In Quest for Identity: the Self as (a) Stranger to Himself

(1)

Book Chapter

Reference

ASKANI, Hans-Christoph

Abstract

Even though we understand, when we understand, this does not mean that we are capable of staging our understanding. When self-understanding is implicit in understanding it seems that we can manage ourselves. e idea is that we are at home in self-understanding, since it is us who understand – ourselves. Self-understanding then appears as a kind of immanence that we establish through understanding (with) ourselves. Perhaps we should put into question this presupposition of the immanence of (self-)understanding.

ASKANI, Hans-Christoph. In Quest for Identity: the Self as (a) Stranger to Himself. In: Welz, C. &

Rosfort, R. Hermeneutics and Negativism, Existential Ambiguities of Self-Understanding. Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2018. p. 109-126

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:102475

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

(2)

Hermeneutics and Negativism

Existential Ambiguities of Self-Understanding

Edited By

Claudia Welz and René Rosfort

Mohr Siebeck

(3)

CLAUDIA WELZ, born 1974; studied theology and philosophy in Tübingen, Jerusalem, Munich and Heidelberg; PhD and habilitation at the Institute for Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Religion, University of Zurich; since 2010 Professor of Systematic Theology with special responsibilities in Ethics and Philosophy and Religion, and since 2014 Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish Thought in Modern Culture at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen.

RENÉ ROSFORT, born 1975; studied theology in Copenhagen and Florence; 2008 PhD; cur- rently Associate Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Center, Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen.

ISBN 978-3-16-155751-4

ISSN 1616-346X (Religion in Philosophy and Theology)

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems.

The book was typeset and printed on non-aging paper by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren.

Printed in Germany.

(4)

* This essay is a modified and elaborated version of a lecture given at the symposium »Poli- tiques des frontières: tracer, traverser, eﬀacer« organised by the Association des théologiens pour l’étude de la morale (ATEM) in Sète, September 1^st to 3^rd, 2016. I am very grateful to Evelyne de Mevius for her diligent work in translating this essay from French to English.

1 »Magnam rem puta unum hominem agere.« (SENECA, Ep, 120; quoted in M. DE MONTAIGNE, Essays, II.I, in Œuvres complètes (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), ed. A. THIBAUDET and M. RAT (Paris:

Gallimard, 1962), 321: »Songe que ce n’est pas rien d’être toujours le même.« For the English version:

IDEM, Essays, II.I, 2^nd, trans. J. FLORIO (London: David Nutt, 1603).

2 A. GRØN, »Eindruck – Ausdruck,« in Fremde Spiegelungen. Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zur Sam- mlung Prinzhorn, ed. S. FROHOFF et al. (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2017), 11 – 20, 20 (trans.

R. ROSFORT and C. WELZ): »Es geht darum, sich anders zu verstehen.«

3 Ibid., 17 (trans. R. ROSFORT and C. WELZ). In German: »Obwohl wir verstehen, wenn wir verstehen, können wir unser Verstehen nicht inszenieren. Wenn Selbst-Verstehen im Verstehen impli- ziert ist, scheinen wir uns im Griﬀ zu haben. Die Unterstellung dabei ist, dass wir im Selbst-Verste- hen zu Hause sind. Denn wir sind es ja, die – uns – verstehen. Selbst-Verstehen kommt uns dann als eine Art Immanenz vor, die wir (mit) uns durch das Verstehen etablieren. Vielleicht sollten wir aber diese Voraussetzung – die Immanenz des (Selbst-) Verstehens – in Frage stellen.«

In Quest for Identity

The Self as (a) Stranger to Himself*

Hans-Christoph Askani

»Esteem it a great matter, to play but one man.«¹

»It is all about understanding oneself – yet diﬀerently.«²

1. Introduction

Even though we understand, when we understand, this does not mean that we are capable of staging our understanding. When self-understanding is implicit in understanding it seems that we can manage ourselves. The idea is that we are at home in self-understanding, since it is us who understand – ourselves. Self-understanding then appears as a kind of immanence that we establish through understanding (with) ourselves. Perhaps we should put into question this presupposition of the immanence of (self-)understanding.³

These are the words of Danish Kierkegaardian and philosopher of subjectivity Arne Grøn, published in his article Eindruck – Ausdruck. A central theme in his work concerns the unlimited demand for, and coinciding limits of, our understanding, that is, the persistence and resistance of the foreign against which our

(7)

110

4 A. GRØN, »Widerfahrnis und Verstehen,« in Hermeneutik der Transzendenz, ed. I. U. DAL- FERTH et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 47 – 59. The meaning of Widerfahrnis is particularly diﬃcult to translate into English, so the German word is maintained in the rest of the text. The concept means »that which happens to a person beyond that person’s control.«

5 Ibid., 57 (trans. R. ROSFORT and C. WELZ). In German: »Es bleibt oﬀen, ob wir das verstehen, was wir zu verstehen meinen.«

6 In the second and third sections of »Widerfahrnis und Verstehen,« Grøn, in a discussion on Levinas, engages in a thorough examination of »passivity« – a theme to which he constantly returns throughout his authorship, for instance in the article »Eindruck – Ausdruck« (13, 17, 18).

Referring to Augustine’s Confessions, he writes: »The self cannot include the ›otherwise,‹ this otherness [Anderheit] of understanding, into its self-understanding. Thereby the passivity of the self becomes more manifest: as the passivity of self-understanding. In self-understanding, we try to avoid that we just suﬀer from that which happens to us; in fact, we try to relate ourselves actively to that which happens to us. And yet, one must also ›suﬀer‹ in self-understanding in having to carry oneself.« (GRØN, »Eindruck – Ausdruck,« 19 (trans. R. ROSFORT and C. WELZ)) In German: »Das Selbst kann dieses ›anders‹, diese Anderheit des Verstehens nicht ins Selbst-Verstehen einbringen. Damit tritt die Passivität des Selbst noch stärker hervor, und zwar als Passivität des Selbst-Verstehens. Im

understanding thrusts. Grøn turns this theme into an object of careful reflection in a lecture held in 2012 and published in 2015 under the title »Widerfahrnis und Verstehen.«⁴ Is Widerfahrnis on one end and understanding on the other, clearly separated from each another? If this were the case, human beings, who cannot but understand themselves, would inevitably attempt to comprehend and integrate Widerfahrnis in their understanding. That incomprehensible events do take place must, according to this perspective, be acknowledged as inevitable – even as »evident« – and thereby accepted as a »side eﬀect,« while the concept of the understanding is left unaﬀected.

