Agape and Hesed-Ahava. David L. Goicoechea
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With a Wisdom of Love at the Service of Love
On page 157 of Otherwise Than Being Levinas writes;
The responsibility for the other
is an immediacy antecedent to questions.
It is troubled and becomes a problem
when a third party enters.
When the third party looks at the other and me we become
self-conscious and questions begin to arise about justice and
thus philosophy is born so that even responsibility is questioned.
On page 161 Levinas writes:
Philosophy is this measure brought to
the infinity of being-for-the-other
and is like the wisdom of love.
And then on page 162 he writes:
Philosophy is the wisdom of love
at the service of love.
This is the central thesis of Beal’s book and by explaining
this wisdom of love and its serving of love he wants to
explain the central core of all of Levinas’ writing.
Chapter 3 of Beal’s book on Levinasian Love pages 43-64
deals with the relation between altruistic love and self-love.
He gives the criticism of many against Levinas for his exclusion
of self-love and some like Paul Ricoeur see Levinas’
description of altruism as excessive and Ricoeur argues
that especially being a hostage for the other is excessive.
It is Beal’s task against Derrida, Caputo, Kearney,
Ricoeur, Irigaray, and others to show that according to Levinas
altruism and self-love are compatible and it is with the
appearance of the third that the extreme asymmetry is
overcome by the wisdom of altruism than can serve even self.
As a result of Derrida’s deconstruction of Totality and Infinity
Levinas works out this new theory of love in Otherwise than Being.
II,3.4 Which Goes from Loving Widows, Orphans and Aliens
Derrida would see Levinas as an advocate of pure giving which
is impossible because there is always a return for any gift I give.
The asymmetrical relation between me and widows, orphans and
aliens is such that for Levinas I expect nothing in return but
Derrida argues that there will be all kinds of unexpected returns.
As a Jew I might feel happy and proud that I take care of
the poor and do not participate in a caste system helping the rich.
Levinas took such criticism to heart and in Otherwise Than Being
he made the asymmetry even greater with his suffering servant.
When I offer my cheek to the smitter I suffer so much in my
giving it is hard to say that I receive some gift in return.
Levinas gets around Derrida’s problem of pure giving with his
notion of the third that lets responsibility become first philosophy.
The third who can always be there looking at us when I take
responsibility for others brings about an interpersonal personhood.
Max Scheler already developed a philosophy of persons in relation
and Buber and Marcel were influenced by him so Levinas’ notion
of the third had precedents and this is why he is postmodern.
With the third he is explicitly going beyond rugged individualism
and the modern approach that makes of every man an island.
The notion of a trinity prevents an egoism for two even though
with the best intentions one may seek to be a most pure giver.
It is at this point on page 162 of Otherwise Than Being that
we get to “Philosophy is the wisdom of Love at the service of Love.”
Once the third opens us to philosophical questions about
justice we can begin to work out the relation between altruism
and self-love which is the main issue between Derrida and Levinas.
Kierkegaard had to work out the relation between self-love
and the love of God and neighbor so how does Levinas do it?
Is he able to make altruism and self-love compatible?
Does he deal with loving God as well as self and neighbor?
II,3.5 To being the Suffering Servant
In Second Isaiah there are four Suffering Servant poetic pieces
that Mark in the first Synoptic Gospel applies to Jesus.
Levinas’ philosophy has the same structure as Mark’s Gospel.
First in Galilee Jesus goes about caring for widows, orphans, and aliens.
Then he goes up to Jerusalem and Mark shows him as the Suffering
Servant of Isaiah who offers himself even for those killing him.
The early Levinas takes responsibility for widows, orphans, and aliens.
The later Levinas portrays the hostage being persecuted for others.
As Derrida and others point out there can be a self-love even
in the two kinds of altruistic love so as Levinas seeks to be
consistent he develops his notion of the third and a philosophy
of justice that takes him beyond the collision of altruism and egoism.
As Beals (p. 57) points out, Peperzak thinks that compatibilism is
only an option after the arrival of the third and he explains
this further on page 55 when he quotes Peperzak:
the asymmetry of this relation does not seem
to exclude a double asymmetry in which
I am as “high” for the Other as the Other is for me.
Beals (p. 55) invokes Peperzak’s quotation of Levinas:
I myself can feel myself
to be the other for the other.
Also on page 55 Beals goes on to write about Merald Westphal:
As both Levinas and Kierkegaard emphasize,
neighbor love runs counter to our natural self-love.
and as such, taken seriously,
“the command to practice it is truly traumatic.
How at all, is it possible, even imperfectly?”
For Kierkegaard the natural loves of affection, friendship, and eros
have a built in self-love and he does explain how to overcome this.
So it can help if we see how Levinas and Kierkegaard compare.
II,3.6 Who Loves the Enemy in a Proximity
As Beals writes on page 83, Levinas says quite clearly: