is the relation to the absolutely weak — to

what is absolutely exposed, what is bare and destitute, what is alone

and can undergo the supreme isolation we call death. Thus there is

always, in the face of the Other, the death of the Other. This

weakness cries out with a dual voice — on the one hand, to turn

away, ignore the Other, neglect the Other, and thus murder the Other;

on the other hand, Thou Shalt Not Kill. This Thou-Shalt-Not-Kill “is the

fact that I cannot let the Other die alone, it is like a calling out to me.”

And this relationship with the Other is not symmetrical. “[I]n the

relation to the Face, it is asymmetry that is affirmed: at the outset I

hardly care what the other is with respect to me, that is his own

business; for me, he is above all the one I am responsible for” (1982a,

104-105).

The original form of openness is thus my exposure to alterity in the

face of the other. I literally put myself in the place of the other, without

usurpation. I put myself in the place of the other even to the point of

sacrifice. In typical Levinasian fashion, Levinas writes: “In the general

economy of being… a preoccupation with the other, even to the point of sacrifice, even to the possibility of

dying for him or her; a responsibility for the other. Otherwise than being!” (1991, p. xii). It is, finally, the

willingness to die for the other which Levinas calls holiness. “It is inscribed in the face of the other, in the

encounter with the other: a double expression of weakness and strict, urgent requirement. Is that the word of

God?” (1982a, p. 108). “No one is so hypocritical as to claim that he has taken from death its sting, not even

the promisers of religions. But we can have responsibilities and attachments through which death takes on a

meaning” (1968, p 118).

From death to responsibility

What is crucial about the death of the other is that it calls me to my responsibility for that death; and the

mortality of the other is seen in the nakedness, the defenselessness of the other’s face. “The face,” Levinas

says, “is the very mortality of the other man” (1986, p. 186). The I as hostage to the other human being is

precisely called to answer for his death. Through the face of the other, through his mortality, “everything that in

the other does not regard me, regards me” (1985a, pp. 167-168).

“I have sometimes wondered,” says Levinas, “whether the idea of the

straight line — that shortest distance between two points — is not

originally the line according to which the face I encounter is exposed to

death.” That is probably the way, he says, my own death stares me in

the face — in a straight line — but I do not see my own death. “The first

obvious thing in the other’s face is the directness of exposure and that

defenselessness. The human being in his face is the most naked;

nakedness itself. But at the same time, his face faces. It is in his way of

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 6/11

Em m a n u el Lev in a s (ph ot o

by Bra ch a Et t in ger)

nakedness itself. But at the same time, his face faces. It is in his way of

being all alone in his facing that the violence of death is to be assessed”

(1982b, p. 163). In this facing of the face, in this mortality, there is a

summons and a demand that concern the I, that concern me, as if the

invisible death which the face of the other faces were my business, as if

that death had to do with me (1986, p. 186).

And the concern that is raised is precisely the aloneness of the other.

“Before the death of the other, my neighbor, death the mysterious

appears to me, in any case, as the bringing about of an aloneness toward

which I cannot be indifferent. It awakens me to the other” (1969, p. 161). And my responsibility is not to let the

other die alone. “The death of the other man implicates and challenges me, as if, through its indifference, the I

became the accomplice to, and had to answer for, this death of the other and not let him die alone. It is

precisely in this reminder of the responsibility of the I by the face that summons it, that demands it, that

claims it, that the other is my fellow-man” (1986, p. 186).

To let the other die alone is to be an accomplice in the death. In an often-repeated passage, Levinas says that

the face of the other — “before all gesture, in its facial straightforwardness, before all verbal expression, from

the depths of that weakness” — commands me, orders me not to let the other die alone; “that is, an order to

answer for the life of the other man, at the risk of becoming an accomplice to that death” (1985a, p. 169;

1989a, p. 148; 1989b, p. 29; see 1983, p. 130).

But that face facing me — in its mortality — summons me, demands me, requires me: as if the invisible death

faced by the face of the other—pure alterity, separate, somehow, from any whole — were ‘my business.’ As if,

unknown by the other whom already, in the nakedness of his face, it concerns, it ‘regarded me’ before its

confrontation with me, before being the death that stares me, myself, in the face. The death of the other man

puts me on the spot, calls me into question, as if I, by my possible indifference, became the accomplice of

that death, invisible to the other who is exposed to it; and as if, even before being condemned to it myself, I

had to answer for that death of the other, and not leave the other alone to his deathly solitude (1989b, pp. 24-

25).

