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This page concerns a Quote from Gene Gendlin sent to us by Rob Foxcroft:
“Each person is another life altogether. Only thereby do I sense the other as ‘really’ other, as Levinas said.“

The quote and its immediate surrounding text appears in a book and in an article (coloured in green, brown, blue). In each case the quote and its surrounding text is followed by an interesting diversions in black.

1.  Its use in a BOOK appears on pages 36-37:
   Gendlin, E. (1997). Language beyond postmodernism: Saying and thinking in Gendlin’s philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pages 36- 37.
   
2.  Its use in an ARTICLE begins around paragraph #24:
   Gendlin, E.T. (1997, November). On cultural crossing. Paper presented at the Conference on After Postmodernism, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

A third related piece of interest follows:
Alterity and Asymmetry in Levinas’s Ethical Phenomenology
Randy Friedman
Binghamton University (SUNY)

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#1
Gendlin, E. (1997). Language beyond postmodernism: Saying and thinking in Gendlin’s philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pages 36- 37.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=gLCJM0D8ZDIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Language+beyond+postmodernism&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=36&f=false

PAGE 36
If words were only discursive forms, then they could not say something new, nor something that does not follow from their established patterns. Then what words newly say has to be considered only a contradiction and a rupture. 

For example, Derrida criticizes Levinas’s first saying that the other person is “not just my other,” not just the other of me, not just other than me. The other is “other” in a more independent sense. Derrida understands that Levinas is saying more than “other” says as a discursive form, but he argues that Levinas has not established a mode of language in which “other” would not have to mean the other–of. Levinas’s has not established a motive language in which “other end of” would not have to mean the other–of. Levinas has not done that, but Derrida;s own metaphorzing constantly and deliberately exceeds the discursive form while overtly denying that this is possible.

To move past this we can cite Bordo’s call for “recognizing where everyone goes that the other’s perspective is fully realized, not a bit of exotic ‘difference’ to be incorporated within one’s own world… By sightseeing.” She is clear that resources are not all borrowed from the established language of the texts but “happen in the reading of the text.” I agree. Whenever we enter the experiencing of anything that is being talked about, we immediately find an intricacy with vast and obvious resources that go beyond the existing public language.

If we enter the intricacy we can establish the mode of language in which Levinas and Bordo are speaking: I can say that in my human relations I am often frustrated (and worse) because other people do not fit my needs. They do not fit me. I berate them for it, but I recognize that they are ‘other than‘ me. I see the difference clearly enough. It is easy to see that ‘the other person is not what would fit me‘. But only after a lot of living do I come to the deeper recognition that others do not live in terms of what does not fit me. They live in their own terms: of course they are not what would fit me, but they are also not what does not fit me. Another person is not alive in terms of my issues, and does not consist of what is other than ‘me‘. Each person is another life altogether. Only thereby do I sense the other as ‘really’ other, as Levinas said.

As a discursive form, “other” has only one meaning, but in language-use in the context of situations we find at least two. But the distinction between them did not exist when I was only puzzled by my troubles with other people. I did not just find the distinction already there, nor did I just make it up. It has a very compelling but more-than-logical continuity with what was there before. It neither represents nor imposes. It carries forward how things were.

To say all this I dipped into the intricacy. From it I could speak in new ways. That can be done again and again.  It does not depend on the few poor discursive distinctions we have.  In our intricate situations
PAGE 37
the word “other” has many uses — right  now — not only after we compare and differentiate them.

Words can say something from the more-than-discursive intricacy and thereby they can also say how they can. Both have been badly lacking.

There is no way to show abstractly (in discursive forms, in kept-same patterns . . . . . )  that “other” can mean anything other than “other than.”  But we can carry forward what Levinas said, if we enter the intricacy of life with people.

Wittgenstein. Husserl, and Heidegger rejected the split between “outer” and “inner.”  They were critical of the scientific construction of reality from outside.

I have already mentioned how Wittgenstein  speaks from living and acting in situations. Let me say a little more. Wittgenstein is often read as if he denied the existence of our obvious so-called “inner” experiences, for example: pains, images, and felt meanings, as if philosophy should not concern itself with those. Even Malcolm read him this way, to Wittgenstein’s annoyance.  Of course Wittgenstein did not deny those obvious events; he constantly appeals to them to show that they are more various and intricate than the simplistic packaged entities imputed by the grammar: “What gives the impression that we want to deny anything?” (PI, 305). “Why should I deny that there is an inner process? (PI, 306).  “ ‘Are you  really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren’t you at bottom really saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?’ —  If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.” (PI, 307, his italics).

instead of these fictions. Wittgenstein  appear to us to attend to what we find. He asks several thousand questions that begin with “What happens when we  . . .?”   He constantly asks us to refer directly,  to convince ourselves that the entities imputed by grammar are I what happens. What we find is ”more intricate” (verwickelter: PI, 182). 

