Ph102

Is Ontology Fundamental? 1/25/11 8:04 AM

Emmanuel Levinas

1906-1995, Russian Jew

Born in Lithuania, Died in Paris

Well-read: Shakespeare, other philosophers

1916- moved to Karkov, then back to Lithuania

1923-1927- studied philosophy in Strasbourg; discovered the

work of Husserl (phenomenology)

1928-1929: Moves to Freiburg, Germany to learn more about

Husserl but met someone else (Heidegger)

1930: returns to france and becomes a French citizen; where he

started making books on Heidi

1930’s: abandon’s book on Heidegger

o rise of the Nazis; Hitler became chancellor of Germany

o LevinasJew

o Heartbreaking for Levinas because Heidi committed to the

Nazis; Heidi’s motives are debatable

o Critchley: “if l’s life was dominated by the memory of he

nazi horror, then his philosophical life was animated but h

question as to how a philosopher as undeniably brilliant as

heidi could have become a nazi, for however a short time.”

1935: De l’evasion” is published (The Escape); a knee jerk

reaction to Heidegger; to escape heideggerian ontology

1939: serves in the French army during WW2 (interpreter)

1940: Becomes a prisoner of war; was not put into camp because

he was an officer

1945: WW2 ends

Five out of 8 million Jews in Geman-occupied territory were killed

under Hitler

1948: UN proclaims Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Influence of the Talmud and Judaism

o Began to study these; started writing theological works

o “don’t brand me as a Jewish thinker”

o “Although L’s thinking is quite inconceivable without its

Judaic inspiration, one should be careful not to categorize

him simply as a Jewish philosopher

L is still a phenomenologist

o Phenomenology in reminders of the fundamental

o Theme of P: back to experience itself

o Talked about themes that people didn’t normally talk

about: insomnia, jetlag, sex, etc.

o Wanted to remind people that these were still part of the

human experience

Questioning philosophy itself

1961: Totalite et Infini is published (France)

o almost parallel to Being in Time; that Being encompasses

everything; Time=not everydayness=infinity

“Ethics as first philosophy” (not ontology)

o For L, it is a matter of… focusing on another question, not

the rather abstruse question of Being, but the more

concrete question of the human being.”

o Focusing on existents not existence; being not Being

o “Unless our social interactions are underpinned by ethical

relations to other person, then the worst might happen,

that is, the failure to acknowledge the humanity of the

other. Such, for L, is what took place in the Holocaust…,

where the other person became a faceless face in the

crowd,… someone whose life or death is for me a matter of

indifference.”

o L: losing the sense of being the small b being

What makes the other, other?

Is the other merely the not-I, the not-me?

What is the relationship between the same and the other?

How do you relate to the other, and vice versa?

Can you ever fully comprehend the other?

“He who thinks great thoughts often make great errors”

Human all too human

New thought demands for better language

Heidi: religiousmath—philosophy

Most of us in the modern world lose touch of our individuality

o The I is not one

Levinas: you are responsible beyond your intentions

Critique of Ontology

“L’ontologie est-elle fondamentale?” published in 1951

Levinas wanted to go beyond ontology

Aim: To describe a relation (between I and the other) beyond

comprehension; ontology involves comprehension

Comprehension is problematic; there’s something wrong with the

way people know

Can we be other than thinking beings?

The primacy of ontology

Ontology= study of being; the first thing you need to know about

in studying philosophy

Recall: “and thus, as was in the past, is now too and will be even more,

that towards which philosophy is moving and to which it again and again

does not find access, is the question raised—what isbeing? (ti to on)”

(Heidegger)

Prior to Heidi, ontology stopped at “what is Being?”

Heidi comes in and says that we need to focus on a particular Being;

particularly interrogate something

Page 2, last full

“The renewal of ontology by contemporary philosophy is unusual in that

the knowledge of being in general—fundamental ontology—presupposes

the factual situation of the mind that knows.”

The being that ask about the Being Dasein/the human being

, second full

“The comprehension of being does not presuppose a merely theoretical

attitude but the whole of human comportment. The whole human being

is ontology.”

“Ontology” focused too much on everydayness, steering away

from death

, First

“The essential contribution of the new ontology can be seen in its

opposition to classical intellectualism…. To think is no longer to

contemplate but to commit oneself to be engulfed by that which one

thinks… this is the dramatic event of being-in-the-world.”

Ontology became the study of existence

Page 3, fourth full

“The identification of the comprehension of being with the plentitude of

concrete existence risks drowning in existence.”

Heidi to exist is to know; which is why Dasein is what we

interrogate; existence of human being is determined by

understanding; understanding is the mode of being of Dasein

Heidi Comprehension=existence

o Holocaust

o Inescapability of existence, inevitability of comprehension

o With people familiarity (relationships)

Ambiguity of contemporary ontology

o Which comes first: comprehension or existence?

“Tragedy of existence”

o Page 4

The comedy begins with the simplest of our

movements, each of which carries with it an

inevitable awkwardness… In doing that which I

wanted to do(see reading)

We’re trying to do something but we end up doing

something more

Putting a hand out creasing the jacket, scratch the

floor

Meeting someone stereotyping, labeling…

o Page 4

“We are thus responsible beyond our intentions. It is

impossible for the regard that directs the act to avoid

the nonintended action that comes with it. We have

one finger caught in the machine and things turn

against us. That is to say, our consciousness and our

mastery of reality through consciousness do not

exhaust our relation with reality, to which we are

always present through the density of our being.”

, second full

Heidi describes, in their most formal structure, the artciulations

of vision where the relation of the subject with the object is

subordinated to the relation of the object with light, which is not

an object. The understanding of a being will thus consist in going

beyond that being (l’etant) into the openness and in perceiving it

upon the horizon of being… Comprehension, in Heidegger,

rejoins the great tradition of Western philosophy.”

o The ultimate purpose of studying Dasein Being;

understanding Being

o

o Process for something else comprehension-temporality-

time-Being

o Heidi still like the classical philosophers; focused on the

universal; no room for individuality

o Problem: dictatorial (sake of the one for the sake of the

totality holocaust: making everyone the same)

“Here below” still eclipsed by concern for the universal

Heideggerian ontology remained totalitarian

Cannot return to a “Pre-Heideggerian” philosophy

You cannot unlearn what you already know

Infinite exteriority of ethics, as relation to the other, breaks open totality

Moving outward; getting out of being

Heidi’s was more of in-taking

We exist as totalities; we can’t help but be self-centered;

Need to go out

Questions

Can we ever escape existence?

Can we ever avoid/prevent comprehension?

Can we relate in ways other than existence as comprehension?

Page 5, third full

“How, moreover, can the relation with being be…anything other

than its comprehension as being (etant)?”

The Other

. First full

“Our relation with the other certainly consists in wanting to

comprehend him, but this relation overflows comprehension. Not

only because knowledge of the other requires, outside of all

curiosity, also sympathy or love, ways of being distinct from

impassible contemplation, but because in our relation with the

other, he does not affect us in terms of a concept. He is a being

(etant) and counts as such.”

o we always want to know the other but the other will always

be one step ahead. What we know of the other person is

just what we know of them

o Levinas wants to talk about a particularly being; by

knowing the other

o We can have relationships beyond comprehension we just

overlook it

Recall: “Apophainesthai to phainomena- to let what shows itself

be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself.” (Heidegger)

Page 6, third full

“We respond: in our relation with the other is it a matter of

letting be?”

o So you can know the being as it is (still for comprehension)

o Example of seeing someone familiar (say hi or not); point is

to respond

Page 6, third full

“Is not the independence of the other accomplished in the role of

being summoned? Is the one to whom one speaks understood

from the first in his being? Not at all. The other is not an object of

comprehension first and an interlocutor second. The two relations

are intertwined. In other words, the comprehension of the other

is inseparable from his invocation.”

o It’s all about language, communication, dialogue, discourse

o That’s when the other is treated as an other

o Telebabad marathon

“The person with whom I am in relation I call being, but in so

calling him, I call to him. I do not only think that he is, I speak to

him.”

o Language as “reminder” of pure particularity of the other

o I don’t go in to dialogue with someone for the sake of

something else. Just relating.

o Discourse as “religion” and “prayer”; relationship with

someone that’s completely absolute/beyond us

o In genuine dialogue, it’s like relating with someone you

completely don’t know

o Eschatology, infinite relation (the study of the end of days)

All prediction

Not intentional; subject towards something that’s

beyond my grasp

o A relationship of language=relationship with the other

How do we encounter the other?

