Transcendence, Morality, and HIstory

SAMUEL MOYN

Transcendence, Morality, andHistory: Emmanuel Levinas andthe Discovery of SorenKierkegaardin France

[I]nFrancehe is allbutunknown... [yet]Kierkegaard'sideasare fatedtoplayagreatrolein thespiritualdevelopmentofmankind.It is truethatthis roleis ofaspecialkind.Hewill hardlybeaccepted amongthe classicsofphilosophy. .. buthis thoughtwill findaplace, unseen,in theheartsofmen.

-Lev Shestovl

WhensheaskedwhyIhadchosenKierkegaardasanobjectofstudy andIrepliedthatIdidnot know,RachelBespaloffsaid:"Butdon'tyou realize? It is because you are a Jew."

-Jean Wahl2

INTRODUCTION

Tojudgefromhispostwaressaysonthesubject,EmmanuelLevinasrejected the founder of existentialism with no little irritation. Where SorenKierkegaardinterpretedIsaac'sbinding,in Fearand Trembling, asaparableaboutthe roleoffaithin takingthe selfbeyondthe merely ethical stage,Levinassuggestedthatit is not Abraham'shand,readyto bringthe knifeto his son'sthroat,butinstead "Abraham'searforhearing the voice" that best captures the intent of the biblical story. It "broughthimbacktotheethicalorder."AsLevinasexplainedit:"That [Abraham]obeyedthe firstvoice is astonishing:that he hadsufficient

1. LevShestov,Kierkegaardet la philosophie existentielle (Voxclamantis in deserto)(Paris:Vrin,1936),35-36. Throughoutthisarticle,alltranslationsaremyown,unless indicated otherwise.

2. JeanWahl,"Discoursde cl6ture,"in ElianeAmado-ValensiandJeanHalperin, eds.,Laconscience juive.Donnees et debats:Textesdes troispremiersColloquesd'intellectuels juifs de languefrancaiseorganisesparla Sectionfrancaisedu Congresjuif mondial (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), 225.

YFS104,Encounterswith Levinas,ed.ThomasTrezise,? 2004byYaleUniversity.

SAMUEL MOYN 23

distance with respect to that obedience to hear the second voice-that is the essential."3

The conflict in biblical interpretation mirrors their difference in philosophical outlook. Where Kierkegaard recommended, in afamous phrase, the "teleological suspension of the ethical," Levinas has become celebrated for the recovery and reinstatement of morality in philosophy. Where Kierkegaard narrated the existential drama of the self, Levinas dedicated his attention, with equal but apparently opposite fervency, to the so-called other. "[Hie bequeathed to the history of philosophy," Levinas complained of the Danish thinker, "an exhibitionistic, immodest subjectivity" {PN, 76). Opposing the solitary-and in his view, narcissistic and melodramatic-quest of the knight of faith, Levinas recommended the calm andhealthy solicitude ofinterpersonal morality, "[t]heresponsibility that rids the Iof its imperialism and egotism (even the egotism of salvation)" (PN, 73). The pious submission to the other: this adventure, for Levinas, is paradoxically the most adventurous one available to the self.

Yet when the matter is considered more closely and historically, Kierkegaard'sphilosophical contribution turns out in many respects to be a major if unexpected station on the long way to the human other. In his portrait of the infinite qualitative difference between God and man, Kierkegaard set a crucial precedent for the notion of human "alterity" that Levinas is so renowned for defending. And in severing the individual from the all-inclusiveness of the historical process so that the self could search for this strangely distant god, Kierkegaard anticipated Levinas's own opposition to a fully historical and world-immanent picture of human existence.

For his most passionate contemporary advocates, Levinas's doctrine of "the other" is anutterly novel andwholly convincing approach; it finally unseated a long-standing if not permanent Western bias for "the same." Idoubt that either the historical presumption orthe moral evaluation is entirely correct. Inthis essay, Iwill endeavor to show that it is possible to understand Levinas's philosophy as a secularizing improvisation on Kierkegaard's early call for the recovery of the other in divine form. But the Kierkegaardian precedent is responsible, Iwill sug-

3. These comments are from Emmanuel Levinas, "Existenz und Ethik," Schweizer Monatshefte 43 (May 1963): 170-77 and in Jean-Paul Sartre et al., Kierkegaard vivant (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 232-34, 286-88, both rpt., the latter with important changes, in Noms propres (see PN, 74, 77).

gest, not only for some of the power but also for some of the poverty in Levinas's philosophical ethics.

After a summary reconstruction of the French enthusiasm for Kierkegaard's thought, Iturn to two neglected episodes in Levinas's engagement with the interwar fashion. The essential purpose of the study is to remember forgotten debates in order to assert their importance as evidence regarding Levinas's development generally and the role that Kierkegaard and Kierkegaardianism specifically played in it. The thesis throughout is that the Levinasian insistence on "transcendence" has aconceptual history. The process through which it came to occupy the center of Levinas's thought also, I hope, helps account for some persisting mysteries about Levinas's conception of alterity. Just as Kierkegaard's picture of the relationship between God and man is secularized by Levinas as the very image of intersubjectivity, making it an essentially dyadic affair, Kierkegaard's absolute distinction between self and history found itself transformed, in Levinas's hands, into just as rigid a difference between morality and politics. If these mysteries are understood as flaws, then the Kierkegaardian lessons that Levinas learned may well turn out to have obstructed as much as they enabled his insight.

THE FRENCH ENTHUSIASM FOR KIERKEGAARD

Levinas became a philosopher in the midst of Europe's interwar experience. Though Kierkegaard's work had percolated throughout the continent during the several decades after his death, it is really only thanks to the German interwar discovery ofhis philosophy that he became the canonical figure he remains today. It is possible, almost, to say that Kierkegaard is a twentieth-century rather than a nineteenth-century philosopher. "Ifwe were to write ahistory ofhis fame," Hannah Arendt observed in 1932, onlythelastfifteenyearswouldconcernus,butin thoseyearshis fame has spreadwith amazingspeed.This famerests on morethan the discovery andbelated appreciationof a greatman who was wrongly neglectedin his own time. Wearenot justmakingamendsfornot having done him justice earlier. Kierkegaardspeaks with a contemporary voice;he speaksforanentiregenerationthatis not readinghim out of historical interest but forintensely personalreasons:mea res agitur.4

4. HannahArendt,"SorenKierkegaard,"FrankfurterZeitung,29January1932,rpt.

SAMUEL MOYN 25

This enthusiasm forKierkegaard'swork, in turn, owed its success to the prominence of the majorKierkegaardianof post-WorldWarI Europe:KarlBarth.The receptionofKierkegaard'sthought, which came only in a drizzleup to the appropriationin Barth'sEpistle to the Romans andrelatedwritings,is unthinkablewithout Barth'sstormypersonality andinstant fame.5Then publications by andaboutthe Dane pouredforthfromthe Germanpressesin atorrent.Kierkegaardhasno doubthadnomoresignificantheydaythanin the Germanintellectual life of the 1920s. It is less well known, but the Frenchhadtheir own Kierkegaardenthusiasm-only, as with their reception of phenomenology,it occurredafterasignificantdelayandwith some creativegarbling. Buthistorically speaking,it may haveprovedmore consequential as the font fromwhich international "existentialism" eventually flowed. WhatIam arguingin this essayis that,paradoxicallyenough, it alsocontributeddecisively to the morerecentinterest in philosophical ethics. A generaloverview is thereforein order.6

The translation of Kierkegaardinto Frenchhad been spotty and often corrupt,especially by comparison to Germany where, by the mid-1920s,readerscouldbenefitfromthecelebratededition ofKierkegaard'scomplete works, translatedbyHermannGottsched andChristoph Schrempf,that the JenapublisherEugenDiederichs broughtout overthe decadeandahalfendingin 1924.Bycontrast,only in 1932did in Essaysin Understanding,1930-1954, ed.JeromeKohn,trans.RobertandRitaKimber(NewYork:Harcourt,Brace&Co., 1993),44.

5. TheauthoritativestudyoftheKierkegaardreceptionbeforeBarthisHabibC.Malik, ReceivingSorenKierkegaard:TheEarlyImpactand Transmissionof His Thought (Washington,D.C.:CatholicUniversityof America,1997).OnBarth'sconnection, see Anders Gemmers and August Messer, SorenKierkegaardund KarlBarth (Stuttgart: StreckerundSchr6der,1925)andEgonBrinkschmidt,SorenKierkegaardundKarlBarth (Neukirchen:NeukirchenerVerlag,1971).

6. Ihavedrawnprincipallyonthefollowingaccounts:JeanMesnard,"Kierkegaard auxprisesavec la conscience francaise,"Revuede litteraturecomparee9 (1955):45377;Nelly Viallaneix,"Lecturesfrangaises,"in Niels andMarieThulstrup,eds.,Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana,vol. 8, TheLegacyand Interpretationof Kierkegaard(Copenhagen:Reitzel, 1981),andJeanWahl,"Kierkegaard:Son influence en France,"Revue danoise (1951):34-36. See also FrancoisBousquet, "Kierkegaarddans la tradition theologiquefrancophone,"inNiels JorgenCappelomandJonSteward,eds.,Kierkegaard Revisited (Berlin:Walterde Gruyter,1997),andF.J.BelleskovJansen,"TheStudyin France,"in Marie Mikulova Thulstrup, ed., Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana,vol. 15, KierkegaardResearch(Copenhagen:Reitzel, 1987).SeealsoJacquesMaritain,"Aspects contemporainsde la pensee religieuse (I),"Fontaine31 (1943):18-33, esp. 22-28 on Kierkegaard,Barth,andShestov;in Englishas"ContemporaryRenewalsin theModern World,"in Maritainet al.,Religionand theModernWorld(Philadelphia:Universityof PennsylvaniaPress,1941).

acomplete renderingofanyone of Kierkegaard'smany books firstappearin France,TheSickness unto Death underthe title Traitedu desespoirinatranslationbyJeanGateauandKnudFerlov.Acomplete edition appearedonly decadeslater.Therehadbeen, it is true, scattered andfragmentarytranslations-as well asinterpretiveessaysbyVictor BaschandHenriDelacroix-before WorldWarI.7Only around1930, however,didanythingchange-and then,asNelly Viallaneixobserves, "everythingchanged."