Grøn, however, is not satisfied with this picture. He wants to bring Wider- fahrnis not just into the realm of understanding, but also into the very concept of understanding. If Widerfahrnis, with all its resistance, foreignness, unpredictabil- ity, and incomprehensibility, so intimately belongs to our humanness and self-understanding that it inevitably aﬀects the structure of our understanding, then the intelligibility of our self-understanding would require Widerfahrnis, which is and remains foreign.

Grøn’s statement that »it remains an open question whether or not we actually understand what we think we understand«⁵ is not a sober and resigned conclusion of philosophical reflection, but rather an invitation to consider how to posi- tion and orient our questioning. If Widerfahrnis both does and does not belong to it, then how are we to interpret »understanding«? How are we to make sense of this concept if Widerfahrnis, which transcends »understanding,« not only resides beyond, but is localized »in« it? Does this not produce a tension that we need to endure and interpret, and that stems from the fact that the self is neither completely given to, nor completely withdrawn from, itself? The human being is kept in this openness, where activity and passivity,⁶ immanence and transcendence⁷ are entangled.

(8)

In Quest for Identity 111

Selbst-Verstehen versuchen wir zu vermeiden, dass wir nur unter dem leiden, was uns zustößt;

wir versuchen vielmehr, uns auch aktiv zu dem zu verhalten, was uns zustößt. Dennoch muss man sich im Selbst-Verstehen ›leiden‹: d. h. sich ertragen.« (Ibid., 19) In »Widerfahrnis und Verstehen,«

Grøn argues pointedly: »We also find a Widerfahrnis [i. e. something that happens to us, befalls us]

in (self-)understanding, and that which is at stake in what befalls us in the Widerfahrnis (of other people) is understanding. Understanding begins in passivity (GRØN,«Widerfahrnis und Verstehen,»

58 (trans. R. ROSFORT and C. WELZ). In German:«Im (Selbst-)Verstehen liegt also ein Widerfahrnis, und im Widerfahrnis (des Anderen) geht es um Verstehen. Verstehen beginnt in der Passivität.«

7 See also A. GRØN, »Beyond? Horizon, Immanence, and Transcendence,« in Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers, ed. I. BORNEMARK and H. RUIN (Huddinge: Södertörn University, 2010), 223 – 241.

8 »Widerfahrnis und Verstehen,« 51. See also »Eindruck – Ausdruck,« 17: »In self-understanding there always lurks something other as well [. . .] We have to understand ourselves. This is a way of having-oneself, while it is questionable whether or how we › have‹ ourselves.« (trans. R. ROSFORT and C. WELZ) In German: »Im Selbst-Verstehen steckt immer auch etwas Anderes. [. . .] Wir haben uns zu verstehen. Dies ist eine Weise des Sich-Habens, wobei in Frage steht, wie und ob wir uns ›haben‹.«

9 »Wir sind alle Ausländer – fast überall!«

Grøn argues that »self-understanding is [. . .] in itself already a question of understanding-otherwise and of understanding-the-other [eine Frage des Andersverstehens und des Verstehens des Anderen].«⁸ Understanding is thus something other than an epistemological movement originating in the subject, and can be illustrated with the figure of a – possibly expanding – circle, the end of which joins the beginning. When trying to understand my »own« self, I enter an openness that is not arbitrary but constitutive, in the sense that it cannot be disre- garded. In self-understanding, one’s own is not given without the foreign, and the foreign is not given without one’s own.

What this actually means and how we are to conceptualize the relation between being-oneself and being-foreign [Selbstsein und Fremdsein] is the topic of this essay. I will begin with the concrete experience of encountering strangers, as it has always taken place in the history of mankind, but which has recently become urgent in the current situation of refugees and migrants seeking shelter in foreign lands. The aim of this investigation is to see how far the encounter with the stranger and »the other« reaches into our self-understanding: not only into the understanding of the self, but also in the self that tries to understand itself.

2. The stranger outside of me: excitement, irritation, fear

A few years ago in Germany, one would sometimes encounter the following anti- fear slogan: »We are all foreigners – almost everywhere!«⁹ These words are both liberating and irritating in that they open up an unexpected horizon: Not only are the others foreigners to us, but we, too, are foreigners to »them.«

If this was all there was to it, that first shock would quickly ease oﬀ. Indeed we are foreigners, and in many more countries than those we could call our home-

(9)

112

lands, but luckily this applies to everyone. To be a stranger is equally distributed:

it aﬀects everyone in his or her own way, and somehow things are equalled out – or so it seems. However, is the statement »We are all foreigners – almost everywhere!« really the whole truth? Does the reassuring generalization and the gener- alizing reassurance that arises after the first surprise correspond to our experience;

our self-understanding? Do we not have to acknowledge that, contrary to our first impression, the slogan is also false in that its claim fails to correspond to our attitude toward our fellow human beings?

The slogan is true if one looks at the earth from above. Only then do I see that the countries that are not »mine« are much more numerous than »mine.« But one has to consider the other side as well: that in everyday life, this perspective does not interest me. As a French, German, Danish citizen, I am at home here (in Europe), and if I am home, I am no foreigner. By contrast, if someone enters the field of my »home,« he is a foreigner, a stranger – and not me!

»What does he want here? Why did he come? Why did he not stay home? How long will he stay? Does he want to feel at home the same way I feel home when at home?« Questions follow each other at such a speed that there is no time to search for or to listen to a possible answer. Is this not already a phenomenon of strangeness: the foreigner is too foreign for me to (want to) hear his answers. What is more, he is so foreign to me that I am unable or unwilling to hear the questions that could be his.

