Permanently Pissed

radical passivity and diachrony

2011-07-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Levinas describes the self in Otherwise than Being as passively elected, turned towards, and approached by the Other. The self then is made responsible for the Other despite itself, that is without its being aware of or making any decision on the matter. This election happened in a past (Levinas calls it a "time of creation") that is beyond consciousnes and beyond all recall. This means that, contraty to what the philosophical tradition tells us, responsibility is not contingent on freedom; rather, it is the other way around: responsibility thus depends neither on consciousness nor on any choice or commitment. One is made responsible and it is this responsibility, in fact, which allows consciousness and the capacity to choose to arise.

Understandably, even commentators sympathetic to Levinas have concerns about this idea of radical passivity. After all, don't we make certain decisions as regards how we treat others? Aren't we held accountable for the actions we've committed? The moral tradition teaches us that one is responsible for actions done in consciousness and full freedom--and the extent of one's responsibility varies according to the extent that one is aware of one's actions and their consequences and to the degree that one acted autonomously. Furthermore, if one insists like Levinas that one was made responsible, that one is responsible prior to consciousness and choice, what then is the moral worth of one's actions? Can one be truly responsible for the Other when responsibility is something imposed upon you?

I personally do not think that the idea of radical passivity alone is able to account for both the autonomy of the self and the possibility of responding to the needs and suffering of the Other. This notion does accomplish at least two things: first, with this characterization of the self as radically passive he is able to avoid reverting to the sovereign subject of modernity and metaphysics. This self is revealed first in the accusative, is at least initially dependent on others, was not there when it came to be. It is said to be first revealed in the accusative (as a "me") and can only belatedly say I. Yet even this "saying," this pronouncement of the word "I" is possible only because one has already been addressed by another, only because one has already received language in silence. Second, the notion of a radically passive self partly accounts for the possibility of hearing the appeal of the face of the Other. This was a difficulty that Totality and Infinity ran into and was unable to convincingly address. There the ego is described as overcoming its initial dependence on things and as eventually able to master them through enjoyment, the establishment of its home, their transformation into the subject's possessions. Through these activities the subject arises as separate and autonomous and develops a secret and interior life. But then Levinas comes to give descriptions of the epiphany of the face of the Other, which puts the freedom and existence of the ego into question, challenging and pleading to it to assume its responsibility. But how is it possible for the face of the Other to affect the I given the latter's interiority? How could such a subject respond to the face's call? Radical passivity provides us an understanding of the self that is open to the Other because it is always already affected by the Other. The self is able to hear the appeal of the face because it was never totally isolated or shut off from the Other in the first place.

But the apparent conflict between radical passivity and the possibility of actively responding to the Other still remains. For while radical passivity gives us a self that is affected and constantly "affectable" by the Other, it does not explain how such a radically passive self is able to actually respond to the Other. Here is where another notion, a crucial one, has to be introduced. The idea of diachrony helps us understand that radical passivity and active responsibility are not at all at odds with each other.

Commentators like Roger Burggraeve have helped me see that what Otherwise than Being wants to do is to try to answer the question "How must the subject be if it is able to respond to the call of the face of the Other?" The book already takes for granted that we do find ourselves in situations wherein we are confronted by the face, wherein we have the choice of either responding to it or ignoring it. We have all been in this ethical situation. Moreover, it is also a fact that there have been and there are people who are able to respond positively to the face's appeal, people who have even sacrificed their time, possessions, and even themselves for the sake of others. There are of course others who haven't and who refuse to even recognize the Other's appeal. This means that while the idea of interiority in Totality and Infinity poses problems for our understanding of responsibility, it is undeniable that we do have it, that we do bear a secret life inacessible to anyone else, that we can choose to close ourselves to the approach of the Other. Yet as we have said, there are people who have responded to the face. And note too that being self-enclosed is a decision one makes. One decides to avoid others, to not get involved, to mind one's own business. These choices, however, are taken after the fact of having been confronted by the face of the Other.

This means then that whatever attitude or decision we take in concrete empirical situations where we are confronted by the face, we have always already seen the face, that we have been affected by the Other's approach. While many refuse on a daily basis to recognize and respond to the face, some others do. Two facts come to the fore then: one, I can choose to respond to the face in the manner I want; two, we are "affectable" by the face or the Other's approach. The I/ego/subject has always been open and can always decide to close itself to others. It is the idea of diachrony or diachronic time that allows Levinas to bring these two apparently opposed tendency or descriptions of the subject.

What Levinas in fact tries to do in Otherwise than Being is to somehow go back and describe that other time that he describes to be beyond recall and representation. Remember that Levinas seeks to show how the subject/ego/I must be "originally" and at its very "core" for it to be capable of responding to the Other's face. He makes a distinction between synchronic and diachronic time. The former is the time of the present, the time of essence or being, of consciousness. It is within this time that being and beings unfold, presenting themselves. It is time that recovers itself as synchronic time tends to recuperate the past and anticipate the future. The ego or consciousness operates within the framework of synchronic time as it re-presents things to itself. In synchronic time, the ego is freedom and mastery of whatever is other. On the other hand, Levinas conceives of a different time, one preceding, apart from, beyond, and irreducible to re-presentable time. It is a time already past, pre-original, and beyond the reaches of memory and any act of consciousness.

Now it is in this pre-original, irrecuperable time that the self (and I deliberately employ this term when describing subjectivity as passively designated to be responsible--in contrast to the subject of metaphysics or the I or the ego) has been elected to be responsible for the Other. In this "time of creation" the subject was chosen and turned towards the Other. The subject (in the sense of the one subjected to responsibility) was made responsible despite itself, that is without or prior to consciousness and choice. Levinas even calls this self a hostage to the Other underline that responsibility is not something it itself chose but was rather given to it in that time immemorial.

The idea of diachrony then allows Levinas to make a distinction between the ego and the self. The ego is subjectivity on the level of consciousness, action, representation, phenomenology, etc., while the self refers to the radically passive subjectivity chosen to be responsible in a time beyond recall. The ego is autonomous, creative, and capable of self-mastery and the domination of others. The self is passive, touched by the Other, always already responsible. But then we are speaking of one and the same subjectivity--only in terms of different times. In an immemorial time, in a past that can never be recovered or reduced to the present, the self was elected. From there, it is able to emerge as a separate, autonomous, thinking and willing subject. It comes to be an ego, in control of itself, able to master its surroundings and even be some kind of lord over other human individuals. It can even reach the point where it believes itself to be totally self-sufficient and/or its own principle or condition. Yet, because in an immemorial time, it was a self turned to and approached by the other, the ego always bears the capacity to respond to the face's appeal.

Thus, radical passivity allows us to dispel the illusion that we are completely self-sufficient and self-enclosed creatures. This idea does make sense because a little bit of reflection will show us that we could never have willed ourselves into existence. What we are now we owe to many others who have preceded and affected us, people whose actual faces we literally can no longer recall. But it is the idea of diachrony that lets us reconcile this idea of being radically passive selfs with our undeniable capacity to choose and even shun the light of the face. It is this notion of the time of creation that sort of reminds us that despite ourselves, we are always capable of good.

fusion of horizons

2011-07-04T23:58:00.000-07:00

When I first heard and read about the "fusion of horizons" in Gadamer I felt that this was a notion that actually made sense of my experiences. If I remember correctly, this refers to the interaction of the thoughts, ideas, and network of meanings of two conversants. Gadamer employs this description of conversation to show us what happens in the reading of a text. What the other says unfolds in my horizon and what I say unfolds in hers. Although we may have different religious and ethno-cultural background, mutual understanding is always possible since no horizon is totally isolated or closed off from others and that in the end everyone shares in the horizon of being (or perhaps to use Heidegger's words, we all have a familiarity with or pre-understanding of being). Even if the other is someone who is prejudiced, her prejudgments come into play in the conversation and may be challenged by what is being said by the conversation partner. When there is enough openness on the part of the two parties, then the fusion of horizon happens, understanding is achieved.

This all sounds well and good. It rings true. But then this notion seems to rely on certain presuppositions. First, that what I am saying unfolds easily and without any difficulty in the horizon of the other. I do not think this is self-evident, after all certain conditions have to be there for this unfolding to happen (a shared language, shared knowledge, an open attitude, readiness to be critical even of oneself, etc.).

Second, that somehow we share some ultimate context. Of course, one can always find similarities between two ways of life, manners of thinking, culture, religion, etc. But even if we admit the idea of a familiarity with being, this is still culturally determined and thus my experience and appreciation of existence may be radically different even from one who shares with me certain wider contexts (someone who is also Filipino, Catholic, male, and so on). While Gadamer does speak of consciousness as historically determined maybe he is underestimating this historical determination? As Prof. Visker points out, I may have some kind of sympathy for somebody else's culture and convictions (that is, I decide to be open, tolerant, respectful), but it does not mean that I understand them. My background allows me to understand things but this does not mean that it completely makes sense even to me.

Third, although I understand that the account of conversation is only a way to understand the interpretation of texts, maybe Gadamer forgets how different these two experiences really are. Indeed both the human other and a particular text can be interpreted and these interpretations can never exhaust the reality of the other and the text. What they say may unfold in my horizon. Yet does the human other unfold herself the way the text does within my horizon of understanding? Yes the other brings herself along in what she says and Gamader sees this. But in the case of the human other there is still a distinction between what is being said and the saying that precedes and delivers it. It is true that both the text and the other will always remain "mysterious," "inexhaustible," "irreducible" to me, my ideas, my horizon. But does the text not derive this from the fact that it was said, written by the human other?

Apart from this, I have some reservations about the term "fusion." Do the horizons really "fuse"? Does this mean they become one horizon? Or is it more like a new horizon is created? Why not simply say that there was a fruitful interaction between two horizons? I have a feeling Gadamer has answers to these questions--maybe I have just forgotten what his text actually says. But I think in real conversations, the respective horizons or points of view of the participants remain distinct (and perhaps becomes clearer, better defined) and separate even when--or specially when--they have come upon some agreement on certain matters.

the one left

2010-04-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I had dinner with loneliness
She (yes, loneliness is female!) sat across from me,
in the chair that now misses your warmth.
I guess out of politeness and understanding
she was silent for the most part and did nothing
but intently watch me cut up the steak into pieces
absent-mindedly and slowly (there was no reason to hurry),
bring bits to my mouth and chew carefully
relishing the absence of life in each morsel.
I largely kept quiet too--for what was I to say to her?
Unlike uncertain lovers we no longer require words
to fill in the blanks in our togetherness
And I know she understood how I felt anyway
She knows herself too well.
There were questions that tempted me though:
Has she always been with me? Is she here to stay?
I was dying to ask but didn't dare for
the answers might be simple, fateful, and true.
I was thinking too that she should be capable
of multiplying herself and simultaneously be at different places
For surely I'm not the only one who's learning
to live with the fact of empty chairs and long silent meals,
to endure and to make conversation with
the only one that's left and comes near.

8 February 2010
Leuven, Belgium

The Lives of Others

2009-11-23T15:48:00.000-08:00

I remember seeing posters of this film here in Leuven in 2006. A Belgian friend told me then that it was really good. I wanted to see it but I couldn't because it was in German and was shown with French and Dutch subtitles only. Luckily my Dutch is better now, so I rented a DVD and watched it tonight.

It's a quiet and in a way gripping film. I liked Wiesler's character: dutiful and loyal to the party, while deep down he longed for genuine human contact, intimacy, trust--things poems, short stories, novels, plays, paintings, music depict, portray, convey.

The main thing though that I saw clearly in the film was that even through our social functions, which are usually defined by very specific expectations and often bear an anonymous and impersonal character, we can still be humane to others. Of course, in the end, Wiesler had to go against his orders and betray his superiors. In that sense, he transgressed his function as a secret agent of the state, risking his own life and career, for the sake of those he should have treated as enemies. But then at the near end of the film (two scenes: after being relieved of his position as a spy and another after the fall of the Berlin wall) one sees him once again faithfully fulfilling his duties, however clerical, monotonous, and boring they might be.

One can never know the full extent of the consequences of one's actions. But there is always that great chance that one touches the lives of others, that one does people whose faces one has never seen good, by simply doing one's ordinary everyday duties.

When I close my eyes

2009-11-05T02:00:00.000-08:00

Lying still flat on my back in my empty bed
I stare straight at the bare ceiling
Seeing a tiny smudge I imagine it to be me
alone in the white waters of anonymous existence
(But when I close my eyes, you're here, right next to me)

Once fiery autumn leaves have fallen now
Strewn all over like dead butterflies or withered hearts
The winds punish and the sun must have followed you
When you left for that place where I couldn’t be
(But when I close my eyes, you're here, right next to me)

Many times I have looked at a random crowd
Thinking that I see your face glowing like a star
I rush towards you every time only to get lost in that nameless sea
Where like the wreckage of a disaster I drift aimlessly
(But when I close my eyes, you’re here, right next to me)

5 November 2009
Leuven, Belgium

Within

2009-10-29T02:26:00.000-07:00

After a few drinks I resort to silence and I sit still
then extreme sadness begins its siege
like dark clouds threatening to overwhelm
a lone island surrounded by anonymous waters.
Like a docile patient I do not resist
and it takes it very little time to possess me:
It occupies my chest and broods there
heavy, heaving, and more alive than me.
As though attacked by a brutal illness or some potent drug
My bodily members are rendered limp
while I remain awake like an insomniac
too tired to think, to move, and to give a damn.
Like some tyrannical lord it impels me
to go into the deep wilderness of my memories
that country of dead men and dying hopes
abandoned places and faces and unholy burial ground
of old selves, love, and self-love.

In the very belly of that black wilderness
Perhaps at the moment of extreme danger
Something else in me stirs and doubts
wanting to turn back or find a clearing
where some confident rays of light
pierce through the thickness of the canopy of solitude
But then like one addicted to some deadly stuff
I stay where I am, unmoving, unconsoled but resigned
exhausted from trying, thinking, and waiting
for some holy salvation for my tainted soul.
My eyes, ever widening, adjust to the darkness there
as I tarry, already welcoming the next wave
of unwanted recollections and a rain of emotions
as a calming thought comes to me:
Perhaps it is there that I truly belong.

29 October 2009
Leuven, Belgium

Fund-raising activity organized by Filipinos in Leuven

2009-09-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

You must have heard of the devastation caused by tropical storm Ketsana (typhoon Ondoy) in the Philippines last September 26, 2009. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_flooding

To date, signs of hope through random and organized forms of volunteerism are growing in many corners of the city. We believe that we can also be a source of hope, even in a remote way. In this regard, we would like to invite you to an afternoon of solidarity with our fellow Filipinos back home.

FUSE, the organization of Filipino students in Leuven, will hold a charity event on Sunday, October 4, 2009, at the Pangaea Multi-purpose hall, Vesaliustraat 34, Leuven, from 15:00 onwards. This event begins with a Holy Mass which will be followed by the serving of well-loved Filipino snacks that will be sold at 10,00 euros per plate (starts at 16:00).

If you wish to participate in this event, you are requested to register by sending an email to jai_tc12@yahoo.com. You may also send an SMS or call Ms. Jai Capili: +32486529139. Registration is very important so that we can prepare well and that we may avoid wasting resources that would have been used for the benefit of the victims of the flood.

If you wish to donate but cannot come to the event, you may email or call the contact persons of FUSE through the following contact details:

Fr. Mario Masangcay: marcssr@gmail.com; gsm: +32485461597
Anne Mendoza: annemen2000@yahoo.com; gsm: +32485328692
Maria Lovelyn Paclibar: marialove77@yahoo.com; gsm: +32487433336

The proceeds of this event will go through the channel of Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan, a non-partisan, Church-based organization that functions as part of the socio-political ministry of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). This organization has developed a comprehensive system of responding to victims of disaster in various parts of the Philippines.

Filipinos are known for their resilience in times of crisis and disaster. Through the help of people like you, they will be able build their homes and their lives anew. Thank you very much.

Kindly forward this email to everyone you know.

Best regards,

Fr. Mario Masangcay
Anne Mendoza
Maria Lovelyn Paclibar

FUSE Coordinators 2009

munting kaliwanagan

2009-09-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

Kamakailan naging malinaw sa akin ang dapat kong ginagawa. Sinasabi ko ngayong naging malinaw dahil dalawang taon na ang lumilipas at pakiramdam ko'y hindi pa rin umuusad ang aking padodoktorado. Hindi ibig sabihin nito na hindi ako nagtatrabaho, na pa-bandying-bandying lang ako rito sa Belhika. Sa katunayan, marami na rin akong nabasa, kumperensiyang napuntantahan, papel na naisulat, atbp. Ngunit hindi naman ibig sabihin nito na may pinatutunguhan ang mga pinagkaabalahan ko sa nakaraang dalawang taon. Marami nang beses na naramdaman kong paikut-ikot lamang ako o kaya na baka di ako nararapat sa kinalalagyan ko ngayon. Lingid sa kaalaman ko na isang maliit na trahedya, isang karanasan ng pagkabigo, isang sampal ng buhay ang magbibigay sa akin ng kaunting kaliwanagan. (Marahil sa ibang pagkakataon ko na lamang isusulat kung ano ang mga tunay na nangyari. Pero maaari kong ibahagi ang isang mahalagang detalye ng kuwentong iyon: hindi kontento ang punong tagapayo ko maging ang mga kasapi ng aking kumite sa aking trabaho.)

Totoo pala ang sinasabi nila. Minsan kailangan pang madapa ka para matuto kang bumangon at magpatuloy, kailangan pang mabigo ko para mapilitan kang halughugin ang kalooban, tignan ang sarili at magbaliktanaw sa iyong naging buhay.At iyon nga ang nangyari. Pagkatapos ng pagbabasa ng isang papel sa harap ng ilang mga propesor at kapwa estudyante, nasabihan akong di sapat ang aking ginawa (kahit na ba sa personal kong palagay ay matino naman ang aking naisulat). Napilitan tuloy akong magpasa ng "progress report" na tatalakay sa mga resulta ng aking pananaliksik at pati na rin ang aking mga plano para sa taon na ito. (Inutos ito kumbaga ng mga propesor na di ko napasaya.) Kasama rin diyan ang isang mahalagang gawain: ilahad at ipaliwanag ang pagkukumparang mangyayari sa pagitan ng dalawang pilosopong aking inaaral (sina Marion at Levinas). Nagsumikap ako sa loob ng tatlong linggo upang matapos ito at maisumite sa mga tagapayo. Nagawa ko naman. Anong tingin nila? Hindi pa rin sila masaya. May pagkukulang pa rin. Tanggap ko ito na bahagi talaga ng trabaho. Natural lamang na maging kritikal ang mga propesor na ito. At kailangan kong sabihin na sa kabila ng lahat--kahit na ba kabado ako araw-araw habang nagbabasa, nagsusulat, nagrerebisa, kahit na mahahabang gabi ang kailangan pagdaanan, at kahit na sa bandang huli'y tila kulang pa rin ang kinahinatnan--nakatulong pa rin sa akin ang pagdaan sa prosesong tulad nito. Dumating sa akin ang kalinawan, ang isang kaisipan, isang katotohanan.

