levinas faces kant, hegel and heidegger: debates of contemporary philosophy on ontology

Front. Philos. China 2008, 3(3): 438–454 DOI 10.1007/s11466-008-0028-4

Translated by Zhang Lin from Wen Shi Zhe 文史哲 (Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy), 2007, (1): 61–70 YE Xiushan ( ) Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100732, China E-mail: [email protected]

RESEARCH ARTICLE

YE Xiushan

Levinas faces Kant, Hegel and Heidegger: Debates of contemporary philosophy on ontology

© Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2008

Abstract Levinas subverts the traditional “ontology-epistemology,” and creates a “realm of difference,” the realm of “value,” “ethic,” and “religion,” maintaining that ethics is real metaphysics. According to him, it is not that “being” contains the “other” but the other way round. In this way, the issues of ethics are promoted greatly in the realm of philosophy. Nonetheless, he does not intend to deny “ontology” completely, but reversed the relationship between “ontology (theory of truth)” and “ethics (axiology),” placing the former under the “constraint” of the latter. Different from general empirical science, philosophy focuses more on issues irrelevant to ordinary empirical objects; it does have “objects,” though. More often than not, the issues of philosophy cannot be conceptualized into “propositions”; nevertheless, it absolutely has its “theme.” As a discipline, philosophy continuously takes “being” as its “theme” and “object” of thinking. The point is that this “being” should not be understood as an “object” completely. Rather, it is still a “theme-subject.” In addition to an “object,” “being” also manifests itself in an “attribute” and a kind of “meaning” as well. In a word, it is the temporal, historical, and free “being” rather than “various beings” that is the “theme-subject” of philosophy. Keywords ontology, epistemology, ethics, religion

摘要列维纳斯颠覆了传统的“存在论—知识论”，开创了一个“异域”，即“价

值”、“伦理”和“宗教”的领域，强调伦理学才是形而上学。不是“存在”包容

了“他者”，而是“他者”包容了“存在”。伦理学问题得到了哲学上大幅度的提

升。他不是完全否定“存在论”，而是把“存在论—真理论”和“价值论—伦理学”

的关系颠倒了过来，将前者置于后者的“制约”之下。哲学作为一门学科，仍以“存

Levinas faces Kant, Hegel and Heidegger 439

在”为研究主题与思考“对象”，只是这个“存在”作为“对象”，并非完全在“客

体”意义上来理解，而仍是一个“主题—主体”，该存在不仅展示为一物，展示为

一“属性”，而且展示为一种“意义”。作为哲学“主题—对象”的不是“诸存在

者”，而是“时间性的—历史性的—自由的”“存在”。

关键词存在论，知识论，伦理学，宗教

1 Introduction

Of the most critical philosophers who challenge “ontology,” Levinas might be one representative. He thus can be said the spiritual father of “difference” philosophy in contemporary France in that he, stressing “difference-defférance” generally, has further promoted this “difference” to the extreme, a “difference” different from “being” — one that is “unlike ‘being’” and “outside ‘being’.”

This “extension-expansion” of Levinas is revolutionary in that it not only “subverts-overthrows-suspends” radically traditional “ontology- epistemology,” but “creates-manifests” a “realm of difference,” “another” “realm” “different from” “being-world,” that is, a “realm” or “interface” of “value,” “ethic,” and “religion.”

It is not that there were not such interfaces or realms in traditional philosophy, in fact, since ancient Greek philosophy, there have been innumerous philosophical works discussing issues about “value- ethic-religion,” and various “philosophical systems” containing such content. None the less, philosophy always bases itself on “truth” hence discusses these issues within the frame of “ontology-epistemology” and tries to assort them into a “system” of “being-knowledge-truth” as a sector or part of it when it comes to “philosophical system.”

That is to say, in whichever kind of viewpoint, “value-ethic-religion” stands inside “ontology-epistemology-theory of truth” philosophically. On the contrary, Levinas’ philosophy places issues relevant to this outside “being-knowledge-truth.” The so-called “defférance” just refers to be different from or unlike “being-knowledge-truth.”

As to the reason why there is “different from or unlike” “being-knowledge-truth,” Levinas gives in-depth and detailed discussions and analyses. His two polar works, namely Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or beyond Essence, may be said classics of contemporary European philosophy and deserve deep investigations.

This idea of his also means a kind of “reversal”: traditionally, “value- ethic-religion” was placed inside the frame of “being-knowledge-truth,” which made people believe that the latter is the “ground” for the former, with feeling,

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value, and realpolitik having to obey the truth in principle. Levinas stresses people’s understanding of “value-ethic-religion” outside “being-knowledge-truth,” so that there would be a line of reasoning which may base the former on the latter, i.e., it is not that “being-knowledge-truth” “dominates-determines” “value-ethic-religion,” but the other way round, “value-ethic-religion” “dominates-determines” “being-knowledge-truth.” From this we can see, the theory that “power” determines “truth” stressed by radical thinkers of 20th century France gets support from philosophy at deep level — thus we conclude that in some sense, Levinas is the spiritual father of French radical thinkers although it seems that he is not a real “post-modern” philosopher.