How does the other show herself to us?

The face

Page, third full

o “a being as such… can only be in a relation where we

speak to this being. A being… is a human being and it is as

a neighbor that a human being is accessible—as a face.”

Face is just a signification; not the person himself;

the face signifies otherwise

o “The face signifies otherwise”

The face is the trace of the other

Past tense

You’re a bit delayed; the other is always a step ahead

How absence can make itself in the presence

The other=an unrepresentable past

You’re always chasing the other because it is

out of your grasp

When you encounter a face, you are drawn out.

The Afghan girl

If you don’t recognize the other as an other, you

violate them

Page 9

That which escapes comprehension in the other… is him, a being.

I cannot negate him partially, in violence, in grasping him within

the horizon of being in general and possessing him. The Other…

is the sole being whose negation can only announce itself as

total: as murder. The Other… is the sole being I can wish to kill.”

o Once you wish to completely know the whole person, that’s

when you practically commit murder. (explicit intention)

o The wish to completely negate the other

o The other

“At the very moment when my power to kill realizes itself, the

other… has escaped me. I can for sure, in killing attain a goal…

but when I have rasped the other… in the opening of being in

general, as an element of the world where I stand, where I have

seen him on the horizon, I have not looked him in the face, I have

not encountered his face…. To be in relation with the other…

face to face is to be unable to kill. It is also the situation of

discourse.”

o All traces of otherness has been eradicated

Conclusion

Ethical significance of critique of ontology

How it could’ve been unethical if it remained the same. (Just

comprehension)

Possibility of an other-centered philosophy

Task: to re-question what it means to be human

To be human is not to have an identity. It is to have infinite

responsibility

Could selfhood be a relation of infinite responsibility?

What happens to the individual’s identity?

The Solitude of Being 1/25/11 8:04 AM

Bob and Charlotte

Bob- he was lost; didn’t enjoy his job; he knows where he should

be but he’s not quite there

Charlotte- bored; questioning her marriage

Relationship

o Not romantic; gamitan; both lonely; genuine

o Tried all sorts of distractions because they felt alone

Solitude

Time and the Other was published in 1947

Different climate of philosophy: the “social problem”

Released after world war 2

Instead of social problem per se, he talked about how SP came to

be

P. 57

“The aim of these lectures, you write…, is to show that time is

not the achievement of an isolated and lone subject but that it is

the subject’s very relationship with the Other.’ It is a strange way

of beginning, for it supposes that solitude is in itself a problem.”

Levinas agrees with the fact that time doesn’t belong to Being…

arises only when you are in a relationship with the other

If you exist, without any other, you will have no sense of time

Heidi: cannot share your existence (levinas agrees)

P .57

“In reality, the fact of being is what is most private,; existence is

the sole thing I cannot communicate; I can tell about it, but I

cannot share my existence. Solitude this appears here as the

isolation which marks the very event of being the social is

beyond ontology.”

Levinas: we are alone

What about being-in-the-world?

What about care?

P. 58

You write: “it is banal to say we never exist in the singular. We are

surrounded by beings and things with which we maintain relations.

Through sight, touch, sympathy and common work we are with others. All

these relations are transitive. I touch an object, I see the other; but I am

not the other.”

P.58

‘What is formulated here is the putting into question of this with, as

possibility of escaping solitude. Does “existing with” represent a veritable

sharing of existence? How is this sharing realized? Or again (for the word

“sharing: would signify that existence is of the order of having): is there a

participation in being which makes us escape from solitude?”

relations that we have are actually not relations of 2 open

individuals but between 2 closed entities

o atoms

o 1+1=2; never a union of 2 beings

For the individual, you cannot share existence

Heidi: cannot share death; being cannot be shared

L disagrees that time arises from the relationship with the

other***

Do you agree with L’s argument for the solitude and isolation of being?

Do you agree with L’s argument for the banality of “being with” as an

escape?

How then can we escape the solitude of being?

Escape

P. 59, 3rd full

“The first solution is the escaping from the self which constitutes

the relation to the world in knowledge and in what you call

‘nourishments.’”

o The enjoyments through which the subject eludes his

solitude

o Not anything abstract

o Those little things that we enjoy doing that help us distract

ourselves from thinking that we are alone

o “un-self-ish”

when you engage in a nourishment, you want to

escape yourself, the closeness of yourself, the

privacy of yourself

o not a real escape

o “innocent enjoyments”=joie sanct

o Escaping through knowledge

P. 59

By that I understand all terrestrial nourishments: the enjoyments

through which the subject eludes his solitude. The very

expression “to elude one’s solitude” indicates the illusory

P. 60

“It is by essence a relation with what one equals and includes ,

with that whose alterity one suspends, with what becomes

immanent, because it is to my measure and to my scale, I think

of Descartes, who said that the cogito can give itself the sun and

sky; the only thing it cannot give itself is the idea of the infinite.

Knowledge is always an adequation between thought and what it

thinks.”

o makes the unknown level down to my saying

o Escaping through knowledge

o The only thing I can be sure of is me

o A relation of equals; what I know is my equal; subject-

object

o Knowledge remains within the realm of the same

o “Prendre” in “comprendre” means “to take”

comprehension=knowledge

an act of taking in

in line with the solitude of being

what I know, I bring in to my totality

P. 60

There is in knowledge in the final account an impossibility of escaping the

self; hence sociality cannot have the same structure as knowledge

Knowledge and nourishments are not real escapes

P. 61

You speak in this regard of knowledge as a light; what is

illuminated is thus possessed.”

P. 61

“or possessable up to the remotest stars.”

P. 61

by distinction, the escape from solitude is going to be a

dispossession or a detachment?”

P. 61

Sociality will be a way of escaping being otherwise than through

knowledge

o Nourishments and knowledge are not real escapes

o More of forgetting about the self than a real escape

o If you really want to escape, you have to have a

relationship with the other

P. 61

Time is not a simple experience of duration, but a dynamism

which leads us elsewhere than toward the things we possess. It is

as of in time there were a movement beyond what is equal to us.

Time as relationship to unattainable alterity and, this,

interruption of rhythm and its returns.”

o Time does not belong to being

o It arises from the relationship with the other

o Responsibility= ability to respond

o If everything is present, how can we have a sense of then

and in the future? (everything is the same)

It arises from the relationship with the other

Interruption= we become aware when we get face to

face with the other

Diachrony= another time

Not my time; an other; absence; not only

presence; not my presence

Not able to comprehend or bring it down to my

able

Time is not within being

Heartline; interruption

o Time breaks open the solitary presence of the same (heart

line)

o Where you can generally escape

Interruption, you cannot return to yourself anymore

o Unattainable alterity calls us to respond infinitely

o Bob and charlotte; real relationship but not infinitely

responsible

Conclusion

Solitude is the mark of being

The impossibility of escape through knowledge

Time as interruption by infinite, unattainable alterity

o Presence of another interrupts breaks me open

o Breaking open will not last but will get covered again by

comprehension

Sociality as infinite responsibility

o Escape= ex. Jove asking a question. Not exactly temporary

because you always know that the other is there

Responsibility for the Other 1/25/11 8:04 AM

Levinasian themes

Critique of ontology: totalitarian

Dominated by Being; no other room for anything else

o Equation of existence to

o Heidi was just like the other old guys; focused on the

universal

L’s Goal: “Ethics as first philosophy”

Language (discourse) as relation beyond comprehension

The others as pure particularity: the face

A sign of being that is not there; trace

A relationship of discourse

The solitude of being: critique of “being-with”

Wanted to show an other-centered philosophy

Need to escape vis-à-vis the impossibility of escape

Why do we need to escape?

Time as interruption by infinity

Time as arising from relationship with the other

Bothered by an infinite I cannot grasp

Sociality as an infinite relationship with the other

The moment you recognize the other

What happens to identity, to subjectivity, to selfhood?