This responsibility is unlimited, whatever the circumstances — a responsibility one is never rid of, which does

not cease in the last moment of the neighbor, even if responsibility then only amounts, in the impotent

confrontation with the death of the other, to responding “Here I am” (1989a, p. 149; 1989b, p. 30). “[T]he

ultimate meaning of that responsibility for the death of the other person is responsibility before the inexorable,

and at the last moment, the obligation not to leave the other alone in the face of death. Even if, facing death…

even if, at the last moment, the not-leaving-the-other-alone consists, in that confrontation and that powerless

facing, only in answering ‘Here I am’ to the request that calls on me” (1983, pp. 130-131).

The responsibility is unlimited in another way as well. It is a responsibility for everyone. I am responsible for

the death of the Other — of any other. The ethical attitude is not “the attitude toward the death of a being

already chosen and dear, but of the death of the first-one-to-come-along. To perceive that we come after an

other whoever he may be — that is ethics” (1982b, p. 167; emphasis added).

It is clear, too, that the command not to let the other die alone is the same as the command not to abandon

the other. The command not to be an accomplice in the death of the other embraces “all the violence and

usurpation my existence, despite its intentional innocence, risks committing” — “the risk of occupying the

place of another, of exiling him, condemning him to a miserable existence in some Third or Fourth World, of

killing him” (1989b, p. 30).

And, finally, it is this understanding of death that separates Levinas from Heidegger. “That way of requiring me,

of putting me in question and appealing to me, to my responsibility for the death of the other, is a meaning so

irreducible that it is on that basis that the meaning of death must be understood, beyond the abstract dialectic

of being and its negation, to which, on the basis of violence that has been reduced to negation and

annihilation, one reduces death” (1989b, p. 25).

From responsibility to holiness

Levinas, unlike Heidegger, stands face to face with the Holocaust. “The inhabitants of the Eastern European

Jewish communities constituted the majority of the six million tortured and massacred; they represented the

human beings least corrupted by the ambiguities of our world, and the million children killed had the innocence

of children. Theirs is the death of martyrs, a death inflicted in the torturers’ unceasing destruction of the dignity

that belongs to martyrs” (1982c, p. 98). Yet these martyrs did not perish, were not liquidated, were not

inventory. “In speaking of the Holocaust,” says Levinas, “I am thinking of the death of the other man” (1985a, p.

162; emphasis added).

In the face of this sort of death — of even the possibility of this sort of death — what Levinas issues, finally, is

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 7/11

In the face of this sort of death — of even the possibility of this sort of death — what Levinas issues, finally, is

a call not to authenticity but to holiness. “I have never claimed to describe human reality in its immediate

appearance,” Levinas says, “but what human depravity itself cannot obliterate: the human vocation to holiness.

I don’t affirm human holiness; I say that man cannot question the supreme value of holiness” (1985b, p. 180).

This value is, finally, what separates his philosophy from Heideggerian ontology, even in the darkest times.

“There can be periods during which the human is completely extinguished, but the idea of holiness is what

humanity has introduced into being. An ideal of holiness contrary to the laws of being” (1982, p. 114;

emphasis added). And again: “Man is not only the being who understands what being means, as Heidegger

would have it, but the being who has already heard and understood the commandment of holiness in the face

of the other man” (1985b, p. 180).

This call to holiness precedes the concern for existence (1988a, p. 216). Indeed, as Levinas, says, it is

humanity that has introduced holiness into being, in the form of sacrifice, which is the possibility of dying for

the other (1987, p. 202). “It is as if the emergence of the human in the economy of being,” he says, “upset the

meaning and plot and philosophical rank of ontology: the in-itself of being-persisting-in-being goes beyond

itself in the gratuitousness of the outside-of-itself-for the other, in sacrifice, or the possibility of sacrifice, in the

perspective of holiness” (1991, p. xiii). The priority of the other over the I is precisely the response of the I to

“the nakedness of the face and its mortality.” It is there that the concern for the other’s death is realized, and

that “dying for him,” “dying his death,” takes precedence over “authentic” death — “the excessiveness of

sacrifice, holiness in charity and mercy. This future of death in the presence of love is probably one of the

original secrets of temporality itself and beyond all metaphor” (1988a, p. 217).