For a better understanding of this mechanism, I indicated three key words in the title of this paragraph:

1. Excitement: We all know that strangeness is not only negative. We may travel because we love what is strange. Do we not need what is not like us? Do we not long for it? Otherwise our »world« would be too tight, too limited. We love what is strange, and admire its exoticism, on one condition, however: that we get to discover the foreign regions, not that the foreigner comes to us to impose his otherness upon us.

2. Irritation: What is strange (with an artificial yet precise word: »strangeness«) also irritates us, shakes us, »attacks« us. The stranger is other – he does, he manages, otherwise. Being at home means »at home, it is like this!« For instance, we eat in a certain way . . . »Here, this is the way it’s done!« I could have said, »This is the way we do it.« But this would not have been the exact formulation: Not only do we do it this way; at home, that’s the way it is! If guests come to our home, we let them do it their own way. We hold back. After all we invited them. They will leave . . . at midnight at the latest. The refugee was not invited, and we did not expect he would do otherwise. Besides, when will he leave? When will we again proceed as we have always done – without asking questions, just because »this is how we do it«? – When? Maybe never again. I call this »irritation,« in a sense that encompasses the broad semantic spectrum of the word »irritation.«

(10)

10 In the second song of the Iliad, Homer describes »Carians« as »men of a strange speech«

(βαρβαραφώνων). The English translation of βαρβαραφώνων is quoted from The Iliad of Homer, ed. S. BUTLER (London / New York, NY: Longmans, Green and Co., 1898).

11 HERODOTUS, The Histories, trans. R. WATERFIELD (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), [Prooimion], 3.

12 PLATO, Phaedo, trans. H. TREDENNICK, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Let- ters, ed. E. HAMILTON and H. CAIRNS (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), [109B], 90.

13 See R. Kosellek’s asymmetrische Gegenbegriﬀe: In certain situations a concrete group raises an exclusive claim to universality by linking a universal linguistic concept exclusively to itself, thereby rejecting any comparison. Such forms of self-determination produce asymmetric counter-concepts that discriminate against the excluded (R. KOSELLECK, Vergangene Zukunft (Frankfurt am Main:

Suhrkamp Verlag, 1979), 211 – 259, here 212).

14 »Je dis qu’il faut être voyant, se faire voyant. Le poète se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens.« (A. RIMBAUD, »Lettre à Paul Demeny 15 mai 1871,« in A. RIMBAUD, La lettre du voyant (Paris: Presses du livre français, 1950)).

3. Fear: We have just seen that there is a threshold, but also a shift, between excitement and irritation. Similarly, there is a shift that goes from irritation to something else: fear. The moment of this slippery transition is easily identifiable. It lies in the »perhaps never again« that unavoidably follows our »when will we again proceed as we have always done?« The fear of the stranger has to do with a self-evidentness we had, that was lost in the encounter with the stranger, and that may never return. It is therefore a challenge to ourselves that concerns our personal identity. And yet even if we can say when this fear begins, I am not sure that we can say exactly where it comes from. Strangeness »attacks us,« but how? It attacks us in its strangeness, by its strangeness.

In ancient Greece, those who did not speak the Greek language were called βάρβαροι – »barbarians«. βάρβαροι is onomatopoeic, and denotes an incomprehensible, meaningless »br-br« (»blah blah«). They were barbarians because they did not speak a language in the full meaning of the word.¹⁰

Herodotus¹¹ and Plato¹² reveal that this (mis)understanding of the stranger, which is not only derogatory but radically exclusive, could not be sustained in the long run. But is the deprecating gesture imbued with the etymological sense of the word βάρβαροι merely inept? Is it not true that in experiencing the stranger, something incompatible is encountered? What does this mean for the question at hand?¹³

Strangeness is strange. I do not really understand the stranger, and – what is more – I have the right not to understand him. Is this in-comprehension not, so to speak, the meaning of strangeness: to not let itself be understood? If so, the category of »meaning« begins to dissolve (a meaning whose meaning would be to not let itself be understood!). Rimbaud spoke of a »derangement of all senses« in poetry, »un dérèglement de tous les sens.«¹⁴ I think of a derangement of our coor- dinates of understanding. This »derangement« takes place here – in the encounter with the strangeness of the stranger.

(11)

114

15 B. WALDENFELS, Topographie des Fremden. Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden I (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997), 50 (my translation).

16 S. FREUD, Eine Schwierigkeit der Psychoanalyse, in Gesammelte Werke, vol. 12, ed. A. FREUD et al. (London: Imago, 1947), 1 – 12, here 11 (my translation).

17 J.-B. PONTALIS, »Advertissement de l’éditeur,« in S. FREUD, L’inquiétante étrangeté et autres essais (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 7: »[. . .] ce qui n’appartient pas à la maison et pourtant y demeure,«

»c’est l’objet même de la psychanalyse: das Unheimliche.«

18 FREUD, Eine Schwierigkeit der Psychoanalyse, 248: »Unheimlich nennt man alles, was im Ge- heimnis, im Verborgenen [. . .] bleiben sollte und hervorgetreten ist.«

19 Ibid., 244: »das Unheimliche sei jene Art des Schreckhaften, welche auf das Altbekannte, Längstvertraute zurückgeht.«

If strangeness is defined [. . .] by its inaccessibility, then the stranger is not incomparable, for that would still be a comparative qualification; he is rather subtracted from comparison, he is beyond any comparison.¹⁵

The Greek word βάρβαροι expresses precisely this intention to reject and exclude the threat of this type of otherness: »With them [the barbarians], we have nothing to do!«

However, if in the encounter with strangeness the comparison no longer works, is this only due to the one we would like to compare (i. e. the stranger), or is it also due to the one we automatically compare him to (i. e. ourselves – our manners, con- victions, culture . . .)? If the stranger is diﬀerent from me to a degree of incompatibil- ity (of radical inadequacy), is it only he who is profoundly strange? Is it not I as well?