The central train of thoughts of Levinas that “value-ethic-religion” is not inside of “ontology-epistemology-theory of truth,” together with the argument and deduction he made afterwards, is a strong attraction to philosophers in that his work has not deviated from philosophical tradition completely hence got into exceptionally the empirical realm of various sociologies. Rather, his work steps out of philosophical tradition, or criticizes the many elements of traditional ontology, hence advances layer upon layer without deviating from the purity of metaphysics. Moreover, it is purer metaphysics. According to Levinas, “metaphysics” should primordially be understood as “ethics.” In this way, he has not only based steadily “value-ethic-religion” on metaphysics — philosophical system based on “being-knowledge-truth” can also achieve this — but stresses that ethics is metaphysics. He even contends that only “ethics” is “metaphysics.”

2 The “difference” of “the other”

Undoubtedly, the issue of “the other” has been the common train of thoughts of French radical philosophy since 20th century. It is related to Martin Buber who stresses “I-Thou-He” which, in the same way, is related to Heidegger who is also one of the forerunners Levinas criticizes as well as respects very much.

French radical philosophy stresses the absoluteness of difference. It holds that “he” is not another self, and the relationship between “I-Thou-He” is absolutely different.

Nevertheless, when we contend that “I-Thou-He” are “different from each other” only at the level of different modes of “being,” we can only understand this difference relatively. Since “I-Thou-He” still share one commonbasis — “being,” so this difference cannot be absolute. Only when the idea of difference penetrates into the issues of “being,” that is, when “being”is “shaken,” will the difference become absolute.

As is known to us, though, this issue has yet to be totally ignored by philosophers in the past who have once pondered the relationship between


“being” and “non-being.” In addition, great philosophical thoughts emerge from the elaboration of this relationship, and Hegel is a case in point, let alone Heidegger.

To carry through his train of thoughts, Levinas has to challenge Hegel and Heidegger, and face their issues seriously. As an earnest scholar, Levinas presents serious criticisms on problems of Hegel and Heidegger.

“The other” is neither “another object” nor “another person.” Both “another object” and “another person” are just “an object” or “a person.” The difference between “person” and “object” does not equal “non-person” or “non-object,” moreover, “non-object” can even be “person” and “non-person” may be “object.” In a word, the difference inside “being” is a relative negation. Just as Spinoza says, every negation contains affirmation, and the negation to an object must mean the affirmation to another object. It is not “Tom” or “Dick” but always “some object or some person.” In terms of philosophy, there should be difference between “empirical being” and “transcendental being.” Kant and Hegel have made the discrimination in principle, and Heidegger has also once differentiated between “various beings” and “being.”

To philosophy, this differentiation is of great importance. “Empirical beings” or “various beings” are the object of “physics or science of nature” whereas “transcendental objects-being” is the issue of “philosophy-metaphysics.” For this differentiation, and the understanding of “transcendental objects” as well, philosophers may be said to have racked their brains.

The working pivot of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is to demonstrate how “empirical objects” can become the object of “empirical knowledge or empirical science” legitimately and suspend the “transcendental objects,” pointing out that these “transcendental beings” are just some ideas which cannot enter the realm of “time-space” so as not to have intuition. Thus they are not entitled to the “citizenship” of “(empirical) empire” or the object of empirical knowledge.

There surely would be variation as to “empirical being”and “empirical object” which, in the sense of Kant, is determined by the inevitability of causality on the whole. Thus to empirical knowledge or empirical science, this variation is knowable. Effect would be deduced when cause is known and vice versa. Cause can be deduced although it does not contain effect, so it is “a priori synthesis.” Kant’s epistemology focuses on the illustration of how this “priori synthesis” can come true.

In this sense, just as his idea of “knowledge,” Kant’s idea of “variation” is constrained to empirical matter hence is just the conversion from one matter to another. This idea, also held by typical classic science to “variation,” is one about “variation” within the frame of “‘there is’ or ‘being’.” Here, “the other” is offered a position, too. However, this “other” still belongs to “various beings” hence is an another object, being still “the difference within similarity.”

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Nonetheless, what is outside “‘there is’ or ‘being’”? In other words, what would it be when “variation” is not constrained to “various beings” but has “transcended” the “various beings”?

3 “Being” and “non-being”

Philosophy has long been considering this relationship which, at the very first, was a challenge thrown to philosophy by religion. This challenge focuses on the proposition of “creating out of nothing.”

