MICHAEL BOLERJACK HEIDEGGER AND LEVINAS
Theses on Levinas 1. Real relation is a real relation with infinity. 2. Which infinity: actual or possible?
3. The infinite intransversable. How do we reach it? How does it reach us? 4. Infinity, not transversable, is indefinitely absent versus eternal presence.
5. Hierarchy of call/response, ways of calling, a hierarchy of how the other affects us, hierarchy of responses, either yes, or ignorance, denial, or the appropriation of the call, to do it for self, not the other.
6. Mediation: real relation, mediated relation, the infinite humbles himself, comes to us, not the height of the other/transcendent but the Eucharist, God in bread, God in man, God mediated, transpassionate.
7. Impossible to experience the infinite, ideal only, not real, but presence is experienced, un-thought, though not unsaid, in se be the said.
8. The sacraments, God with us, Emmanuel, so must we be, changed to him by him, but we cannot be infinite. Otherness became us so we be otherwise.
9. Reality, is the same, one, presence, being, with the parts in the whole, a hierarchy of arrangement, order, not the fragment of the infinite. God is hierarchy with us, not administrations of philosophy.
10. Responsibility is good, supporting the burdens of others, and the moral ethic, but they do not substitute for the meta, rather para to true being, set up another
system, not completing the ring by grace, but through self-circling, only seem to be about the other, far rather, hostage I, but not to the host.
11. Hierarchy is the only way to peace, not to war, war levels as does destruction, but peace will elevate all, all in all.
12. EL inverts hierarchy, from s/o to o/s: same/other to other/same. But this inversion is not conversion, which requires loving others as self, as one. 13. It influences me, not me it, nor thou.
14. Not real relation, infinite other, and I, a fixed relation, hest not free. 15. Real relation, friendship, love, persuasion, not command.
16. If the other is a person, he cannot be infinite, because the person has figureshape, order, un-fragmented.
17. The unshaped shapes the shape.
18. God can be infinite other, not every other, not tout autre est tout autre. 19. God set aside infinite-transcendent-height, in order to really love. 20. Do not put neighbor in place of God, that is an idol not an icon.
21. The lord your god is one god: love your neighbor as you love yourself. 22. Regard construction of last: as yourself.
23. Not as other, but precisely as the same. 24. You and I, we are the same, but God an other is.
25. To love the other as me is not to see strangeness, not to heighten him in his otherness, but bring the ring of friendship, the ring of love, grace against the
nihilism, a real and an ideal relation, not fixed by the nothing, but at once open and closed by grace.
26. As Jesus did. Weep.
27. Even Aristotle’s metaphysics is founded on love, not love of the infinite, which would be amoral, but of the good, mystical.
28. Epekeina tes ousia, Plato said: Good beyond being, point of departure, place of arrival.
29. Which is to say truth is hierarchy: we know beings, we love the good.
30. Will primary not reason, guards, guides, desires, moves: reason steers but
love, desire makes us go, and is the destination. Reason prevents the wanderer,
but even more faith, by which we travel and in travail. The labor of love.
31. The good beyond being is the end to which being tends, appropriation. 32. Ch: hierarchy, the good, an Idea or Form, for Plato, has no shape for Plotinus, is beyond thought, cannot be, is not rational, an X for thought.
33. But this is not my dear Lord, revealed, but is the god of philosophy, and whatever is not of faith is sin, is idolized, can be worshipped, as if.
34. God is person, God is person as such, not otherness, but is the form of what it means to be able to say I AM, which others cannot say, are not self-same, but are as other itself, ever other even to selves.
35. If God is even infinite, then oddly we are infinite too.
36. Where EL goes is to abject the self abysmally before all others, even otherness itself.
37. Losing analogy, hierarchy, mediation, perspective.
38. The fixed point of reference is God in Christ, not my neighbor, the latter is in relation to the former. As myself, as same. Other becomes me, but not otherness ideally, rather really others loved by me just the same.
39. Neighbors are not strangers, but others are strange, which EL accentuates. 40. There is one economy: being in love. Be loved, beloved, be love, to love you must be, being self, not other, there is but love, there is no other. Absolute
asymmetry of the heart, not relative to otherness, there is but one direction to time, to love, and the future of love Therese so taught to be. The other only
seems, but we must not seem but be. To love is to be, and in that both mean believing. In love Himself. The truth is not other. A=A. The other is the contradiction, while the truth of contradiction is crossed. To arrive.
Restrictions of Heideggerean Being
LEVINAS ------------(Ought)
NIETZSCHE ---------------(Becoming)
HEIDEGGER/Being
HOLDERLIN ----------------(Thinking)
DERRIDA ------------(Seeming)