In other words: do I not prove myself to be diﬀerent from myself? Does not this

»bastion« – the me, my home, my »at home« – begin to move, to be undermined?

3. Attempts to think the »I«

We can approach the »problem« of strangeness from several perspectives, because it concerns us in many ways. Beyond or below sociology, politics, etc., psychology – especially psychoanalysis – has its say.

Strangeness is not only one of the themes of psychoanalysis. Rather, the strange, which unexpectedly interrupts or breaks into one’s own, is its central object of investigation. Freud’s discovery of the »unconscious« can thus be understood, and his famous statement »the ego is not master in its own house«¹⁶ does not invoke the metaphor of the »house« in vain. Often used to separate the strange or foreign from the familiar, this time it is positioned in a way that undermines this apparently self-evident delimitation. We are, then, dealing with the »uncanny« in our

»own house« – at »home« – and this carves out the challenge for psychoanalysis.¹⁷ The main thesis of Freud’s »Das Unheimliche« (1919) revolves around Schell- ing’s idea that the uncanny is that which should remain secret and hidden, but has appeared.¹⁸ Freud extracts the fundamental insight that the uncanny is the fright- ening that can be traced back to the familiar.¹⁹ Referring to both clinical studies

(12)

20 Ibid., 268: »daß das Unheimliche das Heimlich-Heimische ist, das eine Verdrängung erfahren hat und aus ihr wiedergekehrt ist, und daß alles Unheimliche diese Bedingung erfüllt.«

21 It is noteworthy that in the reception of Freud, the alterity of the stranger, which cannot be reduced to the inner life of the psyche, is again emphasized in relation to one’s own, as for example when Lacan says: »L’inconscient, c’est le discours de l’Autre.« (J. LACAN, Séminaire XIV, May 10, 1967), and J. Kristeva: »Étranger: rage étranglée au fond de ma gorge, ange noir troublant la trans- parence, trace opaque, insondable [. . .] Étrangement, l’étranger nous habite: il est la face cachée de notre identité, l’espace qui ruine notre demeure« (J. KRISTEVA, Etranges à nous-mêmes (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 9).

and literary works, Freud then reveals the decisive role that »repression« plays in the »constitution« of the uncanny: the repressed »homely« becomes uncanny when it reappears.²⁰

The Freudian theory of repression raises the question whether the psychoana- lytical insight that the strange or alien can come from the outside to occupy space within one’s »own,« while at the same time undermining »ownness« is not just a gain but also a loss, since the strange or alien is, in the end, one’s own; an »old acquaintance.« Would it not be more fruitful to scale down the expectations of this theory and – instead of placing all strangeness in the inner life of the psyche – point out that the fear of the foreign is huge exactly because it corresponds to a fear of the foreign within ourselves?²¹

However, leaving science and psychoanalysis behind for now, to access the uncanny it is enough to think of ordinary everyday experiences that are not quite ordinary – situations, events, phenomena that lead us to experience a discrepancy with what seemed to be an identity resting in itself; a discrepancy that opens a space, a split, a void that does not close: The dreams that come without my having asked them to come; dreams that are mine and not mine. My body that sometimes wants what I want, and sometimes doesn’t, or that causes me pain. But how can it hurt me? Isn’t my body me? Or age: I look at myself in the mirror. If I have not seen this image recently, it starts to talk, »Is it me, these wrinkles? Is it me, the grey area below the eyes?« Who asks? And who is looking? Is it me, looking at my image in the mirror? Or is it my image looking at me?

The I is not simply an I; the I. In former times, people used to talk about the ghosts that inhabit us. We now think ourselves too »enlightened« to believe in ghosts, but nightmares still exist. And tonight is yet to come.

I talk about dreams, about the body, about age. We might as well speak of desire;

of anxiety; of guilt, etc. Desire that always desires more; desire that ends up desir- ing its »own« desire. Why? Perhaps to fill a void that will never be filled. Why not?

Because this void is perhaps me, or »in me« – a discrepancy in myself? Anxiety for which no reason can be identified yet cannot be persuaded to go away for lack of reasons; anxiety that, on the contrary, intensifies precisely because of this lack, because of the impossibility to be circumscribed; limited. Or guilt. Guilt that gnaws at me; guilt that gnaws at »my me . . .«

(13)

116

However, I do not want to follow this somewhat dramatic path of the bursting ego or I. I suggest a more serene track that I would like to open with a simple question: Where do I start, and where are the limits of my I? We usually have a very clear idea of this: I am me, you are an other, the world around us is another still. I know very well, maybe not who I am, but at least where I am, and where the limits of who I am are drawn.

I would like to formulate the contrasting hypothesis that the I is a fragile and complex balance between extension and contraction. Against common assumption, I therefore claim that the I is not a stable but a flexible entity, which extends and contracts.

Let us try to approach this idea with a few observations. I defend and aﬃrm my I otherwise during an argument with my wife than in a dispute between our family and the one next door. Why? Because in the second case, I am committed to my family? Of course. However, is that all? Do I really remain the same restricted I, or does my I extend? Is there not a real transition between my individual I and the I – the We – of »my« (!) family? Once this kind of transition is initiated, it becomes highly flexible and applicable to diﬀerent levels: I come from the city of Gex – I am Gexois. I was born in Germany – I am German. »We won the World Cup!« »We won fourteen gold medals.« »The Islamic State is attacking us!« Are all these formulations merely a metonymic discourse at the bottom of which lies the true I (pure and authentic), or do I need these enlargements to really talk about myself and to really conceive myself as who I am?

If such extensions were avoidable, where would the need or the will (or both) come from to go beyond ourselves in order to become ourselves? In psychology, we know the patterns of identification and their importance for the evolution of the child and the adolescent. The child must transcend itself in order to become itself. But is this only a matter located at a psychological and pedagogical level, well framed because pedagogy pursues a goal in view of which concepts and strat- egies are conceived? Are we not dealing, in this specific context, with a level (that we could call »philosophical«) on which questions arise in a much more open way? I try to summarize, to assemble these possible questions in one: Don’t I need, in order to be what I am, to be what I am not?