Subjectivity

Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence published in 1974

Moving away from Heidi; 2nd major work

Aim: to describe subjectivity in ethical terms

Subjectivity as responsibility

Your identity is your responsibility

Even before all other determinations of subjectivity (time, body,

being), you exist as responsibility

Your existence is a relation

What does L mean by responsibility?

Existence is responsibility

Responsible= doing something and you can be held accountable

for it

o You cannot be responsible for something you did not do

Responsibility initiative

Since I did it, I am responsible

P. 95

I understand responsibility for the Other, thus as responsibility for

what is not my deed, or for what does not even matter to me; or

which precisely does matter to me, is met by me as a face.”

o As a face= the face signifies otherwise

A sign for something that is not there

Reminder that the other is an infinite; we are

responding to an infinite we have an infinite

responsibility. I am related to that infinite

P. 97

The face orders and ordains me, Its signification is an order

signified. To be precise, if the face signifies and order in my

regard, this is not in the manner in which an ordinary sign

signifies its signified; this order is the very signifyingness of the

face.”

o Ex. Being born= no initiative;

Your existence is what you owe to someone else

Your existence is already a response to someone

else’s initiative or someone else’s order

You have been elected to exist (my responsibility

without being my responsibility)

The face is what calls you to that responsibility

Utang na loob

Respond to the infinite in the face

Face is not a typical sign

Sign signifies the signified @_@_@_@_@

Singifyingness- brings out the continuous process of

signification; signifying the infinite

P. 96

You recall what we said: meeting the face is not of the order of

pure and simple perception, of the intentionality which goes

toward adequation. Positively, we will say that since the Other

looks at me, I am responsibility for him, without even having

taken on responsibilties in his regard; his respnosibilty is in

incumbent on me, It is responsiilty that foes beyond what I do.

Usually, one is respnonsibilty for what one does one self. I sa…

o You exist for the other

o Subjectivity=responsibility-pure exteriority

Existence is related to alteriority

o Subjectivity as relation beyond comprehension

P. 97

“The tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility, this

moreover, whether accepted or refused, whether knowing or not

knowing how to assume it, whether able or unable to do

something concrete for the Other. To say: here I am (me voici).”

o L trying to break the tendency to comprehend

P.98

“But is not the Other also responsible in my regard?”

o Am I an other to the other?

Infinite responsibility

P. 98

“Perhaps, but that is his affair… the intersubjective relation is a

non-symmetrical relation. In this sense, I am responsible for the

Other without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it.

Reciprocity is his affair.”

P. 100

“Constituting itself in the very movement wherein being

responsible for the other devolves on it, subjectivity goes to the

point of substitution for the Other. It assumes the condition—or

the uncondition—of hostage. Subjective as such is initially

hostage; it answers to the point of expiating for others.”

o you take on the responsibility of the other

o held hostage= no choice involved

P. 98

It is precisely insofar as the relationship between the Other and

me is not reciprocal that I am subjection to the Other; and I am

‘subject’ essentially in this sense. It is I who support all. You know

that sentence in Dostoyevsky: ‘We are all guilty of all and for all

men before all, and I more than the others.”

o Brothers Karamasov

Recall: “We are thus responsible beyond our intentions.”

Gab: also by not doing something, there are also consequences

P. 99

“In the concrete, many other considerations intervene and

require justice even for me Practically, the laws set certain

consequences out of the way.”

P. 100

“One can appear scandalized by this utopian and, for an I,

inhuman condition

o A season in hell

What a life! The true life is absent. We are not in this

world. I go where he goes, I have to.” (Rimbaud)

Recall: Time is not a simple experience of duration,

but a dynamism which leads us elsewhere than

toward the things we possess.”

P. 100

The ontological condition undoes itself, or is undone, in the

himan condiion of uncondition… the otherwise than being, in

truth, has no verb which would

o Breaking out of existence

o Dis-interested-edness

P. 100-101

My responsibility is untransferale, no one could replace me…

o Everything and nothing at the same time

o That identity is lacking

o Why are you still intrigued by identity

Conclusion

Subjectivity as responsibility

Responsibility as pure exteriority

Social relation as non-symmetrical

Identity and selfhood as infinite responsibilty

The Self and Narrative Identity 1/25/11 8:04 AM

Sameness and selfhood

Soi-meme comme un autre published in 19990

Theme: Hermeneutics of the self

Hermeneutics=

Questions

What exactly does the “I” mean?

How are “I” and “self” related?

Are “self” and “identity” the same thing?

Is selfhood only a matter of being identifiable?

o If someone else was able to identify you, is that enough?

Does selfhood consists only of sameness?

o Is it just the matter of being the same? (totalitarian?)

o Totalitarian= too limiting for R

To say “I” is not to say “self”

Self=reflexive; includes a motion of reflection; not just me

asserting something

A self has an identity; identity belongs to a self

A self has an identity

There can be “selves” without an identity

To gain an identity is something you are not given; it is

something you acquire

To have an identity is not only a matter of being identifiable

o Kids trying to assert themselves; dress up in a particular

way, talk in a certain way, etc.

Identity is also delivered in the reflexive designation of oneself

o “hans has to identify himself as hans”

o what really matters is what you recognize yourself as;

knowing who you are

Identity is polysemic: idem-identity vs. ipse-identity

Polysemic=having many meanings

Idem-identity

Ipse-identity

“On one side, identity as sameness (latin idem, german gleichheit, French

memete) on the other, identity as slefhood (latin ipse, GermandSlebstheit,

French ipseite). Selfhood, I have repeatedly affirmed, is not sameness.

Because the major distinction between them is not recognized… the

solutions offered to the problem of personal identity which do not consider

the narrative dimension fail.”

Who am I? (for R) oscillates between the ideas of Niche and Descartes

Sameness

Permanence despite change (matronic ladies, Vicky belo)

Different kinds of sameness

o Numeric

Just one; A is A

o Qualitative

Tied to the first one; the first instance of hans and

the next instance are the same; identical; “one and

the same person”; judging identity through similarity

Hans will still be hans despite change (?)

o Continuous

To be the same is to be continuously the same

Eyewitness testimony

Make a connection based on similarity

Weak argument

Structural

o Genetics; sameness that won’t ever change

o The most perfect way to identify a person

“What?”

o impersonal; basic concepts of being one, qualitative,

continuous and structural

o answers the question of What is identity?

Selfhood

Permanence through change; remaining myself

Two aspects:

o Character as acquired disposition

Character= a set of distinctive marks that allow one

to be identified

Defines who he is; predictability

A part of character belongs to sameness

Characteristics are not given automatically but they

are acquired through time, through discipline

It takes change for it to be properly called a

character

Sameness and selfhood meet in character

Something that I have to acquire over time

Includes the idea of I will not be the same and

yet I’ll still be me

o Keeping one’s word as self-constancy

Keeping a promise= giving assurance to the person

you’re making the promise to

Eventhough things change, I will not

Somehow I will be in constant

I will still be the same

I become the guarantor

Someone is counting on me

Commitments=understanding that things will

change (vows) and yet, I will remain constant

It’s “me”= no longer “I”

o “Who?”

it’s me

Having an identity is to say “It’s me!”

For me to say that “It’s me”

Me=object pronoun; a predicate placed upon you; who is

responsible for this=me

Faithfulness

Immediacy of responsibility

Forming a character=keeping one’s word

It’s me imputes one self in the absence of sameness

Projecting the future=the absence of sameness

If you break that promise, you are held responsible for it

“The properly ethical justification of the promise suffices itself, a

justification which can be derived from the obligation to safeguard the

institution of language and to respond to the trust that the other places in

my faithfulness… it is here, precisely, that selfhood and sameness cease

to coincide.”

