-
There they are tied together, and there they are
undone.''Jacques Derrida (1999, page 44)
IntroductionNear the start of the formal discussion of dwelling
in Totality and Infinity EmmanuelLevinas comments that ``
Concretely speaking the dwelling is not situated in theobjective
world, but the objective world is situated by relation to my
dwelling'' (1969,page 153). In many respects this line captures
both the critical potential and theambiguity contained by the
concept of dwelling; indeed, the concept may be definedby this
double inheritance of potential and ambiguity, an inheritance which
besets it atall points and which is inseparable from the work of
Martin Heidegger. The difficultypresented by, on the one hand, the
fact that from the Frieburg (Heidegger, 1999 [1923])lecture courses
to `` The origin of the work of art'' (1971 [1935]) and later works
such asBuilding Dwelling Thinking (1993a [1951]) the concept plays
a key role in the develop-ment of Heidegger's critique of Western
metaphysics and, on the other, seemsconsistently implicated within
debates over the nature of the Vaterland, Heimat, Geist,and Volk.
It is in the knowledge of this difficult inheritance, indeed
because of it, thatLevinas takes up the concept of dwelling and
seeks to rework it in his own writings. Areworking which was, to
use his well-known words, `` governed by a profound need toleave
the climate of that [Heidegger's] philosophy'' while at the same
time bound by thestricture that `` we cannot leave it for a
philosophy that would be pre-Heideggerian''(Levinas, 1978, page
19).
This paper consists of a double reading of the concept of
dwelling; in the two majorsections`` Homecoming'' and ``
Threshold''I present selections from and commenta-ries on
Heidegger's and Levinas's articulations of dwelling, respectively.
The conceptcertainly has a history within the discipline,
particularly through the humanistic tradi-tion (see, for example,
Adams et al, 2001; Buttimer and Seamon, 1980; Seamon, 1993a;
The space between us: opening remarks on the conceptof
dwelling
Paul HarrisonDepartment of Geography, University of Durham,
Science Laboratories, South Road, DurhamDH1 3LE, England; e-mail:
[email protected] 18 December 2003; in revised
form 10 February 2006
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2007, volume 25,
pages 625 ^ 647
Abstract. Somewhat surprisingly the concept of dwelling remains
largely unconsidered withincontemporary geographical thought.
Despite signs of a renewed interest in the term it remains allbut
bereft of a sustained critical appraisal and as a consequence
firmly tied to the name and writing ofMartin Heidegger. The aim of
this paper is to begin to open the concept up beyond this
attachmentand to provide a rationale for its reassessment. Through
a double reading of dwelling, once viaHeidegger and again via
Emmanuel Levinas, I offer a twofold consideration of how the
concept canbe assembled, orientated, and organised. Where Heidegger
organises and articulates the conceptaround an enclosed figure
being-at-home-in-the-world for Levinas dwelling gains its
significancefrom a constitutive openness to the incoming of the
other. These are two accounts, then, which differradically in their
apprehension of the concept and in the unfolding of its
implications but which agreeon the central importance of the
concept in the determination, figuring, and phrasing of
subjectivity,sociality, and signification. Ultimately, what emerges
from these opening remarks is a depiction of twoattempts to make
thought respond to and reckon with the event of space: two attempts
to bring tothought the space between us.
DOI:10.1068/d365t
-
Seamon and Mugerauer, 1985), and it is possible to discern a
renewed interest in theconcept within human geography and across
the social sciences more broadly, onewhich is (or at least seeks to
be) distinct from this tradition (see, for example, Chambers,2001;
Cloke and Jones, 2001; Elden, 2001; Harrison, 2000; Harvey, 1996;
Ingold, 2000;Obrador-Pons, 2003; Thrift, 1996; 1999; Urry, 2000;
Wylie, 2002).Whereas in humanist-inclined writing the emphasis in
the use of the concept of dwelling tends to fall upon an``
ontological vision'' of `` togetherness, belonging and wholeness''
and so on the discern-ment of natural `` underlying patterns
structures and relationships'' (Seamon, 1993b,page 16, original
emphasis) in human spatial being, the latter engagements tend
topromote a radical relationality, finding in the concept of
dwelling less a naturalismthan an incipient antihumanism,
posthumanism, or transhumanism and a performativeaccount of
existence. Hence, for example, Paul Cloke and Owain Jones (2001)
and NigelThrift (1996; 1999) find a precursor to actor-network
theory in the concept of dwellingand, along with Stuart Elden
(2001) and John Wylie (2002), understand dwelling aspreparing the
ground for a broadly understood poststructuralist engagement with
spaceand spatiality. Still, it is perhaps easy to overestimate the
differences here for there isalso much continuity. For example, in
nearly all the texts cited above rarely is theconcept itself
subject to sustained analysis, tending to be mobilised via
expositionthan through critical analysis. Moreover, even more
rarely are various lives of the con-cept after Heidegger taken into
account (but see Casey, 1997; Elden, 2001; Mugerauer,1995; Popke,
2003). Indeed, in reading recent engagements with the concept it
would beeasy to come away with the impression that discussion
around dwelling begins and endswith Heidegger, and yet this is
patently not the case. One need only take a brief glance
atContinental thought since Heidegger to notice the concept being
passed between manyhands and the problem it names being
dissimulated under various proximal terms. Toname only the most
prominent, the concept has provoked clear and sustained
responsesfrom Henri Lefebvre in his accounts of the production of
space, Jean-Luc Nancy oncommunity, Luce Irigaray on relations
between the sexes and to nature, Derridaon hospitality, and, as
already suggested, Levinas on the relation to alterity. At
crucialmoments of their thought each of these writers seeks in some
way to respond to the issueand to the problem which Heidegger's
thought of dwelling poses. Beginning to acknowl-edge and work
through this conceptual genealogy forms the basic premise of the
paper,the central claim being that, although there can be no doubt
that in its contemporaryform the discourse on dwelling is founded
by and in Heidegger's writing, it both does notand should not be
allowed to end there.
As noted above, in this paper I have chosen to pursue this claim
over the inher-itance of dwelling through a commentary on and
comparison of Heidegger's andLevinas's development of the concept.
What is intriguing and provocative about theaccount of dwelling to
be found in Levinas's writing is the explicit aim to write
fromHeidegger: an attempt to think through and after Heidegger's
words in the hope ofrestating the concept otherwise, despite the
many difficulties and tensions involved.And these difficulties and
tensions are manifold. Even today, for example, it is rare tofind
an account of dwelling within the social sciences which is not
quick to wash itshands of the putative nationalism and authenticity
which are embedded within theconcept. Hence Thrift comments on the
`` implicit romanticism ... which associatescertain practices with
a transcendental authority in such dangerous ways'' (1999,page
310), and Cloke and Jones note the `` sinister (nationalist) rustic
romanticismwhich pervades Heidegger's ideas'' (2001, page 661).
Beyond these engaged and largelysympathetic readings it remains the
case that the simple invocation of dwelling can alltoo often
provoke a reaction akin to allergy; an engagement with Heidegger's
thoughtalways risking critiques familiar since Theodore Adorno's
dismissal of Heidegger's
626 P Harrison
-
philosophy as ``fascist to its very core'' (quoted in Wolin,
2001, page 50). As we shallsee, in many respects Levinas could be
read as supporting such a view. Certainly,he did not consider
Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism as a simple lapsein
judgment on the philosopher's part and often made explicit his
belief in the linkbetween Heidegger's thought and an incipient
totalitarianism (see Levinas, 1969, 1989a;1997; 2001). Yet, at the
same time, Levinas repeatedly insists that it is only through
asustained engagement with Heidegger's thought that one can come to
such a judgment.As he comments somewhat sternly in one of many
articles dedicated to the issue ofHeidegger and fascism: `` To
reject'' Heidegger's thought `` it is first necessary to refuteit''
(Levinas, 1989a, page 488). Allergic to Heidegger or not we should
bear Levinas'comment in mind for it is not enough to dismiss the
concept of dwelling by reducingthe issue to one of ad hominem; nor
is it enough to note that within the social and politicalhistory of
Europe the signifier `Black Forest' has a number of unpleasant
connotationsand thereby to reject proudly Heidegger's rural
aestheticism as intrinsically reactionary.Similarlyand however well
intentioned and pragmatically justifiablea simple gestureof hand
washing and conceptual rinsing, as in `we shall keep this concept,
keep what itnames, while discarding the aspects and connotations we
do not feel are appropriate', is inreality no more than a way of
buying time, a way of putting off an engagement which is allthe
more necessary and urgent because of its circumvention. To put it
bluntly, each of theseresponses leaves everything in place, leaves
Heidegger's determination of dwelling undis-turbed, intact, and
operative, and in so doing fails the task of this difficult
inheritance.Again, what is interesting in reading Levinas on
dwelling is howdespite the difficultiesand tensions involved and
despite the fact that he had more reasons to than mosthe doesnot
simply discard the concept. Rather, it is precisely in order to
reorient the concept thathe takes it up: to expose the
determinations of subjectivity, sociality, and significationwhich
arise from and through an attempt to reckon the event of space in
terms of being-at-home-in-the-world and so allow for another
reckoning or account. However, beforecontinuing it is perhaps
necessary to ask quite what it is that may be found within
theconcept that warrants such claims and that deserves the
attention of social scientists, andof geographers in particular?
