The Twist

by Jolo Villanueva

27 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "It is There," Ethics and Infinity


What is being? What does it mean to be? These are the questions we've been tackling since the beginning of the school year. I somehow found myself content with Marcel's, Heidegger's, and Luijpen's takes on being. The essence of being from lived experience itself was appealing to me because it truly tackled what philosophy and rationality were all about: the human and his world;we make sense of the world by relying on direct experience and being IN the world rather than being OF the world.

Levinas, however, put a new twist into this. He argued that it is not enough "to be" in the Heideggerian sense. Affirming our existence through ourselves is not enough. This would merely lead to the generalization of the being of others. He argues that we must take into consideration the "uniqueness of the existence of each existent." An authentic life is a life focused outside oneself and towards the authenticity of others.

In my opinion, Levinas was merely formulating a more authentic and more open version of classic phenomenology. Since this view endorses lived experiences as sources for knowledge and reflection, isn't focusing on others a more open mode of experiencing? Going out of yourself and experiencing other people and their being is truly characteristic of phenomenology. Experiencing openly in relation to one's self is a good foundation in learning and appreciating the environment in a philosophical sense, but approaching others in their authenticity really gives a more authentic sense of being, because being IN the world entails every experience as open to learning and reflection, and realizing that others are also IN the world, rather than OF the world, makes experience richer and more phenomenological in the classical sense.