What I am may be described in terms of relationships. I am the child of x, a brother of y, a European, a Christian, a man, I am single or married . . . I am – my nationality. What is the purpose of this »game« of identifications and enlargements? Is it not the question of what place I should occupy, and must fill, so that I become – so that I am – an I? I am »ontologically« (in my being) unsettled if I am not more than what I am, but I am also »ontologically« unsettled if I am not very close to myself.

I am an I in a reciprocity by which I belong to the world and the world belongs to me; by which I give and receive, yet if my I extends and ultimately embraces all the relationships that determine me, where is the centre of this I, my »true« I?

(14)

22 E. BLOCH, Tübinger Einleitung in die Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1963), vol. 1, 11 (my translation).

It is easy enough to give a rudimentary description of a person. Looking at my passport, it gives my name, date of birth, nationality, gender, picture, fingerprint . . . I can aﬃrm all this information, but do I recognize myself in it? Yes and no. The elements are accurate, but I also know that they are not I – not even my picture, nor my fingerprint. Not even the sum of all these elements.

Where do I find the I that I really am? Is it not my body that circumscribes it?

I am hungry – incontestably it is I! I am tired – of course it is I! I identical to my body! On the other hand, I still carry on with my lecture despite the itch; I read another page despite being tired.

Could there, then, be an I that is even more mine than the one that is bound to my body? An I that, on the one hand, is infinitely wider because its thoughts, dreams, and aspirations carry it beyond the limits of the body, and that is simul- taneously narrower than my body. As if whoever touched my body, saw it, and thought he knew it, would have never actually touched it, seen it, grasped it . . .

Even if I do not play a role, and I am simply who I am, am I not another all the same, other than the one I claim to be; other than the one I present and represent;

other than the one I know? As if »my true I« (what a peculiar expression: »my true I!«) were buried deep within me. (Here, one realizes that language struggles to follow and reach the reality it wants to reflect . . .) But am I hidden only to others?

Am I not hidden also to myself? I know that I am I, but where is this I? In a distant past, there was an expression for this: the soul. The soul was – incontestably – the I. We became hesitant about this word. As if it said too much, and was inevitably carrying a too-broad imaginary: a metaphysical one, perhaps, or theological.

However, as a notion of research – as a term that puts us on the path of research, of the search for the true I – this word may still be the most precise one we have.

Somewhere the I must be, somewhere I must be – in an ultimate sense – truly I!

4. The I and its specific openings

Ernst Bloch opens his famous Tübinger Einleitung in die Philosophie with three sentences: »I am. But I do not own myself. Therefore we first become. [Ich bin.

Aber ich habe mich nicht. Darum werden wir erst.]«²² This passage initiates a philosophy of hope, which – at odds with a long philosophical tradition – does not find its categories in the past or in the present, but in the future. It is the passage’s transitions that are interesting: between the first sentence and the second, and between the second and the third. The third sentence’s change from the first person singular to the plural allows the impasse of the juxtaposition of the first two sentences to become an opening. The same opening is due to the irruption

(15)

118

23 MONTAIGNE, Essays II.I. (see http://www.luminarium.org / renascence-editions / montaigne / 2i.htm): »Our matters are but parcels hudled up and peeces patched together, and we endevour to ac- quire honour by false meanes and untrue tokens.« (Ibid.). In French: »Nous sommes tous de lopins et d’une contexture si informe et diverse, que chaque pièce, chaque momant, faict son jeu. Et se trouve autant de diﬀérence de nous à nous mesmes, que de nous à autruy.« (MONTAIGNE, Essais II.I., 321).

24 The order in which I present these »examples« might as well be the reverse. Aspects high- lighted in the thought of one author can be recognized – under diﬀerent light and weight – in others.

of a future that gives itself to man, and that gives man to himself in a new horizon. Thanks to this openness and utopian potential, Bloch manages to convey the possibility of a future that is not (at least not completely) determined by the consequences of what has already taken place, but also the commitment it calls for. However, it is interesting to stop after the second sentence: »But I don’t own myself.« What if I never possessed myself, even in the most promising future?

What if the I never coincided with itself? If so, the question of the I would remain open and needs to be considered an open question, perhaps even more so – or in a diﬀerent way – than Bloch thought. Montaigne writes,

We are all framed of flaps and patches and of so shapelesse and diverse a contexture that every peece and every moment playeth his part. And there is as much diﬀerence found betweene us and our selves as there is betweene ourselves and other.²³

This reflection carries the critical thought in a diﬀerent direction than that envis- aged by Bloch. The »I« that Bloch – despite everything – presupposes is here sub- jected to radical suspicion. I wonder, however, if we should stop here, or if we may push Montaigne’s reflection somewhat further? In other words, does the »shapelesse and diverse [. . .] contexture« have the final say on the I?

I deem it incontestable that Montaigne’s statement represents both a progres- sion and an opening as compared to those conceptions that understand the I as an entity resting in itself within an unswerving, yet opaque, identity. The question remains, however, whether the opposite understanding, which recognizes diversity at the expense of identity, does justice to the complexity of an I that, despite its diversity, is and represents a point of reference. We would thus be dealing with an I that does not contradict its own diversity but that is conceived from, and faces, this diversity.