REFERENCES

Hand, S. (1989a). Introduction. In Hand, S. (Ed.), The Levinas reader (pp. 2-8). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Hand, S. (1989b). Preface. In Hand, S. (Ed.), The Levinas reader (pp. v-vi). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Hand, S. (1989b). Preface. In Hand, S. (Ed.), The Levinas reader (pp. v-vi). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (Mcquarrie, J., & Robinson, E., Trans.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

(Original published 1927)

Keenan, D. (1999). Death and responsibility: The “work” of Levinas. Albany, NY: State University of New York

Press.

Levinas, E. (1947a). The other in Proust (Hand, S., Trans.). In Hand, S. (Ed.) (1989), The Levinas reader (pp.

160-165). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Levinas, E. (1947b). Time and the other (Hand, S., Trans.). In Hand, S. (Ed.) (1989), The Levinas reader (pp.

37-58). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Levinas, E. (1948). Reality and its shadow (Hand, S., Trans.). In Hand, S. (Ed.) (1989), The Levinas reader

(pp. 129-143). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Levinas, E. (1954). The I and the totality (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.) (1998), Entre

nous (pp. 13-38). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1968). Substitution (Hand, S., Trans.). In Hand, S. (Ed.) (1989), The Levinas reader (pp. 88-125).

Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity (Lingis, A., Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

(Original published in 1961)

Levinas, E. (1978). Existence and existents (Lingis, A., Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. (Original

published in 1973)

Levinas, E. (1982a). Philosophy, justice, and love (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.)

(1998), Entre nous (pp. 103-121). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1982b). The philosopher and death (Smith, M., Trans.). In Hayat, P. (Ed.) (1999), Alterity &

transcendence (pp. 153-168). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1982c). Useless suffering (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.) (1998), Entre

nous (pp. 91-101). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1983). Nonintentional consciousness (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.)

(1998), Entre nous (pp. 123-132). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 8/11

Levinas, E. (1984). Ethics as first philosophy (Hand, S., Trans.). In Hand, S. (Ed.) (1989), The Levinas reader

(pp. 75-87). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Levinas, E. (1985a). Diachrony and representation (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.)

(1998), Entre nous (pp. 159-177). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1985b). Violence of the face (Smith, M., Trans.). In Hayat, P. (Ed.) (1999), Alterity &

transcendence (pp. 169-182). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1986). The philosophical determination of the idea of culture (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In

Levinas, E. (Ed.) (1998), Entre nous (pp. 179-187). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1987). Dialogue on thinking-of-the other (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.)

(1998), Entre nous (pp. 201-206). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1988a). “Dying for . . .” (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.) (1998), Entre nous

(pp. 207-217). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1988b). The other, utopia, and justice (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.)

(1998), Entre nous (pp. 223-233). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1989a). From the one to the other: Transcendence and time (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In

Levinas, E. (Ed.) (1998), Entre nous (pp. 133-153). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1989b). Philosophy and transcendence (Smith, M., Trans.). In Hayat, P. (Ed.) (1999), Alterity &

transcendence (pp. 3-37). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1991). Author’s preface (Smith, M., & Harshav, B., Trans.). In Levinas, E. (Ed.) (1998), Entre nous

(pp. xi-xii). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (Winter 1989). As if consenting to horror (Wissing, P., Trans.). Critical Inquiry, 15(2), 487. (Original

published in 1988)

Peperzak, A. (1997). Beyond: The philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University

Press.

Philipse, H. (1998). Heidegger’s philosophy of being: A critical interpretation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Wyschogrod, E. (2000). Emmanuel Levinas: The problem of ethical metaphysics. New York, NY: Fordham

University Press.