The “transcendental being” of philosophy braved this challenge. “Transcendental being” is still an “object” — “‘there is’ or ‘being” in broad

sense, but it is different from “empirical being.” This kind of “transcendental being,” in the horizon of “empirical science or

empirical knowledge,” is no other than the “nothingness.” To “empirical beings” or “various beings,” it is absolutely different; however, to philosophy, it can still be understood as “‘there is’ or ‘being.” This has been the train of thoughts of Hegel. Kant has laid foundation for the position of “nothingness” of “transcendental being” — it (they) is empty “thought-concept” in the realm of “idea” while in the realm of knowledge, it does not contain the content of “intuition.” On the contrary, Hegel makes the “nothingness” of “transcendental beings” have content, and hence become the object of “philosophical knowledge or philosophical science.” Of course, this object is not a static object but variational and developmental. During the transformation and development, the never-emerging “idea” for the lack of “intuition” in Kant’s sense emerges, becoming the course of world history. It is in this way that philosophy, as a science, is entitled to taking this emerging course as its object and major task of consideration.

Thus Hegel dissolves the proposition of “creating out of nothing” into an “opening-appearing” process “from nothing to being,” hence his fundamental work is entitled Phenomenology of Spirit, expatiating a “world course” in which “absolute spirit” starts from “nothingness” and through laborious contradictory struggles, “comes back” to “itself.”

It is in Hegel’s coverall philosophical system that “the other” occupies an important position. “Absolute spirit” is “exteriorized” or “alienated” into world and this world contrasts with “spirit” as “the other.” Without the contrast with “the other,” “spirit” would be empty, without content, and unilateral. On the other hand, “spirit” would also be unilateral if it “lost” or “missed” itself in “the other,” and it would only get unilateral knowledge but not all-sided truth when it just takes “matter” as the object of “observation” or “contemplation.” Only when “spirit” can keep “itself” in “the other,” can it “own the world” and keep “self-


determined.” “Spirit” as “freedom” is one with content, what’s more, it is not the formal

freedom which has “freed from any sense experience” in the sense of Kant. “Freedom” makes its appearance in philosophy, hence arouses the great

revolution as to the train of thoughts of philosophy. Philosophy as a science should take “necessity” as its objective. However, the

entrance of “freedom” makes philosophy different from other empirical sciences essentially. In this way, “transcendental being” has a destiny at deep level: philosophy takes “freedom (reason)” as its core which, rather than being empty and imaginative outcome, is the “result” through the struggle and combination with “the other” and “necessity.” Hence “transcendental beings” combine with “empirical beings,” so do “freedom” and “necessity,” “empty” and “reality,” and “I” and “he.”

According to Hegel, it was not until “the other” made its appearance that “spirit-reason,” as “self,” had content, experience, and world without being purely alone. Thus philosophybecomes a “(meta) science,” a “meta-original-transcendental” “physics-metaphysics” instead of simply an inner “(introspective) psychology.”

Since traditional metaphysics introduced the idea of “freedom,” not only “various beings” have been altering, “noumenon-being” has also been altering. “Various beings” altered necessarily in accord with causality whereas “noumenon-being” altered freely. The variation of “noumenon-being” is free.

According to Levinas, it is Heidegger’s great contribution to philosophy that “noumenon-being” should be understood dynamically. Nevertheless, as we know, Hegel has made a rather thorough consideration about the issues of “variation” at the level of metaphysics without constraining “variation” to the plane of experience. Rather, as far as issues of “the other” are concerned, Hegel stresses more than Heidegger that “the other” enriches the content of the “variation” of “noumenon,” presents realistic nominative role to “noumenon” “being” and “freedom,” unites “freedom” and “necessity,” hence leads to the construction of a “comprehensive” system of ideas.

Of course, although Hegel also mentions the “variation” of “being” and “non-being,” pointing out that empty “being” is in effect akin to “non-being,” his horizon as to “the other” is basically constrained to the scope of “empirical beings” or “various beings.” In addition, his “variation” means more about “different from itself” than absolute difference. Therefore, it is understandable that his viewpoint that “non-being” falls easily into the realm of “being” is criticized by Levinas.

It is also in the same aspect that difference exists between Heidegger and Hegel. Heidegger developed his ideas from the relationship between “being” and “non-being” rather than that between “being” and “empirical beings” or “various beings.”

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“The other” opposite to “being,” viz., “the other” “different” from “being,” should refer to “non(un)-being,” the “negation” to “being.” Here the “difference” and “negation” still retain the absolute significance of “philosophy-ontology-metaphysics” instead of that about ordinary experience.

As to ordinary experience, we may also point out that affairs of human life are just like fleeting cloud, great changes of the world brought by time, etc. This kind of plaint is inclined to lead people to seek for something permanent or “ever-lasting.” Traditional philosophy took this as its train of thoughts which, on the contrary, is thought to be “a dead end” by men of insight.