Many twentieth and twenty-first century philosophers have envisioned and tried to think precisely this, e. g., Paul Ricœur’s »narrative identity;« Martin Buber’s relationship between »I and You,« and Bernhard Waldenfels’s »responsive identity.«²⁴

4.1. Paul Ricœur

In both Time and Narrative III and Oneself as Another, Ricœur speaks of a »narrative identity.« At the beginning of Oneself as Another, he writes: »Our thesis throughout will be that identity in the sense of ipse implies no assertion concern-

(16)

25 P. RICŒUR, Oneself as Another, trans. K. BLAMEY (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 2.

26 Ibid., 116.

27 Ibid., 118.

28 Ibid., 115.

29 Ibid., 123.

ing some unchanging core of the personality.«²⁵ To understand this statement, it is necessary to refer to the fundamental distinction he makes between idem and ipse identities: »[O]n one side, identity as sameness (Latin idem, German Gleichheit, French mêmeté); on the other, identity as selfhood (Latin ipse, German Selbstheit, French ipséité).«²⁶ These two uses of the concept of identity are often misunder- stood or intermingled. This is not simply because they both rest on the same word (»identity«) but also because of a certain tendency to conceive each identity as based on a substratum. Indeed, reflecting on an identity that does not refer to a self-identical substance of any kind, previously presupposed as a reference point (»some unchanging core of the personality«), is a complex undertaking. If one concedes to an original diversity taking the place of a substantial identity, the risk of completely abandoning the idea of identity is high. In order to take this risk seriously, without giving in to it, Ricœur turns to »narrative identity.«

The concept of »narrative identity« is not self-evident, especially if the task is to contribute to thinking of personal identity. As far as classical narratives are con- cerned, each narrative claims a certain unity on the basis of there being a beginning and an end. Human life knows neither its beginning nor its end. Neverthe- less, it requires a certain unity in order to conceive itself in its identity and in the constancy of time that it claims to possess. According to Ricœur, it is precisely in the »narration« of the self that a »permanence in time« is established; a permanence that »is not reducible to the determination of a substratum,«²⁷ but that nevertheless founds what Dilthey called a »connectedness of life.«²⁸ It is true that to reflect on this »connectedness of life« – in other words, on ipse-identity – one cannot presuppose a pre-existing »permanence,« because this would belong to idem-identity. It is also true that we never dispose of this »permanence,« since the narration of our own identity is intertwined with that of others, and is never accomplished, as we will never be able to recount our own deaths. This fragile and open form of identity nevertheless better represents the stakes of human exis- tence than the two extreme solutions (1) to base personal identity on the idea of a substance that would always already be what it is and remain so through time, or (2) to simply abandon this idea of identity with regard to personal life. Ricœur writes:

As credence without any guarantee, but also as trust greater than any suspicion, the hermeneutics of the self can claim to hold itself at an equal distance from the cogito exalted by Des- cartes and from the cogito that Nietzsche proclaimed forfeit.²⁹

(17)

120

30 Ibid., 162; see also 147, where Ricœur talks about a »concordant-discordant synthesis.«

31 As we know, M. Buber was not the only representative of dialogical thinking. We can refer to other thinkers like F. Rosenzweig, E. Rosenstock-Huessy, F. Ebner, E. Grisebach. Buber, in his article Zur Geschichte des dialogischen Prinzips, also mentioned philosophers form the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, namely F. H. Jacobi and L. Feuerbach. (See M. BUBER, Schriften zur Philosophie, in Werke, vol. 1 (München / Heidelberg: Kösel / Lambert Schneider, 1962), 291 – 305, 293).

32 M. BUBER, I and Thou, trans. W. KAUFMANN (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 53 – 54.

We must note, here, the consciously designed fragility of the two supporting points introduced by Ricœur. Who will grant a loan without a guarantee, and who will rely on a trust that has no other basis than its being the antithesis to mistrust?

This fragility is however the – not only negative! – characteristic of a narration that constitutes, rather than presupposes, identity. Unable to form a whole, it is prompted to anticipate an end that will never be reached. It is here that fiction comes into play, and assumes its unavoidable and precarious role. Fiction is neither a misleading element nor reducible to embellishment and counterbalance to the seriousness of life, but is part of life, and in a fundamental way. The I needs a fiction of itself in order to constitute itself.

As for the notion of the narrative unity of a life, it must be seen as an unstable mixture of fab- ulation and actual experience. It is precisely because of the elusive character of real life that we need the help of fiction to organize life retrospectively.³⁰

The organization of life into coherence, then, requires fiction. This fiction is linked to retrospection, for without it no unity of life would appear. The point from which this retrospection would be possible is unreachable, and yet human life is told. In telling itself, it snatches scraps of meaning from the fleetingness of its own time.

4.2. Martin Buber

Philosophers have long undermined the idea of an I that is an indisputable authority. Buber’s I and Thou introduces »the dialogical principle.«³¹The word

»principle« already indicates the basic claim of Buber’s approach. Is every act of knowledge and relation to the world meant to take as a starting point – as first and ultimate reference – the I that builds its own world around itself? Is there no radical distinction to be made between the relationship that an I can have with the world of objects, and the relationship this same I (does it even remain the same?) with a You? According to Buber, the answer is clearly negative:

The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak. The basic words are not single words but word pairs. One basic word is the word pair I-You. The other basic word is the word pair I-It [. . .]. For the I of the basic word I-You is diﬀerent from that in the basic word I-It.³²

(18)

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 62; see also 54: »There is no I as such but only the I of the basic word I-You and the I of the basic word I-It. When a man says I, he means one or the other. The I he means is present when he says I. And when he says You or It, the I of one or the other basic word is also present. Being I and saying I are the same. Saying I and saying one of the two basic words are the same.«

35 The most important one is B. WALDENFELS, Antwortregister (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1994).

36 Ibid., 13 (my translation).

The relationship between the I and the You has, then, its own status. It is not a particular case subordinated to the pattern I-It (Ich-Es), but has a status of its own that diﬀers ontologically from any other type of relationship. As Buber puts it: »The basic words are not single words but word pairs.«³³ The I is always I in relationship to or with. The I becomes I, and what it becomes depends on the relationship it is in, the relationship it engages, or lets itself engage in, so that Buber can say: »I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You.«³⁴ This idea has been recorded and classified as one of the key phrases of a philosophy of dialogue. It is not inaccurate. However, the innovative potential of this idea is here in danger of being neutralized: »I accomplish myself in contact with the You« is not simply another way of constituting myself as an I (in contrast, e. g. to the self-constituting subject). No, it still means something else, namely that I will never be entirely con- stituted as an I because I will never rest within myself. I will always – in my being (and not solely accidentally) – be in relation and dependence (interdependence!) with others. I am, paradoxically, always I by situating and constituting myself between the I and the You. I am at once »in« and »outside« of myself, and my I receives and forms itself from the You whom I address and who addresses me.