In saying it’s me, it’s making a promise to me and Others

Lying

Compare self and self

Keeping one’s promise is about the distinction of self and self

Seeing yourself as an other

Summary

Sameness and selfhood are distinct from each other

o Still related to one another

o Meet in character

Sameness functions “horizontally”; selfhood functions “vertically”

(jacinto)

o Sameness is a matter of comparison

o Selfhood-there’s growth involved

These two lines intersect in the work of building a character

o Sameness=compare instances to one another

o Selfhood=allows you to say it’s me

How does one build a character?

o Bringing out the narrative

Narrative Identity

P. 141, first

“Understood in narrative terms, identityc can be called.. the

identity of the characer… the identity of the character is

construced in connection with that of the plot”

o development of the character is parallel to the

development of the plot

P. 141, 2nd

It (the plot) can be described in dynamic terms by the

competition between a demand for concordance and the

admission of disconsordances which, up to the close of the sotyr,

threaten this identity.”

o Pop philo: you change every 7 years

o There’s always that potential to change until the very end

of the plot

o Responsibility tied to guilt; promise broken

Recall: Synthesis of heterogeneous elements

Multiple events and one unified story

o Plot mediates the tension between the many and the one

Discordant parts and concordant sequence

o Linking those that don’t make sense and those that do

Continuous succession and temporal configuration

o Narrative understanding; the story will end

The inversion of contingency: occurrence vs. events

Narrative=sequence of events (?)

For something that is ____, was already an integral part of the

story; after it has been related

Random occurrences become events; suddenly have meaning

after you’ve related it

Retroactive narrative necessity forms a narrative unity

Hindsight

Not perfect=sometimes the author forgets/edits

Always a readjustment involved until the very end of the story

P. 143

“From this simple reminder of the notion of emplotment… it

results that the narrative operation has developed an entirely

original concept of dynamic identity which reconciles the same

categories that Locke took as contraries: identity and diversity.”

o Change will always be a part of it

Character as a plot made of actions

Because someone did

Events created by the actions of the characters

Tragedies=there are still actions on the part of the character that

lead to the tragedy

Retroactive necessity of action form a narrative identity

Identify through actions; HP in book 5

I do something, it affects this event, this event affects the

character…

P. 143

It is indeed in the story recounted, with its qualities of unity,

internal structure, and completeness which are conferred by

emplotment, that the character preserves…story itself

o Character moves along with the plot

o Develops along with the plot

“Functions” and “roles”

Narrative identity

Characters as roles in the story

Through this narrative, you are able to spot their roles

You have a sense of who did what? Who suffered what?

A sense of I can affect change

Character can act and affect someone else

Character as agent or as sufferer

“Agents” and “sufferers”

ethical evaluations

P. 145

The moral problem.. is grafted onto the recognition of essential

dissymmetry between the one who acts and the one who

undergoes, culminating in the violence of the powerful agent

o Ethics involved (actions affecting others)

Narrative identity as response to the aporias of ascription

Aporias of ascription

o Aporia=tension, problem, that’s difficult to resolve

o Ascription= act of assigning a particular act to a person

“jerinae did this”

o Jackie intending to drink water but topples bottle over

instead

Narrative and emplotment teaches how to ascribe

Character as mode of identification through imputation

Crime=ascribe it to the one who committed it

P. 147

The dialectic of character and plot makes the aporias of

ascription productive, and narrative identity can be said to

provide a poetic reply to them.”

o The ascription that we get from the narrative is not a

perfect kind of ascription but it has value

o The work of building a character is like the work of building

a plot

o Through the plot, you get to understand actions/roles

o You learn how action works

Character can initiate actions

Other characters can be passive

o You no longer have to bother with the problems of

ascription

o Water bottle example (spilling the water)

What am I responsible for?

You just have to understand it from a narrative

perspective

This character did this and that

o Character as a mode of identification

This guy did this

Ryuji= provides the comic relief; “pinky promise”

o Teaches you how to spot action

“To narrate consists precisely in saying who did what, why and how, by

unfolding in time the connection between these points of view… the

narrative (confers) an initiative to the character—the power to begin a

series of events without this constituting an absolute being.” (Garcia)

beings are capable of initiating action

capable of regrouping/re-identifying yourself

o doesn’t make you an absolute beginning

being the hero of your own story=subjective

not an absolute beginning

you’re also a sufferer

capable and vulnerable

Doing good without having to respond; taking the initiative to do

good

Creating your own identity

“Narrative constructs the durable properties of a character, what one

would call… narrative identity, by constructing the kind of dynamic

identity found in the plot which creates the character’s identity.” (Ricoeur)

you can form your ownself

capacities of a person

you might be capable but there’s still a level of passivity

o psychologically ill people

you’re an agent

your most personal … create your own identity

In answering he question “Who am I?” we are called to tell the story of a

person’s life as a capable being

Not perfect; can conveniently forget/exaggerate some parts

Narrative puts past and present together

o Looking at a pic when you’re young and older

Narrative unity of one’s life gives a person an identity, allows a person to

say “It’s me!”

Other people

Can a capable being also be a culpable being? Can an agent be a sufferer?

Culpable=deserving blame

Sufferer=yes (not just agency/action)

Is it possible to be ethically neutral?

o To have no ethics

Ethical Implications

No such thing as an ethically neutral narrative

-. 152

“In what sense… is it legitimate to see in the theory of plot and of

character a meaningful transition between the ascription of

action to an agent who has the capacity to act and its imputation

to an agent who has the obligation to act?”

P. 152

“Any revision in the relation between action and agent requires

along with it a revision in the very concept of action, if it is to be

carried to the level of narrative configuration on the scale of an

entire life.”

o Why do you do anything?

Every action has a particular aim

Everything that you do has an end

Looking at the larger picture

Actions within a larger narrative context: practices

As a linear order: “X in order to do Y.”

Recipe in cooking; the practice of baking

As a set of “nesting relations” of actions (153-154)

No longer a strict linear relation

Skills to be doing this practice

As an institution with constituted rules (154-155)

Painting

Why do you act?

The interactive or cooperative nature of a practice

Rules that you get into

The aim has been set for you (with institution practices)

Things outside the practice (wanting to be a good person, etc)

(Justification of the move from the narrative to ethics)

Actions when seen in the context of a larger practice

Moving hands when talking=part of discussing; not wala lang

P. 55, 2nd

“Practices are based on actions in which an agent takes into

account as a matter of principle, the actions of others.”

o Others are involved

o You live up to the standards that others have set

o Why actions open up to ethics

P.157 first

“Both terms (omission and submission) remind us that on the

level of interaction, just as on that of subjective understanding,

not acting is still acting… In fact, every action has its agents ad

patients.”

o Relations are in place. It ties us with people. We get a

sense of capacity (we affect them)

Practice opens up to life plans: praxis and bios (157)

Student

o Beyond this

o Why do you do what you do?

Beyond praxis you need to think about bios (life)

Deliberations involved in order to live a good life

You do what you want to do because you want to live a good life

No one wants to live a bad life

“How, indeed, could a subject of action give an ethical character to his or

her own life taken as a whole, if this life were not gathered together ins

some way, and how could this occur if not, precisely, in the form of a

narrative?”

telling your own story

we cant step into that world of prescription (of good/bad) if you

don’t step into the narrative

Jackie: sufficient conditions and necessary conditions

o Running raises her heart rate (sufficient but not necessary)

o Is it necessary?

o Necessary condition: watch tv must open eyes (not

sufficient)

o Narrative is a necessary condition to evaluate life as good

or bad

o Is it sufficient? No. there are other things that need to be

done

Narrative anticipates reading the narrative

P. 164

The pleasure we take in following the fate of the characters

implies, to be sure, that we suspend all real moral judgment at

the same time that we suspend action itself. But in the unreal

sphere of fiction we never tire of exploring new ways of

evaluating actions and characters. The thought experiments….”

o Reading lets you know what’s good or bad

Recall:

Mimesis1

Prefigurations

Mimesis2:

Configuration

Where author and reader meet

Mimesis3

Refiguration

*Narrative makes it clear to you what to deliberate

*to sharpen what you learn (?)

*When you tell the story, you get a clear sense of who you are

Building a character, through narrating and reading narratives, opens up

to self-constancy: keeping one’s word

people make a promise because they know that things will

change

projecting a future that sameness will change…

Self-constancy is already a matter of ethics

Expectations… breaking promise

Marriage even if things change about me, I will still remain the

same

P. 165

“self-constancy is for each person that manner of conducting

himself or herself so that others can count on that person.

Because someone is counting on me, I am accountable for my

actions before another.”

