In this magnum opus, Catholic philosopher Józef Tischner offers a philosophical interpretation of the human experience and articulates a metaphysics of good and evil. Translated into English by Artur Rosman, The Philosophy of Drama is one of the most important works of Polish philosophy to date and a major contribution to phenomenology and the philosophy of dialogue.
The French word “visage” suggests that the face is essentially visible. Does this mean the privileging of sight we know from Plato? On the contrary. The face is what is heard rather than seen. In fact, it is about neither sight nor hearing, but about the disclosure of something that goes beyond the realm of the senses. Lévinas says, “I think rather that access to the face is straightaway ethical. You turn yourself toward the Other as toward an object when you see a nose, eyes, forehead, a chin, and you can describe them. The best way of encountering the Other is not even to notice the color of his eyes! When one observes the color of the eyes one is not in social relationship with the Other. The relation with the face can surely be dominated by perception, but what is specifically the face is what cannot be reduced to that.”
An appearance needs matter that it can utilize. But it does not dwell in this matter as a thing dwells in its manifestation. The face signifies. However, not as signs, nor symbols, nor metaphors signify. The face is a trace. What does it mean to be a trace?
Before I answer this question I will quote a passage from the work of Stéphane Mosès about Rosenzweig and his concept of the face. Lévinas wrote that Rosenzweig’s thinking so deeply and comprehensively pervades his philosophy that there is no way of signaling it with quotations. Mosès’ commentary sheds light on the importance and location of the problem. He says: “Thus divine Truth reveals itself in the human face. The highest mystical experience blends in with the face of the other man. When Rozenzweig attempts to demonstrate that the structure of the human face symbolically repeats the figure of the star, it is in order to show that this face is a summary of the ultimate meaning of being. A first triangle formed by the forehead and the two cheeks, or alternatively by the nose and the two ears—that is, the organs of pure passivity—constitutes the mask, the elementary seat of the face. A second triangle, an inverted one, drawn from the two eyes and the mouth, is superimposed on the first and confers life and motion to the face. The eyes, organs both of vision and of gaze, through which are expressed a double relation with the visible, a relation made up at the same time of receptivity and expressivity, symbolize Creation and Revelation. The mouth, instrument of both language and silence, of living speech and the kiss, which, in biblical symbolism, stands for the ultimate encounter of man and God, in the form of the two experiences of limits, that of the mystical Revelation and that of death, is the metaphorical representation of the Redemption.” Lévinas’ descriptions do not exactly repeat Rosenzweig’s conception as outlined by Mosès. As we shall see, Lévinas draws attention, above all, to the passive side of the face.
The face that appears speaks. What does it say? It says, “Thou shalt not kill.” In other words: do not do what you can do with every other being—don’t trample, don’t cut, don’t devour, don’t pay back with revenge. There are many different ways of killing. The language of the face means that in the moment of encounter there also emerges the threat of murder. Where does it come from? Man lives upon the stage of the world undoubtedly thanks to the killing of plants and animals, therefore it might be easy to lose sight of the difference between animals and humans. But is this the sole basis for the threat of homicide? This would mean that a man might kill a man as if by mistake, not remembering the difference between a man and other beings. Meanwhile, things stand differently. A man can kill the other consciously, fighting him face to face. He can murder. If then the face establishes the prohibition of murder, then this is only possible, because from the face itself there emerges some incomprehensible temptation to murder. The face, Lévinas says, “as if invit[es] us to an act of violence,” only to then say “thou shalt not kill.”
In one of Lévinas’ key works we read, “The Other is the sole being I can wish to kill. . . . In the contexture of the world he is a quasi-nothing. But he can oppose to me a struggle, that is, oppose to the force that strikes him not a force of resistance, but the very unforeseeableness of his reaction. He thus opposes to me not a greater force, an energy assessable and consequently presenting itself as though it were part of a whole, but the very transcendence of his being by relation to that whole; not some superlative of power, but precisely the infinity of his transcendence. This infinity, stronger than murder, already resists us in his face, is his face, is the primordial expression, is the first word: ‘you shall not commit murder.’ The infinite paralyses power by its infinite resistance to murder, which, firm and insurmountable, gleams in the face of the Other, in the total nudity of his defenceless eyes, in the nudity of the absolute openness of the Transcendent.”
The other’s face puts us at the crossroads of the world. The one who has a face is other. It detracts the binding force of the activities, and projects for activities, that precede our movement in the world. It cannot be described using concepts that we use to describe things. It demands a language that is different from the language of ontology. The appropriate language is the language of ethics. “A relation between terms where the one and the other are united neither by a synthesis of the understanding nor by the relation of subject to object and where nevertheless the one weighs or matters or is significant to the other, where they are tied by a conspiracy that knowledge can neither exhaust or unravel.” The powerlessness of knowledge does not mean utter ignorance. It means the impossibility of explanation by reference to something that is more originary. The call “thou shalt not kill” has something absolute in it. It binds a relationship, which cannot be unbound by any other instance, because there is, simply put, no such instance. This does not mean that murder is physically impossible. Murders exist. They violate that which is absolute. Man is able to kill, but is unable to stop murder from being a violation.
(excerpted from chapter 1)