What is the issue and problem that the concept of
dwellingposes?
In giving an answer now, in this introduction, I am forced to
rush ahead to thesections which follow, for to ask this question is
to ask `what is dwelling?': `What is itthat the concept seeks to
name and to reckon?' The reader will perhaps be best advisedto
consider what follows in the understanding that in the sections
below I will attempt toclarify and work out the implications. So,
with this reservation made, most directlyand simply put the concept
of dwelling is an attempt to think of space neither as aKantian a
priori nor as an outcome or an attribute (that is, solely as a
`social con-struction' or another factor to be factored in or out).
Neither a given nor a result.Rather, and to use Ulf Strohmayer's
(1998) phrase, the concept of dwelling indicates anattempt to think
`the event of space'. To invoke the concept of dwelling is alwaysto
attempt to re-call, to restate or rephrase, an ur-concept; it is to
describe an originaryspacing. An originary and thus potentially
immemorial spacing in that the knowing,conscious subject will
always constitute its distances, perspective, gaze, or
narrativefrom the intimacy of dwelling. Hence the concept of
dwelling is neither Realist norIdealist. Indeed, these two
positions are, from the event of dwelling, synonymous. Alltoo often
we fall foul of the Idealist fallacy of positing a priori a subject
who con-stitutes the world through representing it to itself,
forgetting and covering up that allthis happens `` precisely after
the event'' (Levinas, 1969, page 153, original emphasis),after the
subject has dwelt therein. And the same is true of objects of
knowledge, of theworld as such. As Heidegger writes of Immanuel
Kant's remarks on the `scandal of
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 627
-
philosophy', any attempt to pin down or prove anything about the
nature of the worldor Reality which does not take in this event of
being-in-the-world also `` comes too late'':The `scandal of
philosophy' is not that this proof [of the external world] has yet
tobe given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again
and again. Suchexpectations, aims and demands arise from an
ontologically inadequate way ofstarting with something of such a
character that independently of it and `outside'of it a `world' is
to be proved as present-at-hand. It is not that the proofs
areinadequate, but that the kind of Being of the entity which does
the proving andmakes requests for proofs has not been made definite
enough'' (1962, page 249,original emphasis; see Kant, 1929, page
34).
Thus the thought of dwelling begins as little with the extant
world, the outside, and theobjective as it does with the ego, the
private, or the subjective. Indeed, from here`subject' and `world',
`inside' and `outside', `private' and `public' are lines or
planesdescending from the event of dwelling. Hence, for both
Heidegger and Levinas,dwelling is a middle term, always held
between these horizons; it names the inflectionof space, the
twisting and crisscrossing of interiority and exteriority from
which boththese horizons gain their sense. Already we may begin to
see that the concept ofdwelling is not simply a synonym for a
reactionary, antimodern, and romanticisedworld of peasant shoes.
Ratherand as that which allows for such connotations andassemblages
to gatherdwelling names the binding and the manner of this binding
ofsuch shoes and world (see Derrida, 1991a).
We may now suggest an initial response to the question of what
is named by theconcept. Pared down to its minimum, dwelling is a
way of naming the relation, one tothe other. Or almost. We should
be careful in this reduction of the concept to a namefor the minima
of relation, as such a reduction can miss precisely what calls out
forattention. Even as dwelling names relation it also names the
constitutive necessity ofthe taking-place of relation: dwelling;
that is to say, no relation without spacing. It is thiscorrective
which prevents all the talk of dwelling from being a series of
analogies forthe apparently more serious matter of ontological
investigation. Indeed, one often findscommentaries which seek to
cut away the apparently `sinister' or `frivolous'dependingon your
viewaspects of Heidegger's discussions of dwelling in favour of
recovering aseries of ontological propositions about the nature of
spatial being, as if the former weresuperfluous, mere metaphorical
flourishes compared with the serious business of thelatter. And,
yet, what is at stake in the concept of dwelling is not simply or
not only aseries of ontological propositions on the nature of place
or space, but alsoandinseparablyan engagement with an exteriority
that thought cannot quite master, orat least not without sublation
or foreclosure. As Derrida comments, the issue ofresidence, of the
familiar place, `` inasmuch as it is a manner of being there'' is
insep-arably bound up with `` the manner in which we relate to
ourselves and to others'' (2001,pages 16 ^ 17). Therefore, to
describe and to determine the concept of dwelling is to workin two
potentially irreconcilable registers at once: the ontological
certainly, but also theethical. The putatively `metaphorical'the
poetic, tonal, metricalnature of discus-sions of dwelling stem from
the fact that willingly or not, perhaps even knowingly ornot, any
discourse on dwelling is bound up with reckoning the relation `` to
the otherthan oneself, the other than `its other', to an other who
is beyond any `its other' '' (2002b,page 364). Understood in this
manner, the concept of dwelling does nothingor hasbeen allowed to
do nothingif it does not in some way disturb the priority
ofcomprehension and the self-sufficiency of ontology. And for this
reason we should placealongside Heidegger's warning of the thought
of dwelling c`oming too late' the equallyimportant caveat that this
thought, this calculation and reckoning of the space between
628 P Harrison
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us, could also c`ome too soon'. In many ways this problematic
defines the threat and thepromise that the concept of dwelling
retains.
HomecomingWhen the workplace, the loom, the cloth itselfhave all
evaporatedwe ought to discover foot prints in the damp earth
...''
from Things Seen, Philippe Jaccottet (1994 [1983], page 49)
It would be a mistake to think that there is one consistent and
explicit conceptualisa-tion of and discourse on space and
spatiality across Heidegger's work. Although it iscertainly the
case that the themes of space and spatiality are at once central
toHeidegger's discussions, they are, at the same time, often
secondary to his overt aimsand themes. This is most clearly the
case in Being and Time (1962), where a thought ofspace and
spatiality is essential to the development of the key terms of
Dasein (Being-there) and Being-in-the-world and is at once far
removed from the text's overalldirection. Beyond this example it is
certainly the case that Heidegger's thinking ofspace shifts across
his oeuvre and it is not my aim here to give a detailed accountof
these shifts (for overviews see Casey, 1997; Elden, 2001;
Villela-Petit, 1996). Equally,it is not and could not be my aim to
give anything like a summary of Heidegger'sthought within this
paper.(1) Rather, in this section I want to consider a sequence
ofthree scenes from Heidegger's writing and use these to reflect
upon the organisationof the concept of dwelling in his thought. It
is undoubtedly the case that Heidegger'scomments on dwelling
circulate through a distinctive lexicon of themes and images;from
the Hu tte in Todtnau to the writings on the poetry of Ho lderlin,
his explorationsand reflections on the concept of dwelling are
implicated in an imaginary geographybound to a romantic
nationalism. Howeverand following the comments in
theintroductionwhat concerns me below are not these significations
per se but ratherhow they are aligned, orientated, and
organised.(2) The remarks on dwelling presentedbelow are
preoccupied with Heidegger's comments insofar as they attempt to
trace anoutline of and reckon by a certain figurea figure without
whose affordances, postures,and gait this imaginary geography, such
a mise-en-sce ne as that of the Black Forestlandscape, would be
inert. Similarly, Karl Lo weth (1993 [1939]) traced out the
posturesof such a figure, exploring how the sense of Heidegger's
comments in the 1930semerges from and gains its coherence and
orientation via the portrayal of Dasein'scomportment (`` hard,
inexorable and severe, taut and sharp'') and attitude (`` `to
decidefor oneself '; `to take stoke of oneself in the face of
nothingness'; `wanting one's own-most destiny' '', `` to encounter
and expose oneself to danger'') (1993 [1939], pages173 ^ 178).