For example, he shows that there is not a wordless meaning-object for a word to “refer” to.   Instead, he refers directly to the intricacy:

What happens when we  make an effort, say in writing a letter, to find the right expression for our thoughts?  . . .  But cannot all sorts of things happen here?   I surrendered to a mood and the right expression comes.  Or a picture occurs to me and I try to describe it. Or an English expression occurs to me and I try to hit on the corresponding German one. Or I make a gesture, and I ask myself: What words correspond to this gesture? And so on. (PI, 335; his  italics).

Wittgenstein found the intricacy!  He asks us to attend directly to it, so that we can deny the simplistic schematic packages in favor of the intricacies which we do find.

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#2
Gendlin, E.T. (1997, November). On cultural crossing. Paper presented at the Conference on After Postmodernism, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. From http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2151.html  Quote is in the section copied below starting around paragraph #24:

 On “crossing” as a function of the body in language

If words were only discursive forms, then they could not say something new, nor something that does not follow from their established patterns. Then what words new say has to be considered only a contradiction and a rupture.

For example, Derrida criticizes Levinas for saying that the other person is “not just my other,” not just the other of me, not just other than me. The other is “other” in a more independent sense, Derrida understands that Levinas is saying more than “other” says as a discursive form, but he argues that Levinas has not established a mode of language in which “other” would not have to mean the other-of.  Levinas has not done that, but Derrida’s own metaphorizing constantly and deliberately exceeds the discursive forms while overtly denying that this is possible.

To move past this we can cite Bordo’s (287) call for “recognizing wherever one goes that the other’s perspective is fully realized, not a bit of exotic ‘difference’ to be incorporated within one’s own world… by sight-seeing.” She is clear that resources are not all borrowed from the established language of the texts but “happen in the reading of the text.” I agree. Whenever we enter the experiencing of anything that is being talked about, we immediately find an intricacy with vast and obvious resources that go beyond the existing public language.

If we enter the intricacy we can establish the mode of language in which Levinas and Bordo are speaking: I can say that in my human relations I am often frustrated (and worse) because other people do not fit my needs. They do not fit me. I berate them for it, but I recognize that they are other than me. I see the difference clearly enough. It is easy to see that the other person is not what would fit me. But only after a lot of living do I come to the deeper recognition that others do not live in terms of what does not fit me. They live in their own terms: Of course they are not what would fit me, but they are also not what does not fit me. Another person is not alive in terms of my issues, and does not consist of what is other-than me. Each person is another life altogether. Only thereby do I sense the other as “really” other, as Levinas said.

As a discursive form, “other” has only one meaning, but in language-use in the context of situations we find at least two. But the distinction between them did not exist when I was only puzzled by my troubles with other people. I did not just find the distinction already there, nor did I just make it up. It has a very compelling but more than logical continuity with what was there before. It neither represents nor imposes. It carries forwardhow things were.

To say all this I dipped into the intricacy. From it I could speak in new ways. That can be done again and again. It does not depend on the few poor discursive distinctions we have. In our intricate situations the word “other” has many, many uses—right now—not only after we compare and differentiate them.

Words can say something from the more-than-discursive intricacy, and thereby they can also say how they can. Both have been badly lacking.

There is no way to show abstractly (in discursive forms, in kept-same patterns …..) that “other” can mean anything other than “other than.” But we can carry forward what Levinas said, if we enter the intricacy of life with people.

 __________
Let me tell another story to go further into how the body functions in situations:

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#3
And a related piece of interest:   Alterity and Asymmetry in Levinas’s Ethical Phenomenology “ Levinas critiques both Husserl’s recognition of other people as like me, or alter ego … Intentionality is what makes up the very subjectivity of subjects. … life—that is, in the ego’s intentions, or my experiences of other people—to do anything … nothing that limits it, overflowing every limit, and thereby infinite” (Levinas 1969, 26).”

Alterity and Asymmetry in Levinas’s Ethical Phenomenology

Randy Friedman
Binghamton University (SUNY)

ABSTRACT: Levinas’s first forays in ethics may be read as extensions of his engagement with Husserlian phenomenology. Levinas rejects Husserl’s construction of alter ego, radicalizing it with his own alterity. Levinas similarly criticizes Martin Buber’s reciprocity as reductive and insists that intersubjectivity is always asymmetrical. Levinas’s application of his criticism of Husserl to Buber misconstrues Buber’s dialogical philosophy and misvalues the notions of alter ego and intersubjectivity in Husserl. Levinas runs into the problem of solipsism, which he mistakenly identifies early on in Husserl as he struggles with the privileging of the Other. In place of Buber’s relational subjectivity, we find in Levinas a form of the categorical imperative:

And the two walked on together. (Gen. 22:6, 8)

One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity. (Buber 1970, 58)

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