Malabong maging tanyag na pilosopo ako. Alam ko ang hangganan ng aking pag-unawa at tiyaga. Hindi ako nagsasalita ng Aleman, di nakakabasa ng Griyego at Latin, at kakarampot na Pranses pa lang ang aking alam. Mabilis akong makalimot at mas madalas akong di sigurado kaysa may kumpiyansa sa aking mga natatandaan. Ngunit alam ko na ngayon ang dapat kong ginagawa. Dapat ay nagbabasa ako ng mga gawa ng mga pantas. Mahirap, oo.Madalas ay malalampasan mo na ang limang pahina ng isang aklat at nanatiling nasa dilim pa rin ang iyong pag-unawa. Palagi namang ganyan sa pilosopiya, hindi ba? Pero iyan ang tungkulin ko ngayon, ang dapat kong gawin. Siguro iniisip mo: hindi ba't "obvious" naman iyan? Kitang-kita na--bakit mo pa kailangang banggitin? Ang maisasagot ko diyan ay: Dahil makapangyarihan ang ating mga isip. Kaya nating lokohin ang ating mga sarili sa pamamagitan ng mga imahen ng ating sarili na nililikha ng ating kamalayan. Kaya nating paniwalain ang sariling tayo ang magaling (o kadalasan mas magaling sa iba), na hindi natin kailangang magsumikap masyado dahil sa angkin nating mga kakayahan, na tama ang ating ginagawa at mali ang iniisip ng iba (lalo na ng mga taong tumutuligsa sa ating mga gawa).

May kaliwanagan akong naabot. Magbasa ng mga pilosopo, iyan ang trabaho ko. Kalakip diyan ang pagpapaliwanag sa mga ito gamit ang sarili kong pag-unawa, sarili kong mga salita. Hindi biro ang mga gawaing ito. Kasama ang hirap sa pagbabasa, ang pakikipagtunggali sa teksto, sa mga sariling katamaran, kahiligan, kakayahang makalimot at magpabaya. Pero kung magagawa ko ang mga ito nang mabuti, mayroon akong munting ambag sa pamimilosopiya, sa pagbabasa, pag-iisip, pagsusulat, at pagmumuni-muni ng sangkatauhan.Sasabihin mo pa rin na simple ito at hindi na kailangan ulit-ulitin. At tama ka riyan. Pero ang munting kaisipan na ito ang nagbibigay sa akin ngayon ng motibasyon at direksiyon.And kaliwanagang ito ang nagbigay ng sandaling kapayapaan sa akin--ang kapayapaang kakambal ng pagyakap sa isang mithiin o sa isang tungkulin.

Alaala ng paglisan

2009-07-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Karaniwan ang asul ng kanyang pantalon
tulad ng aming bahay, ng buhay namin noon
puting kamiseta naman ang yumayakap
sa pamilyar at malakas niyang katawan
na aking sandalan, malawak na laruan,
ligtas na tahanan ng aking kamus-musan
Ngunit iba ang dating ng kanyang pagsasalita at tingin
Sa araw na iyong naitakdang maging kakaiba
dahil sa paglipad niya tungo sa lugar
na may pangalang pahiwatig sa akin ay distansiya
Buo't sigurado pa rin ang kanyang tindig at tinig
ngunit may bigat ang hawak niya sa aking balikat
pati ang halos di ko nakayanang titig sa aking mukha
mga palaisipan gaya ng kilos ng liwanag sa kanyang mga mata
Tumakas na sa aking gunita ang mga salitang
Alam ko ngayong ninais niyang sa aki'y manatili
Ngunit malinaw pa ang larawan ng kanyang paglakad palayo
pati ang init ng mga luhang sa pisngi ko'y gumulong

18 Hulyo 2009

Ang mga sumasabit

2009-07-01T02:10:00.000-07:00

Sing listo't tulin ng mga ibong mandaragit
Sasagupain nila ang dyip na bahagyang humimpil
Dalawa o tatlong mukhang madurungis ang sasalakay
Tatalunin ang pagitan ng kalsada't estribo, pagkalugmok at pag-usad
Tulad ng pagtangan ng musmos sa pinagkakatiwalaang hintuturo
Ang pagkapit ng magagaspang na kamay sa mga kalawanging tubo
Kaya naman walang patid ang pagbabanat ng buhay at buto
Ng mga brasong daig ang mga punong nakikipagtutuos sa mga bagyo
Mabuti nga't may bahagyang ginhawang natitikman
Sa pagtunghay sa mga talang walang sawa ang dagitab sa kadiliman
Sa hanging nagpapatahan sa mga luha ng mga katawang
Parehong piyesa at pusta sa isang labanang di timbang
At hindi sila bibitiw hanggat di malapit marating
Ang mga tahanang kapwa dahilan at tanda ng pagpapaalipin.

Levinas and Marion: Parallels, Influences, Differences

2009-06-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

The original aim of my PhD project was to study the writings of Marion and Levinas so as (1) to show how their conceptions of subjectivity are similar and (2) to draw from them a conception of subjectivity that can serve as the compelling alternative to modernist philosophical conceptions of subjectivity. As attested to by their shared intellectual background, their similar insights, and the influence of one on the other, engaging in a project such as this is not without basis. A number of commentators (like Drabinski, Horner, Gswandthner) have pointed out the “proximity” of some of the claims and moves of these two thinkers. And in fact, Marion himself acknowledges his debt to his former teacher and he claims that he has “the same relation to Emmanuel Levinas as that which Levinas himself acknowledged to Heidegger.”

However, put in this way, the articulation of the project may give one the impression that this is only a matter of exposing these philosophers' respective views on subjectivity, pointing out the shared characteristics of these views, and then suggesting that this is the best replacement for the traditional notion of the subject. However, a close study of the various texts of Levinas and a reading of the major works of Marion show that this is in fact a more complicated matter than it would first seem. There are not only two tasks (comparing the philosophers and showing that theirs is the best conception of subjectivity that there is), but several—and these are not entirely free from difficulties.

We provide below our initial attempts at accomplishing the tasks involved in considering conceptions of subjectivity in Levinas and Marion. We discuss below parallels between these two thinkers, the influence of Levinas on Marion, and the latter's criticisms of and divergences from his master Levinas. After our brief consideration of these matters, we will raise some questions that the research project faces.

I. Parallels
(a) The use of phenomenology
Apart from having studied under Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas claims not only in interviews and his philosophical works, but also in some of his confessional writings that he employs the phenomenological method. The use of this method is evident in early works (where one finds descriptions of the experience of shame, nausea, fatigue and indolence, pain and suffering, death or dying, among others) and also in his first major work Totality and Infinity, whose parts consist of accounts of the activities of the pre-self-conscious self through which it emerges as a separate and autonomous I.

It should be mentioned that though some basic insights of Husserl are certainly operative in Levinas, the latter is also critical of some key Husserlian ideas, like the apparent limitation of intentionality to perception and constitution, the notion of empathy, transcendental phenomenology and its epistemological character, and the primacy of transcendental consciousness. Levinas’ descriptions of the epiphany of the face of the other challenges the primacy accorded by Husserl to perception, the limits of intentionality, and the constituting capacity of consciousness—consciousness’ status as the source of sense. This is because the other is irreducible to anything that the I perceives; the other is not an object that the I constitutes on the basis of its own understanding of itself as consciousness having a lived body, and because the face itself signifies on its own, a signification that precedes the I’s acts of constitution. This then widens or gives a new meaning to intentionality (it is no longer limited to objects).

There is a shift in method and language in the second great work, Otherwise than Being, where Levinas resorts more to repetition and the use of hyperbolic words.

Marion on the other hand probably first became known as a Patristics scholar, a commentator on Descartes, and a theologian. But it is evident even in his early theological writings, and specially in his widely read and highly controversial book God Without Being that he uses the phenomenological method. In both God Without Being and in The Idol and Distance, there is for example, phenomenological descriptions of the the idol and the icon. These two books can be read as a contestation of metaphysics (and God Without Being as more of a contestation of Heideggerian ontology) in the name of certain theological concerns. Both works, moreover, are replete with engagements with philosophers like Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Aquinas, and Pseudo-Dionysius.

The later work of Marion can be seen as constituting a renewal and a broadening of phenomenology. In Reduction and Givenness, Being Given, and In Excess, Marion retrieves and examines what could be basic principles of Husserlian phenomenology, declares them insufficient, and then gives an account of his discovery of the first and last principle of phenomenology: “so much reduction, so much givenness.” This principle allows for the widening of the phenomenological horizon or the abolition of any pre-condition that may come from consciousness or being and which would get in the way of the self-giving of phenomena. Only this principle puts stress on the self-giving character of phenomena and allows for phenomena that cannot be contained by any concept. (This opens phenomenology to intentionalities directed otherwise than at objects. On this point, Marion is very close to Levinas.)

Marion believes that his predecessors Husserl and Heidegger imposed limits on the self-showing of phenomena, the former because of his preoccupation with the constitution of objects for consciousness, the latter because of his unwavering concern for being and the ontological difference. In Husserl and Heidegger, phenomena had to appear either according to the determinations from consciousness or within the horizon of the happening of being. This results in phenomena appearing only as either objects or as being and thus not as it gives itself.

Just as in God Without Being Marion endeavored to free our thinking of God from the constraints imposed by metaphysical thinking and ontology so as to enable us to approach God as God, in his phenomenological writings he wants to free phenomena from anything that hinders their self-showing. To do this, Marion proposes a third (and according to him, final) reduction, that is, the reduction to givenness. Phenomena, if they are to be allowed to show themselves, are to be understood from givenness. This last reduction does not mean making phenomena conform to certain conditions of consciousness, but rather the clearing away any such imposition, which allows phenomena to give themselves from themselves.

(b) The critique of Heidegger
For Levinas, Heidegger does not put into question a philosophical tradition that gives primacy to freedom but rather continues and thus confirms it with his concern for fundamental ontology and the analytic of Dasein. The thinking of being, moreover, hinders us from approaching the other human person as such, since the other person would have to be reached through a Neuter or first as a being. (Other Heideggerian ideas Levinas questions are care, death, authenticity.)

Marion, on the other hand, writes in his theological texts that though Heidegger opened up a path beyond metaphysics, his thinking remains an obstacle to thinking God as God. The thought of being does not escape idolatry as it pretends to set the conditions for the self-showing of God. In his later writings, Marion seeks to free phenomenology from both the Husserlian preoccupation with constitution and objective presence and the limits imposed by the thinking of being (what he calls the second reduction or the reduction to being) for the sake of opening phenomenology to excessive phenomena.

(c.) The attempt to think absolute alterity
Levinas is well-known for insisting on the recognition of the alterity of the other human person. Meanwhile, Marion’s early theological works are devoted to uncovering a non-metaphysical, non-ontological, and thus non-idolatrous approach to God as God. It can be said that in his later writings we can also find a concern for alterity, now in the figure of saturated phenomena. In the desire to do away with the limits of Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Marion proposes his own reduction, the reduction to givenness (which he claims is faithful to the original inspiration of phenomenology).

(d) The notion of a receptive self
The respective thoughts of Levinas and Marion are strikingly similar on two crucial points as regards the self. First, they both try to rethink subjectivity beyond or apart from the determinations it has received from modern philosophy, Husserlian phenomenology, Heideggerian ontology, and (at least in the case of Levinas) from contemporary anti-humanism in philosophy. Both Marion and Levinas reject the conception of subjectivity as epistemological (and largely wordless and “detached” subject), transcendental consciousness, and as Dasein (also man as openness to being, Shepherd of Being, etc.). Second, they re-describe the subject in a particular way, that is, at the very least as a self that cannot be its own ground or foundation. They both go about re-envisioning subjectivity by answering the question “Who comes after the subject?” and they answer the question by uncovering the self that precedes subjectivity as knowing subject, transcendental consciousness, and Dasein.

At least in Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being , Levinas speaks of a self that is allowed to become itself by another. In the former we find the idea of a self that emerges as an autonomous and separate I thanks not only to its enjoyment of things, but also to the other who first addresses it. In the latter work, the self is described as called to be responsible by the good; this is a self that cannot begin with and from itself for it is always already entangled in a plot with the other.

In the early work of Marion we can see how Marion abandons the metaphysical understanding of the subject as he speaks of the onlooker’s gaze being engulfed by the gaze coming from the icon. The self that finds itself in such an encounter cannot be a knowing subject or a transcendental consciousness that claims to constitute its objects. A very similar conception of subjectivity can also be found in Marion’s phenomenology: the self there is not so much constituting as constituted by the phenomena that give themselves, that befall the self and impact on it. The self is called the witness, the receiver, or the one who is given (over), the gifted or l’adonne.

II. Influences (of Levinas on Marion)

(a) Marion basically follows Levinas in the critique of Heidegger (being as an impediment; ontology constraining thought, confining it to being, keeping it from thinking alterity, which in the case of Marion would be God and phenomena)

(b) Levinas speaks of the need to think God apart from both onto-theo-logy and Heideggerian ontology in his preface to Otherwise than Being. What Marion does in God Without Being can be read as a positive response to this challenge.

(c) Marion accepts the ethical significance of the epiphany of the face of the other. In his early theological works, Marion speaks of the face in relation to the icon (through which the invisible God envisages the worshipper). Later, he discusses the face of the other in relation to the work of art and, perhaps more importantly, to the saturated phenomenon of the icon (the understanding of which has widened beyond its being the positive counter-point to the idol). Marion tells us that “It goes without saying that we owe it to Emmanuel Levinas to have ingeniously reconfigured phenomenology so as to let it finally reach the other as saturated phenomenon.” Marion’s own employment of the notion of the face will be discussed further below.

(d) Marion's description of how phenomena are given bears similarities to the Levinasian account of the epiphany of the face.

Marion discusses four traits of phenomena: anamorphosis, contingency, fait accompli, “incidentality” or “accidentality.” This description of phenomena follows the contours of the Levinasian account of the epiphany or self-showing of the face of the other. (Givenness gives apart from or beyond being. Phenomena give themselves from themselves, as they are, and from a distance.) (a) The self-showing of phenomena has its own direction, it determines the form of its own happening or arrival. (Like the other who shows himself from himself and as himself; in expressing himself the other needs no assistance.) (b) A phenomenon is given contingently. It arrives on its own, imposed upon me, not needing any initiative on my part for its self-giving, allowing me only to receive or absorb the shock of its arrival. Now it is this arrival that constitutes he who receives precisely as a recipient (and not the other way around—and this is like the call of the other in Levinas which surges up and stops my force, precedes and invests freedom with responsibility). (3) This arrival is already an accomplished fact, a fait accompli that involves me. It has neither past nor future, cause or duration. The phenomenon’s self-giving exposes me, has already preceded me and constitutes me. This brings to mind Levinas’ description of the epiphany of the face as a first address which allows the self to emerge as a separate and autonomous I. (4) Finally, a phenomenon is an incident, an event that befalls me. Its appearance is something I can neither expect nor control. Phenomena are given as events and not as some object or thing, just as the other approaches me neither as thing nor as a being, but as he or she who puts me into question.

Another theme that is central in the thought of Levinas occupies a prominent place in Marion's account of phenomena whose self-giving is so excessive that no one concept can contain them. In describing five types of saturated phenomena, Marion makes use of and inverts the Kantian categories of quantity, quality, relation, and modality. There are traces of Levinas’ influence in Marion’s description of saturated phenomena (particularly in his account of the flesh and the face).

(1) The first kind of saturated phenomena is the event (historical or cultural event) that occurs in its phenomenal enormity (it is not simply the sum of elements combining; this phenomenon cannot be predicted as regards its quantity). It is not produced (or its occurrence cannot be traced back to a single cause), it cannot be foreseen or predicted, and it cannot be repeated.

(2) Now, inverting the category of quality is the phenomenon of the idol. The saturated phenomenon cannot be foreseen as regards its quality or intensity, making its manifestation unbearable for the gaze. The idol, in its excessive manifestation, exhausts but also blinds or bedazzles the gaze.

(3) The saturated phenomenon according to relation is the flesh (or the lived body), which gives itself as absolute and unique. It is impossible for this phenomenon to have any analogy with experience. There is, moreover, no need to put me in relation to the flesh because I am always already flesh. Marion's explanation of the flesh as that to which I am given (over), and which undergoes suffering and aging, is reminiscent of the Levinas’ phenomenological descriptions of the I's being riveted to itself (to be more concretely understood as the I’s rivetedness to its body), which we find in works like On Escape and the essay “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” and likewise of some of the descriptions of the passive self in Otherwise than Being.

(4) The fourth phenomenon saturates and inverts the Kantian category of modality (where correspondence between object and our cognition is secured). This saturated phenomenon appears as a counter-experience in the sense that before it the I is no longer in any position to constitute what it confronts. The self finds itself submerged in this phenomenon, constituted by it as the recipient of its meaning. This saturated phenomenon Marion calls the icon, in relation to which Marion discusses the face of the other, the other who I do not really see (and thus know) but whose intention aims at me.

This is obviously a heavily Levinasian theme and Marion relies on some devices of Levinas in explaining how the invisible other gives himself as such. (We should note, however, that Marion goes beyond Levinas on this point by not only extending, but also shifting the focus in the account of the encounter with the face. Marion speaks of the crossing of gazes (in the encounter of love) and he appears to give more weight to the appeal as such than to the ethical injunction that arises from the face for Levinas.)

(e) Marion also makes use of the idea of the call, clearly present in other thinkers like Heidegger and Chretien. But the call in Marion brings Levinas particularly to mind because of the manner this idea is articulated: the call signifies only in the response of the witness or the one called. This is something very close to the Levinasian idea of the Good's command to and election of the self to be responsible for the other, which can only be seen in the response of this chosen self.

III. Differences, Marion’s Criticisms of Levinas, and some Questions

(a) First of all, the basic projects of Levinas and Marion in his theological writings are different. Whereas Levinas wanted to articulate the experience of confronting the human other, Marion looks for a way out of onto-theo-logical metaphysics and Heideggerian ontology in order to reach a non-idolatrous way of thinking and speaking of God. The one thinker is thus is concerned with ethics, the other with theology. Now it can indeed be argued that in Totality and Infinity and the early theological works of Marion we can find conceptions of self that are very similar in the sense that these do not have a central and transcendental status. Yet, it should be noted that we find in the Levinasian texts not one but several conceptions of self that are quite distinct from one another. The emergent subjectivity in Totality and Infinity is certainly different from the self-positing I in On Escape, Existence and Existents, and Time and the Other. Aside from this, there is the affected, vulnerable subject in Otherwise than Being, a radically conceived subjectivity that is certainly different from the two earlier ones of Levinas.

Though it can be said that Levinas and Marion's conceptions of subjectivity are similar insofar as in both of them we find a self that is constituted or given to itself by another, these selves seem to be called by or answer to different things. In Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being, the self responds to the appeal of the other (and not directly to God—though the self in the second major work is called to be responsible originally by the Good), while in God Without Being, Marion appears to seek a direct relationship between self and God. We cannot but stress that though the encounter with the face of the other no longer occupies such a central place in Otherwise than Being, Levinas remains to make ethical subjectivity answer primarily to the human other. Marion, on the other hand, appears in his phenomenological writings to make the self receptive and responsive to self-giving phenomena first, and thus also, to the pure anonymous call whose origin cannot be determined. Thus, while there are very similar notions of self in Marion and Levinas, their respective positions as regards to what or to whom the self answers difffer.

