Fido the Yak

Ruse and ambush–Ulysses' Craft–constitute the essence of war. This skill is inscribed in the very existence of the body; it is suppleness–a simultaneity of absence and presence. Corporeity is the mode of existence of a being whose presence is postponed at the very moment of his presence. Such a distention in the tension of the instant can only come from an infinite dimension which separates me from the other, both present and still to come, a dimension opened by the face of the Other.

(Totality, p. 225)

The body exceeds the categories of a thing, but does not coincide with the role of "lived body" ["corps propre"] which I dispose of in my voluntary action and by which I can. The ambiguity of corporeal resistance which turns into a means and from means turns into a resistance does not account for its ontological hybris. The body in its very activity, in its for itself, inverts into a thing to be treated as a thing. This is what we express concretely in saying that it abides between health and sickness.

(p. 229)

I learned your softness through my body, alive enough, present enough, never fully inverted into a thing. As always, we will have to define the for itself for ourselves. Me, if I'm going to learn a metaphysics, a metaphysics of the supple, for instance, it won't be for the sake of circumventing the phenomenal. When I say epiphany I refer to the phenomenal, where I sojourn when I'm earthly. In this light to actually see the phenomenal is a gift. To feel your softness is a gift. Epiphany says that.

Labels: body, Levinas, metaphysics, phenomenology, softness

posted by Fido the Yak at 1:30 PM.