Copula such as these give the internal sense or light of
Heidegger's land-scapes; like the fire in a lamp they illuminate
the situation, filling it with signification,for it is only in
terms of Dasein's how, of its manner of stepping-forth, that
horizons foraction are disclosed and its potentiality-to-be
realised. Without the firmness of stance,the `` gravity of the
mountains and the hardness of their primeval rock''
(Heidegger,1994, page 427) could not loom forth as such. In this
way Heidegger's writings on
(1) There are many excellent introductions to Heidegger's work
both early and late (see Caputo,1987; 1993; Casey, 1997; Clark,
2002; Dreyfus, 1991; Elden, 2001; Holland and Huntington,
2001;Kisiel, 1993; Mulhall, 1996; Polt, 1999; Villela-Petit,
1996).(2) The imagery of the Volk and Heimat present in Heidegger's
writings has and continues to bedocumented and analysed, and I do
not wish to rehearse these investigations here (see, for
example,Bourdieu, 1991; Caputo, 1993; Derrida, 1987a; 1989;
Froment-Meurice, 1995; Lacoue-Labarthe,1990; Lyotard, 1990;
Safranski, 1998; Wolin, 1993).
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 629
-
dwelling are both harbingers of and monuments to a certain
figure, a figure that standsbeforeis summed to, and dreamt across,
all instantiations. A figure who would bindthem together into one
texture, or one geography.
The discussion which follows moves through a reading of three
scenes fromHeidegger's work. In each of these scenes a certain
figure in a certain con-figurationand thus in a certain world or
`worlding' is at stake. At stake insofar as each of thescenes is
engaged with an underlying tension in Heidegger's reflections on
space andspatiality. Although, as noted, there is no single
conceptualisation of spatiality acrossHeidegger's work, there is, I
would suggest, a constant tension inflecting his writingson the
topic. Indicatively, as both John Caputo (1993; 2001), and Theodore
Kisiel(1993) note, this tension, this risk or trial, can be found
in Heidegger's early theologicalwritings, where Caputo draws out
the similarities between Saint Augustine's andHeidegger's views of
factical life:We are scattered abroad and disseminated into many
thing (in multa defleximus)but we are gathered back into the unity
of our being by the work of continentia,self-containment,
self-possession. Factical life transpires in the distance
betweenthese possibilities, in the freedom to either give in to the
fall, the pull of the world,or to pull oneself together'' (2001,
page 152, original emphasis).
Along with Caputo, what I want to draw attention to here is the
phrasing of a tensionbetween scattering and self-containment.
Moving forward, throughout Being and TimeDasein is in constant
danger of becoming, or needing to recover from being,
`dispersed'(zerstreuet), `scattered', `strewn' (steruen), or
`bedazzled' (benommen) by, and ultimately`lost' (verlassen) within
(its) existence. Michael Haar (1993) picks up this tension in
hisconsideration of the `resolute' and the e`veryday' in the work,
highlighting Heidegger'srepeated insistence that Dasein must be
protected against the disorder of the everydayworld, must
resolutely turn away from insinuating distractions and pull itself
together`` in order to find the c`onstancy of the Self,' `the
stability of existence', `the Self 'sresoluteness against the
inconsistency of dispersion' '' (1993, page 27, original
emphasis).Throughout Being and Time there is an ever-present threat
to Dasein's spatiality andcoherence, as if certain events or
configurations of space and spatiality could endangerDasein's ``
originary distances'' (Heidegger, 1998, page 135) with the threat
of the defor-mation or decomposition and evacuation of Being-there.
Moving on again, in the lecture`` What calls for thinking?'' there
is, as Derrida (1987a) traces, a similar and
persistentdisseminative threat looming, the threat of
`floundering', c`ommonness' and `drift', of aloss or a failure to
gain resolution.(3)
The promise of a figure and the threat of dispersionthese terms
give us anindication of how Heidegger will organise the thought of
dwelling. And here we maysuggest, at least initially, that
Heidegger's thought of space is already in a movement ofenclosure,
is already informed by a protective, preservative, impulse: already
expressinga `` desire for the safe and sound, for the intact or
immune (heilige), the pure, purified orpurifying'' (Derrida and
Stiegler, 2002, page 134, original emphasis). A desire, perhaps,for
a figure who could not be contaminated in or by the event of space,
for that whichshall not be `` corrupted through articulation ...
shall not pass through the ontic in anyessential way'' (Wood, 2002,
page 147). For one who could pass through the worldunaffected,
untouched, and unmoved, as it were.
Before exploring these issues in more detail it is important to
note that althoughHeidegger insists that Dasein has an ` e`ssential
tendency to closeness '' (1962, page 140,
(3) Here, in particular, we may think of how in this lecture
Heidegger inserts an absolute andarguably arbitrary division
between the human and the animal, as if the latter threatened
tocontaminate, disturb, and displace the figure of the former (see
Caputo, 1993; Derrida, 1987a;1989; Glendinning, 1998; Krell,
1992).
630 P Harrison
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original emphasis) the threat to Dasein's `originary distances',
to its configuration, is notsimply that of the `far' as opposed to
the c`lose'. Via the concept of de-severance (1962,23), Heidegger
clearly designates the `far' and the `remote' as particular
modulations ofthe c`lose'; both `near' and `far' are already within
the orbit of Being-in-the-world. Ratherthan a disjuncture between
the `far' and the c`lose', the tension with which we areconcerned
is between the orientated, gathered distances and modulations of a
spatialitywhich are shaped by and to Dasein's figurewhich are
proper to and for itand by thethreat of an unravelling spatiality
of seemingly random proliferations which are neither`near' nor
`far' but rather altogether other than, alien to, and disruptive of
Dasein's`ownmost' distances.(4)
The first scene comes from Being and Time and occurs at the
point where Heideggeris describing the nature of the
`ready-to-hand' and the `towards-which' of equipment.Here Heidegger
uses perhaps the best known example in Division I of Being and
Timeto demonstrate his analysis, that of a craftsman in his
workshop. Heidegger's persistentuse of this example or of ones
closely allied to it bespeak his anti-intellectualist
andantisubstantive ontology insofar as Heidegger uses these
examples to explore and explainhow `things' are disclosed
primordially not as representations or as brute things but asmeans
and intermediaries for action. For Heidegger, `` To see something
is to see what it isfor; we see not shapes but possibilities''
(Lingis, 1996, page 14). We will return to thesepoints below; for
now, however, let us consider the scene in question.The work
produced [by the craftsman] refers not only to the `towards-which'
of itsusability and the `whereof ' of which it consists: under
simple craft conditions it alsohas an assignment to the person who
is to use it or wear it. The work is cut to hisfigure; he `is'
there along with it as the work emerges. Even when goods
areproduced by the dozen, this constitutive assignment is by no
means lacking;it is merely indefinite, and points to the random,
the average'' (Heidegger, 1962,page 100).
Despite what I have said above, here we should pay attention to
the fact that in thispassage Heidegger is describing a relationship
beyond `useability', beyond the avail-ability of the thing to be
put to use in another task or to be readily exchanged foranother.
Here he is describing an assignment of jemeinigkeitof `mineness';
the handi-work is c`ut to his figure '. With the phrase `under
simple craft conditions' we are (back)in a premercantile economy
characterised by a particular lexicon of giving, bestowingand
belonging (Wood, 1993). Certainly, `even when goods are produced by
the dozen'this assignment is `by no means lacking' but it has
undoubtedly undergone alterationand degeneration. As the work is no
longer c`ut to his figure' the assignment is now`indefinite,
random, and average'. From the nearness given in handiwork the
assign-ment has fallen into an immeasurable distance, without
orientation, neither `near' nor`far'. Thus while Heidegger's
initial discussions of the workshop exemplify his accountof the
ready-to-hand and the task-orientated Umwelt, with this passage it
seems as ifHeidegger were recalling the craftsman not just to
inform us of the holistic relationalityof Being-in-the-world but,
at the same time, to highlight a `good' proxemics: a
`proper'c`loseness' of figure and world which is marked by the term
`Jemeinigkeit'.
Heidegger expressed similar concerns more explicitly and in
greater detail twenty-five years later in the lecture `` What calls
for thinking?'' (delivered in the same yearas `` Building dwelling
thinking''). This time he uses the example of a
cabinetmaker'sapprentice to illustrate his concerns:
(4) Here we should note the semantic cluster in Heidegger's work
which condenses around theterms eigen, eigest (own, ownmost), in
particular Jemeinigkeit (mineness), eigentlich (authentic,real,
proper), Ereignis (event), Eighenschaft (property), and Auge
(eye).
