An Encounter with the Other

           

            On Friday, before the tutorial started, Sean and some of the other students started discussing the Batman versus Superman movie. Sean said it sucked because the producers felt the need to tell everyone Batman’s origin yet again. He agreed that the action was good though and that Ben Affleck was well cast as Batman.

            I noticed as Sean was checking off the attendance that for the first time there were no females in the group. About halfway through though, one young woman did arrive.

            Sean said that since we have only two tutorials left, we would discuss Levinas this time and Derrida the next.

            Of our upcoming exam, Sean told us that in the 25 days we have to prepare, especially since we’ve been given the exam questions, we should have no problem crushing the exam. But he added that this would only be true if what we write is not crap. Sean added though that he doesn’t see the purpose of exams.

            Of Levinas, Sean said that this was his first time reading Levinas, but he was impressed.

            Sean told us that when Levinas mentions other philosophers, he has a solid grip on what their arguments are.

            For Levinas the meaningfulness and significance of the world permeates our lives.

            For Heidegger, language speaks and language is the world.

            Maurice MerleauPonty says of Heidegger that he forgot the body. The body is a robust form of subjectivity embedded in the world.

            Husserl invented phenomenology.

            Levinas says that bodies communicate and that the Other speaks language.

            Someone asked, what about the use of language by artificial intelligence. I said, “But there is no artificial intelligence!” Sean said it’s a good question but to put it on hold.

            The Other has a claim on you. There is an ethical infinity disclosed in the face of the other. It creates a desire that goes outside of the self and never back in. He thinks it goes beyond death because the trace indicates something beyond. There is a chain of signification but causal analysis is a false trail.

            Studies of babies show that we are innately predisposed for faces to be salient.

            We face the limits of our own consciousness when we encounter the other.

            There was a discussion about the niqab in relation to the idea of the significance of the face. I suggested that make-up can hide the face just as easily as a niqab.

            The face puts a question to consciousness, showing us the immediacy of our own limits. The world shows up the way that it does because of how you are.

            I asked if one can encounter the other in oneself. Sean said probably not. I wondered about multiple personalities. He suggested that one body has one face.

            I went up to the OISE library to renew some books and then on the way home stopped at a bank to take out my rent money.

            At home, I took an hour siesta before going to teach my yoga class.

            Anna texted me that she wouldn’t be coming and no one else showed up either.

            That night I cooked the mystery frozen white meat that I got from the food bank, and discovered that it was actually fish. It went well with the potato that I baked.

            I finished watching the film, Ghost World. I guess I’ll finish reading the comic when my courses are over.