Previous Post: Thinking About Death I: Heidegger Next Post: Thinking About Death III: Stories

More Articles Related to: Books and Art

2 Responses to “Thinking About Death II: Levinas”

Gyrus says:Thanks for these fascinating thoughts. I was describing them to a friend with a great deal of experience

with ayahuasca yesterday, and his immediate reaction saw no conflict between Heidegger’s conception

of facing death and Levinas’s. “Yes,” he said, speaking about his experiences of facing death with

ayahuasca. “And you have to go through one [Heidegger's experience of solitary 'authenticity'] to get to the

other [Levinas's experience of the fundamental nature of relationality].” I wondered what your thoughts

are on this. Need there be a dichotomy here, or was Heidegger merely “stuck”? Makes me think of

people like Nietzsche and Lovecraft, who seemed to be on some kind of genuine transformative path,

but got stuck in a “failed initiation”, taking a phase of terrifying isolation as an end-point.

REPLY

June 9, 2012 at 9:54 am

Steve Beyer says:Gyrus, it is always a great pleasure to hear from you. I am not sure what your friend’s move actually buys.

A Heideggerian could simply respond that the idea is correct but your friend has the direction wrong:

Dasein must pass through an inauthentic and tranquilized subjection to the other in order to reach true

authenticity. In the absence of some independent metric, we cannot say that one position is

June 12, 2012 at 5:14 am

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 9/11

You Can’t Call 911 in the JungleOct, 2012

AyahuasquerosAug, 2012

A Peyote JokeAug, 2012

A New Ayahuasca StudyAug, 2012

Vodka, Ayahuasca, Found FootageAug, 2012

Is Ayahuasca Neurotoxic?Jul, 2012

Fourteen Dead ShamansJul, 2012

Thinking About Death III: StoriesJun, 2012

Thinking About Death II: LevinasJun, 2012

Thinking About Death I: HeideggerJun, 2012

Ayahuasca and the Grotesque BodyMay, 2012

What Do the Spirits Want from Us?May, 2012

Traveling Safely to Drink AyahuascaMay, 2012

On the Origins of AyahuascaApr, 2012

The Collective UnconsciousSep, 2009

Amazonian GastronomySep, 2009

MetamorphosisSep, 2009

Sacred Mushrooms of MexicoAug, 2009

A Love StoryAug, 2009

Sex and Violence in AmazoniaAug, 2009

The Gift of DiabetesAug, 2009

Long-Term Peyote UseJan, 2009

Ayahuasca and CancerJan, 2009

In Search of the Divine VegetalJan, 2009

Extreme Celebrity AyahuascaJan, 2009

Jacques MabitJan, 2009

Terence McKenna on HopeJan, 2009

Good Blogs: Psychedelic ResearchJan, 2009

An Experiential Typology of SacredPlantsJan, 2009

Heirloom Snuff ing KitsJan, 2009

The Single Active MoleculeJan, 2009

Ancient Andean HallucinogensJan, 2009

The Amazon RiverJan, 2009

An Ayahuasca DocumentaryJan, 2009

Uncontacted Tribes AgainJan, 2009

Uncontacted TribesJan, 2009

Moses and AyahuascaJan, 2009

Xanadu Xero’s ChallengeJan, 2009

Ayahuasca and Transient PsychosisJan, 2009

The Tragic CosmovisionJan, 2009

Whole Earth ReviewJan, 2009

Classifying Plants

The Theft of VoiceJan, 2008

How Old is Shamanism?Jan, 2008

Amazon BasketsJan, 2008

Metachoric ExperiencesJan, 2008

Eagle and CondorJan, 2008

Shaman SuperheroesJan, 2008

Shaman of ColorsJan, 2008

Ayahuasca in the Supreme CourtJan, 2008

Shamans’ OrganizationsJan, 2008

Ayahuasca AdmixturesJan, 2008

MermaidsJan, 2008

The Ayahuasca Patent CaseJan, 2008

Arrow PoisonsJan, 2008

Marshall Arisman, ShamanJan, 2008

Sorcery as Political ResistanceDec, 2007

New Studies of PsychedelicsDec, 2007

Frightened and Stolen SoulsDec, 2007

Byron MetcalfDec, 2007

Listening to DreamsDec, 2007

Beings of the AirDec, 2007

Dye PlantsDec, 2007

Name

Mail ( will not be published

Website

Submit Comment

Browse the Full Collection of Articles

authenticity. In the absence of some independent metric, we cannot say that one position is

evolutionarily — in some sense — superior to the other. I think we are faced with a choice: how do we

want to live our lives?