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 631
-
His [the apprentice's] learning is not mere practice, to gain
facility in using tools.Nor does he merely gather knowledge about
the customary forms of the things heis to build. If he is to become
a true cabinet maker, he makes himself answer andrespond above all
to the different kinds of wood and to the shapes slumberingwithin
the woodto wood as it enters into man's dwelling with all the
hiddenriches of its essence. In fact, this relatedness to wood is
what maintains the wholecraft. Without that relatedness, the craft
would never be anything but empty busywork ... . Every handicraft,
all human dealings, are constantly in that danger''(1993b, page
379).
There have been a number of developments in Heidegger's
argument. The assignmentof `mineness' is now described in terms of
the craftsman's ability to `answer andrespond' to the wood insofar
as the wood enters the place inhabited by `man'enters`his'
dwelling. This relationship is not a simple matter of property; it
is ordered not interms of `empty busy work', but in terms of
maintaining the dwelling proper to man.Indeed, that which falls
outside this dwelling, which threatens it, threatens precisely
thehand in its proper task; it threatens to dismember and scatter
`his' figure and thencethe place inhabited by `him'. Heidegger's
implicit hierarchy and evaluation are clear:on the one hand, but
also above, towards the best, handiwork (Handwerk) guidedby the
essence of the human dwelling, by the wood of the hut rather than
the metalor glass of the cities; on the other hand, but also below,
the activity which cuts thehand off from the essential, useful
activity, utilitarianism guided by capital'' (Derrida,1987a, page
170, original emphasis).
Here again, underwriting this hierarchy, there is a re-calling
and a re-collection of afigure in a `proper' disposition. The
lexicon which, I noted above, was initiated with theterm `simple
craft conditions' is now mobilised throughout, circumscribing and
circum-scribed by a g`round-plan' (grundlegung) of `proper'
meanings: by a diagrammingof sensible movements, relations, and
actions. Like the resolute stance of Dasein thishandicraft brings
Being back to itself; it makes room (Einra umen) for destiny to
take-place.
In both these scenes we may note Heidegger's desire for us to
find our footingon the ground of such a fundamental experience and
to speak of, by, and from suchoriginary experience. Midway through
`` What calls for thinking?'' Heidegger quotes thefirst stanza of
Ho lderlin's hymn Mnemosyne:(5)
`` We are a sign that is not read. `` We are a `monster' void of
senseWe feel no pain, we almost have We are outside sorrowLost our
tongue in foreign lands.'' And have nearly lost
Our tongue in foreign lands.''Heidegger (1993b [1951], page 375)
Derrida (1987a, page 167)
How to re-collect the hand and the tongue to their `proper'
place? Their `proper' orc`orrect' con-figuration? A question of a
`homecoming' (to use the title of another ofHo lderlin's works); a
question of a return or repetition; a question of Dasein's
`spiri-tual' homeland? Here, in 1947, Heidegger claims that `` the
word [homeland] is thoughthere in an essential sense, not
patriotically or nationalistically, but in terms of thehistory of
Being'' (1993c [1947], page 241). We are now, apparently, beyond a
questionof tongues and lands, beyond the `` homecoming [which] is
the future of the historicalbeing of the German people'' (2000
[1943], page 48); this recollection is a question ofdisposition and
destiny, a question of the tongue, the hand, and the place of
Dasein'sdwelling (see Derrida, 1987a).(5) The original section of
the poem quoted reads: `` Ein Zeichen sind wir, deutingslos, /
Schmerzlossind wir, und haben fast / Die Sprache in der Fremde
verloren'' (quoted in Derrida, 1987a,page 166).
632 P Harrison
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Before moving on to the final scene it is worth retracing our
steps. We have seenhow Heidegger's work is guided by a concern for
the `proper' and how this plays itselfout through a tension marked
by two distinct semantic clusters: by the lexicon ofc`loseness',
`mineness', self-containment, resolution, and, though not in strict
opposi-tion, a lexicon of loss, scattering, and dispersion which is
not the threat of distancebut rather the disruption of any such
measure. Further, it has been noted how thistension is figured in a
number of ways, through, for example, the hand, the tongue,the
place, all of which can lose their coherence and go astray, can
become illegible ornonsensical. However, and at the same time,
these `proper' con-figurings are para-doxically removed from ontic
concerns and aligned with the `essential' and thusdemarcate a
separation from the world and a reserve or reservoir for the
`proper'measure or reckoning of the relational account of
Being-in-the-world: a reserve whichallows such a reckoning to
take-place. On to the third scene.
In `` Building dwelling thinking'' Heidegger provides an example
of dwelling, one inthe region of his own Hu tte:Let us think for a
while of a farmhouse in the Black Forest, which was built some
twohundred years ago by the dwelling of peasants ... . It placed
the farm on the wind-sheltered mountain slope, looking south, among
the meadows close to the spring.It gave it the wide overhanging
shingle roof whose proper slope bears up under theburden of snow,
and that, reaching down, shields the chambers against the stormsof
the long winter nights. It did not forget the altear corner behind
the communitytable; it made room in its chamber for the hollowed
places of childbed and the `treeof the dead'for that is what they
call a coffin there: theTotenbaumand in this wayit designed for the
different generations under one roof the character of their
journeythrough time'' (1993a [1951], pages 361 ^ 362, original
emphasis).
Looking south tells of the rising of the midwinter sun, which,
towards noon, finallyappears in the southern sky, casting its light
through the windows and across the meadows(see Krell, 1997, page
54). The overhanging roof tells of the depths of the winter; the
site onthe leeward side of the mountain tells of the sheltering
provided from the icy wind. Thec`hildbed' and the `tree of the
dead' describe the sojourn of Dasein between sunrise andsunset
through the turning and ever-returning play of time ^ space. It is
only in and throughthis handy, pious, cultivated clearing that
things gain their `` lingering and hastening, theirremoteness and
nearness, their scope and limits'' (Heidegger, 1971 [1935], page
45). With-out such construction, entities do not take on `` their
distinctive shapes'' (page 45). Beforethe setting up of the
farmhouse there was no place for this destiny to unfold. Only
suchbounding frees entities for Dasein's sight (1971 [1935], pages
42 ^ 43; 1993a [1951],page 356). The lack of commas in `` Building
dwelling thinking'' should give us (no) pause;Heidegger is claiming
that these three are one and the same, to be saidhave been saidin
the one and the same breath, by the same tongue, on the same
ground. Again, itis possible to glimpse the figure necessary for
this configuration, the figure who is beingre-called to be the
measure, to gather these scattered and detached things, like those
shoespainted by van Gogh, and to `` tie [them] back together to
make a present of them''(Derrida, 1991a, page 308; see Heidegger,
1971). And gathered herehand, foot, ear,tongue, and eyethe circuit
that charges the mise-en-sce ne of Heidegger's Black
Forestlandscape is completed. Without this particular figure in
this particular posturethefirmness of his stance, the movement of
his hand, the look in his eyewithout his self-possession there is
no landscape, no site, no place. And, yet, like an unfulfilled
promise,like a mythological hero, this figure is held in reserve,
always separated from and immuneto the inflections of the ontic.
Always re-called from any threatening implications.
What can we say about this proper figure and about this moment
of revelationand gathering, which is itself a bounding, a boundary
work, and thus a measure of
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 633
-
both world and subject? We should note that there is something
immobile withinHeidegger's thought of dwelling, something that is
always already in place, of place,before the event of dwelling
eventuates, something which cannot undergo displacement,and which,
in its withdrawal, structures, measures, and calculates how this
event`should' unfold. Despite Heidegger's profoundly relational
account it is as if thereis always already something removed such
that it is immune from the threateningeventuation of taking-place,
such that the event of taking-place is itself reined in
andcontained. Thus while Heidegger's thought of dwellingderives it
power from the thought that it could reverse the condensation
effectslocked into identity, or presence [this] caged creature is
only released into a pen, inwhich the bars are stronger and the
locks more secure'' (Wood, 2002, page 146).
Perhaps what we should recall at this point is, as Derrida has
commented, that `` wewill not get around Freiburg'' (1987b, page
63), for it is precisely the Being of the`we' that is in question
here. In Heidegger's re-calling of dwelling lies the
forbiddingpromise of an immediate measure and calculation of the
space between us, a measurein which there is no distance,
separation, or difference for here there is no incommen-surability,
no outside to this eschatological immanentism (see Lacoue-Labarthe,
1990).Dasein's proper figure works to articulate space; in his
gathering he configures`` spaced out in order to be gathered in a
single place'' (Irigaray, 1999, page 125)suchthat Dasein stands
side by side, shoulder to shoulder, with brothers. And so what
ofthe world and of Heidegger's words on openness? Looking ahead,
perhaps we shouldask what is being cleared (out) here for this
silent, fraternal gathering? What `` wouldpermit the
gathering-together and the arrangement of the whole into the life
and Beingof man''? (Irigaray, 1999, page 12).