(b) Apart from these undeniable differences, we should likewise take into consideration the fact that Marion has early on criticized (if his critique is justified is of course another question) his former teacher Levinas. In The Idol and Distance, Marion accuses Levinas of (1) merely inverting the priority of being over beings, thereby (in Marion’s view) relying on and confirming the notion of ontological difference, one of the most fundamental concerns of the thinking Levinas professes to escape. Though Levinas was able to show that not everything is determined by being with his account of the epiphany of the face, Levinas nonetheless fails to go beyond the thinking of being.

Marion likewise alleges in the same work that (2) the other in Levinas is not sufficiently individualized. It should also be noted that in both an early essay (“The Intentionality of Love”) and some later writings (like “A Note Concerning the Ontological Indifference” and “From the Other to the Individual”), Marion reads Levinas in a manner that makes the latter's ethics parallel Kant's, so much so that Levinas becomes open to the charge of not sufficiently individualizing the self and the other. Marion believes that the face in Levinas belongs to nobody in particular and that it gives rise to the universal law, the ethical injunction to respect the other as such. It is only in love, Marion argues, that both self and other can be individuated.

Closely related to this last charge is Marion's other claim that (3) Levinas fails to make a clear enough distinction between the human and the divine other in his works.
Apart from this, Marion appears to go beyond the meaning Levinas ascribes to the call of the face, as Marion articulates a notion of the call as such. (Marion even claims, questionably I believe, that the idea of the appeal is the most significant contribution of Levinasian thought.) The call need not always be ethical (or religious for that matter) and the ethical appeal of the other human person is only a particular instance of the pure call.

(c.) Now if part of the research project is the need to articulate a notion of self that is not only faithful to how we experience ourselves but also one that can serve as alternative to modernist, Husserlian, and Heideggerian notions, the problem is which understanding of self are we to use? Which among the several notions of self in Levinas? Why prefer Levinas’ notions of self over those of Marion?
Apart from these questions, there are still others that are equally difficult and crucial: Is it the case that the subjectivity in Otherwise than Being is difficult to accept because it relies on the idea of the Good? Can we then say that Marion succeeds where Levinas fails: the re-thinking of phenomenology and thus the re-thinking of the human person without reliance on the idea of the Good (while Marion at the same time opens the possibility for thinking God and revelation)? Can it be claimed that the self in Marion's phenomenology of givenness is more basic than the ethical subjectivity in the thought of Levinas? Or perhaps we can situate the ethics of Levinas within what seems to be the larger and more ambitious project of Marion? Will this do justice to Levinas?

Status Quaestionis

2009-06-23T00:57:00.000-07:00

I don't even know if anybody reads what I post here. But I'm posting this anyway. It's a summary of the essays I've written in the past 2 years. I'm supposed to give a presentation of my work before my research committee and it would help me if I can anticipate questions. So even if philosophy is not your field of expertise, please feel free to ask a question or two or make a comment if anything here interests you.

1)Introduction. The introduction is an initial attempt at articulating the issues my PhD project intends to address. I speak there of the need to rethink our notions of subjectivity. I briefly sketch some contemporary attempts to move beyond the traditional modern, epistemological, and thus also disembodied and contextless conception of subjectivity. I argue that there is a need to replace this notion of the subject not only because it has come under fire from diverse quarters and because such a notion of self (and the way of thinking to which it is intimately linked) underlies some of the horrible events in the previous century, but more importantly because it has become quite clear that it is no longer faithful to how we experience ourselves as human individuals. I briefly speak of some of the thinkers who have paved the way for the rethinking of subjectivity (like Husserl and Heidegger, existentialism, the structuralist and poststructuralist movements), yet I also point out that these initial attempts are still fraught with problems (and have adverse consequences and in fact do not satisfactorily reflect the complexity of our experience of ourselves as persons). Then I eventually suggest that I see as a viable alternative to the modernist conception of subjectivity the articulations of a radically different understanding of self in Levinas and Marion, both of whom maintain an understanding of self that cannot pretend to claim sovereignty and centrality while remaining capable of accomplishing the tasks of philosophizing and of relating to the divine other and to human others.

2)“Subjectivity in the Early Writings of Levinas.” This essay looks at the two-fold task that Levinas embarks upon in his early works: the need to escape being and the exigency to secure and define the identity of the subject. This work begins with an investigation of the exigency to quit being and the self’s being bound to itself, both of which we can find in Levinas’ earliest thematic work, On Escape. The idea of the felt need to escape being is retained in Existence and Existents where Levinas gives an account of the il y a in which the self is initially submerged. Escape from being and affirmation of self find expression in Levinas’ notion of hypostasis or the self-positing of the I. The paper then also points out that the subject finds an initial and as yet not fully developed way out of being and itself in Time and the Other where a discussion of death opens the discussion of the I’s relation with the other.

3)“The Created I in Totality and Infinity.” This paper goes behind Levinas’ own account of the emergence of the autonomous and separate subject to uncover the role that the other already plays in the self’s rise to being an I. It is pointed out that not only is the other present in the activities of the self, but also that the encounter with the other is the very condition of the possibility of the emergence of the I as such. It is the other who first addresses the self, gives it language, and calls it out of its egoist enjoyment and thus welcomes the self into a shared meaningful world. At the outset, it is mentioned that the paper will look into words in Totality and Infinity that Levinas also uses to describe the I, words that appear to be unphilosophical, such as “creature” and “created.” The paper eventually explains what Levinas means by calling the I a creature and it tries to argue that this characterization of the I in fact complements the idea of the autonomous and separate I. The paper explains that the notion of the I as created includes the idea of the newness and separation of the I, its ability to be critical of itself and reflect on its own origin, and its enduring capacity to choose to be moral in responding to the call of the other’s face.

4)Transition essay. This paper discusses some reasons behind the shift from the major work of 1961 to the second magnum opus. It takes a critical look back at the account of subjectivity in Totality and Infinity and draws attention to some contradictions that seem to be attached to it; it briefly considers Derrida’s critique of Totality and Infinity and indicates how Otherwise than Being corrects the faults of the earlier work; then the paper considers some texts that signal significant shifts in the thinking of Levinas, such as “Enigma and Phenomenon,” “Without Identity,” and “Humanism and Anarchy.”

5)“The Redefinition of Subjectivity in Otherwise than Being.” This essay is mainly about the conception of the subject in Levinas’ second major work. It first of all tries to account for the fact that Levinas radicalises his understanding of the subjectivity by seeking that which is beneath or comes before the subject. It also explains the main features of Levinas’ later understanding of subjectivity—such as its vulnerability, its having been approached by the other in Saying, and its electedness by the good (both of which ensure that the self is already beyond being)--and it shows at various points how this conception differs from the one we find in Totality and Infinity. Finally, this paper draws attention to the fact that Levinas also refers to the subject as a creature in Otherwise than Being and it points out that other aspects of creaturehood are emphasized in this later text.

6)"Thinking God Beyond Onto-theo-logical Metaphysics and Ontology and the De-centered Gaze of the Self." The displaced gaze of the self in God Without Being. Here we go into Marion’s critique of modern philosophy (understood largely as onto-theo-logical metaphysics) and of Heideggerian ontology in the name of his search for a non-metaphysical and non-ontological, thus non-idolatrous, approach to God. We show how, for Marion, such metaphysics and even the thought that professes to overcome it or leave it to itself nevertheless remain idolatrous. Along with a brief account of the divine’s entry into metaphysics and Heidegger’s critique of the latter, we provide an account of the idol, which then enables us to see how both of these manners of thinking are, for Marion, guilty of imposing some concept or limits on God. The preceding considerations prepare the way toward a discussion of the icon, through which the invisible God can “give” himself and before which the self is stripped of characteristics associated with the traditional subject. Along with the account of the icon and a discussion of Marion's proposal of thinking God as agape, we provide a description of the self who finds himself before the icon. This paper also treats Marion’s early critique of Levinas and how being before the icon for Marion resembles the encounter with the other's face.

OTHER ESSAYS

7)“The I’s Rivetedness to Itself as a Condition of the Construction of Identities.” This paper points out that one of the conditions of the construction of identities is the rivetedness of the I to its body. We make use of Levinas’ notion of the distinction-and-relation between I and self and then point out that this can be more concretely understood as the I’s relation to its body. The main claim of the paper is illustrated by a discussion of the assumptions behind Hitlerism and what this manner of thinking wanted to achieve. That one’s bondage to the body is a condition of identity is further supported by a consideration of Foucault’s descriptions of how the body is caught in the workings of power and knowledge, and how marginal “individuals” and “identities” are constituted through this interplay. The paper ends by pointing to other issues that are closely related to the question of the construction of identities: the problem of resistance, of recognition, and of the experience of the other that is prior to any attempt at resistance and demand for recognition.

8)“What Levinas Can Contribute to the Effort to ‘Think Again, Interculturally.’” Drwaing from the thought of Levinas, the paper seeks to contribute to the reflection on how individuals coming from different cultural contexts can live together. It argues that the task of building a world where there is room for all requires the basic recognition of what Levinas calls the radical alterity of the other. The paper begins approaching Levinas through a consideration of what Charles Taylor says about how identity and recognition are linked, the consequences of non- and misrecognition, and the demands for equality and recognition. We then argue that underlying these demands is a more fundamental one that Levinas has been able to bring to our attention. After explaining the sense of the demand of the other’s face, we try to see if Levinas’ account of the other can withstand the critique of Prof Visker who argues that Levinas’ other is too abstract to be a real concrete other. The paper then addresses Visker’s criticisms by clarifying the difference between the other and the way the face reveals itself and also by referring to what Levinas says about who the other is, the I’s embodiment, and the response asked of the self confronting the face.

we buy books

2009-06-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

we buy books that perhaps we'd never get to read
they will stand patiently on our shelves
shiny spines competing with one another for attention
like siblings arguing over some silly thing
demanding that the parent decide who's right
a book will sometimes even have to live
with the fact of an unwanted identical twin
bought with a sense of urgency, but by mistake
or with every good intention given as a present
and because as with chocolate or sex
you simply can't resist getting more
they will steadily grow in number (and you will lose count)
until, with a heavy heart, you'd have to put some on the floor
even pile half a dozen on the watertank in the toilet
on the tv and the pc, on things that should be less important
Yet most of them will be ignored
--and you will often say to yourself, only for the time being--
just as the beautiful things of everyday
like the blueness of the sky, the sound of rain,
or the hesitant smile of a perfect stranger
go unnoticed, consigned to the periphery of a life
that has been devoted to men and matters of consequence
or just like friends you left somewhere long ago
present to you now only as warm sentiments
or as blurry faces reminding you of good times, good things
We try our best to get back to them
to those books that surprisingly spoke to us
of some of the thoughts, feelings and longings
we sometimes couldn't really tell apart
or articulate clearly enough or even admit we had
We know we won't stop buying more books
for though we do not always succeed
in getting to make and waste time on them
at least they'd still be definitely around
when the children no longer seek our opinion
when our friends return the favor of forgetting
when men and matters of consequence rule on our insignificance
to ensure a sense of presence other than one's own

Ang Nagdodoktorado

2009-06-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Malayo ka pa sa dulo
Ng paglalakbay na sinimulan
Ilang aklat pa ang pagdadaanan
Tungo sa mga bayan ng ibang kamalayan
Para lamang sariling ideya'y matuklasan
Ilang pahina pa ang pupunuin
Ng mga salitang hiram at banyaga
Upang angking boses ay mapakawalan

Pagdodoktorado
Kay hirap at nag-iisa

Nakatitig silang lahat sa iyo
Nag-aabang ng anumang panibago
Habang ang iyong mga galaw
Isa-isang sunusuri't pinupuna
Ayon sa mga sukat na sigurado
Patungo sa kilalang mga landas
Habang hinahanap mo sa iyong kalooban
Ang tiwala sa sariling kataga't paraan

Pagdodoktorado
Kay hirap at nag-iisa

Naniniwala kang ika'y makararating
Sa destinasyong saglit naaninag
Sa ilang sandali ng purong pag-asa
At pagtitiwala sa sarili, sa buhay
Sa kabila ng mga lubak sa daan
Ng mga panahon ng lamig at dilim
Ng pagsalakay ng pagod at duda
Ng pag-andap-andap ng diwa

Pagdodoktorado
Kay hirap at nag-iisa

Ang Torpe II

2009-05-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

Wala siyang kakayahang makipagtuos
Sa mga matang mukhang nagtatanong
Ni sa ngiting anak at pahiwatig ng kabutihan
Kaya naman iiiwas niya ang mukha
Patungo sa lupang nagbibigay tungtungan
O sa langit na malaya sa mga hatol at kutya

Tatakas ba siya o mangangahas lumapit?
Ang una'y kaunting katiyakan ng kawalan ng kahihiyan
Ang huli'y naghihimagsik na tibok ng puso
Sumpong ng nakababaldadong kapansanan
Saglit na pakikipagkilalang muli sa kaligayahan
At maaaring bangungot sa kamalayan

May anino ng kalayaan sa kalayuan
May kasiguruhan sa maingat na pag-iisa
May bakas ng kapayapaang sa sarili lamang natatagpuan
Ngunit alam niyang sa kanya, wala siya. Wala siya.

Ang Torpe

2009-05-18T18:12:00.002-07:00

Maingat niyang iniiwasan ang iyong mga mata
At baka mahuli mo naghahalong pagnanasa't pangamba
Na kapwa kinukubli sa lalim at kaseryosohan ng kanyang tinig
At sa likod ng mga sukat na galaw ng katawan at bibig.

Ngunit nagnanakaw siya ng mga tingin sa iyong mukha
Sa bawat mumunting galaw ng iyong labing nang-iimbita
Sinasaulo ang sayaw ng liwanag sa iyong mga mata
At ang mga alon ng iyong boses, sari-saring mga ngiti't tawa.

Lahat nang ito'y binabaon niya tungo sa lalim gabi
Iniimpok sa kaban ng mga ala-ala't panaginip
Pinupuno ang kaloobang matagal nang ulila sa tapang
At siyang patuloy na kinakain ng kawalan ng pag-ibig at pag-asa.

Leuven, Belgica
19 Mayo 2009

pinutol niya ang sanga

2009-05-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Noong nakaraang biyernes, may binasa akong papel sa harap ng aking tagapayo pati ng iba pang mga propesor ng pilosopiya rito sa Leuven.

Pinaghandaan ko ang papel na ito (na sinulat ko bago mag-Oktubre noong nakaraang taon para sa isang kumperensiya sa Liege)--dalawang linggo kong binasa at inayos, pinilit gawing "perpekto" sa abot ng aking makakaya--habang kinarera kong tapusin basahin ang Care of the Self at Use of Pleasure ni Foucault. Mabuti nang handa, naisip ko. Hindi mo alam kung anong maaaring itanong. Maigi nang maging sigurado.

Ngunit kailan ka ba magiging handa at sigurado?

Kabado ako buong Biyernes, bago pa ako matulog bandang alas-kuwatro ng umaga pati na rin nang nagising ako nang alas-otso. Pumasok pa ako sa klase kong Pranses, iniwasan ang tanghalian (ayaw ko nang magsayang pa nang oras), at gumawa ng mga kopya ng papel ko bago dumating ang ala-una, ang oras ng presentasyon.

Katulad ng ibang mga bagay na nakatatakot at nakakakaba, nagsimula rin ang doctoral presentation. Binasa ko ang papel na para bang may premyo kung matatapos ko ito sa loob ng kinse minutos. Hindi ko na maalala ngayong kung ilang beses ako nabulol. At katulad din ng ibang mga bagay na pinipilit tapusin sa kabila ng kakulangan ng oras, nabigo rin akong makaabot sa dulo ng papel.

At doon nagsimula ang "pagkatay." Nangyari ang inaasahan kong mangyari na nakalimutan kong mangyayari naman talaga (dahil siguro paulit-ulit kong tinanong sa sarili: Ano nga naman ba ang pinakamasamang mangyayari sa iyo sa doctoral presentation?).

Pero nais kong sabihin ngayon na miski kabado ako bago magsimula ang pagsasalita sa harap ng marami (tulad ng pagtuturo, pakikipagdebate, pagbabasa ng papel, atbp.) hindi ako natatakot kahit na sadyang eksperto at magagaling ang kaharap ko (tulad noong Biyernes). Hindi naman ito dahil sa yabang (na iniisip kong mas magaling ako sa kanila--matagal ko nang tinanggap ang aking mga hangganan). Naniniwala lamang akong pagdating sa diskusyon, sa palitan ng ideya, patag ang lupang ating tinutungtungan. Hindi pantay ang galing ng lahat ng kalahok sa usapan, pero ang bawat isa'y may kakayang mag-isip, magsalita, magtanong, magbahagi. Kahit ignorante nga'y may punto kung minsan.

Kaya naman kahit na nagsimula ang "panunuligsa" ng isa sa mga miyembro ng aking "research committee" wala nang bahid ng kaba sa aking dibdib. Malinaw siyang mag-isip at magpaliwanag. Pinakita niya sa lahat kung bakit ang isa sa mga nais kong gawin sa doktorado ko ay hindi maaaring mangyayari kung sasalalay kay Levinas. At hindi ito personal (ni hindi nga niya ako kilala)--ang mga puna niya kay Levinas ay resulta ng matinding pag-iisip at pagtatanong. Tingin ko nakumbinsi niya ang mga nakarinig (na hindi naman nakagugulat). Nang matapos siya at bumaling sa akin ang mga propesor, abi ko sa kanya'y "Thank you, Professor." Ngunit tumugon siya (pabiro malamang) na hindi dapat ako nagpapasalamat dahil nilagare na niya ang sangang aking inuupuan.

Sinagot ko naman siya. At hindi pa rin nagbabago ang isip ko tungkol sa bagay na napagtalunan: sa pilosopiya ni Levinas iisa ang kaibang nagpapahiwatig ng kanyang kataasan, nag-uutos sa akin patungo sa paggalang at pananagutan at ang kaibang sumasakatawan, sumasamundo, at sumasakasaysayan. May pagkakaiba (distinction) ngunit walang paghihiwalay (separation).

Nakakatawa naman ang sabi sa akin ng aking tagapayo sa labas ng silid pagkatapos: "Bakit multiculturalism ang pinag-usapan mo? Hindi naman iyan ang paksa mo?" (Nakakatawa kasi, katulad yata ng ibang naroon, iniisip niya sigurong "nakatay" talaga ako. Nakumbinsi rin yata siya ng aking "kadebate.")

Pagkatapos ng lahat nakaramdam ako ng kagaangan. Ganito ang pakiramdam ko kapag natatapos ko ang isang mahabang pagsusulit (para sa Dutch halimbawa) na pinaghandaan ko nang mabuti. Hindi ka sigurado sa lahat ng iyong mga sagot, pero may pag-unawa kang may mga tama kang ginawa dahil nagsumikap kang gawin lahat ang abot ng iyong makakaya. Kakambal kadalasan ng kagaangan ay ang kaunting kaligayahan.