Of the various attempts seeking for a way out, according to Heidegger, there is one thing that can make “non-being” become “being.” He points out successively that originally, “being” meant “making (it) to be.” “Time” or “history” is able to make “non-being” become “being,” so that “time” or “history” is the “dynamic” “being.”

According to Heidegger, “being” not only sustains past, but also contains future, both “past” and “future” are the modes of “being.” “Being-present” containing “past-future” means that “being” contains “non-being,” and “being” contains “the other.” In this sense, “being” is superior to “non-being” and “the other.” This is also a point where Levinas put forward his criticism intentionally although he holds great respect for Heidegger.

Levinas adopts a reversal train of thoughts, namely, it is not “being” includes “the other,” but “the other” includes “being.” In effect, “being” can not contain “the other” insomuch as “the other” is not inside but outside “being.” “The other” is “superior to” or “more powerful than” “being.”

“Being” does not refer to “various beings,” nor is it “empirical necessity.” It is “time-history.” Since 19th century in France, Bergson has begun to ponder over “time” and “freedom” together, contending that “time” is “freedom,” and history, in accordance with its nature, is also the history of “free” rather than the series of “cause and effect” between “various events.” In this sense, “freedom” was “superior to” or “more powerful than” “necessity.” Nonetheless, in accord with Levinas, this relationship should be reverted, namely, “necessity” should be “superior to” or “more powerful than” freedom in that “the other” was “superior to” or “more powerful than” “being” as “self-freedom.” In Levinas’ opinion, however, “necessity” does not get back to the level of “experience.” Rather, it is a “metaphysical” issue more “transcendental” than “noumenon-being.” Levinas contends that “metaphysics” should not be boiled down to “ontology” but “ethics” instead. In this sense, as “justice — not in the sense of Greek justice, fair,” “necessity” is more than “freedom” as “self.” “Duty” does not come from “freedom” but “justice” instead.

Ethics is a science more “transcendental” than “ontology” hence is the very original meaning of “metaphysics” where Husserl’s criticism on European


philosophy’s “inadequate transcendental” is overcome definitely. It should be said that in Levinas’ philosophy, issues of ethics have been

promoted greatly in philosophy. Breaking away from “ontology,” “the other” is neither an “empirical being” nor a “transcendental being,” but “absolutely transcendental” instead. The issues of “the other” are not within the realm of “being” and “various beings.” “Various beings” can not contain “the other,” and the seemingly cover-all “being” is no better.

Since Hegel and Heidegger have “bound” the “variation” of “being and non-being” and “‘there is’ and nothing” together philosophically, “the other” of Levinas can be neither “being” nor “non-being.” It is an issue outside “there is” “nothingness.” We cannot even say that “the other” is outside “being” and “non-being” in that it is not the issue of “being” and “non-being.”

4 Ontology and philosophy as a science

Levinas does not intend to deny ontology completely, but reverses the relationship between “ontology (theory of truth)” and “ethics (axiology),” and places the latter under the constraint of the former, believing that the former cannot contain the latter but the other way round. Nonetheless, as far as philosophy is concerned, this reversion is not a simple issue of sequence. This reversion has its fundamentality, concerning what subject philosophy is essentially in that philosophy originally talked about first issues, original issuses or basic issues. “Original” is concerned with the ground of philosophy, hence with its nature.

The reason why we use “science” is that we just want to acknowledge the various maneuvers of forerunners of philosophy, making some differentiation between philosophy and general empirical science. At the same time, “science” can also be understood as a particular “science.” In broad sense, philosophy is a “science” or “transcendental science.”

We would like to reverse the sequence having been reversed by Levinas: philosophy contains “art,” “ethic,” “value,” and “religion” on the level of transcendentalism but not the other way round. In this sense, it is accepted that “metaphysics” of philosophy should acknowledge the first position of “ontology” mainly because all the sciences including philosophy take “being” as their object. The characteristics of philosophy, or in Heidegger’s words, may be manifested in taking “non-being” as its object. All the “(empirical) sciences” take “being (various beings)” as their object whereas philosophy may take “non-being” as its theme and what’s more, this “non-being” is another essential mode of “being.” “Time-history” is the form and mode of “being.” Philosophy should never give up the “variation” from “there is” to “nothingness.”

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As a science, philosophy certainly has its own peculiarities different from general science which often may and need to be contracted into one or several “systems of concepts,” becoming “science-subject” which can be universally studied and repeated hence in some sense “non-temporal.” In this way, according to some, “empirical science” may produce some paradigms. With the guidance of some paradigms, most scientists do practical jobs to accumulate experiences and inspect paradigms which may make for, to a certain extent, paradigm “scientific revolutions.” However, in strict sense, there is not such an accumulating process in philosophy. The job of philosophers is always one of creating paradigms. Philosophers surely accumulate, but this accumulation is never “empirical-practical” but “creative.” It is a “creative” inheriting. Philosophy also has its history and various philosophical systems or theories are monuments of paradigm in the history of philosophy. To study the history of philosophy is to investigate the “creative” relationship between various “paradigms-systems-theories.”