Finally, then, and before moving on, it is certainly long past
midday and Heidegger'saccount of the farmhouse has the feel of a
destination that has long since fallen intodereliction. Can we
think of a place which gathers everything into such a
simpleonefold? I am reminded of Albrect Du rer's engraving
Melencolia, where the figure sitsat twilight surrounded by the
tools of active life. (6) At the centre of the composition,held
listlessly in the figure's right hand, is a pair of compasses, an
instrument symbol-ising the act of giving shape to the world.
Disengaged, without sense or direction, thisfigure and its devices
``have become charged with a potential for alienation that
trans-forms them into the cipher for something endlessly elusive''
(Agamben, 1996, page 110).Thus Dasein falls into the proliferations
of space; split up and dispersed the handcannot perform the task of
(re)opening and bounding the world. Yet, with dwellingHeidegger
holds out the promise of a repetition, of a return to an originary
unity, to anupright figure who is the orient of an infinitely
distant homeland. Footsteps to follow in:`` the sons of the
homeland, who though far distant from its soil, still gaze in
gaiety of thehomeland shining toward them, and devote and sacrifice
their life for the still reserved''(Heidegger, 2000 [1943], page
48).
ThresholdYour eyes in which I travelHave given signs along the
roadsA meaning alien to the earth''
from I Cannot Be Known, Paul Eluard (1988 [1936], page 51)
My aim now, in this section, is to draw out a number of specific
lines of critique thatLevinas develops in relation to Heidegger's
thought of dwelling, and to consider how
(6) An image of Du rer's Melencolia I (1514) can be viewed at
http://www.museum.cornell.edu/HFJ/permcoll/pdp/img pr/melen
l.jpg.
634 P Harrison
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through these, Levinas seeks to reorient the concept. More
precisely, in this section Iconsider how Levinas locates an erasure
within Heidegger's account of dwelling andunfolds a number of the
consequences thereof.(7) For Levinas, dwelling occurs notthrough
the re-collection of Dasein's `originary distances', its proper
con-figuration,but rather through a constitutive forgetting.
Constitutive insofar as this forgetting erasesthe necessary
deflection, itinerary, or imperfection of any recall and thereby
allows foran enclosed and frictionless circuit between self and
World, and between self andothers located therein. Against this
sealing of dwelling, Levinas suggests that anirreducible and
irresolvable `relation' to alterity is inherent in and inherently
disquiet-ing to any thought of dwelling. Indeed, and as I shall
consider below, we may suggestthat it is precisely this unsettling
proximity that constitutes the threat to Dasein'scoherence which so
concerns Heidegger. So, for Levinas the question is not how togain
self-possession from within the thrall of dispersion but how to
accede to an un-chosen and constitutive responsibility: `` My basic
posture is the for-the-other'' (Levinas,2000, page 158),
for-the-other prior to the taking-over of the Da of Dasein. Counter
tothe proper figure which concerned us above, guiding the
commentary of this sectionis Levinas's characterisation of this
`basic posture' of subjectivity. A `basic posture'of passivity and
responsibility always prior toand necessarily forgotten
withinHeidegger's invocation of Dasein's resolute
self-possessiveness. What is a place ofrecollection and gathering
for Heidegger is turned inside out and the terms of theprevious
section are reversed; the promise of a figure who would be equal to
the eventof space, who would or could be at home-with-itself,
becomes a threat. Now dwellingis phrased not via a centripetal
movement but centrifugally, via a destructuring ofpunctuality and
an openness to exterioritymore open than any opening, that is, not
open upon the world that is alwaysproportionate to consciousness
but open to the other that it does not contain. Inthis
responsibility, the `me' does not posit itself but loses its
place'' (Levinas, 2000,page 159).
In Totality and Infinity Levinas writes that dwelling isthe very
mode of maintaining oneself [se tenir] ... . The `at home' [Le
c`hez soi' ] is nota container but a site where I can, where
dependent on a reality that is other, I am,despite this dependence
or thanks to it, free. It is enough to walk, to do [ faire],
inorder to grasp anything, to take. In a sense everything is in the
site, in the lastanalysis everything is at my disposal ... .
Everything is here, everything belongs tome; everything is caught
up in advance with the primordial occupying of a site,everything is
com-prehended'' (1969, pages 37 ^ 38, original emphasis).In this
brief outline of dwelling Levinas marks both the closeness of his
use of the
concept to Heidegger's and his divergence. The phrase
`maintaining oneself ' intimatesthe conjoining in the site of
standing and understanding; equally, the emphasis givento the `at
home' being not (at least overtly) a container but rather a field
of potentialaction invokes Heidegger's discussion of
Being-in-the-world; similarly, the commentthat e`verything is
caught up in advance' draws on Heidegger's description of
Dasein'scircumspection, immanence, and potentiality-for-Being and
alludes to the account ofecstatic temporality which, like the loops
of a bow, are knotted here with the pronoun I.Overall, the passage
draws attention to the dwelling as a place from, by, and
withinwhich I am free to act and within which everything is at my
disposal: `a site where I can'.A site from within which e`verything
is com-prehended'. Thus Levinas's comments here
(7) As with the previous section, my aim here is in no way to
give an overview of Levinas's philos-ophy. For overviews,
commentaries, and critiques see Berttina Bergo (1999), Robert
Bernasconiand David Wood (1988), Howard Caygill (2002), Tina
Chanter (2001a; 2001b), Simon Critchley andBernasconi (2002), Colin
Davis (1996), Adrian Peperzak (1993; 1997), Stella Sandford
(2001).
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 635
-
explicitly coincide with Heidegger's insofar as the ability to
doand here we shouldbear in mind that `to comprehend' derives from
`to seize' or `to grasp'and to do soproperly or resolutely, is the
defining trait of Dasein. In terms of marking his distancefrom
Heidegger it is possible to understand Levinas as diagnosing and
tracing theparticular curvature of Heidegger's account of
Being-in-the-world, a curvature which,as noted above, may be
understood as a movement of enclosure. As Richard Cohenwrites,for
Levinas, Being-in-the-world, whether in the ecstasies of enjoyment,
labour orknowledge, does not truly break with the immanence of
subjectivity. The subjectalways only finds itself, its enjoyment,
its labour, its knowledge, in the ecstaticmovement which seems to
offer the promise of an escape outside of itself '' (1987,page 7,
original emphasis).
While the promise of the concepts of Being-in-the-world and of
dwelling is the promiseof a description of a primordial unitary
phenomena in which the dualism betweensubject and world is undone
and a more original or authentic relation of indwellingis
recollected, the claim here is that this process of reunification
necessarily ramifiesbeyond these conceptual innovations to the
assimilation or exclusion of all heteroge-neity and exteriority. To
illustrate this claim I shall briefly consider how Levinas readsor
excavates a logic of possession and possessiveness in Heidegger's
conceptualisation,a logic that serves to cover over and to rein in
any breaks or ruptures which threatenDasein's ordinance.
Levinas's attempt to discern a logic of possession within
Heidegger's account ofdwelling and Being-in-the-world has in fact
already been signalled when Levinas insiststhat `in the last
analysis everything is at my disposal ' and that `Everything is
here,everything belongs to me'. Levinas traces this logic within
Heidegger's account of`handling' and disclosure:Possession is
accomplished in taking-possession or labour, the destiny of the
hand.The hand is the organ of grasping and taking ... it relates
[Rapporteto bring back]to me, to my egoist ends ... the primordial
hold of labour introduces it [matter] intoa world of the
identifiable, masters it, and puts it at the disposal of a
beingrecollecting itself and identifying itself '' (1969, page
159).