REPLY

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 10/11

Aug, 2009

Susun Weed, HerbalistAug, 2009

Amazonia BarbieAug, 2009

Heidegger the ShamanAug, 2009

Salvia on ScheduleAug, 2009

Plants of the Ancient MayaAug, 2009

The Shulgin DocumentaryAug, 2009

The Mystery of UlluchuAug, 2009

Painting the Plants w ith LightAug, 2009

Krippner on AyahuascaAug, 2009

Nip/TuckAug, 2009

Spirit StuffAug, 2009

Sacred Justice, Part 1May, 2009

Wounds in the JungleMar, 2009

BioneersMar, 2009

Eagle FeathersMar, 2009

The Last ManMar, 2009

Handling InfectionsMar, 2009

Green Pow erMar, 2009

A Victory for Santo DaimeMar, 2009

The War on Coca Leaves ReduxMar, 2009

HyperthermiaMar, 2009

Peyote SongsMar, 2009

Dealing w ith Snakebite IIMar, 2009

Dealing w ith Snakebite IMar, 2009

The Psychedelic ReviewMar, 2009

A New Ayahuasca BookMar, 2009

Listening to the DreamerMar, 2009

Clean WaterMar, 2009

Jungle MadnessMar, 2009

The Magic Mosquito NetMar, 2009

Native American Film FestivalMar, 2009

Ayahuasca and Mental Health Amongthe ShuarMar, 2009

Mark Your CalendarMar, 2009

Primer Festival de la Selva PeruanaMar, 2009

El DoradoFeb, 2009

Yuw ipi ManFeb, 2009

Classifying PlantsJan, 2009

PerspectivismJan, 2009

Ayahuasca: National Cultural HeritageJul, 2008

A ParableJul, 2008

Policing SorceryJun, 2008

Shamanism and RubberJun, 2008

Vance GellertJun, 2008

VeneficesJun, 2008

Strassman ReduxJun, 2008

Endogenous DimethyltryptamineJun, 2008

Jungle and RainforestJun, 2008

Hallucinogens in AfricaMay, 2008

More Legal StuffMay, 2008

Going FishingApr, 2008

Animated ShamanismApr, 2008

Shamanism ConferenceApr, 2008

Learning to SingApr, 2008

SnakebiteApr, 2008

Video Amazonia IndigenaApr, 2008

The Tragedy of Don CarlosApr, 2008

How I Became a SorcererApr, 2008

Tw o ArticlesApr, 2008

Sasha ReduxApr, 2008

Beta-CarbolinesApr, 2008

The War on DrugsApr, 2008

Self-ControlMar, 2008

Why Dogs Do What They DoMar, 2008

Tw o Coyote PoemsMar, 2008

Daniel MiranteMar, 2008

Some AnnouncementsMar, 2008

The War on Coca LeavesMar, 2008

Some Thoughts on DMT ArtMar, 2008

The Jungle CookbookMar, 2008

Terry Riley’s Peyote CeremonyMar, 2008

VirotesMar, 2008

Visionary InformationMar, 2008

Shamans and HerbalistsFeb, 2008

Dec, 2007

DolphinsDec, 2007

Peter Gorman on the Plant SpiritsDec, 2007

CamalongaDec, 2007

The Telepathy MemeDec, 2007

ChullachaquiDec, 2007

The Water PeopleDec, 2007

The Idea of the WildernessDec, 2007

The Tigress of the JungleDec, 2007

Control of the SpiritsDec, 2007

Shamanism and ConjuringDec, 2007

PantheismDec, 2007

DMT: The MovieDec, 2007

PanpsychismDec, 2007

Alien DreamtimeDec, 2007

More on Protecting PeyoteDec, 2007

BurundangaDec, 2007

SoundscapeDec, 2007

Eliade’s ShamanismDec, 2007

Cleansing the PopeDec, 2007

Remembering the PlantsDec, 2007

Another Icaro, ModernizedDec, 2007

Who is an Indian?Dec, 2007

Strong Sw eet SmellsDec, 2007

Protecting PeyoteDec, 2007

Ethical WildcraftingDec, 2007

BlueberryDec, 2007

Who is a Shaman?Dec, 2007

Plants and SpiritsDec, 2007

Steam BathsDec, 2007

SuriDec, 2007

Olivier MessiaenDec, 2007

PucalupunaDec, 2007

The Journals of Knud RasmussenDec, 2007

What Can Shamans Heal?Dec, 2007

The Smell of the JungleDec, 2007

ChiricsanangoDec, 2007

2/8/13 Thinking About Death II: Levinas | Singing to the Plants

www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/06/thinking-about-death-ii-levinas/ 11/11