The so-called “creative relationship” is the “relationship” between “free beings” which goes beyond the relationship of empirical inheriting or logical reasoning.

Due to this characteristic, the issues considered as well as investigated by philosophy are different from those by general empirical science. It does not take general empirical matters as its object but not without an object. More often than not, issues of philosophy cannot be totally conceptualized into a theme, but they do not lack subject at all.

Philosophy, as a science, still takes “being” as its object of thinking and theme of consideration. However, this “being,” as an “object,” cannot be understood totally from the sense of “object.” It is still a “theme-subject” instead of “being there”, “being at hand” or “being faced” one-sidedly. This being manifests itself not only in an object, a property, but in a meaning. In a word, it is temporal, historical and free “being” but not “various beings” that acts as the “theme-object” of philosophy.

Even as metaphysics, philosophy does not repulse “ontology.” Likewise, philosophy, as a system of “knowledge” or “knowledge in broad

sense,” does not refuse concepts. In Deleuze’s words, philosophy creates concepts. Concept is a bridge not only between thinking and “various beings,” but also between thinking and “being.” Concept embodies the identity of thinking and “being.”

“The identity of thinking and being” is a core train of thoughts of Hegel, and one of Heidegger’s central thoughts as well. It is thought that Kant denies this proposition, but as we will see, his denial works only within the realm of finitude. That is to say, in The Dialectic of Critique of Pure Reason, he denies this “identity” distinctly hence he is criticized as dualism. It is in Hegel’s age when “a


priori category” and “empirical concept” was combined, developing from “relative” to “absolute,” from “one-sided” to “all-sided” by means of historical process till “identity.”

As a historical process, “being” is no longer a pure “empirical being,” not an object among the world of various natures, nor just a rivet of the hoop of “non-temporal” “necessity.” “Historical process” is a “process of being,” one “making being” as well as “making non-being,” and a “developing process” as well as a “disappearing process,” “making it be” as well as “making it nothing.” “Being” is “the alteration between being and nothingness.”

The “whole process” of “alterity between being and nothingness” is the real “truth” “philosophy” has been pursuing. “Knowledge-science” takes “truth” as its “object,” and “truth” equals “being” in the context of philosophy. Hegel has once said that “truth” is “whole” which is not “close” at all. “Whole” means “all-sided” which happens to be “infinite.” Thus “truth” is “being” while “being” is “infinite.”

The philosophical meaning of infinitude is “freedom” beyond any outside constraint. “Freedom” is “self-cause,” i.e., “self determines itself,” so that it is the creation, too. As “freedom,” “being” keeps creating its self, and so does truth which creates new concepts continuously. There is no conflict as to line of reasoning between the proposition that “identity exists in thinking” and the idea of “diachronic” “difference.”

Of course, opposite to denying “contradiction,” Hegel is expert in using it. Heidegger’s exerting himself in studying the altering relation between “being” and “non-being” is not escaping from contradiction, either.

They just pointed out that, human “reason,” or “Dasein,” is capable of dissolving and absorbing the “non-being” and “empirical beings” into “being,” the diachronic-historical process of “truth.” It is capable of absorbing “necessity” into “freedom,” making it remain its “self-freedom” in “nature-necessity” — “The controlled necessity is for freedom.”

“Reason,” as a “self,” has the ability to remain itself in “the other”; moreover, it has to remain itself in “the other.”

Epistemology (theory of truth) has been so, how about ethics (axiology)?

5 Can Kant offer complete support to Levinas?

Levinas has shown great respect for Hegel and Heidegger. It is also understandable that he takes Kant as his forerunner, but we’d better study the train of thoughts of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason before perorating.

We should admit that Kant’s critical philosophy really offers inspiration to Levinas as to the idea of absolute “other.”

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Kant constrains knowledge, so he constrains “being” at the same time. In Kant’s critical philosophy, esp. the first critique — Critique of Pure Reason, “being” is constrained to “various beings,” that is, “empirical beings,” or “empirical objects.”

As far as empirical knowledge in Kant’s sense is concerned, “being” surely has actuality which is experience. Whereas, any “empirical object” has its “time and space” and it will not exist except being in “time-space.” As for epistemology, the object of experience should be more than a concept; it must have intuition. Only when an object can be intuited, can it become “being,” hence become the object of “empirical knowledge” or “empirical science.” Thus Kant’s “being” and “empirical object” cannot become the objects ofI intuition before they enter “time-space.” “Being” is not an abstract concept which will not have intuition without entering “time-space,” hence it surely has actuality.