The sociology of knowledge invalidates what Kierkegaardhimself insinuates. While the reader'sexperienceseems to be personal,a dialoguebetweenhimself andthetext,itisusuallyintelligible onlyaspart of a trend."Itis fromthis dateforward,"Viallaneixremarksof 1930, "thatKierkegaard'srenown really spreadin France-just at the same time asFranceentereda 'crisis'not only economic but social andpolitical in form.The anxiety ofthese annees sombres,nourishedbythe riseofNazism andtheexpectationofanewwar,madetheKierkegaardianmyth powerful.Translationsandinterpretationsmultiplied." The kindofcontext thathadmadeKierkegaard(likeBarthhimself) sopopular a decade earlierin a defeated Germany now came to a France wrackedbydepressionandincreasingpolitical andsocialpolarization. With due allowance forthe salient differencesbetween the two moments, it is nonetheless truethat the political upheavalof these years helped foster, for many, the cultural mood so inseparablefrom the Kierkegaardianinterestandenthusiasm ontheGermanscene adecade earlier.8

Inreligious circles, the Germanenthusiasm hadspecialimpact on Protestant theology. In this case, the reception of Kierkegaardoften blendedalmost indistinguishablywith theapotheosis ofBarthhimself in Frenchthought. The key Kierkegaardiantexts in Barth'scollection TheWordof God and the Wordof Man appearedin Frenchin 1933.9 The two majorjournalsofFrenchProtestantism-Foi et vie andLesemeur-likewise celebratedanddebatedKierkegaardandBarthin the early 1930s. Denis de Rougemont, a Swiss writerwith close links to

7. HenriDelacroix,"SorenKierkegaard,"Revuedemetaphysiqueetdemorale8/4 (1900):451-84; VictorBasch,"Unindividualistereligieux,SorenKierkegaard,"Grande revue(1903):281-320. Levinasknew thesepublications;seebelow.

8. Viallaneix,"Lecturesfrangaises,"108-9. Similarly,Wahlhimself saysthat"one canin factsee that[Kierkegaard'sfame]hasgrownespeciallysince about1930"(Wahl, "Kierkegaard,"34).

9. Barth,Parole de Dieu, parole humaine, trans. PierreMauryand Auguste Lavanchy(Paris:Editions"Jesers,"1933).

FrenchProtestantism(aswell asto the nascent College deSociologie), not only publishedhis own studies of Kierkegaardbut also foundeda theological review called Hic et Nunc, explicitly modeled on Kierkegaard'sown controversialseriesofpamphlets, TheMoment.10

Rougemont'scollaboratorin this editorialventure,lateranimportanttheoristofreligionandIslamscholarnamedHenryCorbin,joined the fray,too, learningDanish andtranslatingBarthaswell aspublishinganumberofarticlesinHic etNuncinpreparationforhis important tracton the subject,which appearedin Recherchesphilosophiques in 1934.This article merits special mention in light of the theme of the nonhistorical individual. Corbin'sarticle provedamong the highestprofile introductions to the new German theology of the "wholly other"on the Frenchscene. Itmadethe Kierkegaardiancase fortranscendence and against history with vigor. "The twofold task of religious philosophy which emergedfrom the Aufklirung," Corbin explained, "was the insertion of divine transcendence into the flux of history and the reduction of human existence to a generality."But, Corbininsisted, "thetestimony of dialectical theology tends to show definitively how divine transcendence,which is foreveroutside history,i.e. non-historical, canonly reveal itself as aconcreterelationto concretemen."Forthis reason,insteadofallowingitself tobeaccessed throughhistory,thetranscendentotherisinfact"thefoundationofthe historicity of every concrete individuality."11A frequentcontributor to Recherchesphilosophiques, the famous (ifshort-lived)journalcofoundedby his friendAlexandreKoyre,Levinaswould, Ibelieve, certainly have known of the article. Butverylittle hangson the connection: similarnotions aboutthe priorityof the wholly otherto history were soon to be everywhere.

Indeed,the Kierkegaardenthusiasm did not only penetrate theological circles;it also found a deepfoothold in the philosophical discussions ofthetime. TheKierkegaardianinfluence onvariousGerman philosophersnow discussed so intensely in France,leaving asidefora moment studies ofKierkegaardhimself, couldhardlyhavebeen more

10. See,forexample,Denis deRougemont,"KierkegaardenFrance,"Lanouvele revuefranpaise46/273 (1936):971-76. OnHicetNunc,seeBernardReymond,Theologien ou prophete?:LesFrancophoneset KarlBarthavant 1945 (Lausanne:L'aged'homme, 1985),chap.7and,forthe manifestoofthe journal,231-33.

11. Corbin,"Latheologie dialectique et l'histoire," Recherchesphilosophiques 3 (1933):250-84, at252.OnCorbin'slatersignificance,see StevenM.Wasserstrom,Religion after Religion:Gershom Scholem, MirceaEliade, and Henry Corbinat Eranos (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1999).

obvious-beginning with Heideggerhimself. (Interestingly,none other than Henry Corbintranslatedthe first-and for a long time, onlyFrenchcollection of Heidegger'swritings, a defective but important rendering.)The cumulative effects were immense. Accordingto Paul Ricoeur,the years 1936-1940 were, thanks to the Kierkegaardenthusiasm, those ofthe starkestintellectual life in the lastcentury-starkest, onemight add,until the conversionsfromexistentialism to structuralismandfromstructuralismtopoststructuralism.Ricoeurgoesso farasto comment that "Kierkegaardis atthe originofFrenchexistentialphenomenology."Indeed,in aphenomenon thatallthe early"histories"of existentialism tacitly recognized,the Kierkegaardenthusiasmmayprovideoneofthebestgeneralrubricsformakingsenseofthe evolution of Frenchthought as the 1930s waned. As neo-Kantianism fell, akind of "neo-Kierkegaardianism"rushedinto the void.12

Two figures,however, thanks to their book-length studies on the subject,were absolutely beyond question the most significant in the dissemination and popularization of Kierkegaardin intellectual circles. There was first of all the emigre Russian-Jewish thinker Lev Shestov (inParis,"LeonChestov"),who contributednot justindividually but throughhis leadershipof a coterie of loyal disciples. And, against the backgroundestablished by all of the more minor figures, theretoweredthephilosopherJeanWahl(alsoofJewishorigin).Hisvarious "Kierkegaardianstudies"-the phrasehe used as the title of his 1938collection of writings fromthe period-were not only most importantin the Kierkegaardenthusiasm in Francegenerallybut, more directlyforthese purposes,they werecriticalforLevinas'sphilosophical developmentin particular.

As it happens,Levinaswrote about Shestov duringthe 1930s and counted Wahlamong his closest friends (indeed,he eventually dedicated Totality and Infinity to Wahl and his wife Marcelle). Consequently,these two figuresneedto begiven specialattention. Itwas in writing about Shestov,as it turns out, that Levinasfirsthadoccasion to mention his own predecessorFranzRosenzweig in print-in fact

12. MartinHeidegger,Qu'est-cequela metaphysique?:suivi d'extraitssur1'etreet uneconferencesurHolderlin,trans.HenryCorbin(Paris:Gallimard,1938);PaulRicoeur, "PhilosopherapresKierkegaard,"Revuedetheologieetdephilosophie, 3rdser.,13(1963): 292-316. Mesnard,however,sees Kierkegaardsupplantedby HeideggerandJaspersin the "ccnacles"ofParisianexistentialism.Mesnard,"Kierkegaardauxprises,"467.Mesnardpublishedhis own book on the Dane afterthe war:Levraivisage de Kierkegaard (Paris:Beauchesne,1948).

this comment dwelled on Rosenzweig in more detail than Levinas would accordhim before(oreven in!)TotalityandInfinity itself. And itwasininteractingwith Wahl,Iwill suggest,thatLevinasmovedfrom the enthusiasm forKierkegaardto thinking abouttranscendencein a way that steeredthis enthusiasm in anew direction.Thefigurewhom everyoneelse saw asthe distantprogenitorofMartinHeidegger,Levinaswantedto conscriptinto his battle againstthis incontestably great but (briefly)National Socialist thinker. The Dane would correctthe German.

LEVINAS'S INITIAL STATEMENT ON KIERKEGAARD

LevShestov(1866-1938, bornLevIsakovichShvartzsman),onceamong the more prominent Jewishphilosophers of the period,hadbeen expelled fromthe new Soviet Union alongwith many otherRussianintellectuals in 1922.13Aftersojourningforsome time in Berlin,he settled definitively in Paris,where he taught at the university beforehe diedin the late 1930s. (Pariscounted as the most importantcenter of theRussiandiaspora;VladimirNabokov,forexample,livedtherewhen he wrotehis firstnovel in English,TheRealLifeof Sebastian Knight.) Shestovbecameimmensely fashionableinhis oldage.14Allofhisolder worksweretranslated;andwhile he continuedtowritein Russian,his new books typically first came into print in French(andsometimes German)editions, publishedbyhis friendsandadmirers,who madeup agenuinepleiadoffollowers.Apparently,forexample,GeorgesBataille studiedunderShestov;heassistedinthetranslationofoneofhisworks. But the most significant anddevoted of Shestov'sfollowers were the Russian-bornphilosopher Rachel Bespaloffand the Romanian-born poet BenjaminFondane(1898-1944, originally BenjaminWechsler), bothofwhom cametolive in Parisatthetime;theirpublishedworkin

13. thinkersItisnoteworthy,forexample,thatanolderEnglish-languageanthologyofJewish featuresthe work of Shestov alongwith Rosenzweig andBuber.See Bernard Martin,ed.,GreatTwentieth-CenturyJewishPhilosophers:Shestov,Rosenzweig,Buber (New York:Macmillan, 1969).Itis likewise interestingthatone of the foundersof anotherkindof enthusiasmonce enthusedaboutShestov.SeeIrvingKristol,"AllThings Are Possible:Selection froma JewishExistentialist Thinker,"Commentary(January 1952):68-71.

