A Fragment on Alterity
We Catholics talk a lot about truth, and we do so with good reason. Lately though, I written a lot more about something called alterity, a word a friend of mine thinks I made up. I’d love to take the credit, but I didn’t come up with the concept.
My fascination with alterity might raise a suspicious eyebrow here or there, for normally one hears the word alterity while treading those treacherous and poisonous swamps where dwell the dreaded deconstructionists, postmodernists, and other subversive philosophers. Yes, I admit, without reservation and without apology, that I frequent the company of these supposed enemies of truth. Indeed, they’re my kind of thinkers—they think about alterity. A lot.
Brian Treanor defines alterity as “that aspect of things, and others, that is (absolutely) unfamiliar, alien, or obscure.” Alterity refers to that to which we have no clear or direct access. Alterity itself cannot be spoken or heard, written or read. It is something that words and other human constructs cannot express.
I remember once looking into my brother’s face and being struck with the sudden realization that I did not know who he was. I had my idea of who he was, an idea that I think was basically true, but in that moment his face revealed to me the truth that I could never exhaust the full meaning of my brother. No amount of words could ever encapsulate him. There would always be something inexpressibly other in him. In this encounter with my brother, I experienced that which was familiar and unfamiliar, known and alien, clear and obscure. I experienced sameness and alterity.
Philosophers of alterity are sometimes accused of being enemies of true philosophy, villains intent on destroying tradition and truth. These philosophers don’t seem interested in the pursuit of truth or holding tight to what we know, but instead seem almost obsessed with pointing out the cracks in the road or that what we think we grasp eludes our knowledge. They don’t often write books about Truth, Goodness, or Beauty, but rather texts about what is otherwise than these things. They spend more time deconstructing than constructing or reconstructing. I more or less agree with these observations, but not with the conclusion that these thinkers are therefore enemies to be feared.
Generally speaking, these philosophers are not motivated by a passion for destruction or an obsession with our limitations. They are rather intent on affirming alterity. Whereas a metaphysician, for example, may look for the right words to describe Being, philosophers of alterity seek to keep the other as otherwise than being.
Instead of seeing these philosophers as enemies of truth, we might view them as having a different philosophical vocation. They respond to something other than the call of Being.
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Very interesting word. Need to look into it more. I can see where it would be useful in philosophy and literary theory though, as there is so much to human existence that human constructs cannot express.
The idea of responding to something other than the call of Being sounds dangerous to me.
Jonathan,
I really enjoyed Brian Treanor’s book Aspects of Alterity. He traces the theme through the works of Gabriel Marcel, Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney on the one hand, and Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and John Caputo on the other. His writing is clear, smart, and easy to follow. A rarity in philosophy.
Ben,
As Austin Powers says, danger is my middle name. Seriously, though, I agree, but I would also say that responding to the call of Being also has its dangers. Philosophy is a dangerous enterprise. We might, for example, come to believe we have the truth and therefore can stop pursuing it. Or we might become so focused on what we can’t know that we forget that there are things we can know.
Kyle: So nice of you to own-up to the fact that you are a filthy, relativistic, posty.
Seriously though, alterity, for me, is nicely treated in the dense prose of Spivak (see: Can the subaltern speak?). But, on the issue of Being I feel that Jean-Luc Marion gives a compelling argument against what he calls “the empire of being” in “God Without Being” and his latest book, “The Erotic Phenomenon.”
I think I will switch gears and talk a bit about this stuff too, thanks for stimulating me.
So nice of you to own-up to the fact that you are a filthy, relativistic, posty.
Ha! Count me in too….although I do not think of postmodernism as rootless, circulating, fictions (although, let us be clear, many post-structuralists/critical theorists/postmodernity folks do), taking a leap from “we may not know truth fully to there is no truth, fundamentally.
Instead, my posty instincts are as a criticism of the hubris of modernity and an embrace of mystery and an understanding of human limitation – taking from Lyotard a distaste for meta-narrative.
Responding to the call of Being can be an adventure, yes; but if the call is genine, there is no alterative but to respond. Other-than-the-call-of-Being: What is that? Non-being, other-than-truth, non-truth, untruth, error?
I’m reminded of Nietzsche in Beyond God and Evil when he asks “Why truth: Why not rather untruth?”
There is great danger here. Because Truth, and Being have a name and that is Jesus Christ, and to ask why not other-than-truth? is to ask why not other-than-Christ? and to ask why not untruth? is to ask why not anti-christ?
Christ says I AM, His sheep hear his voice and respond, Deus meus et omina.
“Brian Treanor defines alterity as “that aspect of things, and others, that is (absolutely) unfamiliar, alien, or obscure.” Alterity refers to that to which we have no clear or direct access. Alterity itself cannot be spoken or heard, written or read. It is something that words and other human constructs cannot express”.
Words cannot express; ergo, end of discussion.
Try Stanley Rosen’s book on THE SOPHIST.
Isn’t what is “(absolutely) unfamiliar, alien, or obscure,” a definition of the Divine? Isn’t the “Divine” practically “unknowable”–except through the revelation of the Being of Jesus Christ–which is also, all theories of the Incarnated Nature of “Absolute Being” to the contrary notwithstanding, still quite mysterious?
It seems to me that where there is no “danger,” there is also no opportunity for the development of heroic sanctity.
I think I like “alterity.”
Is not there a danger of having our conception of pure being, esse, or, the pure act of existence, cloud over the mystery of God, in his ‘essential’ self-emptying, Trintarian love?
Sam,
Don’t reduce me to the level of the same with your pejorative categories!
