There is no trace of alterity in Being; in Being, nothing. One returns to the world, without actually returning anywhere. One returns to the world, without movement, as oneself, that is: one returns, without return, to the world, as what one is and always was, as oneself as Human Being. To be human is to inhabit the dimension of the Being that is the Human Being. Being Human Being one finds oneself within the Being that is the Human. In being, one is in Being. That Being one finds oneself situated in/embraced by, namely the Human Being, is none other than Love. Love is literally nothing other than that other, the Other.
“Vision is an adequation of the idea with the thing, a comprehension that encompasses” (LEVINAS 1969:34).
Being-in-Being is not an occluding nesting. in-Being is total transparency; Being is granted vision by being in Being. It is the stance of pride that makes of vision a totalising enterprise. But this very stance is granted by being in Being: one is allowed to err in the gardens of the Lord.
Desire, an aspiration that does not proceed from a lack-metaphysics-is the desire of a person.
LEVINAS 1969:299
Featured Image:
Untitled (from personal project fittxu u ssibu). December 2018 at Agadir, Morocco. Photograph by the author.
References:
LEVINAS, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity (1961). Translated by Alphonso Lingis. USA: Duquesne University Press.
