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Epigram

Then I found an epigram for the book I'm concocting:

<< Autrui, à qui s'adresse la demande de la question n'appartient pas à la sphere intelligible à explorer. Il se tient dans la proximité. >> (Levinas, Autrement qu'être, 46)

That is, the other, to whom the demand of the question is addressed belongs to no intelligible sphere to explore but rather to proximity.

But then soon I realize that in isolation and if proximity is read like Heidegger's Nahe, there is nothing Levinasian in the claim. Proximity for Levinas has to do with the neighbor that one is commanded to respect. The next one, the one that can replace you, that substitute you when goodness tears apart your being. Not a world, not anything zuhanden, but the other that looks at you from outside when you think and act.

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