May saya dahil may mga nakilala akong mga tao bago nagsimula ang presentasyon (iyong mga kapwa estudyante na magbabasa rin ng papel pagkatapos ko). Nakakataba rin ng puso na kahit na "nakatay" ako, sinabi rin naman ng parehong propesor na interesante ang sinubukan kong gawin sa papel (pagkitain sina Levinas at Foucault sa isang punto: ang marahas na pagpataw ng identidad sa mga indibidwal)--at ito rin pala ang tanging sinabi ng kahit sinong nakinig sa akin tungkol sa aking papel. At sapat na ring consuelo na may isa pang estudyanteng nagpakilala sa akin at nagpasalamat sa pagbabasa ko ng papel.

Kaya naman pagkatapos ng lahat, hinayaang ko ang sariling ipagdiwang ang munting "tagumpay." Tinawid ko ang kalsada mula sa Higher Institute of Philosophy, patungo sa Erasmus, umupo nang matagal mag-isa, at unti-unting sinipsip ang malamig at mapait-pait kong beer habang iniisip: Naputol nga niya siguro--pero hindi naman ako tumutuntong sa kahit anong sanga . . .

mahirap magsulat

2009-05-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

mahirap magsulat ng thesis... o marahil mas tumpak na sabihin: madaling magsulat pero mahirap magsulat ng isang maayos at matinong thesis. madali kasing magbitaw ng maraming mga salita, magpakita ng iyong kaalaman, magyabang at "maghulog" ng mga pangalan ng mga tanyag na pantas. ngunit di biro and isaayos ang mga salita, ihilera ang mga ideya, ipakita ang kanilang mga ugnayan, lumikha ng mga pangungusap na naglalaman ng tamang bilang ng mga nararapat na mga kataga, palabasin ang iyong punto, kumbinsihin ang mambabasa, at manatiling tapat sa katotohanan.

mahirap magsulat. mahirap ding tapusin ang nasimulan nang isulat.

The I’s Rivetedness to Itself as a Condition of the Construction of Identities

2009-04-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Though the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas is perhaps best known for his descriptions of the encounter with the face of the other and his insistence on the primacy of ethics, we intend to show in this paper that we can draw from him insights that can prove useful in the discussion of questions relating to the construction of identities. Levinas maintained in his works not only a distinction between the I and the self, but also an account of the distinctive bond between these two. Both the distinction and the relation between ego and self point, we believe, to a basic dimension of being human, an aspect of ourselves which, as we will show in this paper, serves as a condition of the constitution of identities.

In order to understand this claim, we will first take a look at what Levinas sees as the attachment of the ego to itself by referring to his first thematic work On Escape, where he describes the experience of the exigency to escape being also as the felt need to flee oneself. Then by considering another work, “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” it will be shown that this I-self identity can be more concretely understood as the I’s bondage to the body. We will then support our main claim that man’s attachment to his body is at the base of the construction of identities by discussing Levinas’ assessment of Hitlerism, which is a kind of thinking that offers a view of oneself and one’s identity based on an appreciation of the bondage to the body. Then to further illustrate our point, we turn to Foucault’s account of the workings of the techniques of power and of the effects of the will to knowledge on bodies. Though Foucault does not explicitly speak of the connection between the ego and the body, it is not difficult to see that and how the identity and the reduction of one to the other are operative in the constitution of individuals into “good pupils,” “delinquents,” “sexual deviants,” etc. Governments, institutions, and discourses can provide us truths about ourselves because they can take hold of our bodies—bodies to which we are basically and inescapably riveted. After these considerations, we shall ask if we are simply fated to remain in the grips of power and be reduced to our bodies.

Levinas on the Felt Need to Escape Oneself

Levinas announces in his preface to the second edition of Existence and Existents his desire to quit the climate of Heidegger’s philosophy (Levinas 1988: 4). But as early as the 1935 text On Escape, where the “problem of being qua being” is addressed, Levinas already expressed the exigency to abandon the fact of being. Levinas spoke not only of the need “to get out of being on a new path” (Levinas 2003: 73), it is also worth noting that his approach to the problem of being shows us that he has been occupied with questions dealing with subjectivity and identity. Levinas’ account of the experience of being riveted to the pure fact of being and of the need to escape intimate an apparently indissoluble link between being and the I. The attachment to being is also articulated as the subject’s inability to disengage from itself.

Levinas speaks of the self-sufficiency, self-identity, and the permanent quality of existing. He points out, however, that confronting being and being aware of one’s attachment to it is also an experience being fastened to oneself. The experience of the fact of existing can be understood as the experience of a certain duality between the I and the self on the one hand, and a sense of an underlying and inescapable identity between these two on the other. Just as it is a fact that I am given over to being or existence, it is undeniable that I am an embodied being.

Such duality and identity involving the I and the self are illustrated, for instance, in the experience of shame. In finding oneself in a shameful situation, one feels that one is exposed to the scrutiny of others. One would like to hide, take cover, and excuse oneself. If it could only be possible to be someone and somewhere else at this very moment when I am under the gaze of so many! Of course, I may attempt to shun the attention of others, take cover, and thereby partly succeed in hiding myself and that which I find shameful. Yet, even if nobody is watching me, in being ashamed of some secret, I could nevertheless wish to be somebody else. There is a duality in the felt need to be somebody else, to be elsewhere, to get away from this shameful self. Yet, there is simultaneously a sense of identity with myself in the fact that though I badly want it, I cannot simply abandon myself and be somebody else. What the experience of shame makes evident is not only the felt (and in this case desired) disjunction between ego and self, but more importantly, “the fact of being riveted to oneself, the radical impossibility of fleeing oneself to hide from oneself, the unalterably binding presence of the I to itself” (Levinas 2003: 64).

This experience of being fastened to oneself can be understood in a more concrete and tangible manner. In his lucid Introduction to On Escape, Jacques Rolland explains that Levinas’ reflection on being riveted to existing and to oneself is also a meditation on the body. He points out that evidence supporting this claim can be found in “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” an earlier work of Levinas that uses terms and concepts employed in the 1935 text.

The I’s Embodiment

In the short essay “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” Levinas calls the fact of embodiment a situation that is not added to the human being from the outside but one that constitutes “the very foundation of his being” (Levinas 1990: 67). Though there is some truth in the traditional understanding of the body as a “prison” of the soul as we do experience our own body’s limits and at times find ourselves at the mercy of its passions, Levinas suggests we abandon the idea that the body is a foreign obstacle imposed on us from the outside. Experience tells us that there is nothing else in the world that is more intimate with us than our body, which in one way or another determines our conscious life, dispositions, and actions. But beyond these rather banal remarks, Levinas points out that “there is the feeling of identity” with the body (Levinas 1990: 68). He would most likely agree with the Gabriel Marcel, who explains that one should not only say that I have a body since such a statement should always be taken in tandem with the fact that I am my body (Marcel 1960: 123). Levinas illustrates this attachment to the body by referring to the experience of pain. Though one can have a certain attitude with regard to pain and though one can resolve to freely counter and move beyond it, any such attempt to escape is always already desperate. The spirit that seeks to escape finds itself already riveted to its situation. The body is neither simply some attribute that I possess fortunately or unfortunately nor is it a mere instrument or medium through which I relate to the world. Levinas explains that “Its adherence to the self is of value in itself. It is an adherence that one does not escape and that no metaphor can confuse with the presence of an external object” (Levinas 1990: 68).

Racism as Affirmation of Attachment to the Body

We hold that a condition of the construction of identities is the identity between the ego and the self, more concretely understood as the attachment of the I to its body. Following Levinas, we now want to argue that the affirmation and/or exaggeration of this identity lies behind racism. It is employed as the basis both of the self-understanding of people claiming superiority and of the purported identity of individuals or groups designated as inferior.

In “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” Levinas points out that Hitlerism was particularly attractive because it evoked certain “elementary feelings.” Perhaps it awakened in Hitler’s followers a bold new appreciation of the feeling of kinship, attachment, or identity with their body. Instead of feeling entrapped, bogged down, imprisoned by the fact of embodiment, it seems that those who adhered to this “philosophy” embraced and welcomed such attachment. Indeed, national socialism as an ideology is an amalgamation of elements from Romanticism, German nationalism, and a racism supposedly scientifically justified. (Ingersoll and Matthews 1991: 260) Out of these ideas, Hitler conjured up a myth about the identity of the superior race significantly based on an appreciation of a type of body.

Hitlerism opposed the idea of freedom of the human being bequeathed to us both by the Judeo-Christian tradition and Western liberalism. Hitlerism offered and enshrined the biological conception of man, which runs counter to the idea of the capacity of the human person to disengage from her past and present and to the free exercise of reason. For those whose thinking begins with the I’s identification with and attachment to the body, “the whole of the spirit’s essence lies in the fact that it is chained to the body” (Levinas 2003: 68). The I is thus constituted by the elements accompanying the biological conception of man, that is, elements that belong to a particular body: blood relations, traits, heredity, capacities, etc.
Levinas adds that for Hitlerism
To be truly oneself does not mean taking flight once more above contingent events that
always remain foreign to the self’s freedom; on the contrary, it means becoming aware of
the ineluctable original chain that is unique to our bodies, and above all accepting this
chaining . . . A society based on consanguinity immediately ensues from this
concretization of the spirit. And then, if race does not exist, one has to invent it!
(Levinas 2003: 69)

This basic identification of the I and the body is implied in, employed, and affirmed by Hitlerism. Truth here is no longer understood as that which reason can grasp in contemplation. Truth, particularly the truth about the I and all other human beings, lies in being affixed to the body or in a “community of blood.” Anything else that falls outside this attachment or identification can be doubted. Thus, anyone who falls outside a particular community of blood is suspect. This is the other and darker side of the affirmation of the attachment to the body: he or she who does not fit the supposed truth about being human proclaimed by a political myth can thus be labeled as sub- or non-human. And as Jean-Luc Marion remarks, a certain definition of humanity may lead to the manipulation and/or extermination of those who do not fit the definition (Marion 2005: 13). In the case of racism, such definitions are rooted in a view of the human person as determined by and reduced to his body. While I affirm my attachment to my body, the other too, who is a stranger to my group, deemed inferior and/or subhuman, is regarded as attached to his or her body. This is perhaps why though some of the Jews herded into the concentration camps during the Second World War no longer practiced their faith, they were nevertheless murdered because of their ethnicity (Leaman 2006: 31). Hitlerism saw its other as the enemy it had to fight and destroy in the name of blood, community, and race. In light of this, we can also understand Frantz Fanon’s complaint that blacks like him were enslaved not so much by some idea people have of him, “but of my own appearance” (Fanon 2003: 64). While some claim superiority by virtue of having or being a certain type of body—one that is better and should be kept untainted, others are condemned to humiliation, suffering, and death in the hands of those who carry out the implications of the logic of affirming the I’s identity with the body.

It should be remarked, however, that the attachment of the one to the other can be found not only in singular occurrences such as the Holocaust. The I-body tie is also at the base of our more everyday relations involving other individuals, institutions and discourses.

Foucault on the Body as Captive to Techniques of Power and Forms of Knowledge

Hitlerism and the horror of the Holocaust attest to the political, economic, and “scientific” usefulness of the rivetedness of the I to its body. But we want to argue here that this bond can be made to serve the purposes of a power that constitutes individuals into its subjects and into objects of knowledge as it gives them the truth about themselves. Let us try to consider Foucault’s descriptions of the way individuals are so formed in light of the identity and bond between the I and the body that we have drawn from Levinas. Foucault sought to distinguish the new technology of power from power understood on the basis of sovereignty and law by observing that the former is “more dependent upon bodies and what they do than upon the Earth and its products.” (Foucault1980: 104) Though, as we have already said, Foucault does not discuss the distinction and relation of the I and the body, he has showed us how the body is caught in the middle of the workings of modern technologies of power and the emergent sciences of man. He tells us in an interview, moreover, that central to his research efforts is the need to uncover “how it is that subjects are gradually, progressively, really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organisms, forces, energies, materials, desires, thoughts etc.” (Foucault 1980: 97), and he even says, countering the claim that the body’s reality has been denied as attention has shifted to the “soul, consciousness, ideality,” that there is “nothing more material, physical, corporal than the exercise of power” (Foucault 1980: 57-58).

Recall too that Foucault argues in Discipline and Punish that although in the disappearance of the public spectacle of torture and execution and the establishment of the prison as the most widespread manner of punishment, there appears to be a relaxation of the hold on the body, the body in fact remained in the grips of power, serving as an intermediary in its interplay with the emergence of new forms of knowledge. In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, mechanisms of discipline arose from and were practiced in institutions such as the military camp, hospitals, workshops, primary schools, etc. The body that had to be transformed into a useful and productive force was subjected to this modern technique of power (Foucault 1995: 26); the body’s gestures, movements, behaviors, and powers came under disciplinary techniques that coerce and produce malleable bodies that are made to conform to a certain norm so that they can become useful for various pedagogical, political and economic purposes. While these techniques of power spread throughout the social body, employed by various institutions that constitute a carceral network whose elements supervise, train, correct, and cure individuals, the subjection of bodies to discipline also allowed for the collection of data and thus contributed to the emergence of new forms of knowledge that increasingly came to be about “individual cases.” Knowledge of the life history, habits, traits, and tendencies of individuals were gathered upon their entry and throughout their stay in some such institution. Data collected through observation during the performance of some activity, constant surveillance, some form of confession and examination eventually crystallized into identities, such as that of the deviant or the delinquent (Foucault 1995: 254-255). Thanks to the workings of power and knowledge that took hold of the body, individuals became more easily assessed, diagnosed, and cured if found to be deviating from the norm. It is in relation to a norm and/or some knowledge gained through the techniques of power upheld in a society by the institutions, organizations, and discourses therein that individuals are provided an understanding of or the truth about themselves.

Foucault continues this discussion of the interrelated workings of power and knowledge on bodies that results in the constitution of individuals in the introductory volume of the History of Sexuality. He argues there that instead of a general repression in Western societies beginning from the 17th century, there was in fact an incitement to talk about sex, in consequence of which there proliferated discourses about it in disciplines claiming for themselves the status of a science. Such incitement not only allowed for greater surveillance and “control by stimulation” (Foucault 1980: 57) but also resulted in the multiplication of perverse sexualities, those “myriad bodies which are constituted as peripheral subjects as a result of the effects of power.” (Foucault 1980: 98) Through the techniques of power and the effort to collect knowledge that extracted from incited and stimulated bodies not only obedience but confessions as regards their sex, individuals were specified and identities were constituted. As Barry Smart explains, “the relations of power and knowledge articulated in medical, pedagogical, psychiatric and economic discourse effectively constituted a deployment of sexuality on, over and within the bodies of women, children and men from which ‘new’ sexual subjects emerged” (Smart 1985: 99). Sex was projected as the truth of our being, access to our identity and which makes us intelligible (Foucault 1990: 155-156), a truth that had to be confessed and turned into a scientific discourse. Based on the information gathered about one’s sex, it can then be determined whether one measures up to a certain moral or medical norm or not; non-compliance to the norm can call for cure and correction or the classification of one to some peripheral species of sexual subjects.

Such constant, widespread, and discreet control and surveillance of the body can and has been appropriated by governments and regimes that in their effort to secure and manage life, intervene in individual lives even to the point of pushing some to life’s margins—and even, when this logic is pushed to its logical conclusion, of determining who is worthy of life’s continuance. Foucault tells us that from the seventeenth century on, there emerged a kind of power whose concern was no longer so much to take life as to promote, control, and manage it. Bio-power, as Foucault calls it, developed in two ways: first, there developed the anatomo-politics of the human body or, as we have already mentioned above, there emerged disciplines that coerced bodies into becoming economically and politically useful; second, there arose regulatory controls of the larger social body. Governments and states became aware that they had to supervise and manage their population’s health, birth and mortality rates, life expectancy, etc. (Foucault 1990: 139) Sex thus became a political issue as it came to be seen as the access to the individual and the social body. By putting individuals under surveillance and forms of control the individual body is subjugated and the population regulated. It was of vital importance then to seek out sex, to make individuals speak about their sex in detail before scientific experts for it is associated with certain evils, maladies, afflictions; at the broader level, sex was supposed to have a great deal to do with the health and vigor of the population. While the moral and medical reasons for the surveillance and control of sex was first limited to the bourgeois family, the concern for sexuality and the political control and medical regulation that go with it eventually spread out to the rest of the population. The control and the pursuit of the knowledge of sex of the greater population came to be executed in the name of the life of the people, and even for the sake of the strength and continuance of the race. While it was first the bourgeoisie that had recourse to a kind of racism, a certain moral and medical understanding of its body in order to establish its hegemony, this concern for sex was picked up by regimes and governments and was applied to the social body, giving the population then a certain understanding of their bodies and sex, and therefore of themselves and of their obligations. Such state racism is perhaps only a few steps away from the racism characteristic of Hitlerism. Foucault observes that genocide occurs in our time not because we have reclaimed a kind of right to kill, but “because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large scale phenomena of population.” (Foucault 1990: 137) Foucault further remarks that Nazism combined a kind of glorification of blood and a power “exercised through the devices of sexuality.” The self-understanding brought by a certain myth of blood coupled with the objective of securing the life and welfare of the population required both access to individual and collective sexuality and disciplinary techniques of power. These eventually led to the annihilation of others who, measured against the superiority of Aryan blood and race, were deemed dangerously inferior. Foucault says that

Nazism was doubtless the most cunning and the most naïve (and the former because of the
latter) combination of the fantasies of blood and the paroxysms of a disciplinary power. A
eugenic ordering of society, with all that implied in the way of extension and
intensification of micro-powers, in the guise of an unrestricted state control, was
accompanied by the oneiric exaltation of a superior blood; the latter implied both the
systematic genocide of others and the risk of exposing oneself to a total sacrifice.
(Foucault 1990: 149-150)

Techniques of power and knowledge not only subject but also provide individuals and whole populations knowledge of themselves on the basis of which they can be mobilized to achieve specific—even atrociously inhumane—ends. This is possible thanks to the access gained by discipline and the human sciences to the bodies to which we are riveted. There is then a sense in which we embodied individuals cannot escape constitution into subjects of power and objects of knowledge. Does this mean that we are always already at the mercy of the workings of power, knowledge, and of the horrifying concretizations of a manner of thinking such as Hitlerism?

Conclusion: Why is this important?

We said at the outset that the distinction and relation between the ego and the body both point to something fundamental about us human individuals. But apart from and beyond this simple, visible, and undeniable fact, why is it important to attempt to see that and how the I-body link and relation was operative in Hitlerism on the one hand, and how these have been implied in the interplay of the new forms of domination and the pursuit of the knowledge on the other?

First because it leads us to the problem of resistance. If we are to understand that the individual body undergoes and becomes one of the effects of power, we can also understand that the body does not only passively suffer these effects as an inert stone would meet some physical force. We have endeavored to show that the bond between the I and the body is a condition of the construction of identities. We have also pointed out not only that this attachment grounds the actual exercise of power on bodies but also that techniques of power and knowledge produce identities. Foucault tells us that “it is already one of the prime effects of power that certain bodies, certain gestures, certain discourses, certain desires come to be identified and constituted as individuals.” (Foucault 1980: 98.) Yet he also tells us that bodies are neither mere points of application nor are individuals mere effects of power. Bodies and individuals are also “vehicles” of power so that all of us “have a power in our bodies.” In relation to this, let us notice that Foucault insists that where there are power relations, resistance can there likewise be found as support, relay, or adversary. (Foucault 1990: 95) He notes too that while power and knowledge come together in discourse, there is a multiplicity of discourses and not all of them acquiesce to or serve the purposes of power and knowledge for some pose as “a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy.” (Foucault 1990: 101). Foucault gives as an example the discourse of homosexuality, which eventually began to speak for itself and to employ the same categories used to disqualify it. Our point is that while we are, by means of the capture of the body, subjected and objectified, we can find in our bodies and the discourses produced in relation to it the resources to resist or counter tactics of subjugation.