14. SeeBenjaminFondane,Rencontresavec LeonChestov(Paris:Plasma,1982)for arecordofsomeofhismanyintellectualcontacts.Itappearsfromthisbook(138)thathe hadpersonalinteractionswith Levinasin some capacity.See also MichaelWeingrad, "NewEncounterswithLeonChestov,"JournalofJewishThoughtandPhilosophy(forthcoming)forconnectionstoBatailleandtoWalterBenjamin.

the 1930sfeaturedbothextensive appealstoKierkegaardandelaborate homagesto theirmoreproximateintellectual master.15

Still, Shestov'sdirectinfluence outstrippedthatofallofhis admirers.Itis thanks to Shestov,forexample,that Husserlinitially came to be known in France,if only in the wildly distortedimage availablein the vituperativepolemic Shestovaimedagainstthe masterofGerman phenomenology.Thoughit originallyappearedin Russianin 1917,the attackonly came to the attention of the Westin 1926.The somewhat vulgarinterpretationShestovoffered,towhich Levinas'sprofessorJean Heringimmediately responded,nonetheless had a certain impact in France,no doubthelpingto sow Levinas'syouthful interest in the subject,which climaxed in his dissertationonHusserl'sphilosophy afew yearslater.16

But Shestov's interests, especially by the time he settled in Paris, were wider.Inthe many books that appearedin the 1920sand 1930s, Shestov not only popularizedproto-existentialist Russianwriterslike Chekhov,Dostoevsky, andTolstoy,but alsolookedbackto those who now appeared,fromtheperspectiveofthe vanguard,tobethe pioneering founders of this movement misunderstood in their own times: Blaise Pascal, FriedrichNietzsche, and (of course) Kierkegaardhimself.17

Shestov also arguedforanew conception ofJudaismthat opposed

15. Seeesp.Fondane,Laconsciencemalheureuse(Paris:Plasma,1936),with articles on Shestov,Husserl,Kierkegaard,andNietzsche; andRachelBespaloff,Cheminements et carrefours(Paris:Vrin,1938),with articles on KierkegaardandNietzsche. Fondane diedinAuschwitz in 1944.BespaloffearnedmostfamethroughherotherbookDe1'lliade,pref.JeanWahl(New York:Brentano's,1943).Inthe Englishedition, Onthe Iliad, trans.MaryMcCarthy(NewYork:Pantheon,1945),Wahl'sforewordis replacedbyHermannBroch'sessay"TheStyleoftheMythicalAge:AnIntroduction."

16. Thefeudbeganwith Shestov,"Mementomori:Aproposdela theoriedelaconnaissanced'EdmondHusserl, Revuephilosophiquedela Franceet del'etranger(January-February1926):5-62, andleftalongpapertrail,whichIomit.Thebesttreatmentis in EugeneH. Frickey,"TheOriginsof Phenomenologyin France,1920-1940" (Ph.D. diss.,IndianaUniversity, 1979),chap.2;on the merits,see RamonaFotiade,"Evidence et conscience:LbonChestov etla critiqueexistentielle dela theoriedel'evidence chez Husserl,"in Nikita Struve,ed., LeonChestov: Unphilosophepas comme les autres? (Paris:Institutd'etudesslaves, 1996).Levinas'sthesis:LatheoriedeI'intuitiondansla phenomenologiede Husserl(Paris:Vrin,1930).

17. Shestov,Lanuit de Gesthemani:Essaisurlaphilosophiede Pascal,trans.Boris de Schloezer(Paris:Grasset,1923);Lesrtvelations de la mort:Dostoievsky-Tolstoy, trans.Borisde Schloezer(Paris:Plon, 1923);L'iddedu bien chez Tolstoiet Nietzsche: Philosophieetpredication,trans.T.Beresovski-ChestovandGeorgesBataille(Paris:Editions du sitcle, 1925);Laphilosophie de la tragedie:Dostoiewsky et Nietzsche, trans. BorisdeSchloezer(Paris:J.Schiffrin,1926).

it to, ratherthan synthesized it with, philosophy.This interpretation is epitomizedinhisAthens andJerusalemof 1938,the two cities symbolizing forShestov the absolutedividebetween thelies ofreasonand the truths ofunreason.Shestov didnot hesitate in the least to takeup thechargeofthelatteragainstthedominanceoftheformer.Hesawthe heritageof Greecein Europeanculture as a misleading andtragicrationalism that,byrefusingto admitthe realityofthe fundamentalhuman experiences of terror,loneliness, uncertainty, andfaith, left the individualallthemorealonewhen they came.18Itis thereforenot surprisingthatShestovcouldfindasourceofinsightandinspirationinthe antiphilosophicalwritings ofKierkegaardin particular.

Shestov'smost importantbook forthese purposes,Kierkegaardet la philosophie existentielle (Voxclamantis in deserto), appearedin 1936, in a translationby TatianaRageotandBorisde Schloezer.The text, like the rest of Shestov'sworks of the period,providesameditative approach,unclassifiable by the generic standardsof today, that worked in the gripof passion and,undeterredby academic scruples, substitutedthe declamationsofrhetoricfortheproofsofreason.Itemphasizes two points worthparticularmention.

Most fundamentally,Shestov urgedhis strict distinction between andopposition ofWesternrationalismand"Eastern"faith. The blandishments ofphilosophy couldneveralterthe truththat-as the subtitle of the book proposed-man is alone in a desertcryingforno one tohear.Theultimate questions ofexistence revealedallphilosophyas apackofemptypromises;onlyfaithcouldhopetoprovidemoreviable answers-and preciselybyrefusingto comfortandreassure.This dismissal appliedquitespecificallytothe domainofphilosophyknown as ethics: Western morality, especially if rooted in philosophical rationalism, the attempt to dictate formalized rules of action, only obstructedexistential faith.Themistake ofphilosophy,Shestovinsisted, is to lock out, in the service of inhuman abstraction,the absurdityof life atit is lived. The theoreticalrulesofmoralitycouldneverapplyto the actualsituations oflife asthey areexigently experienced."Thatis why," Shestov explained, "Kierkegaardturned, not to reason and morality,which demandresignation,buttotheabsurdandfaith,which give their sanction to daring.His writings andsermons, raging,frenzied, violent, full of intensity, speak to us of nothing else: ... a mad

18. Shestov, Athenes et Jerusalem: un essai dephilosophie religieuse, trans. Boris de Schloezer (Paris:Flammarion, 1938).

flight from the god of the philosophers to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob."'9 Accordingly, and as Kierkegaard had so brilliantly discovered, the entire program of ethics had to be rejected for the sake of a decisive faith in a "teleological suspension of the ethical."

Levinas's 1937 review of the book, which appeared soon after its publication, is an assessment not only of Shestov but also of the Kierkegaard enthusiasm quite generally. Though brief, Levinas's article shows how deeply he rejected many of Shestov's basic premises and with them an uncritical fashion. "Kierkegaard's fortunes are by no means a fad," Levinas acknowledged near the beginning:

ThemoralcrisisopenedbytheGreatWarhasgivenmen thesharpfeeling of the powerlessness of reason andthe critical disagreementbetween a rationalistic civilization andthe exigencies of the particular soul lost in ageneralizedanonymity.Ithasputin question,despitethe remarkableadvancementofscienceandtechnology,thevalue,hitherto unopposed,oftheGreekheritage.Onthisbasis,in differentforms,both irrationalismanddoctrinesofviolence havebeenrenewed.20

This passage, which one is entitled to interpret as a global evaluation of the relevance and risks of the Kierkegaard enthusiasm as awhole, is interesting because it appears to take adim view of what everyone else seemed to find so exciting. Levinas did not hesitate to include Shestov in this verdict.

After summarizing the philosophical harvest of the Kierkegaard enthusiasm-which added up, he said, essentially to the thesis of the ineffability of the individual-Levinas wrote: "Whatever response one gives to all of these questions, they have to be posed. The internal signification of all of the events that constitute my existence has to be respected, before interpreting them as a function of the universal order as constructed by reason." It may not be too much to suggest that, for Levinas, while the questions they posed were legitimate, the answers given by Kierkegaard and Shestov were mistaken. At least, Levinas applied this verdict explicitly to the most important of their conclusions. While in the 1930s Levinas might have agreed with these figures that

19. Shestov,Kierkegaardetlaphilosophie existentielle, 383-84; cf.RonaldGrimsley, "Chestov,"in TheLegacyandInterpretationofKierkegaard,276-77.

20. The review is in (andall quotationsarefrom)Revue des etudes juives 52/1-2 (July-December1937):139-41.

faithis theanswer,hecouldnotfollow them, hecontinued,intheirexclusive definitionoffaithas"anenterprisefull ofrisks,aworriedfaith, areligionin which the certainties arealwaysmenaced andhave to be justified againandagain,in which, indeed, each instant, pristine and pathetic, standsforitself andthereareonly new beginnings."

It is true that Levinas shows a complimentary attitude toward Shestov in some partsof the review,praisinghim forthe brilliance of his style andpresentation andrecommendingthe book to those who wanted to renew their Judaism"asa religion, if philological research on the past of the Jewish people cannot satisfy them and if sterile homagesbeforethe 'beautyofthe TenCommandments andthe ethics of the prophets'have left them cold."The dominant sense of the review, however,is the polite rejectionofShestovandhis view-"those who know Shestov'sworksandhisbattleforJerusalemagainstAthens will not findit surprising,"Levinasnotedinpassing-that knowledge counted only asan"abdicationofandannoyanceto faith."Inthe final analysis,one cansaythatLevinas'sreactionto the Kierkegaardenthusiasm, at least insofaras he foundit representedin Shestov'swork, is somewherebetween discriminatingacceptanceandoutrightrejection. Insofarasit blendedwith andaddedto the irrationalistcurrentsofthe time, Levinasfoundit immensely suspect.

ButLevinassoundedanotherinterestingnote. Properlyinterpreted, Levinassaid,Kierkegaard'sthoughtlooked "moresubtle"thanthe enthusiasm that, retrievingit fromthe past, also distortedit to suit the present. One of the ways in which it appearedmore complex to discriminatingeyes than in the typical presentationin the course of the enthusiasm, Levinasexplained,involved Kierkegaard'slonglove affair with that most centralrationalist of the Westerntradition:Socrates. Thiselement ofKierkegaard'scareer-which beganwith adissertation on Socraticirony-definitively separatedhim, Levinasargued,"from anyvulgarirrationalism."While the Kierkegaardenthusiasm andexistential philosophymoregenerallythreatenedto "breakapartthesynthesis of Greece and Judeo-Christianitywhich the Middle Ages assumed it had secured," Kierkegaardhimself appearedto express a different conclusion. Forbetter or worse, "Europeanconsciousness doesnothavethestrengthtoforgetSocrates."Whateverhisreputation, Levinasneverrejectedphilosophy.Hewouldattempttoreformit,with Kierkegaard'shelp, turning the suspension of the ethical into the groundofethics.