What we can retain from Buber’s reflections is that the I is formed in the relationship with a vis-à-vis whose specificity consists in the fact that it can never be absorbed by the ego, which can never be reduced to a pure complement of the identity of this I.

Emmanuel Levinas and Bernhard Waldenfels elaborated on this structure in French and German, respectively, with the latter devoting several books to the phenomenon of »responsiveness.«³⁵

4.3. Bernhard Waldenfels

We usually assume that any reasoning begins with our having questions. Walden- fels considers this assumption – and its underlying configuration of a pre-established relationship between questions and answers – with careful suspicion:

»Would it not be possible that the questioning (though apparently so open) had its own dialogical warmth and security?«³⁶ As if we were able to completely determine the beginning, the starting point, but also the direction of our thoughts. But did it not start long before? Are we not confronted with a claim »of exteriority that

(19)

122

37 Ibid., 319 (my translation). In German: »ein Draußen, das alle Fragekreise sprengt und in dessen Bann wir bereits stehen, wenn wir nach ihm fragen.«

38 Ibid., 319 (my translation). In German: »als hätten wir einen Brief zu beantworten, dessen Absender fehlt.«

39 What type of claim? One can never tell!

40 Ibid., 320 (my translation). In German: »Um das Antworten nicht von vornherein einer Ord- nung zu unterwerfen, in der die Fremdheit des Anspruchs zum Schweigen gebracht wird.«

41 S. KIERKEGAARD, Repetition (Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 6), ed. and trans. H. V. HONG and E. H. HONG (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 286. The whole passage reads: »One sticks a finger into the ground to smell what country one is in; I stick my finger into the world – it has no smell. Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world? What is the meaning of that word?

Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it?«

42 WALDENFELS, Topographie des Fremden, 52 (my translation). In German: »Das, worauf wir antworten, übersteigt stets das, was wir zu Antwort geben.«

has burst the circles of our [well-formulated and well-controlled] questions?«³⁷ This claim radically precedes us, and we must respond despite the fact that it does not let itself be framed, foreseen, or circumscribed completely, »as if we had to respond to a letter without a sender.«³⁸

Waldenfels calls this structure »responsiveness.« Responsiveness is not about giving this or that answer to a question. Rather, it refers to the situation of having to respond even before the configuration between the question and the answer has been established. In this context, Waldenfels surprisingly uses the German word Ant- wortlichkeit to indicate a dimension in which »our answers are not immediately sub- jected to an order in which the strangeness of the claim³⁹ would be condemned to silence.«⁴⁰ As Kierkegaard writes: »Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world?

What is the meaning of that word? Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here?«⁴¹ So I am here, and I must respond to the question of my being – a question that fundamentally surpasses me and of which I am not the author.

We might be too influenced by the scheme (marked by the academic or scientific setting) that posits questions on one side and answers on the other, and – linking both – a relationship in which the two (are meant to) correspond. On the level that is of interest here – that of the constitution of the I – this pattern is insuﬃcient. In a human context untarnished by a scientific framework, it happens diﬀerently. As human beings, we always already respond. Even if we did not explic- itly make a decision, we must respond and we respond – more precisely, we have always already started to respond – to multiple situations. Waldenfels develops the double implication of this:

1. »That to which we respond always goes beyond our response.«⁴² The challenge we react to – not only with our intellect, but with our being, and our human- ity – is wider and more diﬀuse than what we will be able to face in our reaction.

This, however, implies a second aspect that seems – only in appearance – to go in the opposite direction.

(20)

43 Ibid., 53 (my translation). In German: »eine kreative Antwort, in der wir geben, was wir nicht haben«. Waldenfels distinguishes two types of response: one in which the sense of the response is completely predetermined by the question, and another in which the response exceeds, »by principle«, any predetermination by the question, because the question itself does not measure its scope.

»Wir [. . .] berücksichtigen [. . .] die Möglichkeit, daß im Antworten nicht bloß ein bereits existieren- der Sinn wiedergegeben, weitergegeben oder vervollständigt wird, sondern daß im Gegenteil Sinn im Antworten selbst entsteht.« (Ibid.).

44 »The tie between fault and self, guilt and selfhood seems indissoluble. The proclamation summed up in the simple sentence: ›There is forgiveness‹ resonates like an opposing challenge. [. . .]

This is why I speak of this voice as a voice from above. It is from above, in the way that the admis- sion of fault proceeds from the unfathomable depths of selfhood.« (P. RICŒUR, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. K. BLAMEY (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 466 – 467)

2. By responding, we give a »creative response in which we give what we do not have.«⁴³ Our response goes beyond our ability to respond. It surpasses itself, and, in giving it, we go beyond ourselves.

This has significant consequences for our problem of understanding the I. It is in principle – not only in extreme or exceptional cases – in a discrepancy with itself.

The I is not an opaque, substantial entity resting in itself. The I can be very close to itself and very far from itself. To put it more precisely, (the) I is at the same time very close to itself and very far away from itself; it is close to itself by being distant, and it is distant by becoming – and by being (!) – very close.

5. Concretisations

Let us look at three examples so as to better understand the stakes of what has just been said.

I committed a fault. I oﬀended another man, or behaved cowardly. Am I the one who behaved this way? Indeed it was me (and this is precisely what the problem of my remorse »consists« in). It is therefore not by accident that I approach myself so closely in acknowledgement of my guilt. I would like to escape. I wish I had not done it, or – more precisely – I wish it were not I who did it. – But it was!