Second, the theme of the attachment of the I to the body, discussed in relation to such a manner of thinking as Hitlerism, brings with it the problem of recognition and its role in identity formation. The affirmation of the identity between the I and its body as a means of securing a supposed superiority and specially when applied to the identification of others as inferior, relies undoubtedly on a reductive logic. Individuals are then seen as nothing more than what their body is or signifies and it is on the basis of this that the abuse and even the extermination of others are supposedly justified. What occurs, then, is a failure to recognize the embodied and different other. Charles Taylor has articulated so well the insight that identities are never formed in solitude but only in a dialogical manner. Though ideally one should be able to define oneself on one’s own, one can never totally divorce oneself from the influence of others. Identity, personal and collective, will always be expressed before and negotiated “through dialogue, partly overtly, partly internal, with others.”(Taylor 1992: 34) Such is the importance of recognition that the lack of it (nonrecognition) and the imposition on individuals and groups of a demeaning picture of themselves (misrecognition) adversely affects esteem for themselves, their convictions and their culture. Women, blacks, and colonized peoples have suffered from both nonrecognition and misrecogntion; they have imbibed pictures of themselves as inferior, evil, or uncivilized to the point that they themselves became instruments of their subjugation and exploitation. The demand for recognition of both the equal dignity and the particularities of individuals and groups stands opposed to the reductive and violent employment of the fact that we are riveted to our body. One ought to be wary of any thought that reduces the human to one of its aspects.

Lastly, we would like to suggest something that we believe precedes all demands for recognition and attempts at resistance. The affirmation and/or exaggeration of the attachment of the I to the body is one of the conditions for the construction of identities, and as we have discovered in this paper, specially of identities deemed inferior, or criminal, or perverse and peripheral. The reduction of the I to the body rejects—or at the very least forgets or ignores—that there is more to each individual than the biological, the body, its traits, weaknesses, capacities, and so on. Though this may sound like a cheap cliché, perhaps we should remind ourselves that there is more to individuals than what can, strictly speaking, be seen. Perhaps individuals issue a demand for recognition that is more fundamental than what the advocates of the politics of equal dignity and of the politics of difference proclaim. Perhaps individuals have a way of indicating resistance to reduction prior to any conscious decision to fight forces of domination and exploitation. Perhaps questions relating to identity and its construction need to be addressed in a manner that takes into account this surplus in the human that consistently evades definition and reduction. While the things of this world yield to our grasping hand and intellect, should we not also ask whether human persons are given to us in the same way that things are? (Levinas 1987: 50) Perhaps we can locate the basic demand for recognition and the resistance to all totalization in what is conveyed by the Other’s face: “you shall not murder” (Levinas 1969: 216) Our discussion of the constitution of marginalized and exploited identities has thus led us to a point where we are challenged “to perceive men outside the situation in which they are placed, and [to] let the human face shine in all its nudity.” (Levinas 1990: 233)

Dotoral Presentation

2009-04-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

Prof Braeckman sent this announcement to the members of our research center:

Dear Member of the CESPF,

May I kindly invite you to attend the CESPF's next meeting on Friday, May 15th from 1 pm to 4 pm in the Institute's 'Salons'. During this meeting three doctoral students will present the provisonal results of their doctoral research:

1. 13:00: April Capili, “The I’s Rivetedness to Itself as a Condition of the Construction of Identities” (committee: Ankaert, Verhack, Visker)

2. 14:00: Annelies Degryse, "'De grenzen van het politieke. Een herlezing van Hannah Arendt (committee: Raymaekers, Braeckman, Focqué)
-- Presentation & discussion will be in Dutch.

3. 15:00: Matthias Lievens, "Carl Schmitts metapolitiek" (committee: Braeckman, Heysse, Raymaekers) -- Presentation & discussion will be in Dutch.

As always, your participation is much appreciated: it is both supportive of the doctoral students and an ideal opportunity to stay in touch with current research at our Centre.

Kind regards,

Toon Braeckman

===============

After finishing the section that I'm currently writing, I will have to begin preparing for this presentation. I've been to a number of conferences, but the idea of reading a paper before my research committee (which includes Profs Verhack and Visker!) and the members of our center already gives me the jitters. I had read papers before different audiences of philosophy practitioners but I've never had an audience that consisted mainly of experts on Levinas and/or contemporary continental ethical and political thought. I saw Valentino at the Institute today and we got to talk about the presentation. He was his usual friendly and encouraging self. But I told him: "I'm going to die. This presentation will kill me. You should be there. A few people who know me should be there to witness my final moments on earth."

(By the way, I met Annelies Degryse for the first time this afternoon. She dropped by the office looking for Anya. I've been studying at the Institute for three years now but I hardly know the people belonging to our center (and of course hardly anyone knows me). Annelies was very nice. She said something like "So welcome. If you have questions or if you need help, my office is the second one from yours. You know where to find me.")

Ikaw at ang iyong kawalan

2009-02-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

Hindi kita maaninag tuwing dudungaw sa labas
At hahagurin ng mata ang eksenang taglagas
Wala ka sa likod ng mga punong tila kalansay
Ni sa mga gusaling tumuturo sa langit ang lumbay
Marahil natatakluban ka ng mga kulay abong ulap
Ngunit miski sa sandaling tagumpay ng araw, di kita mahagilap

Kahit na isang magaling na salarin nga'y nag-iiwan ng bakas
Ngunit ikaw—magtatagpo na lamang ba tayo sa wasakan sa wakas?
Dahil ba nabigkas mo na ang lahat ng nais mo
Kaya ika'y ngimi mula pa noong mga kawalang-hiyaan ng nakaraang siglo?

Hindi ko na marahil mahihintay na mamutla
Tulad sa kanilang umaasa pa, aking mga mata't mukha
Katahimikan mo'y gagawin kong baga ng aking kalooban
Tanging kasiguruhang kakapitan ng pagal ng kamalayan
Huling bukal ng bumubuhay na init, pantaong lakas at kaligayahan
Sa mundong tinitiis ang lamig ng iyong kawalan

10 Pebrero 2009
Leuven, Belgium

Nakiuso sa Facebook

2009-02-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

25 mga bagay--patok ito ngayon sa Facebook--bakit kaya?--dahil ba gusto lang ng bawat isa na pag-usapan ang sarili niya?--o mas malalim pa: nais nating magpakilala pa sa iba?

1. Yes, you guessed right. I was born in April. Two months premature.
2. But I’m not the only one with a “more than usual name.” I had classmates in high school named Liwanag, Reindl, and Apolonio. And in college, there were Vercelle Docdoc (who proudly told me the first time we met that he had 16 girlfriends in high school) and McRoger Paa (who eventually became a misogynist because according to him, women only want his body).
3. When I was still “young and full of hope,” I wanted to become a pro basketball player or a drummer. I eventually became a philo teacher.
4. I’m an avid reader of literature written in Filipino. My favourite writers are Rosario de Guzman Lingat, Bejamin Pascual, Tony Perez, Jun Cruz Reyes.
5. For some time in college I used to think I was a real atheist. Later on I realized and came to accept that I’m just a non-practicing catholic.
6. The very first dish I ate with Jai was carbonara.
7. Sometimes I write poetry in English and Filipino. And I’ve always wanted to become a short-story writer.
8. I studied Latin in high school, Spanish in college, then Japanese after that. Of course, I’ve forgotten all of it. (I just realized it was rather strange that when I was in Madrid and I was about to order some raciones at a café the first thing I said was: “No hablo espagnol.” Haha. Performative contradiction!)
9. I had my first “girlfriend” when I was still in the high school seminary. We met one Sunday (she was visiting her cousin) and then after that we kept in touch by phone. I used to call her using the phone in the seminary infirmary (which we were not supposed to use). She broke up with me a couple of weeks later. Haha.
10. What I hate most: walking in the rain and getting my socks and shoes wet.
11. Before getting the chance to take up MA in philo in Ateneo, I was accepted to teach at an STI branch and at Adamson University. Shet. Buti na lang.
12. I watched Titanic alone in an Ever Gotesco mall. Never did see that movie again since.
13. When we were kids, we had dogs named Brownie (who lived for around 70 long and happy dog years), Puppy (my brother Yuri's dog), Debbie (she was a Doberman and she almost killed Brownie once), Ebonie, and Hitler (Brownie's last pup before she went into menopause).
14. My favourite dishes are my grandmother’s specialties: morcon, embutido, lengua estofado, rellenong bangus, pancit loglog, etc.
15. I think that deep down I am a Kapamilya. I’ve always been one.
16. I was a huge Ginebra fan when the team consisted of Marlou Aquino, Noli Locsin, Val David, Pido Jarencio, Vince Hizon, Dudot, Ong, Benny Cheng….
17. I failed all the college entrance tests that I took: UPCAT, the one for UST, FEU. Good thing I didn't even consider taking the ACET.
18. When I was a kid I puffed on the cigarettes my Dad already smoked and which he ordered me to throw away.
19. One of my clavicles broke when a bigger player crashed into me as we were going after the ball during a two-on-two basketball game. I was in 2nd year high school then.
20. I miss Danny-licious barbecues and the liempo at Manang’s in Ateneo.
21. When I finish my PhD I want to study western literature or theology. I will probably study here in Belgium or in the Netherlands (I want to live in Amsterdam for a while). Or I’ll try to get into a good university in the UK.
22. When I was a child I used to think I’m the only one who can hear the chewing sound when I’m eating chips.
23. Stuff I don’t eat: meat loaf, mocha ice cream, vienna sausage.
24. My all-time favourite beer: San Miguel Superdry. San Mig light is for babies.
25. It’s ok with me that my son Saki wants to become a karpentero and construction worker like Bob the Builder.

Minsan

2009-01-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

Minsan ayaw ko nang maging ako.
Maaari bang maging ibang tao na lamang o ibang nilalang?
Iwan ang kabigatan ng katawan at nakaraan,
Matulog nang walang-hanggan, walang kamalayan
At mapakawalan mula sa parusa ng mga ala-ala't kabiguan.

Maaari bang isilang na lang muli sa ibang mundo
Na pinamamahayan ng mga diyos na may puso
at ng mga kapwa taong di nagtatalaban, di nasasaktan
ng sinuman, ano pa man ang kulay ng kanyang kalooban?

Minsan ayaw ko nang maging ako.
Maaari bang maging ibang tao na lamang o ibang nilalang?
Papayag ka bang sa akin makipagpalitan ng katauhan?
Miski isang araw lang marahil, nang sarili'y malimutan--
O sabay na lamang tayong lumundag at mangahas patungo sa kapayapaan?

28 Enero 2009

Para kay Padre Ferriols

2009-01-27T02:18:00.000-08:00

Muli kong natagpuan ang tulang ito habang naghahalukay ako sa mga laman ng aming computer. Para ito sa isa sa mga dakilang guro ko sa Ateneo.

Lulan ng asul mong tsinelas
Polo’t maong, ika’y bumabagtas
Sa mga landas ng ‘yong agora,
Nangungulit, nagtatanong, nagtataka.
Mga hakbang mong dahan-dahan
Naka-aakit ngang pagmasdan.

Tila ika’y sumasayaw:
Masisinop at taimtim ang mga galaw.

Hindi tanggo’t lalong di pandisko…
Meron bang ngalan ‘yan? Ano?
Anong musika ‘yong naririnig,
Halatang kakaunti’ng nakauulinig.
Silang lahat, pakaripas, tumatakbo!
Pasaan? Basta paroo’t parito.

Patuloy ngayon inyong pag-indak
Ngunit tayong lahat may huling yapak.

Lakad lang po, lakad lang.
Nagmamasid kami sa mga hakbang,
At sayaw mong pauntul-untol, inut-inot
Naming hinuhuli ang mga pasikut-sikot.
Di gayang-gaya, di tugmang-tugma,
May ibang pagtatanong, ibang pagtataka –

Ibang musika marahil at may sariling ngalan,
Ngunit meron ding ipinagdiriwang!

Enero 9, 2005

All I Want. . .

2009-01-01T02:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of books that I want to eventually own. I read most of them when I was doing my MA in Philo in Ateneo (while the others I had to read while I was completing my Mphil here in Leuven almost two years ago). When I was making this list I remembered the teachers (like Ferriols, Calasanz, Fr David, Barbaza, Dy) who introduced and with their invaluable insights provided access to these books, the friends in the Philippines who share my interest in them, and the great MA classes that I then followed and from which I learned so much.

Hopefully this year I'll be able to buy some of these books. I'm also looking forward to re-reading some of them. Apart from the fact that I need them for my dissertation, re-encountering a book is like having the good fortune to chat again with an old, familiar, and much-missed friend.

Here they are:

Anselm, Proslogion

Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
-----, The Outsider
-----, The Plague

Confucius, Analects

de Guzman-Lingat, Ano Ngayon Ricky? at Kung Wala na ang Tag-araw

Descartes, Meditations and Discourse on Method (Cress translation)

Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane

Foucault, The Order of Things
-----, The Birth of the Clinic
-----, Madness and Civilization

E. Fromm, The Art of Loving

Gadamer, Truth and Method
-----, Collected Essays

Gandhi, On Non-Violence

Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays

Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories

Homer, Odyssey
-----, Iliad

Husserl, Ideas II
-----, Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis

Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
------, Repetition
------, Sickness unto Death

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Leibniz, Philosophical Writings

Levinas, Difficult Freedom
-----, God, Death, Time

CS Lewis, Four Loves
-----, Till We Have Faces

Marcel, The Mystery of Being vols I and II
------, Plays

Marion, Prolegomena to Charity
-----, Idol and Distance
-----, Reduction and Givenness
-----, The Erotic Phenomenon

Marx, The Communist Manifesto
-----, Reader

Matute, 50 Piling Maiikling Kuwento

G.G. Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Otto, The Idea of the Holy

Pascual, Landas ng Bahag-Hari at Iba Pang Kuwento

Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works

Rimbaud, Complete Works

Rizal, Noli (penguin) and El Fili

Sartre, Being and Nothingness
------, "The Devil and the Good Lord"

Wiesel, Night

Wittgenstein, Tractatus
-----, Philosophical Investigations

'Di Madaling Magsulat

2008-12-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

Kahit na ba minsan hindi kami nagkakaunawaang mabuti ng aking promoter o tagapayo, may natutunan naman ako sa kanya. Tinuro niya sa akin ang pagguhit sa mga linya ng aking papel na maaari kong lampasan at di basahin kung gahol na sa oras ang presentasyon ko sa isang kumperensiya. Siya rin ang nagpayo sa aking magbasa ng isang pahina ng isang aklat na Pranses bawat araw para mas madali akong matutong magpranses. Noong huli naman naming pag-uusap, kinukumbinsi niya akong magsumikap masulat ng isang pahina man lang na patungkol sa aking tesina bawat araw. Paulit-ulit niyang sinabing "Mabuti nang may isangdaan kang mga pahina kahit na kalahati lamang ang mapapakinabangan. Kaysa naman wala ka man lamang nasulat." Dagdag pa niya, dapat daw maging bahagi ng pang-araw-araw kong gawain ang pagsusulat--tulad ng pagkain o ng paghinga pa nga. Naalala ko tuloy ngayon ang sabi ni Aristoteles: Hindi lamang ang malakas o ang mga may hitsura ang nanalo sa mga palarong Olimpiko. Maaari lamang manalo ang mga nakikilahok, ang mga talagang naglalaro.

Sinunod ko naman ito at ngayon nga'y nagpapahinga ako mula sa pagsusulat at pag-iisip. Dumarating talaga sa puntong tila wala ka nang masabi--o di mo alam kung paano magsimula o magpatuloy. Makakaisip ka pa ng kung anu-anong dahilan kung bakit hindi ka talaga makasusulat sa araw na ito--kesyo kulang pa ang iyong alam, may kailangan ka pang basahin, pinapahinog mo pa ang iyong mga ideya, atbp. Ngayon nga, dahil wala na akong maidagdag sa dalawang talatang natapos ko na, nagsusulat naman ako sa Filipino. Nakakatulong kaya ito? Talaga namang hindi biro ang pagsusulat.

Ang sabi ni Prof kanina . . .

2008-12-19T13:05:00.001-08:00

No day without a line.
Pas un jour sans une ligne.
Keinen Tag ohne einen Strich.
Ogni giorno deve avere il suo compito.
Ни дня без строчки.
Ningún día sin trazar una línea.

Ilang mga dahilan kung bakit sa tingin ko ako'y nasa maling propesyon

2008-12-09T03:48:00.001-08:00

Nais ko dating maging abogado. Pero habang nasa paaralang graduwado ako at nag-aaral ng pilosopiya, humina ang kapit sa akin ng ambisyong ito. Ang kinalabasan ay nagi akong guro. Dalawang taon din iyon. Nagsimula akong magturo habang sinisimulan ko rin ang pagsusulat sa aking tesina (thesis). Natapos din naman iyon (kahit na ba paiiyakan) at ngayon nasa ibang bansa naman ako at sinusubukang tapusin (o mas tumpak: simulan) ang aking doktorado sa pilosopiya.

Masaya naman ako sa aking ginagawa. Hindi siguro lahat ay nabibigyang pagkakataong gawin ang gusto nila habang nakatatanggap din ng munting halaga para mabuhay nang disente. Nasa hilig ko rin naman ang pagbabasa at pagsusulat. Pero minsan nararamdaman ko ring baka nga ako ay nasa maling gawain. Sumagi na rin sa isip ko ang tanong na: Siguro may iba dapat akong ginagawa o pinagkakaabalahan? Pumapasok ang mga tanong tulad nito sa aking isip kapag nahihirapan ako sa aking ginagawa: mabagal ang takbo ng pagbabasa o pagsusulat, hindi maganda ang kinalalabasan ng aking pagtitiyaga, atbp.

Hindi ba't kung maggugugol ka ng pagod at panahon sa isang bagay, nais mo naman na may kaunting galing ka sa iyong ginagawa? Na ang kinalalabasan ay maipagmamalaki mo kahit paano? Nasabi ko na ito kay Kumander. Minsan sumasang-ayon din siya na siguro mali ang kinalalagyan ko.