BEYOND FRANZ ROSENZWEIG: THE THEME OF TRANSCENDENCE

Levinas's review of Shestov's Kierkegaardianismis equally important-perhaps moreimportant-for anotherreason.ItisLevinas'sonly publishedmention ofFranzRosenzweig,notonlyinthe 1930s,butalso in thetwo decadesthatfollowed.Itisthereforeimportanttorecordand to interpretit properly.Thereviewbegan:

ThethoughtofSorenKierkegaard,theDanishphilosopherwhodiedin 1855,hasexperiencedforseveralyearsnowararefortune.Jaspersand HeideggerinGermanyandJeanWahlandGabrielMarcelinFrancetheseareafewofthenamesthatallowonetomeasuretheextentofan influencethatalsoexerciseditself,in averyobviousmanner,onthe onlymodernJewishphilosopherworthyof the name:FranzRosenzweig.

IncallingRosenzweig "theonlymodernJewishphilosopherworthy of thename,"LevinastacitlysuggestedthatShestovdoesnotdeservethat title. He made this implication explicit later in the review: "M. Shestov,aJewishphilosopher,is not aphilosopherof Judaism,"Levinaswrote.

Inlight of the connection so often stressedin contemporaryscholarshipbetween Levinasandhis greatGerman-Jewishpredecessor,one might conclude that the Kierkegaardenthusiasm itself influenced Levinas only throughRosenzweig'sappropriativetransformation.InThe Starof Redemption, his enigmatic masterwork, Rosenzweig praised Kierkegaardrightatthe startfor"contest[ing]theHegelianintegration ofrevelationinto the whole."21Butin Levinas'slukewarmevaluation of the Kierkegaardenthusiasm, particularlythe contribution it made to the violent irrationalismofthe time, Levinasclearlyimplies that if he esteems Rosenzweig, it is either not forhis allegiance to Kierkegaardianismorelse forhis transformationofthe Danish philosopher's legacy.

Inwhat sense didRosenzweig transformKierkegaard?As the citation indicates, Rosenzweig followed Kierkegaard'shostility to "totality," the Hegelian notion that spiritserves as anall-encompassingforumforeveryaspectofhumanexistence. ButtheHegeliantotality that

21. FranzRosenzweig,TheStarofRedemption,trans.WilliamW.Hallo(NewYork: Holt, Rinehart,Winston, 1971),7;cf.MichaelD. Oppenheim,"SorenKierkegaardand FranzRosenzweig:TheMovementfromPhilosophytoReligion"{Ph.D.diss.,University ofCalifornia-SantaBarbara,1976).

Kierkegaardshatteredinoneform,asPeterEliGordonhasusefully emphasized,Rosenzweigreintegratedintoanewone,speakingrepeatedly, inhis discussions oftheJewishcommunity, ofthe "newunity"andthe "newtotality."22ForRosenzweig, asLevinashimself recognized,"the subjectiveprotestis impotent" againstthe "historicalnecessity" that Hegel defended.Accordingly,Rosenzweig "remainedHegelian onone point," because he wanted a substitute forthe merely subjective outcome of"KierkegaardandtheKierkegaardiansandtheirprotestagainst imprisonmentin the system orin history."23Levinas'sjaundicedview ofKierkegaard,one might thereforeconclude, simply followed Rosenzweig'sown ultimate rejectionofthe Danish philosopher.

Itis certainlytruethatLevinasadopted,out ofallegianceto Rosenzweig, the Kierkegaardianopposition to Hegel while strainingmightily to avoid the "subjectivist"result-what he derisively called "the vanity of amerely personalprotest"-to which that opposition originallyledinKierkegaard'sownworks.Andyet, onecanfindseriouslimits to the hypothesis of anexact continuation fromRosenzweig to Levinas. The contemporarypenchant is to find the analogies between Rosenzweig andLevinasandto leave the matter there. Butthe more onelooks,themoreplausibleotherinfluences-including Kierkegaardian contributions-become in Levinas'sformation.

Thereareimportantconsiderationson the level of context. As Levinas himself observed,therewere no easyways to avoidKierkegaard even in the midst ofHegel'sParisianapotheosisin the periodafterthe war.24ThebrieftriumphofKierkegaardianexistentialism inthe 1930s, adecadetoooftenpresentedsimplistically astheincubatorforpostwar Hegelianism (andcommunism), left an indelible impression even on movements dedicatedto breakingwith it unceremoniously. "Kierkegaard'sphilosophy has markedcontemporarythought so deeply that the reservationsandeven the rejectionsit may elicit areyet forms of thatinfluence," Levinasremarkedin the 1960s.

[T]hereturnofHegelianthoughtandthefascinationit holdsarenot solelyattributabletothefoundationitprovidesforthegreatpolitical

22. See in generalPeterEliGordon,Rosenzweigand Heidegger:BetweenJudaismandGermanPhilosophy(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,forthcoming forapor- traitofRosenzweigmadein Heidegger'sholist andcommunitarianimage.

23. These remarkscome from the colloquy that followed Levinas'spresentation, "'Entredeuxmondes'(BiographiespirituelledeFranzRosenzweig),"inL6vy-Valensiand Halperin,eds.,Laconscience juive, 147.

24. Michael S.Roth,KnowingandHistory:AppropriationsofHegelin TwentiethCenturyFrance(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,1988).

questionsoftoday.... Neo-Hegelianismderivesakindofnobilityfrom itsreactionagainsttheexacerbatedsubjectivismofexistence.Afterone hundredyearsofKierkegaardianprotest,onewould like to getbeyond thatpathos ... Ihavetheimpressionthattheseductivenessofthelater Heideggerforus, andalso the attractiveness of neo-Hegelianism and Marxism,perhapseven of structuralism,comes-in partof coursefromareactionto thatcompletelynakedsubjectivitythat,in its desire to avoidlosingitself in the universal,rejectsallform.[PN,71, 76]

The anti-existentialist animus that Levinas interestingly saw as providing some of the spiritual motivation for much recent French thought, from Marxism to structuralism, never fully exorcised the subjectivism of Kierkegaard's thought. But then there is good reason to suspect that Levinas is implicated in the phenomenon he himself identified: it is important to look for the ways in which the reservations Levinas expressed against (and indeed his eventual rejection of) Kierkegaard's thought were "yet forms of... influence."

This likelihood raised by the context is born out in an examination of the text. The best evidence for Levinas's preference for Kierkegaard over Rosenzweig in opposing Hegel is related to the word and concept of "transcendence." For better or worse, it is in fact quite difficult to find this notion in Rosenzweig's thought, for he explicitly and repeatedly ridiculed it. It is, he argued, "the old [thinking that] addressed the problem whether God is transcendent orimmanent," whereas the new thinking that Rosenzweig advocated simply drops this inquiry.25 By the starkest of contrasts, transcendence is a central term and concept in Levinas's thought. Just as important, Levinas offered the transcendent other in opposition to the communitarian picture of intersubjectivity to be found in Heideggerian theory and fascistic practice; yet it is just this alarming ideology of resolute communitarianism that Rosenzweig himself insistently advocated in the portrait of the Jewish community that concludes his masterpiece.26

25. Rosenzweig,"DasneueDenken,"inKleinereSchriften(Berlin:Schocken,1937), 384.

26. GordonarguesthatRosenzweigis"alivetothe'we'ofcommunityasmuchasto the'thou'ofalterity,"acommitmentbringinghimintoproximitynotjusttoHeidegger butalsotoCarlSchmitt.InTheStarofRedemption,Gordonsuggests,"Rosenzweigcalls thefoundingdecisionofcommunity'dreadful'(grauenhaft),sincethe'we'mustexpel the 'you' fromits bright,melodiouscircleinto the colddreadof the nothing.'.. .This notionofthe'We'pointstoRosenzweig'sprofounddisagreementwithLevinas:Forwhile Levinascontestedtotalityonbehalfofalterity,RosenzweigfoundinJewishsolidaritya singularandself-sufficient'Whole.'Rosenzweigwas thus favorableto the verykindof holismLevinasrejectedonprinciple"(unpublishedmanuscript).

Because he championed "transcendence"-the alterity of other peoplethatresists anyreductiontoplenitudinous unity-Levinas's alternative to Hegel apparentlytook adirectionvery differentfromthe communitarian holism that Rosenzweig himself adopted. Levinas hopedforanalternativeto lonely subjectivitythat didnot remaintrue to Hegel even on onepoint by simply discovering,like Rosenzweig, a differentkind of whole. Ifnot fromRosenzweig, the point of view of transcendencethen hadto come fromsomewhere else.

Inhis manyworks,Levinaspresentedanimageofintersubjectivity hardlysecularizedfromthe theological picture of man humiliated in the presence of the divine. IfLevinasis still even partiallyfollowing Rosenzweigin these matters(apoint ofcontroversytoo difficultto enter into here), he is also, ironically, transforminghim in a Kierkegaardiandirectionandpreservingmore of Kierkegaard'sthought than Rosenzweig himself did.Inhis adoptionof the point ofview of "transcendence," Levinas did drawon the Christian Kierkegaard-if only throughthe decisive intermediation ofaninterwarJewlike himself.

JEANWAHLAND THE DISCOVERYOF THE THEOLOGICAL OTHER

Bornin 1888,JeanWahl,alongtime Sorbonneprofessor,is one of the more neglected figuresin twentieth-century Frenchintellectual history.This omission deservesto berectified,not least in Levinasstudies: the acknowledgement of Rosenzweig's influence in Totality and Infinity is rarelyleft unemphasizedwhen asimilarhomageto Wahlin the samebook is invariablypassedoverin silence.

WahlandLevinaslikely met one anotherwhen they eachspentthe winter semester of 1928-29 in Freiburgstudying at the feet of their phenomenological masters.27Levinasevokedhis friend'spersonaldemeanorandphilosophical contributionmost memorablyat aposthumous conference in his honor. "That marvelous pointillism of Jean Wahl!"Levinasexclaimed. "Whatastrangeeffectitproduces,"hecontinued, likening it to "achild'squestion coming from the lips of the wisest ofphilosophers."

27. Wahl'snotes onHeidegger'slectureslaterservedasthebasisforhis authorityin speakingaboutHeideggerinFranceandhecitedthemthroughouthis 1930sworks.They alsocontributedtohis ownlecturecoursesinFranceonHeidegger,oneofwhich hasrecentlybeenpublished.SeeWahl,Introductionalapensee deHeidegger:Coursdonnes en Sorbonnedejanvierajuin 1946(Paris:Livredepoche, 1998).

Inmanycases,JeanWahlmaybedefinedasthe child'squestionwithin the Trojanwalls of thought. Orthe shaft of light shining throughthe structuresofdoctrines,strikingparticular,sometimes unknownpoints, awakening the experience of the other philosopher in the untamed state,in which it hasretainedits freshnesspriortobecominghardened into asystem, beforebeingburiedin the depthsof anintellectual construction,beforethe dullingofits sharp,burningpunctuality.

