ABSTRACT
The radicalizing of transcendence as immanence in the concretion of the interfacial relationship brings contemporary philosophical analysis to that modality of being that expresses signification and meaning, that is, to language. In his last major work, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, Levinas opens this question in an enigmatic way. Levinas’ thinking is primarily situated within the phenomenological context of his time. Consequently, there is a strong correspondence between his thinking and that of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the conception of intersubjectivity and language, particularly with regard to the notion of paradox. Merleau-Ponty is engaged with the very dialectic that subtends the course of the present work, that of the visible and the invisible, and by extension, of the same and the other. In his later writing, he posits the concept of intertwining or chiasm, and the reversibility implied in such a concept, as the ontological clue to understanding the relation between subjectivity and alterity. Now, Levinas’ hermeneutic of ethics is contingent on the claim that there is a fundamental irreversibility in the intersubjective (metaphysical) relationship. This essential non-reciprocity is pronounced in Levinas’ later writing as the difference between the ethical saying (le dire) and the ontological said (le dit). The asymmetry of the metaphysical relation is further denoted in the temporal distinction between diachrony and synchrony. Both Levinas and Merleau-Ponty seek to move away from the positivity of idealism and transcendental forms of phenomenology. Merleau-Ponty seeks to accomplish this in his theory of the incarnational constitution of language. This has ramifications for Levinas’ theory of language upon which it is the task of this chapter to elaborate.