Ito ang ilang mga dahilan kung bakit napapaisip ako tungkol sa ginagawa ko sa larangan ng pilosopiya:

a) Antukin ako. Ilang pahina pa lamang ang lumilipas ay napapapikit na ako at tumatangu-tango. Ilang beses na ring nangyari na nabitawan ko ang librong hawak dahil nakatulog ako. (Ginagawa ko ang lahat para di maka-idlip sa silid aklatan sa Institute of Philosophy--natatakot ako na baka bigla na lang akong humilik.)

b) Madali akong masabik tungkol sa ibang mgag bagay maliban sa aking trabaho. Naaagaw ng kung anu-ano ang atensiyon ko mula sa dapat kong binabasa. Minsan habang nagbabasa ako, bigla kong maiisip na tignan sa internet ang balita tungkol sa kung ano, maghanap ng libro, mag-google ng mga dating kakilala, atbp. Tulad ngayon, imbis na binabasa ko ang pangatlong aklat ng Genealogy of Morals ni Nietzsche, ako'y nagsusulat sa blog.

c) Hindi ako nagsasalita, nakakabasa, o nakakasulat sa ibang wika maliban sa Ingles at Tagalog. Totoong bumubuti na ang aking Nederlands (Dutch), pero mahina (o mas tama: masaklap) pa rin ang Pranses ko. Kumuha ako ng Aleman dati ngunit sinuko ko rin (der, die, das pa lang lito na ako). Nag-aral ako ng Latin sa seminaryo pa ako pero maliban sa "bad trip" ang mga gruo, di ko rin naman iyon sineryoso (malay ko bang mapapadpad ako sa pagiging guro ng pilosopiya--pangarap ko dating maging basketbolista o kaya drummer sa isang banda!). Isa pa, wala akong alam ni isang salitang Griyego.

d) Mabagal akong magbasa at umunawa. Minsan mahigit tatlong oras na ang lumipas, apat na pahina pa lang ang nabasa ko. At alam naman nating iba ang pagbabasa (pagtingin sa mga letra, salita, mga pangungusap) at ang tunay na pag-unawa. Minsan pakiramdam ko, kinikopya ko na ang kalahati ng libro habang nagbabasa at gumagawa ng notes.

Marami pang ibang mga dahilan. Totoo nga kayang hindi ako para sa pilosopiya? Hindi ko pa alam. Pero alam kong ganito ang nararamdaman ko noong nagsisimula akong mag-aral sa Ateneo. Mas mahirap lahat, mas nakapanghahamon. Mapalad akong hindi naman ako nabigo noon. (At nagpapasalamat nga akong dumaan ako sa Kagawaran ng Pilosopiya ng Ateneo--kung hindi, malamang wala ako sa doktorado ngayon.) Kahit na ba minsan, sa ilang klaseng pinasukan ko rito (lalo na iyong mga tungkol kay Husserl) napapanis ang laway ko at medyo naaawa ako sa sarili ko pagkatapos, hindi pa naman ako talagang lumalagpak at sobrang napapahiya dito. Nawa'y hindi nga mangyari iyon.

Mga bagong hirit ni Saki

2008-12-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

Pinagmamalaki ni Saki na sa susunod na taon, K3 na raw siya (kindergarten 2 sa Pinas). Sabi ko naman na oo nga, ang galing niya dahil marami na siyang natutunan at kayang gawin. Naging interesado naman yata si Saki sa ideya na may susunod pa sa pagiging K3, kaya tinanong niya kung ano pa ang mangyayari pagkatapos nito. Sabi ko, tutuloy siya sa lagere school (elementary sa atin), tapos secundair onderwijs (high school), hanggang sa universiteit (university). Pahabol na usisa pa ni Saki: “Pagkatapos ng universiteit?” Sagot ko: “Magtatrabaho ka.” Tanong pa ulit: “Tapos nun?” Sabi ko: “Magtatrabaho ka lang.” Halatang nakatakas na lahat ng interes at tuwa mula kay Saki nang tinanong niya: “Matagal iyon?”

Kausap ni Saki ang lola niya sa telepono. Tinanong siya ng kanyang lola kung malamig na rito sa Belgium. (Nabanggit naman ni Saki na nag-snow noong nakalipas na linggo.) Tinanong naman ni Saki kung mainit sa Pilipinas. Oo, sabi ni lola. Tanong ulit ni Saki: “Eh di mababaho mga tao diyan!?”

May misa rito sa apartment namin minsan. Si Fr Randy, isang mabuting kaibigan at kapwa estudyante rito sa Leuven, ang magmimisa. Nagdatingan na ang mga tao. Malapit na ang takdang oras ng pagsisimula. Sinuot na ni Fr Randy ang sotana niya. Napatitig naman si Saki sa kanya, nakangiti, tulad ng isang taong may naiisip na nakatatutuwa o nakaaaliw. Siguro di napigilan ni Saki, kaya nakabungisngis niyang sabi sa pari: “Fr 'andy (hindi pa kaya masyado ni Saki ang letrang R), mukha kang Jedi knight.”

Pumunta kami isang beses ni Saki sa isang parke. Malawak iyon. At dahil unang salta ko lang sa lugar na iyon, di ko alam ang pasikut-sikot. Di ko alam kung nasaan ang palaruan, ang swimming pool, bilihan ng pagkain, at mga kubeta. Naghanap kami ni Saki ng mapa. Wala. Tinanong ko na lang si Saki: “Di ba nakarating na kayo ni Mommy at Lola rito dati? Alam mo ba kung paano makapunta sa playground?” Sagot naman ni Saki, “Oo, Dad. Alam ko.” Usisa ko naman, “Ituro mo naman sa akin o. Paano ba?” Hirit naman ng mokong (na halatang di naalala ang daan, pero kumbinsido pa rin sa sinasabi niya): “Ayoko. Di ko sa yo sabihin. Secret ko iyon.”

Minsan naman, hinihintay namin ni Saki ang mommy niya. Naglalaro kami ng watergun sa may hardin sa harap (at baba) ng apartment namin. Biniro ko si Saki. Tinuruan ko kung paano “mang-ambush” gamit ang watergun. Pinaliwanag ko pang undercover agent siya (at naniwala naman). Kinumbinsi ko siyang i-ambush ang mommy niya, barilin ito ng tubig kapag dumating na nakasakay sa bisikleta. Habang nakaupo kami at nakatago sa likod ng makapal na mga halaman, dumaan si Lovelyn, pupunta raw ng grocery. Pagkalipas ng ilang sandali ng kuwentuhan, nagpatuloy na si Lovelyn patungo sa tindahan. Tinanong ko si Saki: “Pag balik ni tita Lovelyn mo, i-ambush natin?” Tugon ng bata: “Wag. Di pwede. Kasi tita Lovelyn siya. Dapat “love” lang natin siya. Kasi may “love” sa pangalan niya."

Dumi

2008-12-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

Naalala ko noong nasa isang hostel ako sa Utrecht. Kasama ko ang isang kaibigan. Hindi pa kami kumakain at wala namang ginagawa. Nakaupo kami nagkukuwentuhan at nagpapalipas ng oras. May ibang mga tao sa hostel at abala ang mga nagpapatakbo sa mga bagong dating na manlalakbay. Kagagaling lang ng kasama ko sa kubeta. At napag-usapan namin ang dumi, pagdudumi, ang karanasan mismo nito, ang mabigat na pakiramdam habang dala-dala mo pa, at ang ginhawa pagkatapos “ilabas ang lahat.” Malakas ang loob naming pag-usapan ito (malakas din pati ang aming tawa), dahil tiyak kaming walang ibang nagtatagalog sa hostel.

Naalala ko rin na dati, sa isang klase ko, may estudyanteng tumugon sa pahayag kong tao lamang ang nag-iisip at umuunawa: “Sir, paano natin alam? Malay ba nating kaya rin ng mga hayop iyan?” Kumagat naman ako at nagpaliwanag pa, binanggit ang wika, kasaysayan, panitikan, ilang mga natuklasan ng agham ukol sa tao at hayop, ang mga sinabi ng mga pilosopo, atbp. Nagpakahirap pa ako. Sana nasabi ko na tao lamang ang may kakayahan ng kasamaang dinudulot nang may pag-unawa. May kaalaman, intensiyon, at malisya. Kaya pa nga nating de faire le mal pour le plaisir de le faire, sabi nga ni Nietzsche. O kaya, sana sinabi ko na lang na tao lamang ang kayang pag-usapan, pagtawanan, pag-isipan pa nga nang masinsin!--ang produkto ng pagsagot niya sa tawag ng kalikasan.

Sandaling Bisita sa Maynila

2008-09-18T11:50:00.001-07:00

Hindi ko naman masabi tulad ng kanta na “hinahanap-hanap kita Manila, ang ingay mong kay sarap sa tainga . . .” pero nasabik din naman ako ilang araw bago ang aking lipad patungo sa Pilipinas. Naglalaro sa isip ko noon kung ano kaya ang aking magiging reaksiyon kapag napaligiran na rin ako ulit ng mga maiingay na pinoy, nakasakay ng jeepney, nakakain ng sisig at crispy pata, nakita ang dati kong pamantasan, mga estudyante, kaklase at kaibigan, mga magulang at kamag-anak. Dalawang taon na rin akong nanirahan sa ibang bansa—malayo sa mga tao, lugar, at mga bagay na bumubuo sa aking kasaysayan at pagkatao; nasanay na rin ako sa wika ng kumukupkop na siyudad, sa mas malamig na klima, sa ibang paraan ng pamumuhay. Kaya naman kahit na ba talagang bibisitahin ko lamang ang lugar na aking pinagmulan, hindi iisa ang damdaming naging laman ng aking kalooban.

Bago pa man lumapag ang eroplanong sinasakyan ko, nakikita ko na sa flight indicator na pataas nang pataas ang temperatura. Isang normal na araw sa Pinas ay 27 o 28 C, samantalang dito sa Belgium ay nakikipagsabayan na kami sa mga matatandang nais masinagan ng kaunting araw at pumasyal kung umaabot sa 20 o 21 ang init sa labas (na bibihira naman o kaya sandali lamang kung nangyayari). Hinanda ko na ang sarili ko: heto na naman ang baho, usok, at alikabok. Kaya maliban sa matinding produksiyon ng pawis, bahing na nga ako nang bahing mula nang lumabas ako sa arrival hall ng paliparan. Ganoon pala talaga, bahagyang nalilimutan ng katawan at nagiging malabo sa isipan pati ang pakiramdam ng pagiging nasa orihinal na tahanan.

Ngunit kahit na tipong nag-aalburuto ang aking katawan gawa ng nakakapanibagong klima, nakapapanatag naman ng loob ang mapaligiran ng mga taong gumagamit ng aking sariling wika. Dito sa Leuven ay nabababad (o dapat mababad) ako sa mga ibang wika: Ingles ang salita sa pamantasan, Dutch naman kadalasan sa tindahan, radyo, bus at tren, eskuwelahan ni Saki, mga pahayagan, at Pranses naman ay isa pang pinagsisikapan ko ring matutunan para sa pananaliksik. Totoong madalas ko rin namang nakakausap ang mga kapwa pinoy na estudyante, pero iba pa rin ang pakiramdam ng makabalik sa lugar kung saan ang karaniwang wika, ang wika ng lahat, ay iyong matatawag mong sa iyo. Kadalasan sa wikang Filipino ako nag-iisip, nagmumuni-muni, nakikipag-usap sa aking anak, nananaginip, atbp. Pamilyar ito sa akin at kasing dali ng paglangoy ng isda sa tahanang tubig ang paggamit ko nito. Dahil siguro sa damdaming ganito kaya nais pa rin ng mga pinoy sa ibang bansa na matuto ang kanilang anak ng Tagalog o Bisaya, kaya ang mga Flemish ay nagsusulat at nag-iisip sa kanilang sariling wika, kaya ang mga Pranses ay tumututol gumamit ng wikang banyaga. May ganito kayang pakiramdam si Odiseo nang makabalik siya sa Ithaca? Kung sakaling nabigyang pagkakataon si Abraham makabalik sa Ur, may ganito rin kaya siyang saloobin?

What Emmanuel Levinas can Contribute to the Effort to ‘Think Again, Interculturally’

2008-06-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

This paper wishes to present what the thought of Emmanuel Levinas can contribute to the reflection on how individuals from different cultural contexts can genuinely be together in a shared community or society. We will argue along with Levinas that a necessary condition of such living together is the recognition of each individual person’s difference, transcendence, and irreducibility.

So as to bring out what is at stake here and to give a broader context to our discussion of Levinas, we will first consider some salient points Charles Taylor makes in “The Politics of Recognition.” Taylor points out that identity is never formed in solitude but rather always and continuously in a “dialogical” fashion. Part of our definition of ourselves comes from our dealings with and even resistance to others. Taylor explains also that the fact that identity is formed dialogically implies that I am in a certain and important sense dependent on others: the recognition received from others plays an essential role in identity-constitution, both on the individual and social levels. Such is the importance of recognition that the lack of it can adversely affect both our understanding of who we are as individuals and a group’s esteem for itself, its own convictions and cultural practices.

Having as background the issues raised by Taylor, we turn to Levinas. We would like to draw from him a deeper meaning of another’s demand for recognition. Levinas is well-known for his insistence on the primacy of ethics and also for his account of the epiphany of the Other’s face. In the face-to-face encounter, I confront another person who resists reduction to a concept and/or to an object of use and enjoyment. This encounter is said to be more than a perceptual experience since by “face” Levinas does not only mean a visible piece of flesh; the face of the Other is the way by which another person shows herself or himself as such. The face speaks and issues the command and appeal “Thou shall not kill!” or in more positive terms “Thou shall respect!” This is a moral experience because I am presented with the choice of either recognizing and responding to this appeal or turning my back on the Other. The face of each human person I encounter seeks the recognition of alterity, transcendence, and irreducibility, regardless of that individual’s skin color, gender, religion, etc. We would like to insist that any living together of people bearing distinct cultures, practices, and beliefs would not be possible without the recognition of each one’s irreducibility and otherness. The refusal to do so is at the root of exploitation, racism, and the murder of peoples.

This account of the call of the Other has not, however, escaped scrutiny and criticism. Prof. Visker, for instance, argues that the Levinasian Other who reveals herself in the face that is apart and beyond any form or context is too abstract to be a “true Other” who, presumably, would like to be recognized as a real individual bearing particular physical and cultural traits. Visker also appears to insist on each human person’s attachment to a certain inner core that is constituted by one’s culture and history and which determines one as a person. Visker suggests that an awareness of my rivetedness to this is awakened by the Other who is likewise attached to and determined by such an internalized form or context. If Visker’s critique of Levinas were right, then Levinas’ account of the manifestation of the Other cannot be of any help to the effort to think interculturally, as this latter cannot but take into consideration the concrete particularities of individuals and groups, which Visker alleges Levinas has underestimated or completely missed.

While we welcome Visker’s reminder of the particularity and rootedness of the Other, we think nevertheless that Levinas cannot be accused either of abstracting the Other from his or her context or of forgetting the Other’s concreteness and particularity. We would like to address Visker’s critique of Levinas by making several points: (1) Levinas has always understood the human person as embodied; he speaks of the rivetedness of the I to its body in On Escape, the I’s enjoyment of terrestrial delights in Totality and Infinity, the subject’s being in proximity with the other as exposedness and sensibility in Otherwise than Being; (2) Levinas has pointed to the economic and thus material dimension of the response to the appeal of the Other; (3) more importantly, to say that the face is beyond form or context does not mean that the Other I encounter here and now is context-less; we will point out that it is simply to insist that the Other, owner of various properties and bearer of a culture, is never reducible to any of these and is thus always worthy of respect and recognition as Other.

A Response to Danielle Kubes

2008-06-12T00:45:00.001-07:00

In the previous issue of The Voice, Danielle Kubes begins her essay by declaring that “Exams in Leuven need a serious re-haul.” I can somehow understand the sentiment behind this statement. I do believe that the type, frequency, and the manner of conducting exams or requirements have to be re-examined. I know what it is like to be in a room with other students who are likewise nervously psyching themselves up for the oral exam as they are at the same time trying to assemble their thoughts for presentation to the professor. It is indeed difficult to concentrate given the number of people in the exam venue and also the fact that one is distracted by the student speaking before the professor. I also completely agree with Ms Kubes as she points out that having to do assignments spread throughout the year may be more helpful not only for students to gradually and thus more effectively absorb knowledge, but also for teachers to assess the progress of and when necessary correct his or her students. It appears too that compared to the situation in other educational institutions, there is a greater distance here at the KUL between the learned professors and their “lowly” students and thus also more formality in their interactions. Fellow students have also related to me how arbitrary, biased, or unfair certain professors were during the oral exam when it came to the number of questions one gets, the number of minutes one is allowed to speak, and ultimately the mark one receives.

As I said, I agree with some crucial points in Ms Kubes’ essay and I too am of the opinion that exams at the KUL have to be rethought. I think, however, that she made some exaggerated remarks about certain things. Perhaps Ms Kubes herself experienced first hand the unfairness of some professors and maybe she herself suffered on account of the way things work at the KUL. If this is so then she (and all those others who have similar experiences) has the right to express herself and to demand that important changes in the way exams are done be made. But for the sake of pinpointing the real problems and the things that are worth trying to change, let me reply to some of Ms Kubes’ remarks.

It should be pointed out that not all professors are unjust, arbitrary, and power-tripping individuals. I have been studying here for two years now and I have had teachers who explained the requirements of the course clearly at the beginning of the semester, sometime in the middle of the semester, and even a couple of weeks prior to the study block. There are perhaps professors who just make up requirements and there are those who simply cannot make up their minds about the matter—but there are also teachers who not only articulate very clearly what they expect from students but also explain the criteria that students have to meet so as to pass or get a good grade. If a professor does not do these things (express their expectations and explain their system of evaluation) then it is the student’s right and obligation to ask the professor to do so.

Moreover, I do not think that oral exams are totally subjective. There certainly is a subjective aspect to it: teachers, like any ordinary student, also get tired, bored, or distracted. It seems too that sometimes some of them have their favorites. But even granting that some of these things can come into play during the exam, it does not mean that the oral exam is not a good way of evaluating a student. I was a teacher too in my home country and when I gave oral exams I did see when a student was well-prepared or was just bluffing his or her way through the exam. The oral exam gives the teacher the chance to probe and test the student’s knowledge; but let us not forget that it also gives the student the space and time to express what she understands and to correct her statements if and when necessary.

I should add that though grade-giving can be purely arbitrary, I have had teachers who took notes of what you say throughout the oral exam and I suppose think about the mark to give based on what the student said and how he or she answered the additional clarificatory questions. Of course, if one is not satisfied with one’s grade or even if one simply has questions about it, then one can (and should) approach the professor to ask for clarifications.

Now it is true that one can be treated unfairly during an exam and it may indeed be hard to prove this (unless there were witnesses who would be willing to back your claims before the appropriate authorities). I honestly do not see how this can be addressed apart from stressing the necessity of reporting any instance of ill-treatment and/or unfairness. If other students who feel they were victims of the same unfair teacher file a report too then perhaps a case against that teacher can be made. Given also the subjective elements that may affect the conduct and outcome of an oral exam, it would perhaps be a good idea (as suggested by Ms Kubes herself in her essay) on the part of professors to ask for other requirements as well. (And if teachers decide to do this, they should take into consideration the fact that students also have to meet the requirements of their other subjects.)

Finally, I cannot but agree with some of Ms Kubes’ final words: “It is time the students demanded that professors were accountable for exam results…” Nothing is going to change unless students ask for a manner of doing exams that they think is just. But I do believe that the KUL already has a good “exam system.” It may only be a matter of making improvements on what we already have, which of course is possible only if students articulate what they think is right and if professors and administrators are willing to listen to the students’ concerns. Ms Danielle Kubes should be thanked for taking a step in the right direction.