Wahl's main contribution to French intellectual life, Levinas went on to contend, is not so much a finished system as "the rejection of the kind of thought that is content with exclusive systems."

Ithasbeentheforerunnerofcertaindaringundertakings(whicharenot allundulyextreme)ofcurrentphilosophy.ItisfairtosaythatinFrance it haspavedthe wayforanew kindofreaderandwriterin philosophy, andanew sortofbook.Withit, ablowwas struckagainstthe structure ofthe system, philosophy set upin the guise of alogical architecture, the philosopher'sstronghold or domain: a hereditarydomain, to be handeddowntoschools,disciples,epigones-an intellectual feudalism amplifying(orassome feel in ourtime, repressing)the meaningfuland the reasonable.28

Wahl's revolt against system (andeven meaning) may likewise make it difficult to specify his contribution to Levinas's own development; but the insight that the attack on the systematic pretensions is something Wahl inherited from Kierkegaard's complaints against Hegel may allow some further precision.

Wahl appears at practically every significant crossroads in the complicated midcentury transfer of German thought to France-that of the Kierkegaard enthusiasm not least. He had begun his philosophical career much earlier than Levinas with athesis, directed by Henri Bergson and dedicated to him, on the subject of time in Descartes's work. He claimed to find in all ofDescartes's important doctrines, from the treatment of the cogito to the science of movement, the novel presumption that perception took place in the space of an instant. In light of Bergson's new philosophy of time, Wahl seemed to suggest, assumptions about the nature of time that must have informed earlier philosophies

28. Levinas,"JeanWahl:Sansavoirni etre,"in Levinaset al., JeanWahlet Gabriel Marcel(Paris:Beauchesne,1976),17-18,27. Theessayisrpt.inLevinas,Horssujet(Saint Clement:FataMorgana,1987);theEnglishcitations herearefromOutsidethe Subject, trans.MichaelB.Smith(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,1994),71and79.

hadto be reinterpreted.29Itis perhapstoo much of a stretch to claim thatthis contributiononthenotion ofthe "moment"inDescartespreparedhim forhis laterKierkegaardianresearches.His next book,however,certainly did.HepublishedLemalheur dela conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel in 1929;it provideda Frenchperspectiveon the Hegelian fugendschriftenrecently edited andpublished by Hermann Nohl, JohannHoffmeister,andGeorgLassonthatplayedsuch asignal roleintheenthusiasm andreinterpretationofHegel'sphilosophyinexistential form (in tandem with the discovery andpublication of Karl Marx'sown "prescientific"andHegelianEconomicandPhilosophical Manuscripts).30Moreimportantly,Wahl'schoice oftopic andmethod were themselves indicative of his future trajectory."Still more than with intellectual problems,"Wahlarguedin his preface, Hegelbeganwithmoralandreligiousproblems.Theexaminationofhis youthfulfragmentsundertakeninthisbookconfirmstheimpression onehasfromreadingthePhenomenology;intheirlight,thattextwill nolongerseemlikejusttheintroductiontohisdoctrinebutalsoasa culmination:thenarrationandconclusionofhisyearsofformationand voyagethroughsystems.

Inotherwords,Wahl'schoice oftheme-the passagesonthe "unhappy consciousness" fromthePhenomenologyofSpirit,which he separated out in orderto tracebackthroughHegel'syouth-already, in asense, identifiedhis trueinterestin Kierkegaardoratleast primedhim forit. "Behindthephilosopher,"Wahlsuggested,"onemaydiscoverthe theologian;andbehindthe rationalist,the romantic."31

There is no reason, of course, to insist that all of Wahl'sinterests turnout actually to be aboutKierkegaard;it is more the case that his work, whatever its subject, introducedfiguresin a heady existential brew that makes his ultimate attention to Kierkegaardseem almost foreordained.Buthe alsopresentedKierkegaardin aversionalmostinseparablenot only from Hegel but also from Heideggerand Jaspers,

29. Wahl,Dur6ledel'idee delinstant danslaphilosophiedeDescartes(Paris:Vrin, 1920).

30. Wahl,Lemalheurdela conscience dansla philosophie deHegel (Paris:Presses UniversitairesdeFrance,1929).

31. Ibid.,v,cf.8,194.AsWahllaterarguedopenly,"Kierkegaard'sthoughtisaprotes- tation ofunhappyconsciousness againstthe veryideaof the evolution in which Hegel consideredthatconsciousnesstohavebeensurpassed"(Etudeskierkegaardiennes[Paris: Aubier,1938]chap.4,"Laluttecontrelehegelianisme,"135).Helatercamearound,writingthatone "mustbewaryofattributingtoo muchhistoricalimportanceto theyoung Hegel"(Petitehistoiredel'"existentialisme" [Paris:ClubMaintenant,1947],23).

whom he likewise helped naturalize. As Jean Mesnard protested of Wahl's Etudes kierkegaardiennes, "[tlhis book not only devotes a direct commentary of one hundred octavo pages to the study of Heidegger and Jaspers, it never stops recalling their presence-indeed, their superiority-in the course of all the many notes that ornament the bottoms of the pages."32 The same allegation, if it is one, applies to Wahl's other famous work ofthe period, Versle concret, which surveyed trends in philosophy around the world (including American pragmatism) but admitted, as of the third page, that Heidegger had in a sense drawn the consequences of all the new discoveries Wahl would detail-so much so that a comparison throughout would assist rather than obstruct the understanding.33

But how did he help prepare Levinas's project? Whatever his syncretism, it is Wahl's naturalization of Kierkegaard's insistence on the infinite qualitative difference between God and man, as well as his sense of the philosophical relevance of that theme for understanding the self, that will now seem like his most important contributions. The best example is provided by his article, reprinted in the Etudes kierkegaardiennes, on The Concept of Anxiety. In his summary, Wahl stressed how the experience of anxiety, and particularly the individual consciousness of sin, both invalidated all philosophies of immanence and made God's shattering transcendence an irrefutable fact of life. In their most quotidian behavior, people are confusedly searching for the other. Kierkegaard's question, as Wahl rightly explained, is therefore how to convert the role of this other in the economy of selfhood from a source of menace to the grounds of beatitude. The feeling of anxiety is "tied to the other that is at first the indeterminate atmosphere in which I move," but, if next "interiorized and particularized so that it coincides with what is other in myself," could become "the other who is highest, to the absolutely other."34 In Wahl's rendition, it is the essence of existential therapy, already in Kierkegaard's work, to discover and to make aplace forthe other in the experience of the self. The route to solicitude for the other may run through narcissistic self-absorption; but the ultimate destination is by no means the self alone. As

32. Mesnard,"Kierkegaardauxprisesaveclatraditionfrangaise,"467-68.

33. Wahl,Versle concret:Etudesdhistoire delaphilosophiecontemporaine(Paris: Vrin,1932),3n.l: "Wewill oftenreferto Heidegger,who was deeplyawareof severalof the ambitionsof contemporarythought."The text (withfootnote)hadappearedasthe leaditem in thefirstnumberofRecherchesphilosophiques 1(1931-32):1-21.

34. Wahl,Etudeskierkegaardiennes,chap.7, "Parl'angoisseversla hauteur,"251.

Wahl put it during the war, "The Hegelian dialectic leads us towards a vision of the whole," while Kierkegaard's opposite approach results in "a sort of nude and blind contact with the Other."35

If Kierkegaard is a "solipsist" only so far as human others are concerned, then he would have to be not so much attacked as appropriated for simply human relations if a secular philosophy of intersubjectivity is the goal. But Wahl not only identified a kind of theological template for Levinas's doctrine in Kierkegaard's works; Wahl himself clearly meant to translate Kierkegaard to France in a philosophical and not simply theological register. Differently put, Wahl's interpretation went exactly in the opposite direction from the one that Shestov proposed: he hoped to make Kierkegaard a welcome guest at the philosophical table that Kierkegaard, on Shestov's reading, had intended to overturn.

Not surprisingly, as Wahl's book chapters appeared in article form throughout the 1930s, Shestov determined that this secular and philosophical appropriation had to be rejected root and branch. "Something needs to be said so that Wahl's 'interpretation' is not unopposed," Shestov complained in conversation with Benjamin Fondane.36 When Shestov's articles did not interrupt Wahl's appropriation, Fondane, in a remarkably malicious review article that also attacked Bespaloff and de Rougemont, renewed the ferocious attack. He stormily attacked Wahl forthe mistake of attempting to sever Kierkegaard's thought from theology, as when Wahl saw fit to praise Kierkegaard "even if the religious that he describes does not correspond to any reality." Yet Wahl's true error,apparently, lay elsewhere. Even more abominably, Wahl had reduced Kierkegaard to a theorist-of anxiety, sin, whatever-rather than understanding his books as enactments of faith. For Fondane as for Shestov, any reading and therefore writing about Kierkegaard required living with him through what he suffered and achieved. "Ihave learned that according to Wahl, Kierkegaard did thus and so. But what about you? Forwhen Ireadyou, my dearWahl, Iam interested more in you than in Kierkegaard himself; Iwant to know what you think, what your torments are,your disquietudes. . .It is strange to say, but if you would speak about yourself, I would know better what you think of

35. Wahl,"Realism,Dialectic, andtheTranscendent,"PhilosophyandPhenomenological Research4/4 (June1944):498.

36. Fondane,Rencontresavec LeonChestov,83;cf. 127-28, 140-41, 143.Bycontrast,thirtyyearsaftertheirpublication,LevinasacknowledgedWahl'sEtudesin print as the productof "themost complete, penetrating,andphilosophicalof Kierkegaard's historians."Levinas,"ExistenzundEthik,"153n.1.

Kierkegaard."37Inthis debateamongJewsaboutthemeaningofChristian knighthood,the professorialWahldidnot obligehis critic. As indicatedbyhispolitebutfirmresponsetothis unprovokedattack,Wahl wantedto choose theway ofrationalphilosophyratherthanirrational faith;thoughhe interestedhimself in Kierkegaard'sexistential analysis, he didnot follow Kierkegaardin the samefideistic andcommitted sense that Shestovandhis followers did.38

As their careersprogressed,both Wahland Levinas continued to show themselves actively interested in the possible detachment of transcendencefrombackgroundtheological conceptions. Itis historicallyimportantthatWahlmovedfurthestin this directionandagainst Levinas'sresistance-most clearlywhen he began,in the mid-1930s, to contribute to the vogue of the notion of transcendenceby turning fromhistorical commentatorto independentphilosopher.