I cannot escape. This is me and my history. On the other hand, I am also the one who regrets his deeds, is ashamed, and who wishes he was not the author of the act. So, who am I: one or the other? I cannot tell. However, I know that I am now – in my guilt – very close to myself. What if the one I oﬀended forgave me, if I were forgiven, would I then not be even closer to myself: not only the one who hurt, not only the one who regrets, but – thanks to this forgiveness – me anew? I would be closest to myself by being at the greatest distance from myself. For does not a word – in this case, a word of forgiveness – that I could never tell myself, denote the greatest distance from myself? This consideration inspired Ricœur to intro- duce the category of »height [hauteur]«⁴⁴ in relation to the event and the word

(21)

124

of forgiveness. Ricœur’s height is not greater or lesser in distance: it is an always greater distance; an origin and starting point that is always elsewhere, and is never incorporated into its continuation.

A second example: I say »I love you.« Who am I when I say this? Where am I when I say this? Am I able to measure and to circumscribe what I say? When I say

»I love you,« do I not say more than what I will ever be able to measure? Am I in my decision to say it? If this were the case, I would be I in the exact moment that precedes my speaking, in the moment when I think about whether I want to say it or not . . . But am I not I not before, but in, the word that I say? »I – love you.« Do I not let myself be carried in and with the word I say, so that I am now – outside of myself – in this word »love you«?

We can clarify. In saying »I love you,« I say what I will not be able to host in words, but only in my (unpredictable) life. I do not know, nor can I know, if I will I have ever kept this promise. Would it be a solution to renounce these words because I am incapable of knowing this? Would I then be closer to myself? Would I then be truly I; truly who I am? Or would I have abandoned me? It seems incontestable: in saying »I love you«, I say more than what I know. However, if I do not say it, not only will I have renounced love, but also the risk of being myself; of being what I could be. I will have opted for a reduction of myself in order to avoid the audacity of never being I without exceeding my I.

Third and last example: We have touched upon the question of whether the name for the I in its innermost, most authentic, dimension – the I where it is the I and nothing else – would be the »soul.« Today, we are very reluctant to use this word; this name. It seems too big, too ambitious, too full of implications of all kinds for which we have no guarantees, no measures, and perhaps no sensitivity . . . Indeed, to pronounce this word requires an eﬀort and immense expense. It is an unparalleled investment to believe in something like the soul. This eﬀort is translated in the overflowing imaginary that has always accompanied the »use«

of this word.

The Christian Last Judgment is part of this imaginary. Is this a coincidence, or does the configuration of soul and judgment suggest itself due to the fact that, in order to contemplate the identity of the »I«, it must be taken into account that the I »contracts« to its innermost core, but also vice versa: that it embraces in itself its relations to that which is outside of it? If we understand the »soul« as a search keyword signifying the »I« in its immutable truth or unquestionable authenticity, the Last Judgement is the radical outside that the soul is unable to catch up with.

What happens to the soul on the day of the Last Judgment? It will be weighed.

There is something astonishing about this weighing: no mistakes will be made.

The Judgment is always just. Why? Is it because God weighs? No. It is because the soul is weighed. Before the Last Judgment, the soul appears in its truth. And the soul is meant – one could even say that the soul is made (this is its meaning and nothing else) – to appear in its truth. This truth appears with, in, and as the soul.

(22)

45 Ibid., 506.

The biblical message is that in the Last Judgement the soul is what the Judgement pronounces it to be, and conversely, the Last Judgement will weigh nothing else than the soul, because nothing else is determined to appear in its full truth. It is as if the two were made for each other: the soul for the Judgment and the Judgment for the soul.

I wrote that the »soul« could be understood as a concept of research; a concept that indicates a direction in which we must and can search in order to find what the I truly is (or would be). It is in the soul that the greatest extension and the strongest contraction unite, and nowhere do they unite as profoundly and authentically as before the Judgement. Here, where the soul is the only matter that deserves to be weighed, flawlessly and according to its truth, we can say: the Last Judgment is nothing but the place where the soul appears, and the soul is exactly what the Judgement takes place for. In former times, this seemed to be quite clear – perhaps nothing else was as clear as that.

6. Conclusion

Now, the aim of our reflections was not to produce a theory of the Last Judgment.

What we sought to think was the precarious identity of the I within, and facing, diversity.

To reflect on the identity and the intimacy indicated by this »I,« we referred to three philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, each with their own interpretation of the intimacy of the I-identity as openness.

Paul Ricœur: The I that knows that it is more than a sum of patches cannot rely on an already given or foreseen identity. It will thus be led to search for the identity of its being through a never-ending narration that is nevertheless not told in vain. Paradoxically, I am who I am in a narration that does not end. At the very end of his great work Memory, History, Forgetting, he writes »Incompletion [Inachèvement],«⁴⁵ a word that, despite its negative form, contains the idea, promise, and memory of completion: An uncompleted completion.

Martin Buber: The other breaks up the opacity of the I to »reveal« that the true stake of my identity is not intimacy with myself, but the opening to a call. This call finds its most accurate and profound expression in the »You« (»You!,« »You?«) that I address to the other, and in the »You« (»You!,« »You?«) the other addresses to me.

Bernhard Waldenfels: Responsiveness is a structure that goes beyond any specific question and any particular response, for the human being must respond and is always already responding to a questioning that requires more from him than he can give. This more of the demand is – at the same time – the more of a gift (and

(23)

126

the gift of more!) to which, in an unsurpassable inadequacy, corresponds the fact that where I am closest to myself I give more than what I have.

At the end, we spoke of the Last Judgement. We spoke of it because we followed the trajectory of what the word »soul« means as an indication of what the identity of the I would or could be. Indeed, in its relation to the Last Judgement, »the soul«

is the name that speaks the truest in me. However, in this theological understanding, the soul itself does not speak its truth. It does not own it, nor even incorpo- rates it; it receives it. It receives it as its truth.

In this understanding, are we not led to ask: Is the Last Judgement not the symbol – the most profoundly speaking symbol – of the structure of alterity; an alterity that is constitutive of the I; an I that precisely is what it is when it comes to itself from afar – from far away?

In Quest for Identity: the Self as (a) Stranger to Himself

Book Chapter

Reference

Hermeneutics and Negativism

Existential Ambiguities of Self-Understanding

Edited By

Claudia Welz and René Rosfort

Mohr Siebeck

Table of Contents

In Quest for Identity