The key work of Kant epistemology is to argue that the concept and intuition in scientific knowledge are not totally empirical but have some “a priori” factors as the ground of its “necessity.” Otherwise, all the “empirical science” and “empirical knowledge” will lose their ground for “necessity” which, like what has been done by Hume, would be stipulated as “empirical habits.”

On the part of Kant, concept can be either “empirical” or “prior to experience.” “The sun and the moon, mountains and rivers” are all empirical concepts “abstracted or synthesized” from experiences, so this is said “established.” However, categories like “causality,” “possibility,” “necessity,” cannot be abstracted from experience in that they do not exist in experience, nor do they depend on experience. These categories are not the result of analyses, either. Purely formal logic deduction cannot cover them. The category of knowledge is not analysis but synthesis. It is of great importance to the understanding of Kant’s epistemology.

The relationship between “cause” and “effect” is one of “reasoning” instead of analyzing. “Cause” does not contain “effect” and vise versa, “effect” does not contain “cause.” For instance, the concept of “gas,” as an “effect,” cannot be analyzed from concepts as “causes,” concepts like “water-heated.” The relationship between “cause” and “effect” is “synthetic” rather than “analytic.”

What is “synthesis”? The “synthetic” relationship between “cause” and “effect” means that they are “the other” to the other side. As far as “empirical beings” are concerned, “cause” and “effect” are two different beings.

Nevertheless, as categories of knowledge, “cause” and “effect” are necessary and deducible. “Effect” can be deduced from “cause” and vise versa. The necessity of “causality” shows the possibility of “a priori synthesis.” “A priori synthesis” means the “identity” of “the others.” There is deducible possibility between “the others” which is based on “reason (intellectuality according to Kant’s epistemology)” and “a priori (freedom from experience).” Therefore,


according to Kant’s critical philosophy, in the realm of “epistemology,” there is identity among “the other,” “subject and object” and “thinking and being.”

This “identity” among “the others” is warranted by both the “a priori” of “concept of understanding” and the “a priori” of “time-space.”

If it is relatively understandable that “concept of understanding” has “a priori,” it is rather inexplicable that “time-space,” as “sensible intuition,” also has “a priori.”

Nonetheless, it is on issues like “time-space” esp. “time” that Kant is praised particularly by Heidegger, his theory being considered to be of great value. The reason might be that in the part arguing about “time-space” as the “a priori form” of “sensible intuition,” Kant pays more attention to the connection of “time-space” and “being.” “Being” must “be” in “time-space.” The “a priori” of “time-space” means, in effect, that although Kant’s “a priori perception” comes from the modes of arithmetic and mathematics, “being” can be understood not only as “empirical” “various beings,” but as the possibility of transcendental “being.” In Critique of Pure Reason, “noumenon” “ideas” such as “freedom,” “immortality,” “god,” etc., are driven out of the realm of “being” to become absolute “unknowable beings,” absolute “the others” that share no “identity” with “theoretical reason” or “speculative reason.”

This is why Levinas introduces from Kant “outer being” or “out (side) being.” Via Levinas, we get to know the corresponding relationship between “being and non-being,” which is different yet identical so as to be “similar in differences” and “different in similarities.” Whereas, the relationship between “exterior being” and “being” is “non-corresponding” and “nonequivalent” so there is no “identity” amidst them. “Exterior being” is an absolute difference.

Again like Kant, Levinas makes this absolute “other,” the absolute difference, enter “ethics (axiology)” without any similarity with “epistemology.”

Nonetheless, how much help can Kant’s ethics bring to Levinas? In his epistemology, Kant elaborates the legitimacy of “various beings” as

“objects of knowledge,” but suspends the rights and interests of “being-noumenon.” If people degrade “being” in the sense of apriority to “various beings” in empirical sense, it is reasonable to believe that Kant has completely driven away issues of transcendental “being” from the realm of philosophy and found another way out for “ethics (axiology).” Thus Kant can not decline to shoulder the responsibility of being recorded on books of history as the forerunner of “theory of exterior being.” To be sure, from this perspective, Levinas has sufficient reason to treat Kant as his forerunner; however, the philosophical objective of Kant attaches much importance to issues of “noumenon” or “the matter itself.” He suspends them in epistemology but has yet to determine totally that they are fallacious. At the same time, he contends that it is reasonable to take them into account. We can not help suspecting Levinas’

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understanding about Kant philosophy due to the attitude as such. To be sure, Kant’s epistemology has been constrained within empirical

phenomena which holds that only “(various) being(s)” is the legal object of knowledge of understanding. Nevertheless, can we deduce hereby that in his “ethics” Kant also suspends “noumenon” or “the matter itself” and found another way out? Maybe the case is not so.