THE QUEST FORA SECULAR PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSCENDENCE

On4December 1937,Wahlstagedaninternationalevent thatLevinas later recalled as "his famous lecture [sa fameuse communication]."39 Not surprisingly,this centraldebatein the Frenchphilosophical community of the 1930s concerned the secular fate of transcendence. Wahl'slecture, entitled "SubjectivityandTranscendence,"appeared that yearin the Bulletin de la Societe franfaise dephilosophie along with the transcriptionofacolloquy amongWahl,GabrielMarcel,and Nicholas Berdyaev,aswell aswritten responsesfromHeidegger,Levinas,Bespaloff,deRougemont,KarlJaspers,KarlL6with,andRaymond Aron,amongothers.40Levinaslaterpaidhomage to the book version of this debate-Existence humaine et transcendance, published only in 1944in Switzerland-in his own most famous work, Totality and Infinity ("Ihave drawnmuch inspirationfrom the themes evoked in

37. Fondane,"Heraclitela pauvre;ou, Necessite de Kierkegaard,"Cahiersdu Sud 22/177 (November1935):762,765.

38. Wahl,"AproposdeKierkegaard,"CahiersduSud22/178 (December1935):86162. Inafootnote, Wahlnotedthathe would acceptneitherthe designationof "Kierkegaardian"northatof"Kierkegaard'sdisciple."

39. Levinaset al.,JeanWahl,28.

40. See Bulletin de la Societ franfaise de philosophie 37/5 (October-December 1937):161-63, 166-211. Bytotal coincidence, LeonBrunschvicg,the chairmanof the session,announcedthesadnewsthatthesameHenriDelacroixwhohadwrittenthefirst analysisofKierkegaardin Francehaddiedthepreviousday.

43 thatstudy").41 Itprovidesunparalleledinsightinto thedevelopmentof Levinas'sideasat this moment andin general.

The central question Wahl raised in his essays was whether Kierkegaard'stheological conception oftranscendencerulesout asecular conception. He understoodwhy some might doubt it in light of Kierkegaard'swork.Forwhile Kierkegaard"doesnot completely deny the 'other,'he often (notalways)reducesexistence to ameditation on a single other: God."The question had thereforeto be posed. In attempting tobringthe otherinto theworld,Wahlasked,couldthe existentialist follower of Kierkegaard"completely deliver[himself] from the theological elements ofKierkegaardianthought?"42

Not everyone acceptedthe importance of this question. Denis de Rougemontofferedthis blunt rejection:"Butwhy,"he asked, "purify philosophy of theology? ... For myself, I cannot conceive of any concrete relation with transcendencethat lacked the touch of the divine orthesacred."OthersshoweddeeperinterestintheproblemsWahlhad posed. Berdyaev,in amove Levinaswould also champion,insisted on the "verygreatdifference"between the notion of transcendenceand "the simple proposition that there is arealitybeyond,an absolute reality, God,heaven,what haveyou. Fortranscendenceis anexistential experienceoroccurrence."Thethrustofthe debateinthe 1930sisthat, if theology is to be made philosophy, then transcendence defined as subjectiveexperiencewill haveto be detachedfromtranscendenceas mythologized in the various dogmatic propositions of the historical faiths.43

Whatis crucialforthe intellectual historian in this debate,Iwant to argue,is the way in which Levinasresisted the penchant to understand Kierkegaardand Heideggeras continuous and instead cast the other'stranscendenceasportrayedbyKierkegaardasthe fundamental alternative to Heidegger's immanent philosophy of being-in-theworld.Wahl'spropositionhadbeenthatthe contemporaryexistential-

41. See Wahl,Existence humaine et transcendance(Neuchatel:Editionsde la Baconniere, 1944);Levinas,TI,35n.2. Cf. Levinas,"JeanWahlandFeeling,"a review of Wahl's1953treatiseonmetaphysics(PN,110-18).

42. Bulletin de la Societe franpaise de philosophie, 162. Kierkegaard, according to Wahl,left theproblemnot onlywhetherthis conceptioncouldadmitofaseculartrans- lationbut,evenifit could,whetherselfandotherwouldfindthemselves alonein their dyadto the exclusion of the world.Wahlalso introduceda conceptualdistinction betweenwhathe dubbed"transascendence"and"transdescendence"which, astheterms imply,havesome directionality.

43. Ibid.,204, 187.

ists Heideggerand Jaspersappearedmerely to "secularize"[laiciser] Kierkegaard'swork;in wonderingwhether one could secularize Kierkegaard's"other,"Wahlhadmissed thefactthatforHeideggerthe discoveryofthe otheris not agoal,andtranscendenceis thereforefundamentally rethought.ForLevinas,Wahl'sformulationoftheproblemas one of secularizingtranslationunderstatedthe radicalismof Heidegger'sattempt to abolish the problemof transcendenceor,more accuratelyput,tosubstitute "ontologicaldifference"fortheintersubjective other(whetherhuman ordivine).

Asbackground,it is crucialto know how Heideggerhaddealtwith the subject.In his important essay "Onthe Essence of the Ground," Heideggerhad explicitly definedtranscendence initially as self-transcendence, the refusalofthe self to belike astatic thingandasalways in movement; and then, and more fundamentally, as transcendence fromexistents to existence.44These argumentsmarginalizednot just thetraditionalreligiousdefinitionofGod'stranscendenceoftheworld, soimportanttoKierkegaard,butalsoanypossible seculartheoryofthe transcendence ofone existent overanother.

LevinasfollowedBerdyaev'sappealtothe existential factthatsome kinds of this interpersonal transcendence are rooted in experience, while the theologies of differentreligious sects areextrapolatedfrom thosemoreuniversalintimations. ForLevinas,"theproblemstowhich theology furnishes the solutions areentirely independent of it; they come into view by virtue of the simple fact that men exist." Inother words,existential problemsappearedtobethose thatbothunderwrote allsects andweretherefore,in asense, thesubjecttheyallpresupposed andwere reallyaboutbeforethey divergedinto controversy.45

Morecrucially,Levinasarguedthattheconceptoftranscendenceis one thatHeideggerhadintendednot to secularizebutinstead to overcome. ForLevinas,"theformthat existential philosophy takesinHeidegger'sthought distances itself asfaraspossible fromtheology."He explainedhis definition ofsecularization:"Whatevertheroleoftheologyin Heidegger'sintellectual formation,everyoneshouldgrantthat, forhim, to secularize anotion cannot simply mean camouflagingits religious dimension. Secularizationmust involve anoperationwhich ends by truly surpassingthe theological point of view." The point at

44. Heidegger,"VomWesendesGrundes,"JahrbuchfurPhilosophieundphinomenologische Forschung8 (1929):1-138, rpt. in Wegmarken(Frankfurt:Klostermann, 1967).

45. Bulletin dela Societ, 194.

which Heidegger made this attempt, Levinas said, counted as "the touchiest [leplus nevralgique]ofhis philosophy."46

AsLevinasargued,the discourseofthe encounteredother,whether in religious andtheological or secularor existential form, is ontic. It concerned the "transcendence"between two beings. But the entire point,aswell asthe "greatinterest,"ofHeidegger'swork,Levinassaid, "consists in showing thatatthe baseofman'sontic adventurethereis something morethanarelationofone 'existent' with another:thereis the comprehensionofbeingmorefundamentally."And "humanexistence . . . only interests Heideggerbecause it allows apenetration to ontology."ForHeidegger,humanexistence, andthereforetheforumof religious or interpersonaltranscendence,is (supposedly)not of independent interest.47At this point Levinascould drawhis most important conclusion. ForHeidegger,transcendence"doesnot mean ... the relation [passage]of one 'existent' to another,but that of the existent towardsbeing."Accordingly,"Heideggerbreakswith theology exactly insofarashe makes the distinction between the ontic andthe ontological (andhe makes it with a radicalismwithout precedentin the historyofphilosophy)."48

While Levinasdidnot criticize Heideggerin so many words,there is more in the comments than simple clarification. Thereis afundamental alternativepresentedin the way Levinasstructuredthe prob-

46. Ibid.(emphasisadded).Inhis letter,L6withunderstoodHeidegger'srelationto theologytobeevenmoreparadoxical:"Jaspers'sphilosophyis,atbottom,ersatzreligion, in spite of the fact thatJaspersis essentially anantitheologicalpartisanof the Enlightenment.Incontrast,Heidegger'sphilosophyis anti-Christian,in spiteofthefactthatoreven because-he has remainedessentially a theologian.... InHeidegger,one still senses animmediately religiousmotivation atwork-only it is perverted"(Ibid.,204). Lowith had contributed to the French Kierkegaardenthusiasm with his article, "L'achevementde la philosophie classique parHegel et sa dissolution chez Marxet Kierkegaard,"Recherchesphilosophiques 4 (1934-35), laterincorporatedinto his famous historyofnineteenth-centurythought,FromHegeltoNietzsche.

47. Bulletindela Societe, 194-95. Heidegger'sinterventionin the debateisnot surprisingin this light. Longbeforethe LetteronHumanism, hewrotesimply to saythat, contraryto the conventionalwisdom, he didnotpracticeExistenzphilosophieand,in a prefigurationof his postwarLetter,to insist that "the question with which I am concernedisnotthatofman'sexistence;it is thequestionofbeingasawhole andbyitself." As forthe existentialism beginningto ruleParis,Heideggersaid,it seemed exposedto the "twin dangerthat it will collapseinto theology or else dissolve into abstraction." Wahlrepliedsomewhatunconvincinglythat,allthesame,byHeidegger'sownlights,existential philosophyprovidedthe only means of approachto the problemof being. It seemed strange,to Wahl,forHeideggernow to disownwhat he hadhimself helpedin- vent.Ibid.,193.

48. Ibid.,195.

lem. A choice hastobemade.Itdetermineswhatphilosophical meaning, if any,"transcendence"will have. Eitherone remainsat the level ofthe existent orone descends,with Heidegger,to the plane ofbeing. Eitherthe level of existents, and transcendencebetween andamong them, ortheplaneoftheirbeing,andtranscendencetowardit. Ineffect, Levinassuggested that even the seculartheory of interpersonaltranscendence that Wahlwanted to developpresupposedthe Kierkegaardianexperienceofthe other'stranscendencethat,farfromsecularizing, Heideggeranalytically marginalized.