P. 165

“The term “responsibility’ unites both meanings: ‘counting on’

and ‘being accountable for.’ It unites them, adding to the the

idea of response to the question ‘where are you?’ asked by

another who needs me. This response is the following: ‘Here I

am!’ a response that is a statement of self-constancy.”

P. 165

“The answer to this question would appear to have already been

given: narrative identity stands between the two”

o the narrative mediates between me as sameness and me

as samehood

p. 165-166

In narrativizing character, the narrative returns to it the

movement abolished in acquired dispositions, in the sediment of

identifications-with. In narrativizing the aim of the true life,

narrative identity gives it the recognizable features of characters

loved or respected. Narrative identity makes the two ends of the

chain link up with one another: the permanence in time of

character and that of self-constancy.”

Who am?” “It’s me!”

Where are you? Here I am

Who am I, so inconstant, that notwithstanding you count on me?” “Here is

where I stand” (168)

Who am I, taking into account that I will change, and that I will

remain the same….

Selfhood at the end of the day’s conviction

Cannot grant it conviction. Only proof is your own conviction

Cannot prove selfhood is to provide evidence

Evidence=my conviction

Conclusion

Sameness and selfhood are distinct from each other

Sameness “ends” and selfhood “begins” in character

The work of building a character is the work of constructing a

narrative identity

Personal identity, which contains both sameness and selfhood, is

narrative identity

Narrative identity as a poetic response to the aporias of

ascription: capable being

Actions within practices, and practices within life plans: the

consideration of others: culpable being

The work of constructin a narrative unity in one’s life is the work

of aiming for the “good life”: capable and culpable being

o To make life comedic

o The fallible man (ricouer) the capable being

o Son dying: loss of the capability to fix things

From “it’s me!” to “here I am” to “here is where I stand!”

The Self and the Ethical Aim 3/08/11 8:04 AM

It is indeed in the story recounted, with its qualities of unity,

internal structure, and completeness which are conferred by

emplotment Aim vs. Norm

Personal identity as narrative identity (It’s me!)

Sameness and selfhood meet in this saying

Narrative as poetic reply to the aporias of ascription

Just tell a story to know who, when, where, what. Know who did

what

Capability to construct a narrative unity in one’s life

Culpability for the kind of life one leads

The narrative mediates between “is” and “ought” (“Here I am!” and Here

is where I stand!)

Is=present; ought=future

Ought is the ideal

Is=current state; ought=expectation=standard involved

I ought to do something

P. 170

The actions refigured by narrative fictions are complex ones, rich

in anticipations of an ethical nature. Telling a story, we observed,

is deploying an imaginary space for thought experiments in

which moral judgment operates in a hypothetical mode.”

o The act of reading allows you to sharpen your moral

judgment

o Ethical anticipation

o Moral judgment

Good vs Obligatory

You might want something but there are societal pressures

You might have to do something but it’s not good

Aim vs. Norm: Ethics vs. morality

They can overlap (youa= aim for what’s good)

P.170

Now, what is there o say about the distinction proposed between

ethics and morality? Nothing in their etymology or in the history

of the use of the terms requires such a distinction. One comes

from Greek, the other from Latin…

P. 170

it is, therefore, by convention that I Reserve the term ‘ethics’ for

the aim of an accomplished life and the term ‘morality’ for the

articulation of this aim in norms characterized at once by the

claim to universality and by an effect a constraint

Ethics: teleology:: morality:deontology

Teleology- you have an end which everything moves towards

Deontology- beyond norm

Teleology_ Aristotle:: Deontology: Kant

P. 170

The primacy of ethics over morality (2) the necessity for the

ethical aim to pass through the sieve of the norm, and 3 the

legitimacy of recourse by the norm to the aim whenever the

norm leads to impasses in practice—impasses recalling at this

new stage of our meditation the various aporetic situations which

or reflection selfhood of…

P. 171

1 that self –esteem is more fundamental than self-respect. 2 that

self respect is the aspect under which self esteem appears in the

domain of norms. 3 the aporias of duty create situation in which

self-esteem appears not only as the source but as the recourse

for respect, when no sure norm offers a guide for the exercise hic

et nunc of respect”

o self-esteem (ethics); self-respect (morality)

o Self-respect=baseline respect; self-esteem=reflexive

movement of me identifying myself (can go up or down)

o Hic et nunc (here and now)

“Good Life”

General Aim: the primacy of ethics over morality

Particular aim: the primacy of self-esteem over self-respect

How you value yourself through self-esteem is more important

than self-respect

P. 172

“is our inquiry into the ethical aim… a renouncement of any

meaningful discussion, allowing free reign to effusions of ‘good’

sentiments? Not at all.”

o Our particular aims can be different

P. 172

“Let us define ‘ethical intention’ as aiming at the good life with and for

others, in just institutions”

Good has no direct reference to selfhood

You cannot consider yourself….

Self-esteem is mediated by the reference to others and to just institutions

involved in aiming for the “good life”

movement dictating whether you are good or not (?)

P. 172

This is the moment to recall the distinction Aristotle makes

between the good that people aim at and Platonic good. In

Aristotelian ethics, it can only be a question of the good for us”

Plato=

Aristotle

P. 172

This relativity with respect to us does not prevent the fact that

the good is not contained in any particular thing, The good is

rather that which is lacking in all things. This ethics in its entirety

presupposes this nonsaturable use of the predicate good

o The good is that which is lacking

o Good can be relative

P. 172

Is the discussion threatened, once again, by vagueness? Not at

all.

Actions are done for the sake of something

The capability to construct a unity in one’s life relies on one’s particular

actions (tekhne)

But not all actions are the same

o They might all aim for the good but there are hierarchies

involved

Tekhne~technique. A skill but there’s more that can be done

o It is not something given. It’s something that should be

developed

Actions have teleological structures within the context of practices

(praxis)

The aim or end of a practice is largely pre-determined by others

(standards of excellence)

Ends already pre-determined by others. You work towards that

end

The capability of the agent is exercised in the deliberation over which

means to employ to properly achieve the end

P. 177

The doctor is already a doctor; he does not ask whether he

wishes to remain one; his choices are strictly of an instrumental

nature: medication or surgery, purge or operate. But what of the

choice of the vocation of medicine?”

P. 177

The action-configurations that we call life plans stem, then, from

our moving back and forth between far-off ideals… and the

weighing of the advantages and disadvantages of the choice of a

given life plan on the level of practice.

o Possibility for the character to regress

o Life plan is already beyond your previous goals (?)

o Your end gets closer and closer to the end (?)

Beyond practice with a pre-determined end, one’s final aim, one’s life

plan, takes precedence

The primacy of ethics over morality

Before you start talking about aims and norms, grow as a person,

know what’s right…

Youth not following rules. Feels restrained. As you grow older,

you make your own rules.

At the same time, ethics already anticipates the moral norm

How can one tell if one’s life plan is actually good?

Norms

What should be the aim or end of the practice of being human?

There should be some kind of end from being human

What the human being is for

P. 177

Thus Aristotle aksed whether there is an ergon—a function, a

task—for man as such… this ergon is to life, take in its entirety,

as the standard of excellence is to a particular practice.

o You need to figure out what

o The ergon of the human person is arête (virtue,

excellence); the final aim is eudaimonia (“the good life”,

“happiness”)

o The function of the human person is virtuous and excellent

o If you reach the final aim (eudaimonia)/flourishing

o Arete requires the phronesis (practical wisdom, prudence)

of phronimos (practically wise, prudent person)

Youth developing their practical wisdom

The acts that you do are not good in themselves but

because you committed them

Early stages of life=you are determined by actions

you do.

