With regard to this:

Clark,

Thanks for your comments. I understand your comment about older writings and certainly experience the draught of Lethe, the ever forgetful retreat from Mnemosyne, at the ancient age of 55!

I agree with much of your thought on Levinas. I also have written and thought about the middle voice in Greek and Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida (kairos).

With regard to this,

“I think part of this is how one reads Levinas but I think Levinas also reads Heidegger a bit unfairly. (Understandably so, all things considered) To me it is much more a difference of focus and emphasis rather than denying a phenomena. To the degree ones explication of the phenomena is always conditioned by ones stance then of course you are right. To the degree there is a phenomena then I think they are getting at the same thing.”

-yes, the Nazi thing was a major ‘understandable’ difference but I think for Levinas the difference is much more fundamental and somewhat ambiguous. Levinas was fully aware that Heidegger’s early work was focused on ontology and the Greek hermeneutic. He also knew that aletheia was the alpha-privative of lethe (forgetfulness, concealment). However, as ‘phenomenology’ a certain kind of behind the scenes understanding of ‘kind’ accompanies closedness viz. the neutrality of phenomenon. The ‘it’ of phenomenon, even as concealed, already ushers in a disposition that Levinas would not want to mediate away. ‘It’ takes on a certain gnosis that already determines what is to be thought. As you know Levinas would not have any issue with the reconstitution of metaphysics – not as the privileging of the present but as the radical interruption of the Other. Heidegger’s ontology and less Ereignis still fashions a site for the ‘there’ of being that unifies (hen) as thrown and appropriates from many (polumeres – what cannot come to presence). However, this is not the Other of Levinas. With Heidegger we favor the ‘it’ over the ‘he’ or ‘she’ and according to Levinas lose the an-archic sense of Ethics. Phenomena (phainomenon – “that which appears or is seen”) is already self-referential (moreover, Kant understood noumenon, neut. passive of prp. of noein “to apprehend”) and made evident in polemus. Hegel as well thinks from neutrality as Truth viz. the Logic…perhaps, nous-centric. Levinas does not have to be believed or thought as sensible. However, I see a kind of maturity of Kierkegaard’s break with objective certainty and absolute passivity in the face of ‘my eternal happiness’ (for K.) in Levinas. Postmodernity has made the break with the metaphysics of presence but seems to me to languish in its un-deconstructed canon of neutrality. I think Derrida was fully aware of this and was fascinated with the Other. He knew the anthropomorphic was again entangled in the nous of the violence of the light but I think he could only articulate the rupture of Levinas in his later writings. The Hegelian ‘not’ neutralizes its antecedent. The Other has a face and interrupts my narcissism (and world historical Spirit).

I am not that familiar with Peirce but just curious, what do you make of Levinas’ third other and Peirce?

From the little I know I would think that Derrida does adopt semiotics. I am writing a post on Heidegger and Lacan with regard to some of these issues. I started including some of Peirce’s thought in it but realized I did not know enough about him and took it out. I would love to hear some of your observations about the post when it is done with regard to Peirce.