Maliban sa Mahal na Tsokolate at kay Miss Belgium Part 3

2008-06-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Nagtatatalon kami sa tuwa noong gabing natanggap namin ang isang email mula sa Office for International Students and Scholars ng KU Leuven. Tila lumundag pa nga ang puso ko nang unang mabasa ko ang mga katagang “IRO Doctoral Scholarship” sa subject line. Kumakalabog naman ito nang nakita ko ang mga salitang: “I am happy to inform you that you have been granted the scholarship for the academic year 2006-2007, starting 20 01/10/06 to 30/09/07.” Hindi ko na tinapos basahin dahil alam ko na ang ibig sabihin ng sulat. Sa puntong iyon, hindi na mahalaga ang iba pang mga detalye. Kung kaharap ko lang ang nagpadala ng email, siguro nasabi ko sa kanya: “Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at ‘Dear Student’” Kumaripas na ako pataas sa kuwarto namin—kahit na muntikan pa akong masubsob sa hagdan—para ibahagi kay Kumander ang magandang balita.

Naging madali naman ang pagkuha ng visa. Siyempre kailangan ng pasensiya lalo’t kasama talaga sa aplikasyon ang pagpila at paghihintay. Buti na lamang at interesante ang mga kuwentong-buhay na nasasagap mo habang naghihintay ng panayam sa embahada. Isang halimbawa ay ang palitan sa pagitan ng ubod ng seryosong Pinay na visa officer at isang tila seksing babae. Pakembot na lumakad ang huli tungo sa harap nang tinawag ang pangalang Rolando Taburada. Unang tanong ng visa officer: “Why are you going to Belgium?” Tugon naman ng aplikante: “To visit my fiancé.” Ang sumunod na tanong na “Where did you first meet?” ay sinagot naman ng “On the Internet.” Patuloy naman ang pag-uusisa: “Can you tell me the name of the website?” Ang sagot naman ni Rolando ay: “It’s www.sexyads.com.” At nakabibilib ang visa officer na di man lang kumurap o ngumiti nang narinig ito.

Nagtuturo pa rin ako noon sa pamantasan at sa isang seminaryo, kaya hanggang sa huling linggo bago ang aking lipad, nagbibigay pa rin ako ng pagsusulit. Ang mga nalalabing araw naman ay ginugol sa pamimili ng ilang gamit, pag-aasikaso ng mga papeles sa pamantasan, at pagpapaalam sa mga mahal sa buhay at mga kaibigan. Nakakalungkot mawalay sa mga tao, lugar, at bagay na pamilyar—lalo na’t di tiyak kung kailan muling makapipiling at mababalikan ang mga ito.

Narito na ako sa Leuven, Belgium ngayon, kapiling si Kumander at si Biglet (ang tawag namin sa aming anak, isang batang maliit-na-malaki). Mag-iisang taon na rin akong namumuhay dito. At naaalala ko pa ang araw ng aking pagdating sa Leuven: ang maaliwalas na langit, ang matitingkad na kulay ng mga tao’t gusali, ang nakapapanibagong lamig, ang di ko maintindihang mga kataga, ang amoy ng mga pinagpawisang mga Belgian na nakasabay ko sa bus . . . Noon, tila bago, kakaiba, at banyaga lahat. Ngayon, natural lamang na gamay ko na ang mga paroo’t parito sa Leuven, na pamilyar na ang mga tanawin tulad ng Town Hall at St. Peter’s Church o mga lugar gaya ng Higher Institute of Philosophy at Husserl Archives, na kaya ko nang magsalita ng Nederlands (Dutch) tulad ng mga dalawang taon na batang Belgian, na sanay na rin ako sa klima at pabagu-bagong lagay ng panahon, na mas natitiis ko na ang kanilang amoy, at na napamahal na rin sa amin ang Belgium, lalo na ang Leuven. Natuklasan ko rin na may mga Pilipino ritong di nakalimutan ang pagiging masaya at ang pagmamalasakit sa kapwa.

Ngayon, maliban sa mahal na tsokolate at kay Ms. Cristelle Roelandts, mas marami na akong alam na may kinalaman sa Belgium. Madalas umulan, may higit sa limang-daang uri ng beer dito, at masarap ang waffle na may chocolate syrup at sliced strawberries sa ibabaw.

Nga pala--muntik ko nang makalimutan--si Jean-Claude Van Damme ay Belgian.

Maliban sa Mahal na Tsokolate at kay Miss Belgium Part 2

2008-06-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Nakahihiyang aminin, pero nabuhay namang muli ang pagnanasa kong mag-aral sa ibang bansa dahil sa inggit. Ganito ang nangyari. Tag-araw noon at araw-araw na ginawa ng Diyos kong tinatiyaga ang init at usok sa kalsada upang ipagpatuloy sa aming kagawaran ang pagsusulat ng aking matagal-na-ring-nabinbin na MA thesis. Nasa pamantasan na ako nang naaninag kong nakatambay sa isang bench ang isang kaibigan kong guro, na siyang nakasama ko rin sa isang klase sa wikang Pranses. Tumigil muna ako at nakipagkuwentuhan. At napag-alaman kong natanggap siya sa isang Ivy League university sa Amerika. At magsisimula nang mag-aral sa darating na Setyembre ng taong iyon. Bulong ko sa aking sarili: “Buti pa siya! Kailan lang ay nabanggit niyang di matagumpay ang aplikasyon niya para sa Fullbright Scholarship. At ngayon tutungo na siya sa isang astig na pamantasan sa US! Buti pa siya!”

Nakaiinggit. Kaya imbis na magsulat ng thesis noong araw na iyon, ginugol ko ang maghapon sa paghahanap sa internet ng impormasyon tungkol sa mga pamantasan na nag-aalok ng scholarships. Nagsimula ako sa mga unibersidad sa States. Kaso nga lang, natuklasan kong halos lahat sila’y humihingi ng mga resulta ng GRE (o Graduate Records Exam). May kumpiyansa ako sa kakayahan kong gumamit at umunawa ng Ingles, sa aking IQ, at sa aking pangkalahatang kaalaman. Pero may quantitative component ang GRE. Ibig sabihin, sabi na utak ko, may halong math! Matindi ang takot ko sa kahit anong pagsusulit na may kinalaman sa mga numero. Naalala ko pa ang sabi ng tatay ko nang makita niya ang pang-first quarter grade ko sa Algebra noong High School: “Alam mo bang napakababa ng 64!?” Halos pabulong na tugon ko na lang: “Hindi po yata 64 iyan, mukhang 84 eh.” At naulit pa ang eksenang ganyan nang matanggap ko ang resulta ng UPCAT. Science: 83; English/Reading Comprehension: 83; Math: 23. Galing.

Never again. Kaya naman kinalimutan ko na ang Amerika. Sinunod ko ang Canada at UK, kung saan—buti na lang—ang mga pamantasan ay hindi naghahanap ng mga marka sa GRE. Pumili ako ng ilang pamantasan, sinuri ang kanilang mga programa, kinumpara ang mga scholarship na maaaring mapanalunan, sumulat ng mukhang matinding research proposal at motivation letter, nakipagpalitan ng email sa mga propesor na posibleng maging tagapagpayo sa pagsusulat ng dissertation, sumagot sa sandamukal na mga application forms, at nakiusap sa mga dating guro ko na isulat ako ng nakakukumbinsing recommendation letters.

Nakasasabik ang mga pangyayari. Kaso medyo malaking gastusan din ang kailangan para maihanda at maipadala sa ibang bansa ng mga aplikasyon. May ipon naman, ngunit kailangan pa rin tugunan ang hinihingi ng pang-araw-araw na buhay ng pamilya. Kaya imbis na sa anim na pamantasan ako magsumite ng mga application, nauwi na lamang sa dalawa: sa University of Edinburgh sa Scotland at sa Katholieke Universiteit Leuven sa Belgium.

Nagtataka ka siguro kung paano napasok ang K.U. Leuven sa eksena. Wala sa orihinal na plano ang Leuven. Nagtanong pa nga ako sa isang dating guro (na doon nagtapos ng doktorado) tungkol sa posibilidad ng pagpapasa ng aplikasyon sa nasabing pamantasan. Ayon sa kanya, maliit ang tiyansang makatatanggap ako ng tinatawag dating Third World Scholarships (na pinalitan na nila ngayon ang pangalan; mas maganda na ang dating: Interfaculty Council for Development Scholarships). Halos nasiraan naman ako ng loob dahil sa mga narinig ko. Maganda pa naman ang scholarship ng KUL kumpara sa iba; sapat ang stipend para mabuhay ang isang pamilya sa Belgium. Ito marahil ang dahilan kung bakit nangahas pa rin akong magpasa kahit na tila suntok sa buwan ito. At nagsimula na ang nakaiinip na paghihintay . . .

Maliban sa Mahal na Tsokolate at kay Miss Belgium Part 1

2008-06-03T00:31:00.000-07:00

Noong nasa High School pa ako, ang tanging kinalaman ko sa Belgium ay si Cristelle Roelandts, better known as "Ms. Belgium," na isa sa mga pinakapaborito ng mga Pinoy nang ginanap ang Miss Universe sa Pilipinas noong 1994. Bata, maganda, at maamo ang mukha. Sabi ng iba parang tulad ng kay Mama Mary ang hitsura. Nagkaroon pa nga ako ng letrato niya, na may pirma sa likod at drowing ng puso, noong nasa loob na ako ng seminaryo. Pero sayang at nawala na. May nagnakaw yata.

Nang mas tumanda na ako, nadagdagan naman kahit papaano ang kaalaman ko tungkol sa Belgium. Alam ko nang mula roon inaangkat ang masasarap at napakamamahal na mga tsokolateng mabibili lamang sa mga sosyal na mall. Siyempre, nakatitikim lamang ako ng ganitong tsokolate kung may nagbibigay sa akin. Putsa. Sa Pilipinas, singkwenta pesos yata per piraso.

Natapos ang kolehiyo, napadpad naman ako sa isang kilalang pamantasan, at nabigyan ng pagkakataong mag-aral pa habang nagsisilbi sa isang kagawaran. Na-astig-an ako sa mga naging propesor ko. Karamihan sa kanila ay may doktoradong nakamit mula sa ibang bansa. May mga nag-aral sa States, sa Germany, at biruin mo, sa Belgium! Marahil sa panahong ito, mas nagkaroon ng hugis ang malabong ideya ko tungkol sa bansang ito. Hindi na lamang si Miss Belgium at mahal na tsokolate ang alam kong may kinalaman sa Belgium. Alam ko na ngayon na may isang pamantasan doon, kung saan nagtapos ang ilan sa mga guro ko. Naisip ko tuloy noon: mayroong bang posibilidad (gaano man kaliit) na makararating din ako sa States, sa Germany, o kaya sa Belgium? At kung makatuntong man ako sa Belgium, malay mo makasalubong ko na lang sa daan si Cristelle Roelandts.

Nagsumikap naman ako sa paaralang gradwado. Dala na rin ng 99% perspiration, kahit paano naman ay nakakuha rin ako ng matitinong mga marka. At isang araw, may isang guro ang nagbanggit sa akin ng pagkakataong mag-aral sa France. Natuwa ako sa posibilidad. Mantakin mo, isang tulad ko na pinanganak sa Bulacan at lumaki sa Novaliches, na nagtapos sa Adamson “lang,” na kumakain ng kwek-kwek at isaw sa kalsada, na sumasabit sa dyip at sumasakay sa ordinaryong bus, makapag-aaral sa France! Magagamit ko na rin ang kakarampot na mga katagang Pranses na nadampot ko noong kolehiyo, tulad ng merde!

Niyakap ko ang posibilidad na ito. Naisip kong dapat pang lalong magsumukap sa pag-aaral kung matutuloy ang paglisan patungo sa ibang bansa. Kaya naman mula noon, lahat ng aking ginagawa ay para lamang maging reyalidad ang inalok sa aking posibilidad. Nagtiyaga akong pumasok sa mga kurso ko sa wikang Pranses, kahit na maarte ang teacher.

Naiisip ko tuloy ngayon na marahil hindi ko talaga nauunawaan ang ninanais ko noon. Di ko nakita ang posibleng lungkot na aabutin ko kapag naroon na ako sa isang lugar na napakalayo sa mga lugar, bagay, at taong pamilyar sa Pilipinas. Di ko naisip kung gaano ko ma-mi-miss ang kwek-kwek, isaw, at balot; ang sisig at crispy pata; ang Jollibee at SM, ang Cubao, Katipunan, at Tandang Sora; ang mga kainuman ko at mga mahal sa buhay. Di dumating sa akin ang pag-aalala tungkol sa mga posibleng panganib na kalakip sa paglalakbay at pamumuhay nang mag-isa. Alam ko lang ay nakatutuwang isipin ang posibilidad ng paglisan, paglalakbay, pag-aaral sa isang tanyag na pamantasan, pagsisimula ng bago at kakaibang buhay.

Ngunit may mga pangyayari sa buhay na naging mas mahalaga kaysa sa munting posibilidad na nakapupunta ako sa isang banyagang bansa para makapag-aral. Nagpakasal. Nanganak si Kumander. Nagpalaki ng bata. Nagtaguyod kami ng pamilya. Naghanap-buhay para may pambili ng dede at diaper.Nangyari ang lahat ng ito kasabay ng mga unang taon ko ng pagtuturo sa pamantasan at sa ilang mga seminaryo. Hiningi ng tunay na buhay ang tuon at lakas ko. Naisantabi muna ang mga magaganda, ngunit maiilap na mga posibilidad . . .

Gek Zijn is Gezond

2008-05-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hij loopt op straat
Recht op z'n doel af
Hij ziet een vrouw
Hij kust haar op de mond
Ze schrikt, ze zegt
'Jij moet gek zijn'
Hij zegt 'Gek zijn is gezond'

Zij wil hem slaan
maar hij kan nog net bukken
Ze slaat mis
Ze dondert op de grond
Ze zegt 'Ja, jij moet gek zijn'
Hij lacht
En danst wat in het rond, hij zegt:

Gek zijn is gezond
Gek zijn is gezond
Morgen ben ik God
Vandaag ben ik Napoleon
Gek zijn is gezond

Hij kijkt haar diep
Diep in de ogen
Hij zegt 'Jij moet de ware liefde zijn'
Zij zegt 'Jij bent gek'
Hij zegt 'Jij bent blond
En trouwens: gek zijn is gezond'

Ze laat zich langzaam
Langzaam overwinnen
Ze spreekt opeens een andere taal
Ze zegt: 'Ik wil vandaag opnieuw beginnen
Ik ben m'n hele leven al normaal'

Gek zijn is gezond
Gek zijn is gezond
Morgen ben ik God
Vandaag ben ik Napoleon
Gek zijn is gezond

Oui, je zui, Napoleon. Mais je ne parle pas francais. C'est une situation miserable! Et je pense, je pense donc je suis et je suis foud, mais natuurlijk . . .

Gek zijn is gezond
Gek zijn is gezond
Morgen ben ik God
Vandaag ben ik Napoleon
Gek zijn is gezond

An Afternoon with Gustavo Gutierez

2008-05-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

The founder of Liberation Theology, the Peruvian Dominican priest and theologian Gustavo Guitierez, was back in Leuven yesterday to give a seminar in the afternoon and a lecture in the evening.

Prof. Haers of the Faculty of Theology introduced him by saying that he "studied psychology and philosophy" in Leuven. Gustavo drew laughs from the audience when he corrected Haers by saying, "I studied PHILOSOPHY and psychology."

The seminar on Liberation and Globalization revolved around four themes: (1) discovery or what we perceive in this age of globalization; (2) dream or the articulation of the kind of world we want or can envision; (3) design or what concepts to employ in reflecting on our current state of affairs; (4) deliver or what can and should be done as a response to globalization.

I didn't understand everything that was said by those present at the seminar and by Gustavo himself. It was partly because of their thick accents (there were Indians, a Nigerian, a Spanish guy, a number of Belgians, an Australian, a good number of South Americans, among others) and also because I was a bit drowsy the whole afternoon.

But I did write down remarks of Gustavo that struck me or that were at least intelligible to me. Here are some of them:

- Though theoretically globalization offers many possibilities, in practice most follow only one way of doing things. It is difficult for a country to do something different because of globalization. But we must realize that another world is possible!

- The poor today are forgotten persons. They are treated as non-persons or anonymous persons.

- Globalization is linked to a certain kind of capitalism. But this is not a necessary connection.

- While utopias are human projects, the Kingdom of God is a gift.

- How do we say to the poor that God loves them?

- The Church is the church of everyone, but most specially of the poor. No one is excluded from the Church, but the poor are first.

- Forgiveness is one expression of the gratuity of God. In Spanish, "perdon" (or sorry) means literally a "superlative gift."

- Our intention is not to become the voice of voices but to let the voices of the poor themselves be heard.

- Theology is a commitment to the least among us.

- Love presupposes equality and requires commitment to persons.

A curious idea

2008-04-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

A Chinese classmate of mine in my Dutch language course shared with me his views on “God.” He seemed to have been delighted to discover that I am studying philosophy. He asked me plenty of questions about what I do and about doing philosophy in general. Among other things, he wanted to know what I’m currently reading, if Chinese philosophy is considered important at the Higher Institute of Philosophy, how philosophy exams are graded, and if passing a philosophy exam requires that one come up with totally new ideas of one’s own. To this last question, I replied that the basic requirement usually is to show that one understands a particular problem or issue and/or a certain philosopher’s understanding of a particular topic or issue. Apart from telling me that he flunked his university level philosophy course (which was, unsurprisingly, about Marx and Mao) he also said that perhaps his own ideas about things are just bullshit.

I sensed that he wanted to express something but was hesitating to do so. I then encouraged him by saying, “No, not necessarily. Maybe you’re on to something.” He then started explaining that he thinks God is a huge body and we human persons are parts of this great divine body.

I kept silent for a moment, trying to decide whether to say outright that he cannot hold such a view or to try to reason with him. I began to think of things I can say in reply. I started with, “Well, some philosophers say that God is different from the world. God cannot have a body, for instance, otherwise God would be corruptible like the things in the world, us human beings, and the world itself.” I also said other things like, “Where is this God to be found if he is material like us?” and “Can I still make my own decisions even if I am merely part of the divine body?”

As I was raising these objections to his idea, the teacher came in and said we should recommence class. Unfortunately, my Chinese classmate and I never had the chance to continue this conversation.

Now that I think of it again, to suppose that God is a body is not so ludicrous after all. I do not know if this can be defended philosophically. What I see as the major flaw in my Chinese friend’s idea (which reminded me of what I learned about Spinoza) is its inability to account for human identity, freedom, accountability, and responsibility.

But I think a certain (more finely articulated philosophically) version of this claim—that God is a body—is what Christians believe: that the Christ or “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This formulation, I think contains two basic ideas about being human. The first is coming into the world and living among men. The Messiah was in the world, he “dwelt among us,” and he found himself in a particular bit of space and time that entailed a particular culture, language, point of view, etc. The second idea is being embodied. That the son of God or the Second Person of the Trinity became human means that he assumed human form, he came to be on earth as an incarnated being. Jesus was an enfleshed individual, meaning, having the capacity to feel hunger, thirst, pain, exhaustion, pleasure, etc. Because he was in the world and he had a body, the Christ could be made to suffer physically and he could be killed. He was indeed subjected to the cruelest of insults and suffering. He was indeed killed.