I know of Marion, and shame on me for not having read much of him. I will have to check out those works. And I look forward to your future posts on this filthy, relativistic pomo stuff. ;-)
Ben,
Yes, Jesus is the Truth, which tells us that Truth is more than any system of human language, theological or otherwise.
We can say that God is Being, but even the word “Being” doesn’t begin to define what God is.
Gabriel Austin,
Strangely enough, the discussion doesn’t end because words cannot express. Words cannot express God, who is ineffable, yet we speak of God all the time.
Digbydolben,
Yes. I think that helps explain why a philosopher like Derrida, who said he quite rightly passed for an atheist, nevertheless reflected upon religion and God. John Caputo has made a career out of exploring the religious dimensions of Derrida’s work.
The idea of mystery is very applicable here. Alterity is an aspect of mystery. It makes a mystery unsolvable and not fully knowable.
Mark DeFrancisis,
Precisely. And I think philosophers like Derrida and Ricoeur can be of great benefit to those tempted to box in the infinite and mysterious love of God into a pet philosophical or theological system. In this way, they were great idol-smashers.
My perspective will be based on 30 years of experience and study of interpersonal relationships, interpersonal neurobiology, meditation, dabbling in theoretical physics and since 2005 a return to the mystery of Catholicism.
It appears that the tradition of the church and the mystery of the faith have created an underlying friction due to tradition’s influence to create conformity and the mysteries influencing searching the mysteries which then tends to lead seekers of the mystery outside the conformity of belief.
I do not know how to quote from your text, so please forgive me if this has already been answered. Does alterity mean the exploration of the unknown? If so, then it seems to me that we as human beings outside the limitations of fear would have a natural tendency to want to explore the unknown since we are made in the image and likeness of God. Being images and being unknown to ourselves, yet from birth and genetic history, being defined by those outside of us, there would be an internal incongruence with input from others and how this resonates with the image that God has created. This does fit in with developmental psychology.
Is tradition that is not dogma fear based? If so, then does this tradition mutate truth and make it appear rigid?
Just some thoughts.
Ronald King,
Thanks for commenting. I’m not sure I’m equipped to answer all of your questions, but I’ll do what I can.
At the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, I would distinguish between 1) the unknown that can be known but isn’t yet known and 2) the unknown that is unknowable. Alterity has more to do with the latter, although it really doesn’t refer to the opposite of what is known as it does the opposite of sameness.
Anytime we define something and another, we use a word. In doing do, we place the thing or the other in a linguistic category. Categories speak of sameness. When I define Bob as a person or as a being, I am saying that he is, in a sense, the same as other persons or other beings.
Philosophers of alterity are generally more interested in otherness (alterity) than sameness. They seek to constantly remind us that the other cannot be reduced to the same and that philosophy, while using the categories of the same, should respect the alterity or otherness of the other. I can speak, for example, of by brother as my brother or has a human being or as a creature, but no matter how many words I use to define him, there is something other in him that words cannot express.
Our tendency, I think, is to categorize, even when we’re faced with something we cannot categorize. I remember, when first reading The Lord of the Rings, wanting to know what Tom Bombadil was. Was he an elf? A man? A wizard? In that book, at least, Tolkien doesn’t categorize him, and that, at first, irritated me. However, I came to appreciate Tom’s “otherness” and now see him as a good image of alterity in that fictional world. I came to appreciate his character more after I got into the philosophies of alterity.
Kyle, Thanks for helping me understand a morsel of this philosophy Would I be correct in stating that one’s worldview would be based on a high tolerance for ambiguity within this philosophical system?
This is very interesting Kyle when I observe how the expression of our faith is based on the underlying belief system(philosophy?) that influences its outward expression and how that belief system is based on the subjective experience of each individual and the personal narrative or interpretation of these subjective signals that are used to define self and others. Did that make sense?
What we do know in general terms is that the brain is constantly in the process of creating an understanding of self and others through horizontal and vertical integration of primitive subjective experience that flows from bottom to top and the narrative formed into language as a result of the context of experience being recorded in the right hemisphere and flowing to the left hemisphere for its specialized functions of “linguistics, linearity, logic, and literal thinking.”
Thanks for your response.
Would I be correct in stating that one’s worldview would be based on a high tolerance for ambiguity within this philosophical system?
More than tolerance, I’d say. They welcome ambiguity, even celebrate it.
Your comments about the processes of the brain are very interesting, btw.
Krishnamurti’s observation about truth was expressed in the title of a book that contained some of his talks–Freedom From The Known. That seems to resonate with alterity. He states that belief is always representative of the past and truth can only exist within the present when there is no division between the observer and the observed. I haven’t gotten that far in the present as yet.
Kyle, before I leave for work I want to give you some information to consider about faith, namely, dogma and mysticism and general neurobiology.
When the left hemisphere dominates what occurs as noted above is a linear, logical and concrete worldview and security of self within that system. Love of sentence formation and describing cause-effect reside here. Ambiguity is not tolerated at all and results in the activation of the amygdala because of a perceived threat.
When the right hemisphere dominates there tends to be a holistic perception. Nonverbal cues such as facial expression, eye contact, body posture, tone of voice, etc. are preconsciously noted and responded to before any conscious response is noted. Ambiguity is not a problem within this sphere if harm has not occurred to such an extent where this side may be dominated by fear and thus inhibited in its growth towards clarity.
What research has shown with nuns and monks who have mystical experiences through prayer or meditation is that the brain will exhibit a picture of unification and increased activity such as when one is in love in which neither side dominates.
I am late, must go now.