In terms of goodness, once you’ve reached the level

of phronimos, you become the determinate of your

actions

Self-constancy: keeping a promise

Phronimos: Dumbledore, Jesus

The ergon of the human person is arête (virtue,

excellence); the final aim is eudaimonia (the good

life; happiness)

Arête requires the phronesis (practical wisdom,

prudence) of the phronimos (practically wise, prudent

person)

In the practice of virtue, you require phronesis

(prudence; knowing how to live well; begin to explore

the relationship of the phronesis and the phronimos)

Certain activities will lead to forming who you are but

you eventually determine what you do

Phronesis as a person’s reflexive self-interpretation of her actions,

practices, and life plan via the narrative

Phronimos as the person who has constructed her narrative identity, as

the person with character worthy of self-esteem

The narrative identity you form is not perfect. What makes it real

is that you can say it’s me and you can trust that

Recall: how could a subject of action give an ethical character to

his or her own life taken as a whole, if this life were not gathered

together in some way, and how could this occur if not, precisely,

in the form of a narrative? (ricoeur)

Esteeming oneself=interpreting oneself

Solicitude

P.179-180

On the ethical plane, self-interpretation becomes self-esteem. In return,

self-esteem follows the fate of interpretation. Like the latter, it provokes

controversy, dispute, rivalry—in short, the conflict of interpretations—in

the exercise of practical judgment. This means that the search for

adequation between our life ideals and our decisions, themselves vital

ones, is not open to the sort of verification expected in the sciences

involved.

The belief in yourself

The concept of esteem cannot be recognized without a concept

of the other

*VMO= sets actions; needs to be set in in terms of a vision

self-esteem~self-respect

P. 180

“the question takes on a paradoxical twist calling for discussion when the

reflexive aspect of this aim is characterized by self-esteem. Reflexivity

seems indeed to carry with it the danger of turning in upon oneself, of

closing up, and moving in the opposite direction from openness, from the

horizon of the ‘good life’”

do I esteem myself first before I esteem another person?

Despite being selfish, self esteem already has a dialogic

dimension

180

“Despite the certain danger, my thesis is that solicitude is not something

added on to self esteem from outside but that it unfolds the dialogic

dimension of self-esteem, which up to now has been passed over in

silence. By unfolding,… I mean, of course, a break in life and in discourse

that creates conditions for a second-order continuity, such that self-

esteem and solicitude cannot be experienced or reflected upon one

without the other.”

One you love yourself, you also love another (R)

Esteeming yourself=esteeming another

R’s justification

Self not equal to myself

Self says nothing about myself

Even mineness requires the clause “in each case”

The self belongs to each cases of being human

The self belongs to

Self-esteem only belongs to “me” abstractly

o The self is mine only because you’ve interpreted it

Go through the mediation of the narrative to establish that it’s

me

P. 181

“in this regard, the reflexivity from which self-esteem proceeds remains

abstract, in the sense that it does not mark the difference between me

and you.”

More of comparison of self and self

The act of esteeming can belong to anyone

Any idea of reflexivity going in on itself

181

“if one asks by what right the self is declared to be worthy of esteem, it

must be answered that it is not principally by reason of its

accomplishments but fundamentally by reason of its capacities.”

Your capacity makes you good

o You can be good

When you say self, it’s the esteeming of the ____ for our

capabilities

*you are not your grades… (for mgt)

181

“the question is then whether the mediation of the other is not required

along the route from capacity to realization”

one’s worthiness starts with capacity

The self does not belong to you

Relationship with…. Not between self and the other, but self and self

Esteem

To esteem oneself is to esteem another; has to go through a mediation

with the other

Aristotle’s treatise on friendship

the ethical intention=aiming for the good life,…

friendship is in line with this

friendship mediates between the solitary act of aiming for the

“good life” and shared aim of justice

friendship is not about affection or attachment; friendship is a

virtue, an excellence

Filia

Not determined by just feelings

Justice=mediated through an institution

Philoutia (self-love, self-esteem) requires friendship

o Being friends with yourself

o Ends up with Filia; happy man needs friends

182

Friendship, Aristotle declares straightaway, is not one kind only; it is an

essentially equivocal notion that one can clarify by asking about the sort

of things that give rise to it—its ‘object,’ in this sense—the phileta. Thus,

we must distinguish three types of friendship: for the sake of the good, of

“utility,” or of “of pleasure

Friendship is always done for the sake of something else

182-183

“The objective side of self-love is the reason why philautia—which makes

each person his or her own friend—will never be the unmediated

predilection of oneself but desire oriented by its reference to the good”

the fact that friendship is done for the sake of someone else. I

engage in friendship (filia) because im aiming for the good

Friendship is never done directly for oneself

Friendship is an esteem for its phileta

Friendship is a mutual relationship: reciprocity

A relationship between self and self, not same and other

Self-esteem does not mark the difference between me and you

Relationship of two selves as equals

Friendship is an esteem for another “as being the man he is”

The good part in me desiring the good in the other

Relationship of slef and self; equal; both worthy of esteem

The best part of me desiring the best part of another

Intellect

Reflexivity of philautia is equally split in two; in this sense, friendship

borders on justice

At the very least, I love the concept self… self can mean anyone

else(?)

Esteeming is split equally

You deserve esteem

People you don’t know are still worthy of esteem

If you know how to esteem yourself, you would know the

importance of esteeming the other

Justice=giving others what they deserve

P 188

To self-esteem, friendship makes a contribution without taking anything

away. What it adds is the idea of reciprocity in the exchange between

human beings who each esteem themselves. As for the corollary of

reciprocity, namely equality, it places friendship on the path of justice,

where the life together shared by a few people gives way to the

distribution of shares in a plurality on the scale of a historical, political

community

Contrast between the reciprocity of friendship and the asymmetry of the

other’s command (Levinas)

There is an inequality

Without the command or the initiative of the other, can the self respond?

Yes

Response to the command of the other is already in the realm of

morality

o Want to rather than ought to

Our wager is that it is possible to dig down under the level of obligation

and to discover an ethical sense not so completely buried under norms

that it cannot be invoked when these norms themselves are silent, in the

case of undecidable matters of conscience. This is why it is so important

to us to give solicitude a more fundamental status than obedience to duty.

Its status is that of benevolent spontaneity, intimately related to self-

esteem within the framework of the aim of the “good life”

Benevolent spontaneity=the capacity to do good

Benevolent spontaneity must be instructed by tragedy

Reversibility of “I” and “you”

Nonsubstitutibility of persons held in esteem

The esteem I have for that person

My esteem for that person proves that that person cannot be

replaced

Similitude of others “as myself” and as “you too”

o There’s a relation because there’s a similarity

VBecoming in this way fundamentally equivalent are the esteem

of the other as a oneself and the esteem of oneself as an other.”

o The other as already part of esteem

o How self can carry the a sense of otherness

o You consider yourself as someone separate from you

Justice

The self is a capacity

You are worthy of esteem because you have capacity

I am able to see myself as an other

The other I don’t know

194

the fact that the aim of living well in a way encompasses the sense of

justice is implied in the very notion of the other. The other is also other

than the ‘you.’ Correlatively, justice extends further than face-to-face

encounters.

Justice is on the level of institutions

Equality is the ethical core of justice

The self as an “each”

194

By institution, we are to understand here the structure of living together

as this belongs to a historical community—people, nation, region, and so

forth—a structure irreducible to interpersonal relations and yet bound up

with these.

The ethos of a community characterizes the institution

o Try to solidify a particular goal as a community

o Before talking about structures

Power in common vs. domination (Arendt)

o Limits?

o An institution presents

o People who want to live together well

o Institutions can be in 2 forms

Dominative: limits one’s freedom

Stems from power in common

Not there right away

Power in common

Arendt’s definitions of labor, work and action

Power in common belongs to action: plurality and action in

concert

The ethical aim is more important than the moral norm

Living together does not automatically mean an institution

What maeks it an institution

o The ethos of a community characterizes the institution

o What binds the community together

o Spirit

o Power in commin vs. domination (Arendt)

Labor you do it because you have to, to survive: eat, sleep

o You do it because you are a biological being

Work: what you do to recognize the world you’re in

o You find yourself in an environment

o Work is what you do to humanize your environment

o Professions, jobs, careers

Action= what ultimately defines the human condition

o Something that you do to exercise your freedom

o An initiative to start something new

o What conditions this is plurality

The reason why you act is because there are many

others around you

Exercise freedom amidst that plurality

o Power in common belongs to action

But done in a public level

Conditioned by plurality

But done in concert (together)

Where political power comes from

Several individuals working together to start

something new

The aim to live well together

Not individually, not just interpersonally but

together

P. 195

The plurality includes third parties who will never be faces. A plea for the

anonymous in the literal sense of the term is therefore included in the

fullest aim of the true life

P. 195

Including the third party, in turn, must not be limited to the instantaneous

aspect of wanting to act together but must be spread out over a span of

time. It is from the institution, precisely, that power receives this temporal

dimension. The temporal dimension does not simply have to do with the

past…’ it has even more to with the future, the ambition to last---that is,

not to pass but to remain.”

