the phenomenology reader 4

[512-13]

Levinas holds that language has its origin in the face-to-face encounter with the Other. It is not the mediation of the linguistic sign that forms signification, but the significance of the face that makes the sign-function possible. To put it another way, language does not commence as the translation of an interior and pre-existent thought into a string of signs. It is instead a response to the unforeseen expressiveness of the Other who faces and addresses me. Husserl’s mistake, according to Levinas, was to make the Other in the independence of subjective, transcendental consciousness. Only such a prefabricated being can then come to address me. For Levinas, by contrast, humanity is already present in the Other’s eyes and in his or her speech, and it is only in the responsibility evoked by it that I can discern my own human selfhood.

列维纳斯坚持认为在与他者面对面的遭遇中，语言自有其起源。语言符号的调解并不能形成意义（并没有什么意味），而是脸的意义（意味）使得符号-功能成为可能。换句话说，即语言一开始并不时作为内部或前存在（者）的思想被翻译成一连串符号。它是面对我和与我言说的他者的无法预料的表情（表达）的一种回应性的替代（它是回应面对我以及与我言说的他者的无法预料的表情的替代）。依据列维纳斯的观点，胡塞尔的错误在于使他者处在主观性的、超验意识的独立状态（胡塞尔的错误在于其他者处在主观的、超验意识的单子状态）。仅仅是这样一个预先建构的存在才能够与我言说。相反地，对于列维纳斯而言，人性在他者的眼光以及他或她的言说中在场，并且，仅只在责任中通过它而被唤起，从而使得我能够辨明我自己属人的自我（人格）。

[513]

The subjectivist bias which is to be found in some of Husserl’s work is traced by Levinas back to Descartes. But Levinas’ account takes a surprising turn from here; he finds an openness to the Other---and by the same token a respect for Descartes’ own Otherness---in the very heart of the latter’scogito. Although the Second Meditation takes consciousness to be certain of itself by itself, the Third Meditation traces the clear conditions of this certitude back to the existence of God. The divine Other furnishes me with an idea of infinity by means of which I can recognise the finitude of my own thought, for the idea of infinity is not itself an infinite idea. Descartes realises that the infinity of God cannot be thematised or made into an object. In this way he discovers a relation to a total alterity that is irreducible to interiority.

胡塞尔作品中的一些被发现的主观主义的偏见被列维纳斯追溯到了笛卡儿（列维纳斯认为胡塞尔作品中呈现的主观主义偏见应被回溯到笛卡儿）。但是列维纳斯的思考从这里采取了令人惊奇的转向（但是列维纳斯的思考在这里有了令人吃惊的转向）；他在后期“我思”的中心地带发现了对他者的敞开（他在后期“我思”的内部发现了他者敞开的空间）——出于同样的原因而尊重笛卡尔自己的他性。尽管在第二沉思中，意识被认为是某种意识本身，而第三沉思把这种确实性的明晰条件追溯到了上帝的存在。神圣的他者给我提供了无限的观念，凭借此，我能够认知我思想中的有限，因为无限的观念本身并不是一个无限的（无穷的）观念。笛卡尔认为上帝的无限性不能被主位化（主题化）或成为一个对象（客体）。沿此路径，他发现了关系到不能被还原为内在性的全然的外在性（他发现了不能被还原为内在性的全然的他异性、他性）。