Of importance here is Levinas's analysis of the relationship
between self, hand, and matterin Heidegger's account. For Levinas
this relationship is determined by the movement ofrecollection, of
the gathering of the self in its e`goist ends'. Hence the d`estiny
of the hand'asg`rasping and taking', as comprehending, insofar as
its destiny is determined by theprojection and recovery of the
self. Turning back to the previous quote we may see that,dependant
on that which is `other'in this instance matter per sethe resolving
orresolute movement of the hand frees the self from this
dependency, ordering matterand rendering it for-me. Thus the
comprehending hand opens up a manageable clearingbetween self and
world, disclosing the latter, setting it forth, and letting it be
for-the-sake-of the maintenance of the self. Concordant with the
etymology of dwelling as`tarrying' or `whiling' Levinas outlines
how the `setting back' of the dwelling as `retreat'is
for-the-sake-of the gathering and preservation of the I. Dwelling
opens a space ^ timein which `` The uncertain future of the element
is suspended'' (1969, page 158) as itstwofold eventuation allows
for the (now) self-possessed I to place, grasp, posses,
identify,and reserve `things' within a World (now) acquiescent to
such ends. As the ``handdelineates a world'' (page 161), submitting
and shaping the elements to its concerns,Dasein finds itself in a
site in which everything that appears therein appears as suchonly
for-the-sake-of, only in the light of, Dasein's potentiality-to-be,
of its destiny.The effect here, Levinas suggests, is one of
assimilation and totalisation. The Worldis a world always already
available for manipulation, always already disclosed by
636 P Harrison
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horizons of, and ordered in terms of, absorption and
appropriation. Indeed, suchwould be the necessary condition for
Dasein to be able to recollect itself therein: thenecessarily in
place before the event of spacing. Dasein's movements of disclosure
are ataking-possession, a movement that `` consists in neutralizing
the existent in order tograsp it'' (pages 45 ^ 46) and thus
Dasein's `originary rapport' with the world is not withexteriority
as such but with its own immanence. In this manner the `essential
tendency tocloseness' noted in the previous section may now be
understood as describing thesetting-forth of everything `` c`lose
enough' to be engulfed by ipseity. This is totalizationas communion
and possession ... a totalization which leaves nothing outside''
(Libertson,1982, page 180; see also Irigaray, 1999). The negation
or recuperation of alterity herein is,according to Levinas,
fundamental to Heidegger's thought of dwelling.
Fundamentalfoundingin that this negation allows or affects `` the
unity of the site which sustainsspace'' (Levinas, 1969, page 46),
which is the instantiation of the common ground ofdwelling and the
clearing necessary for the promise of Being-at-home-with-itself.
Thenegation or absorption of alterity is necessary for the promise
of the recollectionof Dasein's `proper' disposition. Following
Levinas, the `achievement' of dwelling inHeidegger does not bespeak
a more `originary' or `proper' relation with the world butrather
the assimilation of exteriority for-the-sake-of a unified subject.
Thus, Being-in-the-world and dwelling take-place as the
appropriation of the transcendence ofexteriority into Dasein's
immanence, a movement of gathering which serves to secureand
preserve the freedom and spontaneity of Dasein.
With the diagnosis of possessiveness and the establishment of
the negation ofalterity as founding to the thought of dwelling, we
may now indicate how Levinas'scritique of dwelling ties into his
wider critique of theWestern ontological project: of theCartesian
cogito, the Kantian I Think, and Husserlian intentionality, now
extended toHeidegger's description of Being-in-the-world. Critchley
gives a useful summary:The ontological event that defines and
dominates the philosophical tradition fromParmendies to Heidegger,
for Levinas, consists in suppressing or reducing all formsof
otherness by transmuting their alterity into the Same. Philosophy
qua ontology isthe reduction of the other to the Same, where the
other is assimilated as so muchfood or drink ... . For Levinas the
Same is par excellence the knowing ego ... . The egois the site of
the transmutation of otherness'' (1992, pages 5 ^ 6, original
emphasis).
In this instance, dwelling would be the expanded environs or
working out of this `siteof transmutation', a site in which the
interval of space is absorbed and enclosed withinthe limited
economy of the Same. The enclosure of dwelling extends into any
thoughtof the `sociality' of dwelling, a sociality which remains
that of a community or bandwithout plurality, without difference,
and without interval. A community of silentcommunion. Such a
con-figuration of community reveals another aspect of the
con-vergence between Heidegger's philosophical trajectory and that
of the wider Westerntradition insofar as the c`ommon' of dwelling,
this reckoning of the space between us,gives the fundamental repose
of the peace dreamt of by Reason. As Joseph Libertsoncomments, in
its monological unicity this settlement radiates aspurious
non-violence ... a non-violence which conceals the more
fundamentalviolence of their [beings] allergie, i.e. the reduction
of their difference and theircommunication by the totalitarian
aspect of their correlation'' (1982, pages 198 ^ 199,original
emphasis).
Libertson's reference to the `totalitarian' nature of this
correlation intimates the seizurein and subordination of the
relation with the other to comprehension. This is thetyrannical
move in which the other's transcendence is folded into immanence,
in whichthe other is summoned to appear, to step into the light,
and take up its place within thehorizon of the Same and thereby to
renounce its fundamental strangeness, its alterity.
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 637
-
In many ways the force of Levinas's writing consists in the
attempt to `` break with [this]great traditional idea of the
excellence of unity ... . My idea consists in conceivingsociality
as independent of the `lost' unity'' (Levinas, 1998, page 112).
Indeed, Levinasintroduces the idea of ethics in Totality and
Infinity precisely as a challenge to and aninterruption of the
unifying processes of comprehension, possession, and
absorption.
Levinas's first use of the term e`thics' within the main body of
the text of Totalityand Infinity appears specifically within the
context of the interruption of the Same:A calling into question of
the samewhich cannot occur within the egoist sponta-neity of the
sameis brought about by the other. We name this calling
intoquestion of my spontaneity by the presence of the Other ethics.
The strangenessof the Other, his irreducibility to the I, to my
thoughts and my possessions, isprecisely accomplished as a calling
into question of my spontaneity, as ethics''(1969, page 43).
Levinas is clear that the other is not thought here as an alter
ego; this is not an otherlike me to whom I am equivalent. Neither
is the other relative in his or her `other-ness'that is, the other
shares no c`ommunity of genus' in a quality that wouldidentifiably
distinguish the other from me (1969, page 194). While the other
alwayspresents itself as a human other`` it shows a face''at the
same time `` it infinitelyoverflows the bounds of knowledge''
(1996a, page 12) such that the other eludes andresists my attempts
at comprehension. This resistance on the part of the other is
notsimply `` because of the extent and obscurity of the theme that
it offers to my considera-tion'' (page 12)that is, it is not simply
because I do not yet understand or lack anaccurate representation;
rather, it is because `` of a refusal to enter into a theme,
tosubmit to a regard, through the eminence of its epiphany'' (page
12). Importantly, theother does not first oppose me in conflict, as
a force ranged against the Same in adialectic, as if two orders
were opposed in a struggle, but resists precisely in andthrough the
infinity of transcendence (1969, page 199). The other defies not my
powerbut `` my ability for power'' (page 198), my ability to grasp
and posses. (8) `` [N]either acultural signifier nor a simple
given'' (1996c, page 52), the other incessantly breaksthrough the
fact of appearing and exceeds any image or representation I may
have,interrupting my words and placing them in question.Without the
violence which wouldreduce the other to another object of
contemplation, the other cannot be assimilatedinto the world. Not a
phenomenon, the face of the other is a visitation. The other
isunforeseeable, is not wholly within my site, and is beyond my
grasp and my gaze;`` through the face filters the obscure light
coming from beyond the face, from what isnot yet, from a future
never future enough, more remote than the possible'' (1969,pages
254 ^ 255 original emphasis). The other exceeds and eludes me by an
essentialdimension and `` we are caught up, one and another, in a
sort of heteronomic anddissymetrical curving of social space''
(Derrida, 1997, page 231). As if the spacebetween us were defined
by an extreme immediacy, an urgent and disquieting prox-imity that,
without horizon, curves vertiginously to infinity. A stranger, the
other,arrives from outside of context as `` a disturbance in the
play of the world, a break in
(8) There is not room here to give an account of Levinas's
analysis of murder as the negation of theother. Indicatively, we
should note that, while in no way denying their actuality, for
Levinas murderand violence always miss the other as such; in aiming
and intending at that which exceeds intentionI strike instead the
face as an object. ``At the very moment when my power to kill
realizes itself, theother (autrui) has escaped me'' (Levinas,
1996b, page 9, original emphasis). Still, to catch sight ofsuch
possibilities and be tempted by them, to intend and take aim at the
other, is to have alwaysalready entered into a `relation' with
alterity before such conscious designs could be formulated.The
struggle which threatens is thus possible as struggle only on the
basis of the epiphany of theface as wholly other and as the
negation or limitation of this `relation'.
638 P Harrison
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its cohesion'' (Lingis, 1991, page xxiii), interrupting,
revealing, and placing into questionmy
being-at-home-in-the-world:your entering into my dwelling place
interrupts the coherence of my economy; youdisarrange my order in
which all things familiar to me have their proper place,function
and time. Your emergence makes holes in the walls of my house. If I
couldsee and treat you as a being amidst other beings ... as an
element of the universeunfolding its riches before my mental eye,
you would be bereft of everything thatjustifies me calling you by
the pronoun `you'. You would be a particular part of myrealm''
(Peperzak, 1997, page 66).