Spirit of EDSA

Temporal nature of power in common

Make a structure to make it last

P. 196-197

Along with Hannah Arendt herself, we must admit that this stratum of

power characterized by plurality and action in concert is ordinarily

invisible, because it is so extensively covered over by relations of

domination, and that it is brought to light only when it is about to be

destroyed…. This is why it is perhaps reasonable to give to this common

initiative, this desire to live together, the status of something

Laws that last: people get to exercise their…

When an institution fails:

Entering contract/institutions that are just

Justice

P.197

Does the sense of justice still belong to the ethical and teleological, and

not the moral and deontological, plane?

Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness

o His theory of justice is anti-teleological

o Teleology=Actions being determined by a particular aim

o Teleology vs. consequentialism (utilitarianism)

o Consequentialism

o Ricoeur doesn’t think in terms of consequences

o Rawls

“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as

truth is of systems of thought.”

Justice= there is something that you are working for;

an aim in mind

Entering a just institution

Just insititution

Two senses of the just: Good vs. legal

Idea of justice as a sense of injustice (reparative justice)

Any notion of justice always starts with something that is missing

o A sense of injustice first

P. 198

The sense of injustice is not simply more poignant but more perspicacious

than the sense of justice, for justice more often is lacking and injustice

prevails. And people have a clearer vision of what is missing in human

relations than of the right way to organize them. This is why, even for

philosophers…”

Injustice=you don’t want it to happen to you

Goes back to esteem

Aristotle’s theory of distributive justice

Distribution requires apportionment of goods by an institution

P. 200

The very term “apportionment; deserves our attention: I expresses the

other side of the idea of sharing, the first being the fact of being part of an

institution; the second side is held to be that of the distinction of shares

assigned to each individual in the system of distritution. Being part is one

thing; receiving a share is something else again.

Everyone deserves a just share

Each person deserves something

The ethical aspect of justice

Why people want a just institution:

It goes back to the capacity that needs to be esteemed

You just know there’s something wrong

You have to have the right amount

P. 201

The ethicojudicial framework of the analysis having been made more

precise, a name can be given to the ethical core common to distributive

justice and to reparative justice. This common core is equality (isotes).

Correlativel, the unjust, often cited before the just, is synonymous with

the unequal. It is the unequal that we deplore and condemn.”

P. 202

Equality, however it is modulated, is to life in institutions what solicitude is

to interpersonal relations. Solicitude provides to the self another who Is a

face, in the strong sense that Levinas has taught us to recognize. Equality

provides to the self another who is an each… The sense of justice takes

nothing away from solicitude; the sense of justice presupposies it, to the

extent…. Humanity

I am a part of this whole. I deserve something of this whole.

Conclusion

Ethics aim at the good, morality follows the norms of what is

obligatory

The ethical aim: “aiming at the ‘good life’ with and for others, in

just institutions.”

Jeep: institutions fighting against them; keeping them from living

a “good life”

Ethics is more fndamental than morality: Without an aim, norms

would be empty

o If the institution is not grounded in the ethos, it will fail

Continuous support of the power in common

o Ethics anticipates morality

The self as its capacities: the good is that which is lacking

The self as an other: solicitude is reversibility, nonsubstitutibility,

and similitude

o Self does not belong only to me. It belongs to all

The self as an each: equality is the ethical core of justice

o A just share of the whole

The self as the subject of esteem: self-esteem is more

fundamental than self-respect

3/22/11 8:04 AM

Categorical imperative

General aim: the necessity of the “sieve of the norm”

Particular aim: Self-esteem as self-respect on the moral plane

P. 203

The present study will focus on the tie between obligation and formalism.

Not in order to denounce hastily the weaknesses of the morality of duty

but in order to express its grandeur, as far as we can be carried by a

discourse whose tripartite structure will exactly parallel that of the ethical

aim

Formalization

P. 204

The fact that we are putting off for now an examination of the dialogica

moment of the norm does not mean that we are placing some sort of

moral solipsism before the reciprocity of persons. Should there be any

need to recall this, the self is not the ‘I.’ It is instead a matter of isolating

the moment of universality in which, as an ambition or as a claim, the

norm puts the wish to live to the test. At this stage, the universal is,

properly speaking, neither you nor me

No sense of just me

Testing the aim via universality

norm finds its foundation in the aim

P. 205

The anchor of the deontological moment in the teleological aim is made

evident by the place occupied in Kant by the concept of the good will at

the threshold of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: “it is

impossible to conceive of anything at all in the world, or even out of it,

which can be taken as good without qualification…, except a good will

Will: the ability to command yourself to do something

Will: to want, to aim, to desire

Actions start with the will

Last line

o Good will=the good without qualification

o The will who does things because I ought to

o Unconditional

o Will doing things out of duty

o Without question, without qualification

o Ethics and morality via the good will**

To will something

Optative vs imperative

o Optative=you want to do it

o Imperative=I do this because I must; statement that

commands

The norm takes the form of an imperative

Introduces the universal

p. 206

Inextricably tied to the idea of universality is the idea of constraint,

characteristic of the idea of duty; and this is so by reason of the limitation

that characterize a finite will

The norm as an imperative works as a constraint

Finite will that we have

o You might will to do something, you know it’s the right

thing to do but you don’t do it

o Imperfection of capacity

o Misdirected will

o We need the sieve of the norm

o Will=esteem but not perfect

o Norm helps you to sharpen that understanding

o Doesn’t it scare you, you’re not capable of the … (John

Mayer)

The epic failure of will

P. 207

Moral reflection is a patient examination of the candidates for the title of

good without qualification and, by implication, by reason of the status of

finite will, for the title of categorically imperative. The style of a morality

of obligation can then be characterized by the progressive strategy of

placing at a distance, of purifying, of excluding, at the end of which the

will that is good without qualification will equal the self-legislating will, in

accodance with the supreme principle of…

Kant

Maxims of action as basis of moral

o When you do something, you do it with a reason

o It starts with the will that can think of a reason to do

something

o Where moral worth can be found

o Not what you do but the reasons you have behind them

o Maxim=adage

o Why did you do it?

o Look at your reason (logical). Not the action (imperical)

I will do action X in situation Y in order to achieve/realize/produce

aim/end Z

o Bases to judge whether something has moral or immoral

worth

o “wala lang”-you have no command

o the form is teleological because you have an aim in mind

the maxim is your imperative to perform a certain act

Elements of a maxim as imperative: command and obedience

o Source of Command=coming from authority

o Condition of your Obedience= was the command obeyed or

not?

Hypothetical imperative vs. categorical imperative

o HI= lower class of imperative

Source of command: comes from outside the self;

there’s another source of command (fear of the lola)

Very conditional; it rests on something else; not

necessary; not without qualification

Heteron

o CI-

You are following yourself; I am the only one

determining my action

Not teleological

*we’re not looking for practical reasons anymore; we are now

looking for the pure moral reason

no sense of the imperical

Maxim

Personal reasons for your actions

Personal maxims that move you to do something

o Have a sense of the will

In any ordinary action, the source of command is me

o I formulated this maxim

What kant and R would say, if you look at how we reason, it has a

lot to do with ethics, with commands outside our aims. We’re

doing them with a particular thing in mind (ethics). In a moral

aspect, it’s wrong because you have to do something. You ought

to do something.

If driven with an aim in mind, still hypotheticall imperative (Kant)

o It’s heteronymous

o It appears as if the imperative is coming from you but it’s

not

o Conditional

Categorical imperative

Source is pure duty

Pure moral reason to do something

Kant

Modern philosopher

Anthropocentric

About the capabilities of man

First formulation of Maxim

1. Requirement of universality: “act only on that maxim through which

you can at the same time will that it should become universal law (Kant)

Doing something out of your maxim

o You purify your maxim

o You try to make it without condition

o All your sensible inclinations are set aside

o How can this be something that I can do alone? ****

what???

o It’s universal. Must be universal. It must be absolute

because it has no condition

o If your maxim is not universal, it’s not morally absolute

3. Requirement of autonomy: “the idea of the will of every rational being

as a will that legislates universal law”/ “Act only on that maxim through

which you can be a legislator of universal laws”

You are a being that can will. If you don’t let yourself legislate

that universal law, you violate yourself ?)