Levinas did not join Wahl'squest fora secularized conception of transcendenceasemphaticallyintheinterwardebateashewouldlater; indeed, Levinas's 1937 comments suggest that afull commitment to secularphilosophy might requirethe radicalredefinition of transcendencethatHeideggeroffered.Butafocusonthis differencein the 1930s wouldoccludethedeeperpremisethatWahlandLevinasshared.Itconsistedin apreferenceforKierkegaard'sinterpersonaldefinitionoftranscendenceagainstthe ontological definition thatHeideggerpioneered. When Levinaslater triedto make his own philosophy of intersubjective transcendencepurely secular,he would do so, it bearsnoting, in spiteoftheimplicationof his ownargumentfromthe 1930sthatanintersubjectivedefinitionoftranscendenceremainedcrypto-theological ratherthansecular,ultimately dependentonthe relationbetween God and man that it tried to cast in purely human terms. Secularization must involve anoperationthat ends by truly surpassingthe theologicalpointof view.

KIERKEGAARD ALIVE

Ihavethus suggestedthat the philosophyofthe otherwhich is now so commonplace, in manifold forms, is historically speaking a kind of "ethicaltheology" (onthe model ofCarlSchmitt'spolitical theology). Alreadyin the interwarperiod,Ihave triedto show, Levinascame to defendaKierkegaardiantheology of self andotherasanalternative to Heideggerianontology (notits precursor).This essaymust leave aside the interesting finale of Levinas'sKierkegaardjourneyexcept to note thathecametobelieve hehadfoundawaytopreservetheKierkegaardian solicitude forthe otherwithout the theological foundationhe had earlier supposed it might require.49Ironically,Levinas'smature de-

49. SamuelMoyn,Originsofthe Other:EmmanuelLevinasbetween Theologyand Humanity, 1928-1961 (forthcoming).

fense of a purely human and secular ethics in Totality and Infinity brought him back to his own demand against Shestov for a rationalist Kierkegaard as well as to Wahl's project of finding a secular one.

Not that anyone paid attention to Levinas at the time. "Inasense," Georges Bataille perceptively noted, "Emmanuel Levinas has situated himself outside of 'French existentialism,' if that expression refers to aunified group epitomized by Sartre,Simone deBeauvoir, andMerleauPonty."50Levinas attempted aneo-Kierkegaardianism different enough from the reigning, Sartrean version of the fashion to be ignored for decades. Infact, the triumph of existentialism went so farthat Levinas felt free to assimilate the Kierkegaard on whom he had drawn to the Heidegger and Sartre whom he philosophically rejected. When Jean Wahl-initially interned at Drancy51 in 1941 and then, after a fortunate release, aprofessor at the New School and Mount Holyoke during the war-staged another colloquium in 1946 that, like the one the decade before, gathered many of the leaders of the Parisian philosophical field together foracontentious attempt to clarify together the spirit of the age, Levinas made evident his distance from the new movement, to the point of obscuring his recourse to one existentialist to respond to another.

In his interventions, Levinas reduced the Kierkegaard enthusiasm as it had occurred in Germany and France to Heidegger's thought, as if there were no point to discussing Kierkegaard and the controversy were really about Heidegger himself. It was as though, far from paving the way for Heidegger, as other interpreters argued, Kierkegaard had been revived only because he had approached, without reaching, the independent content of Heidegger's own analyses.

It is possible that behind each phraseof Heideggerthere is some Kierkegaardianthought-certainly, Kierkegaardwas well known in Germany and even in France,as Henri Delacroix and Victor Basch hadwrittenonhim atthebeginningofthis century-but itis thanksto Heideggerthatthis trainofthoughthassoundedaphilosophicalnote. I mean that, prior to Heidegger, Kierkegaardwas confined to the provinces of essay,psychology,aesthetics, ortheology, andthat after Heidegger,he cameinto the purviewofphilosophy.

50. GeorgesBataille,"Del'existentialisme auprimatde1'economie,"Critique3/21 (February1948):126.

51. See eanWahl,"Poemes(Drancy1941),"Fontaine32(1944):135-50, rpt.inWahl, Poemes(Montreal:Editionsdel'Arbre,1945).

In a sense, if Kierkegaardcounted as importantphilosophically, it is only becauseHeideggerdidfirst.52

Andyet, Levinas's(questionable)historiographicalassimilation of Kierkegaardto Heideggerin the postwareramayhave led him to forgettheinterwarhistoryofhis ownphilosophicalrecoursetotheDane's searchforthe divine otherin overcomingthe German'sall-too-human communitarianism. This recourseleft clearlegaciesnot justin his vocabulary-whenever hespokeofthe "transcendence"ofthe "other"butinhisconcepts,too.Ihavesuggestedhow thisoccurredhistorically. Andin Levinas'sphilosophical masterpiece,TotalityandInfinity,the essence of Kierkegaard'sdefenseof the individual againsthistory and his depictionofthe self's relationto ahigherotherremainstrong-indeed, central-elements.

The rejectionofhistory is prominentin the book amonghis openingmoves. Theviewpoint ofmorality,Levinasexplained,is opposedto the Hegelianvision ofpolitics, which necessarilyinvolves the slaughter-bench.TheirreducibilityoftheindividualthatLevinascalls,in Totality and Infinity, "separation," shows the limits of the Hegelian philosophy ofhistory,which deniesthe significanceofseparationin order to integrateeach individualinto alargerstory thanhimself. The consciousness of separationis differentfrom-indeed, the disconfirmation of-the historical point of view. The self, thanks to separation, must always understanditself as in medias res andthereforeunsublatable, even projectively,into some largerepic. The point of view of the last man, therefore,betraysthe very history whose final meaning the Hegelianclaims to deduce.Theindividualrefusesto bereducedto "apureloss figuringin analien accountingsystem" ofthe recollective owl's sweeping comprehensionofthe whole. Instead,"[t]herealmust not onlybe determinedin its historicalobjectivity,but alsofrominteriorintentions, fromthe secrecy thatinterruptsthe continuity ofhistoricaltime" (TI,56, 57-58).53

52. Wahl,Petitehistoire,83.AsWahlconvincinglyreplied,this interpretationcompletelyignoredimportantfeaturesoftheenthusiasm:"Itisnot[necessarily]throughHeideggerthatone discoversKierkegaard,evenif, sociologicallyandhistoricallyspeaking, manyhavedoneso (somepeoplewouldnothavecaredtoreadHegelifMarxhadnotexisted).Itis not fromHeideggerthat the historiansof thoughtlike DelacroixandBasch (andagoodmany Germans)foundout aboutKierkegaard.Moreover,many discovered himnotthroughHeideggerbutthroughBarth,whom Levinashasnotmentioned."Ibid., 87.

53. Man"isuprootedfromhistory,"Levinasconcluded,when he "trulyapproaches theother"(TI,52).Withapparentinconsistency,Levinasalsoremarked,afewpagesear-

Asforthebetterknown theme oftheinfinitely differentandhigher other,it is truethat Levinasattempted, in his portraitof intersubjectivity, to "singularize"the ethical relationso thatit would escapethe stricturesagainstgeneralitythathadledKierkegaardhimself to reject ethics. "Isthe relation to the Otherthat enteringinto, anddisappearingwithin, generality?"Levinasasked. "Thatis what must be asked in opposition to Kierkegaardas well as in opposition to Hegel" (PN, 72). But it is, in a sense, only by importing the singularity of what KierkegaardfoundintheleapoffaithtoGodbackinto the ethicalstage thatallowedLevinastomakethis innovation. ForLevinas,theunique alterity of the Kierkegaardiandivine is to be found in every human other.Evenasthe Frenchcontinuedtheirobsessionwith Kierkegaard, asillustratedmost dramaticallybythe Unesco conferenceof 1964entitled "KierkegaardAlive,"LevinashadgonebeyondKierkegaard-but perhapsonly,Ihavearguedinthis essay,thankstopartiallyKierkgaardianmeans.54

EPILOGUE:BETWEENMORALITY AND POLITICS

Itthus turnsout that the "immodest"Kierkegaard,transformedfrom aviolent knight offaith to apeacefulemissary of morality,foundeda crusadein theology that Levinascontinued in ethics. IfKierkegaard's separationofthe self andhis hostility to historyleft profoundlegacies in Levinas'sthought, these legacieswere not alwayspersuasive.They cast light, Ibelieve, on the depthof Levinas'sphilosophical affiliation with the Kierkegaardianmovement. Whether or not he valuably reconfiguredKierkegaard,Levinas'simplausible distinction of individual morality from collective politics may have taken his affiliation with Kierkegaardtoo far.

The starkoppositionofmoralitytopolitics appearsmost strikingly in Levinas'sinauguralTalmudicreadingsofthe early1960sonthe subject ofJewishmessianism. Ina creativeinterpretationof a debatebetween Shmuel andJochananin TractateSanhedrin,Levinas-not coincidentally-claimed to findanearlyversion ofthe conflict between HegeliansandKierkegaardiansthatobsessedhis own contemporaries, the "proponentsandadversariesofMarxism,thatis, the entirethink-

lierin thesamebook,thatthe encounterwith theothertakesplace"withinthetotality andhistory"(TI,23).

54. Seetheproceedings,Jean-PaulSartreetal.,Kierkegaardvivant (citedabove).

ing world of this mid-twentieth century" (PN, 71).55 In Levinas's view, Jochanan and Shmuel were debating whether the hypothetical end of history in the advent of the messianic age would lead to acomplete resolution of human problems-moral as well as political-or whether, because human life is defined by the exigency of ethical commitment, moral problems can never disappear (DF,62-63).

Forthe marxisant Jochanan, Levinas explains, the end of days is not just a political concept. It would, rather, bring the complete purification and regularization of human life. ForShmuel, in contrast, it is not expectable that moral problems will vanish in the messianic age.

Contraryto Shmuel,who doesnot ... separatethe messianic erafrom the difficulties encounteredbymorality ... RabbiJochananenvisages a pureandgraciousspirituallife that is in some way strippedof the heavy loadof things which is madeconcreteby economics. Inhis vision one can have directrelationshipswith the Other,who no longer appearsaspoorbutasafriend;therearenomoreprofessions,only arts; andthe economic repercussionsofactionsno longerhaveanybearing.