I think Christians also believe that Jesus rose from the dead and took on a new body, one different from the one he had one earth. (I think I’m putting it rather crudely here, as though Christ simply shed off one body and put on another, as one would do with one’s clothes. Nevertheless, the idea is that he has a new “body”). I think it is also promised that when he comes again there will be a new heaven and a new earth and we human persons will have new bodies.

I now wonder: how different would the risen body be from our worldly ones? Is the risen body devoid of flesh?

Pasasalamat

2008-04-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Balita ngayon sa mga Pilipinong may kinalaman sa pag-aaral, pagtuturo, at pagpapalaganap ng pilosopiya ang biglaang (at talaga naman nakabibigla!) pagsasara ng kagawaran ng pilosopiya ng San Beda College.

Habang may mga nalungkot at nakikidalamhati sa mga naging biktima, mayroon din namang mga nabalisa, nagalit, at tila nais maghimagsik. Ang ilan nama'y naggigiit na mayroong dapat mangyari o mayroon dapat tayong gawin, bilang tugon sa mga may kagagawan ng trahedyang ito. Hindi rin nagkulang sa mga taong nakikiramay at nangakong ipagdarasal ang kapakanan hindi lamang ng mga apektadong indibidwal, ngunit pati na rin ng ibang mga guro, at ang katayuan ng pilosopiya sa Pilipinas.

Hindi ko na nais pahabain pa (ang talaga namang humahaba na) ang diskusyon tungkol sa kahalagahan ng pagtuturo, ng mga kursong napabibilang sa humanidades, at ng pilosopiya. Hindi na marahil kailangang patunayan pa ng pilosopiya ang kanyang halaga gayong libong taon na ang binilang ng kaniyang pamamalagi. (At interesante ring pag-isipan na binibigyan ng higit na bigat ang mga disiplinang maka-agham na siya rin namang nag-ugat sa pilosopiya.) Kahit na ba naniniwala akong may kakayahan ang bawat taong umunawa at magbukas ng kanyang puso, hindi rin naman matindi ang pag-asa kong makikita agad ng mga nagpapatakbo ng mga kolehiyo at mga pamantasan tulad ng San Beda ang tunay na kahulugan ng pagsasantabi sa mga kursong gaya ng pilosopiya. Tingin ko'y ang bawat karaniwang tao'y may pagkiling malimutan o minsan pa nga'y itakwil ang kanyang pinanggalingan at pinag-uugatan.

Kaya naman ang tunay na naka-antig sa aking damdamin sa sulat ng isang guro ng pilosopiya sa San Beda (kasama siya sa mga tinanggal) na pinadala sa kanyang mga kapwa guro sa iba't-bang mga institusyon ay ang huling bahagi ng kanyang mensahe. Pagkatapos ilahad ang mga pangyayari, nagpasalamat siya sa kanyang mga naging guro at kasama sa kanyang paglalakbay sa pamimilosopiya. Siguradong minarkahan ng kanyang pagkakatanggal mula sa kanyang paaralan ang isang mahalagang punto sa kanyang buhay, kaya marahil naging pagkakataon iyon para magbalik-tanaw siya at muling maalala ang mga taong nagbahagi sa kanya ng mga kaalaman, paniniwala, ideya, paraan ng pag-iisip na bumubuo sa kanyang kamalayan at pagkatao. Siya ay pilosopo at guro dahil sa mga naunang mga guro at pilosopong nagbigay ng kanilang mga sarili't kaalaman. Ako'y ako dahil sa ibang mga taong nagbigay sa akin ng aking sarili.

Hindi ko masasabing malayo na ang aking narating sa larangan ng pamimilosopiya. Isa pa rin akong mag-aaral na kumakalap ng kaalaman, nagtitiyagang umunawa ng mga higanteng pantas, at naghahanap sa aking sariling paraan ng pag-iisip at pagpapahayag. Ngunit hindi ko rin maitatangging utang ko sa maraming ka-iba ang aking kalagayan ngayon. Kaya naman nais ko silang pasalamatan.

Salamat kina: Dr Rainier Ibana na nagbigay sa akin ng pagkakataong mag-trabaho't mag-aral sa Kagawaran ng Pilosopiya ng Ateneo de Manila; kay Dr Manny Dy, una at ulirang guro di lamang sa loob ng silid aralan, pati na rin sa pagsasabuhay ng mga ideyang moral at pilosopikal; kay Sir Eddieboy Calasanz na nagpalawak sa akig abot-tanaw, nagturo sa akin ng mga paraan ng pagbasa sa mga akdang pilosopikal, nagpakita ng tiwala sa aking kakayahan; kay Dr Guss Rodriguez na unang nagpakilala sa akin kay Levinas at nagbigay lugar para masubukan ko ang pagiging guro; kay Dr Barbaza na nagbahagi ng kaalamn ukol sa pananaliksik, nagpalalim sa aking pag-unawa kay Heidegger, naging isang kagalang-galang at patas na kritiko; kay Padre Ferriols, nagpakilala sa akin kina Kierkegaard at Marcel at nanatiling gabay sa aking pagmumuni-muni sa pamamagitan ng kanyang mga akda; kina Ice at Albert, mga malikhaing mag-isip at magpalinawag; kay Mike na palaging may matang kritikal; kay PJ na may katuwiran sa lahat ng bagay na dapat gayahin; kay Andrew Soh, kaibigan, ulirang guro, at isa sa mga pinakamabuting taong nakatagpo ko; at sa lahat ng iba pang naging kasamang nagturo sa akin ng pamumunang nag-uugat sa tunay na pagmamalasakit.

ABSTRACT: “The I’s Rivetedness to Itself as a Condition of the Construction of Identities”

2008-04-01T03:46:00.000-07:00

Though Levinas is perhaps best known for his descriptions of the encounter with the face of the other and his insistence on the primacy of ethics, he also has insights that can shed light on the issue of the construction of identities. Levinas maintained throughout his works not only a distinction between the I and the self, but also an account of the distinctive bond between these two. By drawing on Levinas, we will point out that this link between the ego and itself, which is an essential dimension of being human, serves as the condition of the constitution of identities.

In order to understand this claim, we will first take a look at what Levinas sees as the attachment of the ego to itself; we will refer to his first thematic work On Escape, where he describes the experience of the exigency to escape being as the felt need to flee oneself. Then by considering another early work, “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” it will be shown that this supposed I-self identity can be more concretely understood as the I’s bondage to the body. We will then support our claim that man’s attachment to his body is at the base of the construction of identities by considering Levinas’ assessment of Hitlerism, which is, as will be shown, a kind of thinking that offers a view of oneself and one’s identity based on the reduction of the individual to the body. To further illustrate our point, we will ask if this fundamental identity between the ego and its body, which is unavoidably caught in the complex relations of power and knowledge, is not operative in the constitution of individuals into “good pupils,” “delinquents,” “criminals,” “sexual deviants,” etc. that Foucault describes. We can then understand how governments, institutions, organizations, and the discourses in our societies are able to provide us the truth about ourselves. These target our bodies—bodies to which, Levinas tells us, we are basically and inescapably riveted. Let us briefly elaborate each of these points.

Identities Under Construction

2008-03-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

International Multidisciplinary Conference
University of Liège, 16–18 October 2008

Objectives

Identities, collective and otherwise, have been a source of ardent debates all through the last decades of the defunct century. This state of affairs must be seen against the backdrop of a consistent critique of humanism and its universalist vision of ‘man’. The poststructuralist discourse, which articulated this critique, succeeded in obtaining an extremely influential, sometimes even hegemonic position in various disciplines of the humanities at the time. In retrospect, the end of the 20th century now appears as the hour of affirmation of any number of particularisms, differences and ‘positive’ (sexual, ethnic, cultural, postcolonial,…) identities. This era then provided a context for an important paradigmatic shift, which also found expression in the creation of the ‘anti-discipline’ of cultural studies.

Although the poststructuralist critique of humanism has by now lost a good deal of its urgency and potency, it has left indelible traces in the reflection on who and what ‘we’ are as human beings, and it is far from having exhausted its potential for intellectual stimulation. Its heritage confronts us with a wide range of fascinating questions, which include: How is the concept of identity to be defined? How do identities come into being? What – which discourse(s) – does an individual or group identify with, and on what grounds does he or she do so? Is the subject colonized by the discourses identified with or is he/she capable of maintaining a degree of independence from them? Can one resist the pressures of hegemonic discourses? Has all reference to a universalist vision of man become suspect and/or lost its relevance? What are the political (democratic) conclusions to be drawn from this reflection?

This call is issued by a group of researchers working at the University of Liège (Belgium) in various disciplines linked to the humanities – semiotics, literary theory, linguistics, communication studies, sociology, anthropology – and is meant for every intellectual susceptible of feeling interpellated by the subject as outlined above. Since the primary aim of the Identities under Construction Conference is to encourage an interdisciplinary theoretical reflection on the concepts of identity and identification, the scientific committee will privilege contributions focusing on theoretical aspects of the question. Case studies will be taken into consideration as long as they are used to illustrate or buttress a theoretical statement.

Call for Papers

Authors are invited to submit, by 1 February 2008, a 2500-character abstract including a title and (if necessary) a bibliography. The abstracts will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee.
Schedule

As of now, please declare your intention of submitting an abstract, which should reach the Conference secretariat no later than 1 February 2008. Notifications of acceptance will be delivered to authors by 1 April 2008.

Scientific Committee

Nico Carpentier (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Marc Delrez (Université de Liège)
Lieven D’hulst (KULeuven)
Jason Glynos (University of Essex)
Bernard Lamizet (Université de Lyon II)
Marco Martiniello (Université de Liège)
Anneleen Masschelein (KULeuven)
Mireille Tabah (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Organising Committee

Marc Jacquemain, marc.jacquemain@ulg.ac.be
Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, jmklinkenberg@ulg.ac.be
Gautier Pirotte, gautier.pirotte@ulg.ac.be
Laurence Rosier, lrosier@ulb.ac.be
Christine Servais, christine.servais@ulg.ac.be
Erik Spinoy, erik.spinoy@ulg.ac.be
Joseph Vromans, jvromans@ulg.ac.be

Keynote speakers (confirmed)

Nico Carpentier (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Jean-Marie Gauthier (Université de Liège)
Édouard Delruelle (Université de Liège)
David Howarth (Université d’Essex)
Jason Glynos (Université d’Essex)
Bernard Lamizet (Université de Lyon II)
Marco Martiniello (Université de Liège)
Gautier Pirotte (Université de Liège)
Bernard Stiegler (Centre Pompidou, Paris)

Isaac

2008-03-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

Maraming nagsasabing tayo’y magkamukha,
Ako ang puno at ikaw ang bunga ng pagpunla.
Tama sila marahil ‘pagkat naaaninag ko sa iyo
Kung sino ako dati, sino ako sana—aking sariling totoo.

Ngunit dama ko ang katotohanang ika’y iba’t hiwalay
Sa tuwing ika’y iiyak ‘pag kita’y sinasaway,
Kapag malinaw mong pinapahiwatig ang hindi mo gusto,
At pagkatapos ng mahigpit na yapos, maghihiwalay tayo.

Totoo ngang bahagi ko’y bakas sa iyo,
Lantad sa iyong mukha, ugali, paraan ng pananalita.
Buhay at pagkatao ko’y iyong ipagpapatuloy,
Aking mga kabiguan, pinagsisisihan, pangamba sa dugo mo ri’y dumadaloy.

Ngunit ako’y ako na at ikaw at Ka-iba,
Nagtataglay ng mga pangarap at posibilidad na mas matitingkid pa.
Ika’y lalaki, lalago, at magpapakatao,
Lalampasan kung ano ako dati, kung sino ako sana—aking sariling totoo.

Ika-5 ng Pebrero 2008
Higher Institute of Philosophy Library, Leuven, Belgium

Manunulat Sumambulat

2008-03-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

Gumising at sumambulat
Alam kong nandiyan ka.
Mula pa noong nagkaroon ako ng pagkamulat sa aking sarili,
At nagsimulang mangahas maghanap ng higit
Sa aking mga nararanasan at natatamasa,
Naramdaman ko nang isinilang ka.
Hindi ko na nga tiyak ngayon:
Ako nga ba ang unang bumigkas sa mga tanong—o ikaw
—Tungkol sa buhay, pag-big, at kawalan ng hustisya?

Bakit hanggang ngayon nagkukubli ka pa rin?
Dahil ba sa panganib na walang makikinig?
Lalo’t alam mong mga tainga ng nakararami’y nakapinid?
O iyan ba’y gawa ng di matatakasang panunugligsa’t pangungutya ng di nakauunawa?
Marahil, kawalan iyan ng tiwala sa sariling paraan,
Sa iyong bumubulong at baguhang tinig?

Ngunit kung ika’y mangingimi at magpapakaliit
Sinong bibigkas sa posibilidad ng pag-ibig, pakikipag-kapuwa, at pag-asa
Sa harap ng mga kawalang-hiyaan at mga kasalanan?
Kung mananahan lamang sa iyong sarili,
Magpapakulong sa isang sulok ng aking kalooban,
Paano ako lalago at matututong maninindigan?

Ikaw, manunulat, sumambulat!

16 Hulyo 2006
Project 4, Quezon City

2008-03-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

Responsibility, God and Society Conference
Faculty of Theology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

The International Conference Responsibility, God and Society (7-10th May 2008) will focus on the concept of responsibility, seeking to deepen it in terms of society and religion. Numerous, fast-growing scientific and technological developments enable humanity to obtain more and more power and influence over the context and circumstances in which persons and communities will be living in the near future. Globalisation of the knowledge and market economy invigorates the debate even more. Both the extension and the diversification of responsibilities confronts humanity with an ever increasing dilemma: how to responsibly deal with all the possibilities while keeping in mind not only the well-being of close and distant others, but also that of future generations?
In this context ‘to act responsibly’ or ‘to take responsibility’ has become a central or synthesising concept. It no longer represents one of the many ethical concepts. Instead, it is now also an ‘anthropological concept’, i.e. being human means ‘to be responsible’.

The conference aims at contributing to this discussion. In order to do so, it will take Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) as its starting point. Levinas developed the concept of responsibility not only as a core concept in ethics, but he also made it the ‘essence’ of the human being. From this he also drew a trace ‘unto-God’. Hence the question is which links can be made from Levinas’ ethical thinking to Christian theology and ethics. As Levinas’ thinking carries an obvious Jewish-Talmudic imprint, the question emerges as to how the concept of responsibility can be connected to a biblically inspired ethic. In which way can this contemporary concept enhance a Christian anthropology, and in particular that one articulated by Leuven personalism, and in its turn be inspired by a Christian anthropology, so that it benefits from uniquely Christian accents? This fundamental reflection seeks to make way for perspectives that allow the relationship between responsibility and society to be thought through. Concretely, this means that we will try to develop a multidimensional concept of responsibility that is not only personally and relationally applicable, but that also works on the level of society. Such a concept could function as a mediator in our discussions about responsibility with respect to all kinds of concrete societal fields (responsible enterprise, responsible technology, sustainable life style, care for the environment and responsibility for future generations, humane partner and family relationships, a caring society, etc.)

The speakers at the conference will address the following questions: What place can be given to the concept of responsibility in contemporary theological ethics? What relationships can be seen between ‘responsibility’ and ‘neighbourly love’? As a foundation for a contemporary theological ethics in dialogue, what place should the concept of responsibility occupy in a Christian anthropology and understanding of God? Conversely, how can Christian concepts like forgiveness, reconciliation or eschatology inspire us to take up our societal responsibility? Can a Christian theology and ethic develop an anthropology within which a pluridimensional responsibility is central?

In short, the conference will explore the theme of Responsibility, God and Society in order to answer two questions. What does Levinas’ ethic of responsibility have to offer theology? And, vice-versa, what can Christian theology offer to contemporary ethical thought on responsibility and society?

Pre-Conference Programme (Partial)

Parallel Session I (14.00-15.30)

Panel 1

Amalanathan Leema Ravi Don Bosco, Beyond the Impasse Between Radical Orthodoxy and Liberation Theology on Church’s Responsibility in the World: A Possible Contribution of Levinas’ Concept of Responsibility?

Capili April, Levinas on Creation, Subjectivity and Responsibility

McLachlan James, Eschatology in and Out of the World: Levinas, Process Theology, and Social Action

Panel 2

Liégeois Axel, Dialogical Responsibility in Health Care

McArdle Patrick, Health Care, Levinas and Responsibility for the Other: An analysis of the Cases of Nancy Crick and Terri Schiavo

Wolf Torben, Levinas and the Ethical Problem of Euthanasia

Panel 3

Cardita Ângelo, The Withdrawal of Theology and the Responsibility of Theologians –
Le repliement de la théologie et la responsabilité des théologiens
(Paper presentation in French)

Lambert Nieme, Responsibility in the Ethics of the Visibility in the Invisible – La responsabilité dans l’éthique de la visibilité dans l’invisible
(Paper presentation in French)

Folens Tomas, The Relevance of the Dialogue Between P. Ricoeur and E. Levinas on Thinking Capability and Responsibility

Panel 4

Kassa Feleke Mezgebu, Responsibility vs. Ethical Egoism

Kirchoffer David, Altruism, Responsibility, and Dignity: The Concept of Human Dignity in Stephen J. Pope’s Understanding of the Thomistic Ordering of Love

Maes Jan, Can “I” Be Held Morally Responsible for the Preconscious Decisions My Brain Takes and Makes “Me” Act Some Way? A Plea for the Integration of a Physicalist “NeuroScience-Based Theory of Ethics” in Theology

Panel 5

Devoldere Hannelore, Long-lasting Marital Relationships and the ‘Extra’ Dimension: Responsibility by Society and Church

Kallely Augustine, Marital Love: Socially Responsible Through Spouses or/and Children?

Sanders Henk, Cohabitation, Family and Feminization of Poverty

Panel 6

Dantis Hellen, Eschatology and Social Responsibility

Meylahn Johann-Albrecht, The Cry of the Other in the Sacred Texts as Challenge Towards Responsible Global Citizenship

Unaegby Patrick, Metz and Schillebeeckx on Responsible Human Living: Mysticism and Political Holiness as Evangelical Imperatives for Christians in a Post-Christian Context

For the complete conference programme: http://theo.kuleuven.be/page/responsibility_god_society_programme/

Aprill Capili - Publications

2008-01-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

"The Hidden Keynote in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Understanding of Human Dignity and Freedom." In Philosophia 38, no. 2 (May 2009): 196-208.

Emmanuel Levinas and the Human Person: On the Philosophical Conditions of War and Peace.” In Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 62, nos. 2-4 (2006): 697-711.

“Jean-Luc Marion on the Idol, the Icon, and Thinking God as Agape.” In Ad Veritatem 6, no. 2 (March 2006).

“A Critique of the Essentialist Approach to the Issue of ‘Filipino Philosophy’ from the Perspective of the Mature Philosophy of Wittgenstein.” In The Loyola Schools Review 5, March 2006.

“A Thomistic Response to Jean-Luc Marion’s Critique of Aquinas in God Without Being.” In Ad Veritatem 5, no. 1 (October 2005): 35-47.

“Clarke’s Metaphysical Analysis of the Person.” In Ad Veritatem 4, no. 1 (October 2004): 94-119.