Thus, before it is a thing in the world, before it is
illuminated by my precomprehensionor aimed at as an object of
consciousness, before it is levelled or made relative in
anidentity, a sociologic, a community, or a site, the epiphany of
the face is, for Levinas,ethical. Ethical in that in my exposure to
its exceedance the face of the other calls intoquestion my freedom
and spontaneity; calls into question my comprehension, my abilityto
grasp and do, and my `for-oneselfness'. The other calls into
question my being-there.Here, then, is a profound reversal of
Heidegger's concept of dwelling. Rather thanbeing thought as the
becoming equal to the event of space via the attainment of
theDasein's ownmost configuration, dwelling is described by Levinas
as gaining its senseand orientation, taking on significance, only
as a response. In what remains of thissection I want to begin to
consider the nature of this reversal in the thought ofdwelling.
As we have seen, Levinas describes the gathering of Dasein in
dwelling as the workof the limited economy of the Same, which
itself describes the consistency of asynchronic, synoptic, and
logocentric time of consciousness. Assimilation,
absorption,possession, and comprehension are the work of this
schema, which is ultimately that ofthe unified `knowing ego' and of
ontology. Hence in the section on `Homecoming' itwas noted that the
proper figure of Dasein promises to bind the world together intoone
texture or one geography. One texture or one geography as, in the
attainmentdwelling, what is strewn and scattered in a
disorientating and anarchical topology isgathered and bound via the
recollection of Dasein's resolute figure. This encirclingmovement
describes Heidegger's desire to recall Dasein's autarchy, its
self-assured main-tenance: Heidegger's hope to recall Dasein as its
own foundation or principle (arche ) freedfrom any implications or
dependencies. Levinas diagnoses this transcendence of
Being-in-the-world and dwelling as a limited or false
transcendence, a departure which is alwaysalready determined by a
return. Dasein's itinerary herein `` remains that of Ulysses,
whoseadventure in the world was only a return to his native landa
compliancy of the Same, anunrecognition of the Other'' (Levinas,
1996c, page 48). In Heidegger's work, according toLevinas, the
concept of dwelling describes the event of space which flows from
andaccompanies this return, as every-thing and every-other become
ensnaredeven as theyare `set-free' and `let-be'within the
setting-forth and boundary work which are Dasein'semplacement. In
this refusal of alterity, dwelling takes-place as the nostalgia for
andpromise of a `` fatherland which welcomes and protects'' (1969,
page 41). Nostalgia forand promise of a unified space, a common
ground. As intimated above, for Levinas suchcannot be the case. For
Levinas, as we shall see, the self cannot form itself. Yet,
Levinasdoes not deny the possibility of this enclosure of dwelling,
a possibility which he describesin Totality and Infinity as the ``
banishing with all impunity all hospitality ... from one'shome''
(pages 172 ^ 173). It is always the case that a separated being can
`` close itself up inits own egoism'' (page 172); indeed, ``
Seperation would not be radical if the possibilityof shutting
oneself up at home with oneself could not itself be produced''
(page 173).Thus, Heidegger's thought on the concept of dwelling is
not simply denied or overcomein Levinas's work; rather, its initial
condition of possibility in the `` forgetting of the
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 639
-
transcendence of the Other'' (page 172) is excavated and
exposed. This forgettingis the constitutive forgetting noted at the
outset of the section. `Constitutive' in that oncethe transcendence
of the other is forgotten the self may assume itself, as if he, as
if I,received nothing from `` the Other but what was already in me,
as though from all eternityI was in possession of what comes to me
from the outsideto receive nothing, or to befree'' (page 43). From
here the incessancy of alterity, the constantly disquieting
incomingof the otherthe stranger, the alienappears as the threat of
inordinate spatiality, ofdispersion and degeneration. Hence the
tension between scattering and self-containmentand the promise of
one, of one alone, of indivisible brothers, who could pass through
theworld unaffected, untouched, and unmoved, with which we
started.
While Levinas does not deny the possibility of the enclosure of
dwelling as apossibility he does not take dwelling as the
foundation it purports to be. While theforgetting of the
transcendence of the other and consequent `banishing of all
hospital-ity' remain possible, such a sealing of dwelling can,
according to Levinas, come onlyafter the encounter with alterity,
as if to cover it up. Thus the claim is that the autarchyof the
subject is a retrospective illusion; the I posits itself as the
cause and principleafter the event (Levinas, 1969, page 54); the
effect assumes the place of the cause.Levinas suggests that, before
the dwelling could be sealedantecedent to the subject'sdiscovery or
recovery of itself and to its gathering therein`A`ll recollection
refers to awelcome'' (page 207). This, it is claimed, is what is
forgotten in Heidegger's account ofdwelling and constitutively so,
for this welcomecoming before the subjectwouldplace a displacement,
an unknowable debit or dependency, at the `foundation' of
thesubject.The oneself cannot form itself; it is already formed
with absolute passivity. In thissense it is a victim of a
persecution that paralyzes any assumption that couldawaken in it,
so that it would posit itself for itself. This passivity is that of
anattachment that has already been made, as something irreversibly
past, prior toall memory and all recall. It was made in an
irricuperable time which the present,represented in recall, does
not equal'' (1991, page 105, original emphasis).
Antecedent to the self as subject, before my ability to say I
and to take-up andmaintain my position there (Da), there is an
absolute passivity. (9) In distinction to thelogocentric gathering
described above, this passivity is so complete that `` that
conscious-ness cannot gather its moments together and integrate
into its flowing temporality'' (Bergo,1999, page 16). Unable to
pull itself together, the subject is summoned by the other. In a``
backwards movement of intentionality'' (Levinas, 2000, page 187)
the other welcomes andasks for me, lays claim to me. Prior to any
self-presence, to any volitional act on my part,`` without our
being able to have the least project'' (1987, page 74), is this
election. Thiselection is `irreversibly past, prior to all memory
and all recall' as it is prior to self assubject, prior to the I
which carefully maintains itself there, prior to the I which
chooses toact compassionately toward the other or to turn away.
Such a sovereign subject comeslate, already refers to an
a`ttachment' to the other made without its choice and before
itsrelation to itself or to the world. The other `` slips into me
`like a thief ' '' (1996d, page 105)before I could ever notice.
Already the subject has been robbed of all for-itselfness,hollowed
out and stripped of its reserves, as if the subject were nothing
but its unique
(9) To use the title of Thomas Wall's (2000) exceptional study
of the concept, the `radical passivity'of the Levinasian subject is
of utmost importance in its formulation and differentiation
fromDasein. Although there is not space to go into a detailed
discussion of the concept here, we shouldnote how, with it, Levinas
turns Heidegger's account of Dasein from within Heideggers's
ownwork; it is as if Heidegger's account of Dasein in Being and
Time were frozen at and abandonedto the moment of `thrownness'
(Geworfenheit), unable to pull itself together (see Levinas,
1978;2003; Rolland, 2003).
640 P Harrison
-
exposure to the other and its interiority, the limited economy
of the Same, were defined bymy delay behind the other (see Wall,
2000). As if its o`rigin' or c`entre' were alwaysdisplaced, always
elsewhere, wandering in the desert or travelling in your eyes.
Thus,before the taking-over of the Da of Dasein the self is
inspired by and exposed to the other;orientated
despite-itself-for-the-other. In this claim Levinas reverses the
contraction of theI into `mineness':This [for-the-other] signifies
neither intentionality nor a property of the `me' [moi]that would
be responsibility for the other. It is, on the contrary, as
responsibilityand in responsibility that the `me' gains its
uniqueness'' (Levinas, 2000, page 158).
Before it is anything else the I is responsibility incarnate, a
subjectivity without identity,without essence or origin. The
subject, the being which says I, can do so only insofar asit was
summoned. The one presupposes the other:being-put-into-question,
but also put to the question, having to answerthe birthof language
in responsibility; having to speak, having to say I, being in the
firstperson. Being precisely myself; but henceforth, in the
assertion of being as myself,having to answer for the right to be''
(1998, page 144, original emphasis).
As Catherine Chalier writes, Levinas conceives `` of the subject
as already inhabited byalterity, as destined for it and exposed to
it'' (2002, page 107). This is not the end of thematter.What does
Heidegger's forgetting consist of if the awakening of the I is
immemo-rial? If it took-place `in an irricuperable time'? Chalier
provides a clue in her commentabove; the subject a`s destined for
the other'. As does Levinas; `having to answer'.