RabbiJochananin some way believes in the ideal of a disincarnated spirit, of total graceandharmony,an ideal exempt from any drama; while Shmuel,ontheotherhand,feels thepermanenteffortofrenewal demandedbythis spirituallife. [DF,62-63]

Shmuel's beautiful position, with which Levinas clearly sympathizes, does not necessarily turn ablind eye to the difficulties of human interrelationships, even though it denies that these are implicated in any way in the end of days. Instead, Shmuel reserves the perfection of human relationships on a moral level for "the future world" (it is not always familiar to Jews, Levinas remarks, that Judaism distinguishes between messianic times and the future world). Crucially, however, the future world is outside of history; for this reason, the end of history in the messianic days does not bring it about. The domain of morality, then, is not and never history. The singularity of the interpersonal relation is distinguished and exempted from the vagaries ofhistorical-and therefore political-life. As Levinas explains, for Shmuel the "future" world is paradoxically out of time. It "concerns a personal and intimate order, lying outside the achievements of history... The future world cannot be announced by a

55. Ihave discussedwhat follows fromadifferentangleandin moredetailin "Emmanuel Levinas'sTalmudicReadings:Between TraditionandInvention,"Prooftexts, forthcoming.

prophetaddressingeveryone ... Thepersonalsalvationofmen... escapes the indiscretion of the prophets;no one can fix in advancethe itinerary of this adventure"(DF,60-61). The exigencies of morality that everyonefaces, in otherwords,areeternalratherthan historical. The moraladventure-the realquest eachpersonmust discharge-is reservedforinterpersonalintimacy ratherthan mass conflict. Ifobligations areto hold, it is not goingto be up to politics andhistory and collectives; it is going to be up to each personalone. The personalis, precisely,not political.

In such passages,Levinasis evidently following Rosenzweig: improvising,like his predecessor,onthe exilic toposofIsraelthewitness to the nations, the haven of perpetuity subsisting peacefully in the midst ofthe internecine belligerenceofthe powers,eternalwitnesses to their merely historical conflicts. Butwhereas Rosenzweig is aparticularist,Levinasisauniversalist.InsofarasLevinaswantedtoextend themonitoryandtestimonial rolethatRosenzweigreservedtoJewsto the individual subject of any faith ornone, one can find Kierkegaard too-the suprasectarianandpost-Christian Kierkegaardwith whom several important philosophers of Jewish origin identified (orwhom they partlyinvented)in the interwarperiod.Itis not beside the point that Jewsplayed such a surprisingandprominent role in the French Kierkegaardenthusiasm oftheage."Hitler,"theKierkegaardianAlbert Camus later went so far as to exclaim, "was history in its purest form."56The Kierkegaardenthusiasm helped Levinasto the point of arguing,beyondandagainstRosenzweig,thatthereisaJewineachperson andhe is morality.

The all-consuming cataclysm of the war,andthe turbulence that has ensued, have in many quartersmade Levinas'snon- or suprahistoricalethics attractive.Itmayevenhaveanunexpectedbutrealcompatibility with the widespreadcontemporaryfatigue with ideology, which is areminderthatthe sameperiodsthatallow concernedmoralists to come to the foreareoften justaspropitiousforself-congratulatorymoralizers.Inthis regard,it is interesting to note thateven in the immediate postwar andpost-Holocaust age, many-including many Jews-insisted on the stubborntendency ofhistory to resume andrejectedthe standpointofpuremoralityasaltogethertoo comfortableto believe or to accept. The restoration of Levinas'sTalmudic readings

56. Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, tr. Anthony Bower (New York:Vintage, 1954), 150.

fromhis bookDifficult Freedomto the colloquies inwhich theybegan shows that the battle of Hegel andKierkegaardcontinued to rageand thatnot everyonetookLevinas'sside.Politics, someinsisted, isnot the opposite of morality but ratherthe true forum of moral opportunity. WladimirRabicomplained,inresponseto Levinas'spresentation,that "itis simply analibito searchforeternity,forit amounts to therefusal of choice before the problems that interest the modern world."And even if Levinas'sinterest in restrictingthe scope ofpolitics turns out tohavebeensharedbymanyofhis coreligionists,the lengths towhich he took his Kierkegaardianperspectivedidnotwin universalassent. It seemed to his audience that the veryimportanceof morality justified adifferentandmorecompatibleunderstandingofpolitics thanLevinas articulated. Emile Touati, for example, asked whether it is, in the end, possibletodistinguishthetworealms;RobertAronwonderedwhether the exclusion ofthe Jewsfromhistoryignoredthe rolemessianism accordsto human beings to participatein God'sdesignthroughpolitics andhasten the endofdays;the veteranWahl,alwayspresent,objected similarly, andin spite of his Kierkegaardiancredentials, to the "pretense" involved in the wish to live outside ofhistory.57

These criticisms point topotentially severedefectsin the approach thatmakes the availabilityofthe otherin ethics dependonthe immunity ofthe moralfromthehistoricalandthe ethical fromthe political. In the Marxist atmosphere of Parisianintellectual life in the crucial decadeofthe 1950s,when Levinas'sthoughtclimaxed,theKierkegaardianoppositiontohistoryandpolitics mayhavefunctioned asauseful antidote to animmoral fashion. Butthat the Hegelian obsession may not have justifiedthe Kierkegaardianvogue even then is suggestedby thebook-lengthindictment ofthemovement inthedebutoftheAmericanliberalJudithShklar."Inhis beautifuldefenseofthe eternallyhuman values of indignation against revolutions justified by historical reason," Shklar commented in After Utopia, her panoramic reconstruction of the thought of a host of significant figuresin the period, "Kierkegaard'sdisgust at Hegel's bland systematization of evil [returns]."As she insightfully argued,this disgust often seemed purely

57. Levy-ValensiandHalperin,eds.,Laconsciencejuive,138,287-88, 144.Levinas's promisingresponse:"An'existenceoutsideofhistory'... doesnotmean,asM.W.Rabi supposes,thecomfortofneutrality,ofpassiveexpectation,ofnon-engagement,theivory tower,theperspectiveofSirius.... Tolive aneternallifeis tohavethepowerofjudging historywithout waitingforit toend"(Ibid.,147).Cf.Levy-ValensiandHalperin,eds.,La conscience juiveface a1'histoire(Paris:PressesUniversitairesdeFrance,1965),3-148.

reactive, leading into the blind alley of "alienation," a result as potentially nefarious as the engagement it simply reversed. "Totalitarianism," she commented, "has only intensified the romantic's sense of apartness from history.... [Ilnthis extreme alienation lies also an admission of futility, for history is now too farfrom [him] to be even understood."58

Is this remark applicable to Levinas's Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, rooted as they arein the same Kierkegaardian movements, produced during the same period, and in response to the same threats?59 In response to the danger that it is, I will conclude by noting the obvious. The polarization between morality and politics creates the mistaken impression that while morality is safe and certain, beautiful and perfect, politics is shadowy and fallen, even soiled and dirty. Yet even eternal moral principles, should they turn out to exist, would require apolitics; indeed, one could say that the belief in their immediate relevance to the political world is itself a moral necessity. One may understandably want to ask, in response to the much-discussed "ethical turn" among Western intellectuals, whether a moral doctrine that claims to be outside and above politics is plausible on moral grounds.60

But more fundamentally and troublingly, I think, it is implausible to distinguish entirely or shield completely the domain of interpersonal and face-to-face transactions where Levinas saw morality oper-

58. JudithN. Shklar,AfterUtopia:TheDecline ofPoliticalFaith(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1957),130.

59. Cf.FritzR.Stern,"ThePolitical Consequencesofthe Unpolitical German,"in TheFailureof Illiberalism:Essayson the Political CultureofModernGermany(New York:Knopf,1971).Itis interestingthatLevinasattemptedto preservethe groundsfor Rosenzweig'soppositiontoZionisminhis ownZionistvision.Onepossiblecriticismof this versionofZionism is obvious:byadoptingthe fiction thatJewsarenot political, it is blindto theirinevitablypoliticalactions.

60. Therearemanyformsoftheexcessivelyacutecontrastbetweenmoralityandpol- itics. As MichaelIgnatieffhasnoted, "[h]umanrightsactivism likes to portrayitself as an anti-politics, in defenseof universalmoralclaims meant to delegitimize 'political' (i.e.,ideologicalorsectarian)justificationsfortheabuseofhumanbeings,"butthis selfunderstandingis an "illusion."Ignatieffet al.,Human Rightsas Politics and Idolatry, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 2001), 9, 29. Meanwhile JacquesDerrida'spreservationofthe strictoppositionbetweenmoralityandpolitics (or justiceandlaw)inhis attempttooutline apolitics oftheLevinasianotherseemstolead only(inDominick LaCapra'saptdescription)"inthedirectionofanunguardedlyhyper- bolic stresson the enigmaticcall ofanopenoremptyutopia"andto "thehope-against hopeof ... amessianic, ecstatic, even wonder-struckexpectancywhose fulfillment is impossibleorendlesslydeferred."LaCapra,WritingHistory,WritingTrauma(Baltimore: JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,2001), 197,218.Bothcomments suggestthe needfora moreimmediateconnection orblurreddistinctionbetweenmoralityandpolitics.

ating from mass politics and collective history. Ifa transhistorical theory of intersubjectivity, such as the one Levinas offered, is important to develop, it has to be atheory open to (ifnot compatible with) the lesson of modern social theory that the profoundest intimacies of human interactions are affected by their historical moment and tinged and often tainted by the power relationships of collective politics. In coming to a skeptical point of view on the premise that morality and politics areabsolutely and generically different, one may well want to avoid the equal and opposite extreme, Friedrich Engels's irresponsible emphatic rejection of "any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate, and forever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world... has its permanent principles which stand above history."61 All the same, la morale pour la morale seems little better than la politique pour la politique. A beautiful soul is no real substitute for dirty hands. Itis perhaps agreatirony, but it is nonetheless true, that Kierkegaard has, through Levinas's appropriation, inadvertently but in the end incontestably helped teach European philosophy how to be moral. Yet just as each person must learn to live, somehow, both in biographical and historical time, each must learn, somehow, to be more than moral. The viewpoint of morality, though it is essential, is by itself not enough. The line between morality and politics, because it is relative, is constantly and necessarily crossed. Ifso, this activity, even when undertaken in the name of the morality Levinas movingly defended, will have to occur in spite of his immunization of the self from history and the truths of ethics from the affairs of the day. There is a burden of responsibility, but there is even more to shoulder.

61. AscitedfromtheAnti-DiihringinStevenLukes,MarxismandMorality(Oxford: ClarendonPress,1985),11.LukesarguesthatHegel'sandMarx's(andJochanan's?)subordinationofmoralityto politics, thoughfromonepointofview anattackonmorality, is fromanotherperspectivesimplyadifferentmoralvision.