Just as has been mentioned, as to the understanding of “being” — be it empirical “various beings” or transcendental “being,” there is a common ground that brings them together, viz., they all need actuality and necessity in that they are actual rather than abstract and empty concepts, let alone pure “form.”

Is Kant’s “ethics (axiology)” simply pure form or not? Generally speaking, the case is so. That’s why many reasonable critics are aroused. Nevertheless, when further understanding Kant’s train of thoughts, we can see that he is not satisfied with a stance of formalism but still wants to promote his thought of “ethic (morality).” The idea of morality cannot offer materials for the expansion of empirical knowledge; it can do so for “morality” and “practical reason,” though. It is simply that the nature of such work and the source of these materials that can offer expansion are different from those in epistemology.

As we know, in Kant epistemology, materials of knowledge come from “sense experience”; perceptive materials looked through by “time-space” enter “concepts of understanding” to form “synthesis” and “empirical knowledge-scientific knowledge.” However, in his ethics and theory of morality, morality and ethic are based on “freedom of will” in that practical reason is different from speculative reason. “Freedom” is beyond the constraint of sense experience so it excludes all of them. In this way, from the perspective of knowledge, the “freedom” of “practical reason” ought to be of no empirical materials hence pure formal. It is common that various severe critics have been given to this viewpoint. But Kant’s train of thoughts does not stop here. He has more to say.

At the very beginning of Critique of Practical Reason, Kant emphasizes time and again that “reason” itself has the ability to “practice,” which is worthy of our further consideration.

That is to say, in Kant’s viewpoint, the materials of knowledge are offered by “sense experience” whereas those of “morality” by “reason” itself. Materials of “intellect-knowledge” come from outside whereas those of “morality” are self-owned by “reason.” Thus the actuality of knowledge is “guaranteed (warranted)” by “sense experience” while as to that of “morality,” “reason” itself has the ability.

In this way, Kant says that a definition is needed on deciding which kind of material is suitable for entering knowledge due to it that the materials of “reason” in knowledge are from outside. Therefore, the function of reason in “epistemology”


should be constrained. As to materials that sense experience fails to offer, reason should not — has no right to deal with them as knowledge. However, in “practice, ethic, and morality,” there is no such need of constraint in that the materials that reason needs is primordially self-sufficient. Reason has the ability to offer materials for itself so as to make it bear content or reality.

Kant’s “pure reason” has the thought of actuality internally, which has been given clearly in the preface to Critique of Practical Reason. On giving the reason why he entitles it “Critique of Pure Reason” instead of “Critique of Speculative Reason,” Kant emphasizes particularly that “in practice” “pure reason” has “actuality” or “factuality” hence “practical” ability. He says:

For, if as pure reason it is really practical, it proves its reality and that of its concepts by what it does, and all subtle reasoning against the possibility of its being practical is futile (Kant 1997, p. 3).

Here, Kant has in effect disproved the criticism that his “practical reason” has

gotten mired in “pure form” due to the lack of “actuality,” arguing that one of the tenets of his Critique of Practical Reason is to elaborate how “practical reason” can have “actuality.” Therefore, he has said earlier:

It has merely to show that there is pure practical reason, and for this purpose it criticizes reason’s entire practical faculty. If it succeeds in this it has no need to criticize the pure faculty itself in order to see whether reason is merely making a claim in which it presumptuously oversteps itself (as does happen with speculative reason) (Ibid.).

To make the proposition that pure reason has its a priori “reality” an

established one, obstacles that are double but related one another, i.e., the relationship between “causality” and “freedom” must be overcome, according to Kant. This relationship, however, has been cut off in Kant’s epistemology.

In his epistemology, Kant constrains “causality” into the realm of phenomena. As to the realm of apriority, Kant assorts it to freedom in that there is no “cause and effect.” In “experience, science and knowledge,” “freedom” is just an “idea” of “pure thought” without any corresponding “sense experience.” “Freedom” has nothing to do with “experience.”

Well then, is “freedom” still irrelevant to “causality” in the aspect of “reason” and “practice”? There seems to be no relation between them on the surface level, so Kant is often criticized for dissevering them two. On this, even Hegel is of no exception.

If we think it over, we would find that Kant might have noticed this problem and have made corresponding arrangements. It is simply that his main task at that

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time was to emphasize the difference between them two. In epistemology, the sharp difference between “freedom” and “cause and effect” is stressed whereas in the realm of morality the characteristics of “freedom” are emphasized. In this way, the further relation between them two becomes vague but has yet to be ignored totally.

Corresponding to this passage, Kant continues:

…and thus the reality of the intelligible world is given to us, and indeed determined from a practical perspective, and this determination, which for theoretical purposes would be transcendent (extravagant), is for practical purposes immanent (Ibid., p. 88).

