Texts and Phenomenology

by Kris Kokseng

13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy" in Ethics and Infinity


Today Doc Garcia talked about two main topics, text and phenomenology. What exactly did I learn about these topics? Doc Garcia explained that philosophy should not begin with ideas in one's head; it should begin from lived experiences. Texts are important because one person can't experience everything. Texts are the experiences of other people written down, and when we think of philosophy we must not only use our own experiences but texts as well.

"La vraie vie est ailleurs(the true life is elsewhere)," said Rimbaud. Levinas states that this true life is no longer utopian because we find a place for it in our thoughts. We "de-center" ourselves and enter the world of what we are reading. As Flaubert said "Live in order to live!" This is why Levinas considers the Bible as one of the great books that he has encountered because not only does it give a possibility but it gives many possibilities of that true life.

Moving on to phenomenology, as we experience things we are living life however this is only the pre-reflective level of phenomenology. A reflection as defined in class is a gaze that goes outside and comes back.  As we reflect on our experiences we enter into the reflective level which is living life outside of life.
I had an experience when I was driving a car. I was in the pre-reflective level when I was just driving on "auto-pilot" until a point where I almost hit somebody. That's when I became conscious of being conscious, and being conscious that what I do could really affect others. From reflecting I learned that I had to be more careful when driving. In a sense I was also conscious of others. And as we tackled being a person for others, I always wondered why did I even think or care about others during this experience. Maybe it is just hard-wired into us.