Feb, 2009

Animated AyahuascaFeb, 2009

Telling DreamsFeb, 2009

Literary ShamanismFeb, 2009

The Natufian ShamanFeb, 2009

How to Build a HouseFeb, 2009

Soul AyahuascaFeb, 2009

Good Blog: Legitimos GuerreritosFeb, 2009

A Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic PlantsFeb, 2009

Jaguar on AyahuascaFeb, 2009

The Dimethyltryptamine ReceptorFeb, 2009

Indigenous Top-Level DomainsFeb, 2009

Psychoactive Plants OnlineFeb, 2009

PsychointegrationFeb, 2009

Philip Glass on the AmazonFeb, 2009

CuringFeb, 2009

The Great Amazon Raft RaceFeb, 2009

Tw o Songs of My TeacherFeb, 2009

The Telepathy Meme AgainFeb, 2009

Hallucinogens and PornographyFeb, 2009

SoccerFeb, 2009

The Survival of Plant Know ledgeFeb, 2009

Conference NotesFeb, 2009

WeedsFeb, 2009

The Importance of Plant Know ledgeJan, 2009

Jungle MusicJan, 2009

Best New Product of 2009Jan, 2009

Pierre ClastresJan, 2009

Entheogen: The MovieJan, 2009

Magic StonesJan, 2009

Fire on the MountainJan, 2009

Feb, 2008

Prestige and HierarchyFeb, 2008

BrujoFeb, 2008

Shamanic SpecializationsFeb, 2008

Animist SculptureFeb, 2008

The Tragedy of Maria SabinaFeb, 2008

Hallucinogens in North AmericaFeb, 2008

Hallucinogens in SiberiaFeb, 2008

The Hallucinogen Culture AreaFeb, 2008

What Are Spirits?Feb, 2008

Protective SpiritsFeb, 2008

A Death in the JungleFeb, 2008

Plant Know ledgeFeb, 2008

The ChacraFeb, 2008

Beat AyahuascaFeb, 2008

How Plant Spirits AppearFeb, 2008

Women and AyahuascaFeb, 2008

ShroomsFeb, 2008

Ayahuasca MainstreamedFeb, 2008

Selling SpiritualityFeb, 2008

MagicFeb, 2008

CanaimaFeb, 2008

Buryat Shamanism ExhibitFeb, 2008

KhadakJan, 2008

The Leaf-Bundle RattleJan, 2008

Three CeremoniesJan, 2008

Indigenists and UniversalistsJan, 2008

PhlegmJan, 2008

MishmashJan, 2008

Joe Rogan on DMTJan, 2008

AnimismJan, 2008

Male Potency EnhancersDec, 2007

The CushmaDec, 2007

Norval Morrisseau (1931-2007)Dec, 2007

Courage and Pow erDec, 2007

Extraordinary AnthropologicalExperiencesDec, 2007

The Society for the Anthropology ofConsciousnessDec, 2007

Hallucinogen Studies in AnimalsDec, 2007

Know ing Where to SuckDec, 2007

DMT Delivery SystemsDec, 2007

Ayahuasca and SchizophreniaDec, 2007

The Omnipresence of the SpiritsDec, 2007

The Saga of Rick StrassmanDec, 2007

SuckingDec, 2007

The Future of Shamanism in the AmazonDec, 2007

Richard Doyle on AyahuascaDec, 2007

The Shamanic State of ConsciousnessNov, 2007

The Journal of Shamanic PracticeNov, 2007

A New Study of IcarosNov, 2007

The Shamanic CrisisNov, 2007

Shamanism and BeliefNov, 2007

Visionary TobaccoNov, 2007

Amazonian PipesNov, 2007

Sex and the Plant SpiritsNov, 2007

Do Shamans Heal?Nov, 2007

The Dark LadyNov, 2007

Testing the SpiritsNov, 2007

VomitingNov, 2007

Celebrity EndorsementsNov, 2007

Icaros, ModernizedNov, 2007

Shamans and SoulNov, 2007