Just as recollection presupposes a welcome in a past beyond
memory, comprehen-sionin desiring and approaching the otheralready
describes and attests to a situationof separation and thus, at the
same time, to a beyond of comprehension. Thus the `relation'to
exteriority or to the beyond of ontology inspires and is borne
witness to within themovements of comprehension itself, even if
this inspiration is forgotten or erased therein.This desire is not
a negativity or a lack, but a positivity, `` an affirmative `yes'
to thesummons'' (Kearny, 1999, page 114; Levinas, 1969, section I).
The monologue of the I,the seemingly unbroken flow of
consciousness, my ability to comprehend, claim, andnarrate both
find their condition of possibility and first take on their
orientation, theirsignificance, in this `relation' with the
exteriority; insofar as they are exposed to, pervaded,and
incessantly striated by exteriority. Insofar as this `relation' is
`inscribed', as RichardKearny writes in a comment reminiscent of
Walter Benjamin, `` in each instant of ourexistence'' (1999, pages
116 ^ 117).(10) As if the reoccurrence of the subject, its
returning toand repetition of the I, its recollection and gathering
here and now, were possible only onthe basis of a missed beat, of
an interruption, like a knock on the door of the dwellingplace
which I am going to answer, which I am answering, `Here I am',
`yes, yes', `yes, come':which incoming opens up a position of and
for the I (Derrida, 1991b).(11) As if I could be athome only if I
were not quite at home but at the threshold, urgently waiting to
respond, tobe interrupted. Indeed, for Levinas the pronoun I is
always in the accusative, always aresponse: `` The word I means
here I am'' (Levinas, 1991, page 114, original emphasis).(12)
(10) Here I am thinking of the last line of Benjamin's `` Thesis
on the philosophy of history'': `` Forevery second becomes a strait
gate through which the Messiah might enter'' (1969, page 255).(11)
``The self-positioning yes or the Ay is, however, neither
tautological nor narcissistic; and it isnot egological even if it
commences the circular movement of reapproriation ... . It holds
open thecircle that it commences'' (Derrida, 1991b, page 594,
original emphasis). Here such a momentwould be possible, becomes
possible, only as a nonappropriative responding:
`Yes-here-I-am'.Hence, and although there has been room only to
intimate this line of discussion above, Derridawrites elsewhere
that for Levinas, before anything else, ``Intentionality is
hospitality'' (1999, page 48,see also 1989; 1991c).(12) `Here I
am', `Send me', `See me here', `Behold me', are all possible
translations of Me voici, withwhich Levinas refers to Isaiah 6:8
(1991, page 199, footnote 11; 2000, page 282, footnote 8).
Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling 641
-
`Here I am' not in the taking-up or taking-over my o`wnmost'
site or the place proper tomy essence but responding. As Levinas
writes, the other `` does not limit the freedom of thesame'' but
rather in `` calling it to responsibility, it founds it and
justifies it'' (1969, page 197).
Contra the gathering of the self in its authentic stance, which
discloses and chargeswith significance Heidegger's landscapes and
Dasein's place, for Levinas sense andarticulation take-place in the
openness of dwelling to the transcendence of the other.Here
dwelling does not bespeak a more primordial relation of communion
or commu-nity, be it with nature or of a people, but is `` the very
opposite of a root'' (Levinas, 1969,page 172). Rather than
confirming or conforming to an essence or identity, dwellinggains
its orientation from the unforeseeable but ever-proximal incoming
of the other.Not first a relation of depth and to origins, gaining
signification from the authenticmovements and dispositions of a
figure close to its essence, dwelling takes on itsmeaning and is
instituted first through responding, through welcoming. `` One
mightthen say'', as Derrida does, `` that the welcome to come is
what makes possible therecollection of the at home with oneself ''
(1999, page 28). Not primarily symbolisedby the hearth and the
enrootedness of a figure in the landscape, dwelling gains
itsorientation from the openness to a figure without a place, from
the urgent awaitingat the threshold.
ConclusionMy basic aim in this paper has been to try to open the
concept of dwelling up forthought beyond its implication in
Heidegger's writing, while maintaining a belief in theradical
nature of Heidegger's initial formulation of the concept. Indeed,
and as sug-gested in the introduction, it seems to me that it is
with the recognition of this`` dramatic event of being-in
the-world'', as Levinas (1996b, page 4) put it in an earlyessay,
that Lavinas and others have taken up the concept. As also outlined
in theintroduction this e`vent' consists of nothing more or less
than an attempt to thinkand reckon with the `event of space', to
bring this event to thought. What hasIhopeemerged from the paper is
an outline of two fundamentally different ways ofthinking this
event. In the case of Heidegger we have seen how this event is
determinedby and reckoned in terms of being-at-home-in-the-world.
Ultimately, this is, I haveargued, dwelling as enclosure; dwelling
as a limitation of the event of space throughthe insistence on
holistic closure, autarchy, and self-sufficiency. In distinction,
forLevinas it is the constitutive openness or unfinished nature of
the event of space whichgives dwelling its orientation. Here we
have the idea that, as Derrida writes, `` the hearth[le chez soi ]
of a home, a culture, a society also presupposes a hospitable
opening''(2002a, page 134) and that this opening is an opening not
simply to `another likeoneself ' but `` to an other who is beyond
any `its other' '' (2002b, page 364). It is as ifLevinas
understands dwelling, and, indeed, the determination of any ipseity
what-soever, to be composed not through its internal coherence or
dynamismwhetherthis be thought relationally through holistic
closure or otherwisebut rather throughits openness to what exceeds
its grasp. To be closed by relation to what escapes andexceeds it;
for Levinas dwelling takes-place as this openness.
What are the implications of this attempt to open up and
problematise the conceptof dwelling? To bring this discussion to a
close I want to suggest three. First, then,and most obviously, it
is possible to think dwelling in terms other than
authenticity,totalisation, and holism. Indeed, the suggestion has
been that it is necessary to thinkdwelling beyond such a lexicon of
sovereignty. In this instanceand following DavidCampbell (1994;
1998; see also Popke, 2003)opening up the concept of dwelling
mayplay a part in questioning and calling to account the
ontopological imagination whichpreoccupies so many discourses
around identity, both academic and popular, by insisting
642 P Harrison
-
on the priority of translation and plurality over exclusivity
and parochialism.(13) Second,and following on, in gaining some
purchase on Heidegger's account of dwelling we maybegin to situate
it within the context of its wider onto-geopolitical history.
Hence, forexample, Levinas claims that Heidegger's account of place
and of dwelling is part ofan insistent desire for e`nrootedness',
`unity', and o`neness' `` that social relations mustculminate in
communion'' (Levinas, 1989b, page 164), which informs much of
Westernontological and political thought. Here the importance of
the comment above that theopenness of dwelling does not simply
describe an opening to a`nother like oneself ': toanother as a
specific set of contents, and who as such is fully recognisable and
submitsto comprehension. Echoing to some degree the sentiments of
Clive Barnett (2005, page 8),I would suggest here that it is only
in acknowledging the potential violence and inevitablefailure of
such a reductive ontological gesture that experiences of
friendship, hospitality,generosity, responsibility, and, indeed,
solidarity make and take on any sense. Third, andfollowing on once
more, rethinking the concept of dwelling in the manner
presentedabove suggests a rethinking of the dynamics of
subjectivity and subject formation. LikeHeidegger, Levinas is a
profound thinker of solitudeof the radical separation andisolation
of the self. However, it is necessary to understand that for
Levinas this separationor isolation is not the self realising or
acceding itself but rather is a form of rapport: aprofound solitude
of intimacy, the very event of a primary and radical pluralism. In
thisrecasting of the relationship between inside and outside,
interior and exterior, such that itis based not upon a logic of
sovereignty, exclusion, or absorption but on
heteronomy,differentiation, and responsibility, a much-needed path
can be opened for reassessing andrethinking the grammar and role of
the first-person pronoun in our social scientific work(see
Harrison, 2007). In each of these three areas, which could be
roughly mapped onto theterms identity, community, and subjectivity,
we are brought back repeatedly to what wasdescribed in the
introduction as the defining aspect or trait of the concept of
dwelling:the issue of the relation, or rather, of the spacing of
relation. This is what I take to be thelegacy of the concept: the
issue of how we are to try to bring to thoughtto say, toreckon, to
understand, to conceptualise, and to representthe space between
us.
Acknowledgements. Many people have helped in the course of the
development of this paper inmany ways. To single out just a few, my
thanks to Ben Anderson, Kay Anderson, Mike Crang,Stuart Elden,
Martin Gren, Charlotte Howse, Adam Holden, Colin Perrin, Nigel
Thrift, JohnWylie, and the seminar organisers and participants at
the Department of Geography, Universityof Sheffield, and the
Department of Sociology, University of Durham.
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