Here Kant makes replies not only to the issues of the priority of “practical

reason” to “theoretical reason,” but to the issue of the further relationship between “apriority” and “experience.” According to Kant, it is not that “sense experience” determines “transcendental reason,” but that “transcendental reason,” that is, “practical reason” — the practical function of reason has the capacity of deciding “sense experience.” The “sensible world” is a world of morality and a world of value, and the telos of practice is to keep up the value of “reason.”

“Transcendental reason” determining “sensible world” means that the former can enter the latter, transferring the latter’s meaning. This path, as we can see, is what later hermeneutics and phenomenology followed. The difference is that detailed argumentations were developed because focus had been transferred to this path that Kant just mentioned briefly. Hence “determination” or “influence” opens or emerges, becoming issues as to how “transcendental reason” or “absolute spirit” can emerge in “the world of sense experience.” Along with the path of illumination, Hegel, Dilthey, and Husserl have done great works started by Kant. It is the first step that is troublesome. The contribution made by Kant on this cannot be left unrecognized.

We should have noticed that this “making running” of Kant is not just a hint, and he has given certain expatiation which goes as follows:

The concept of freedom alone allows us to find the unconditioned and intelligible for the conditioned and sensible without going outside ourselves (Ibid.).

What is the so called “without going out of ourselves”? That is to say, we need

not do the same as in epistemology and theory of necessity where we seek for the ground of “reason itself.” In other words, we may “testify or prove” that “self” is “reason-dependent” or “constraint-free” by means of materials of “sense


experience” in the world of “sense experience.” As the concept of “reason,” “freedom” is able to “testify or prove” with its own “reality” that “self” was a “being” or a “person” originally. That’s why Kant emphasizes in his Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason that such “ideas” as “freedom, immortality and god” do not have corresponding objects in the aspect of knowledge hence is unknowable. Nevertheless, thinking about or considering them is totally “legitimate”; this “legitimacy” does not completely lie in their “contradiction-free” but because the usage of “reason” in “practice” warrants their actuality or reality.

How can “freedom” hold actuality in the aspect of “practice” of “reason”? How can it enter the stern “empirical world” but keep the “freedom” of its “self” as well? That is to say, how is “freedom” combined-assorted with the “causality” of “necessity”? As to these, Kant says:

…a principle in which reason does not call upon something “else” as the determining ground by that principle, and in which it is therefore as pure reason itself practical (Ibid.).

Hence the principle in the aspect of “reason” and “practice” which take

“freedom” as their core is itself a special “causality.” That is where the meaning of “freedom” as the “first cause” is located as Kant often mentions.

Since Aristotle, issues of the first cause have been under criticisms. It really has its disadvantages, namely, not only the “by God’s hands” laid it aside, people have yet to become aware of the relationship between “so many,” “the first being,” “so many” and “free beings.” Nevertheless, in Kant’s age, “the first cause” aimed to not only elaborate that “freedom” is “constraint-free,” but account for how “freedom” can enter the knowledge object series of “causality” and “necessity” so as to make “freedom” have content and actuality. “Freedom” has transformed to “(the first) cause,” hence belongs to “causality,” that is why it ranks the first.

To be sure, Kant has not gone far after he left a passage for “freedom” and “the first cause” to enter “experience.” None the less, he stops before the obstacles set by him, i.e. he can not elaborate how the world of “meaning-value-ethic-morality” can reconcile with the “necessity” of “causality” after “the first” entered “the second, the third…” In fact, in Kant’s world of “value-ethic-morality,” “experience” still closely guards against “apriority.” Thus he can see the rigid contrast between morality and happiness hence assorts the “necessity” of their combination to religion, contending that only in “the city of God” can they two be deduced from one another, hence hold the relationship of “causality.” As to the “necessity” of this secular relationship, only “god” is capable of seeing hence knowing.

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In this sense, we can say that Kant’s “god” is on the level not only of morality but of knowledge. It is just that this “god” is introduced through the gateway of “morality-ethic-value-freedom” instead of “nature-necessity.” “God” is the top wisdom as well as the highest morality.

As to wisdom, it also held the meaning of practice in ancient times besides being “theoretical-speculative,” so there is always the meaning of actuality in it. “God” as the top wisdom certainly contains the most actuality.

In this sense, although Kant constrains the ontology of “various beings” to “epistemology,” he is sure of the actuality and presence of “freedom-ethic-morality-value” as far as the emphasis on the factuality of “practical reason” is concerned.

I would like to end this article temporarily here. In my opinion, this article has made a reflection on our thought about Levinas’ ontology. I believe that Levinas surely has made profound expatiations, but further investigations are needed when he wants to reverse the traditional order in philosophy.

References

Immanuel Kant (1997). Critique of Practical Reason. Translated and edited by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

levinas faces kant, hegel and heidegger: debates of contemporary philosophy on ontology

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