I can will this myself

I will not do this for any other reason because I see it’s worth

I do it because I know I must

As pure reason, I cannot deny that universal law. Even if I follow

out of duty, for kant, that is the best example of autonomy. The

only thing that commands me is my reason (if I’m the one

legislating the law. Would I follow this law myself?)

P. 210

True obedience, one could say, is autonomy

You know that it’s pure moral reason, you cannot deny it, it’s as if

you’re performing a command that was as if you legislated it (?)

Rational will=pure reasoning

To will= also about to discipline, ought to do something

How do you know if….

You know that what you have is good

What if we disobey?

Sometimes we fail even with a clear idea of what we have to do

P. 209

This is the situation that Kant internalized by placing in the same subject

the power of ordering and that of obeying or disobeying. Inclination is

then defined by its power of disobedience. Thispower is assimilated by

Kant to the passivity inherent in inclination, which makes him call desire

“pathological”

Disobeying yourself

The gravity of our disobedience

The passivity of the will

Pathological=disease

Pasaway

Problem of evil is rooted in the passivity of the finite will

At this point, evil=disrespecting myself

o No longer esteeming

o To obey yourself as rational will=good

o Arendt= the banality of evil is when people don’t think

o Evil stems from the misuse of reason

o Recall: capable and culpable beings

Capable: you can always have an idea of the good.

But can you always follow it?

“does it not follow from evil and from the inscrutable constitution of (free)

will that there is, consequently, a necessity for ethics to assume the

features of morality?... ‘Act solely in accordance with the maxim by which

you can wish at the same time that what ought not to be namely evil, will

indeed not exist.”

Doesn’t just tell you what to do but also what not to do

Restrictions

Not just me I’m disrespecting but also someone else

Summary for CI

Ethics anticipates morality: from optative to imperative

The imperative introduces universality (Kant’s categorical

imperative)

How do we know if it is really universal?

o Universal= not no longer determined by me

o Not meaning to apply to all

o Removing all the qualifications from me

o Try to remove your conditions

o It starts with where I am

Requirement of autonomy (true obedience) as self-respect

o You must obey yourself

o On the personal level, self-respect for myself as a self

o Passivity of the finite will: disobedience as the root of evil

Where evil starts

Killing Jove: doubly wrong; disrespect self and

disrespect other

The necessity of the “sieve of the norm”

o We need to refine our reasoning

o The norm tells you what to do and what not to do (syllabus)

o The ultimate example of the institution

We’re trying to live well together

Solicitude=with and for others

Norm of reciprocity

Solicitude (friendship) as the esteem of oneself as another

I and you can be interchanged

You are also nonsubstitutible

Similitude involved=we might be unique but we’re not so

different from one another

Self-esteem self respect

The Golden Rule (“love your neighbor as yourself”) introduces

the norm of reciprocity

Treat others as you would like them to treat you

Love your neighbor as yourself

Golden rule serves as the bridge between ethics and the norm

o GR presents to you a good relationship

o An assumed ideal

o I love him as much as myself

o I esteem him as much as I esteem myself

o Where people are esteemed equally

o As a norm/rule, it is an imperfect formula

It depends on how you love yourself; subjective

A perfect formulation for the ethical aim, it is not for

the norm

A basic standard for reciprocity, being equal

o GR presupposes a lack

The good is not only something that we aim for, it’s

also something that we lack

Presupposition of an initial dissymmetry between agents: power-

over

P. 219

“It is upon this dissymmetry that all the maleficent offshoots of

interaction, beginning with influence and culminating in murder, will be

grafted”

power-over; to even be slightly more powerful than someone

P. 220

The descending slope is easy to mark off, from influence, the gentle form

of holding power-over, all the way to torture, the extreme force of abuse

Agent-sufferer relationship

P. 221

But violence can also be concealed in language as an act of discourse,

hence as action… the betrayal of friendship,, the inverse figure of

faithfulness, without being equivalent to the horror of torture, tells us a lot

about the malice of the human heart

The false promise

Not keeping our promises

P. 221

In a different sense, the category of having designates a vast domain in

which the wrong done to others wears innumerable disguises

Stealing; plagiarism: exercising power-over the person you steal

from

P 221

And what is there to say about the stubborn persistence of forms of sexual

violence, from harassment to rape, and including the suffering of women

battered and children abused? In this body-to-body intimacy all forms of

torture can slip in

Evil on a personal level: possibility of disobedience

Evil on interpersonal evil: possibility of violence

The idea of not obeying themselves (ex. Nazis)

If you disrespect yourself as a rational will who knows what’s

right and wrong, you violate the self.

P. 221

This sinister—though not exhaustive—enumeration of the figures of evil in

the intersubjective dimension… has its counterpart in the series of

prescriptions and prohibitions stemming from the Golden Rule…: you shall

not lie, you shall not steal, you shall not kill, you shall not lie, you shall not

torture. In each case, morality replies to violence

P. 221

And if the commandment cannot do otherwise than to take the form of a

prohibition, this precisely because of evil: to all the figures of evil

responds the no of morality. Here, doubtless, resides the ultimate reason

for which the negative form of prohibition is inexpungible

Just in case evil..

It serves as a deterrent

Disobedience and violence call for constraint

Once again, the necessity of the “sieve of the norm”

Ethics still needs to pass through the “sieve of the norm”

The fomalization of the golden rule

Requirement of Humanity: “An act in such a way that you treat

humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of

another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as

a means.” (Kant)

o At the same time, always treat that person as an end not

just a means

Person always as an end and never simply as a means: respect for oneself

as another

It’s a form. No content.

Principles of Justice

Institution=perfect example of the norm

How do we ensure that the institutions we form are just?

Institutional level: injustice

P. 227

The idea of just division ad of just share still belong to the ethical aim,

under the aegis of the idea of equality. But if the idea of just share is the

legacy that ethics bequeaths to morality, this legacy is burdened with

heavy ambiguities which the deontological perspective will have the task

of clarifying

Cooperation or separation?

Is the whole already whole which must be divided equally? Or is

it individual parts that form a whole that we have a share in?

Equality or equity?

Equality=divide pie equally

Equity=leveling; matakaw=big piece

Good or legal?

How is the legal also something that is just?

The necessity of the “sieve of the norm”

On the institutional level (the culmination of the norm), we have

to see the norm with all these competing ideas (?)

Aiming to live together well leads to the creation of an idea institutional

structure

The creation of an institution is nothing other than the creation of a social

contract

Coming together to make a contract that binds everyone to laws

which everyone thinks is just

P. 229

The contract can only be a fiction—a founding fiction, to be sure, as we

shall say, but a fiction nonetheless

The biggest flaw of the norm: it’s not real

The institution is the culmination of the norm; something not

belonging to just one person

Clarify the ambiguities of the ethical aim

People don’t want to be treated badly

Is there a procedure that we can follow? How do we make sure that

violence doesn’t come into the picture?

Fiction

It lasts longer than people but it’s still fiction

Norm

Rawls’s A Theory of Justice

No longer a question of the foundation of justice, but a question

of mutual consent over what is just

What justice is according to mutual consent

Necessary to create a procedural concept of justice (to make

sure that the norms is what is just for the whole community.

Universal procedure. Similar to categorical imperative)

Procedure of achieving mutual consent will reveal principles of

justice as fairness

o Justice is none other than fairness

Evil on institutional level: injustice

P.231

1) What would guarantee the fairness of the situation of

deliberation from which an agreement could result concerning a

just arrangement of institutions? 2) what principles would be

chosen in this fictive situation of deliberation? 3) what argument

could convince the deliberating parties to choose unanimously

the Rawlsian principles of justice rather than, let us say, some

variant of utilitarianism?

1)

o those making the contract should be in the Original

position and under the veil of ignorance (rawls)

o includes a list of constraints

similar to Kant’s removing of your inclinations

get rid of what makes me conditional

criticism: if people are removed from their passions,

how can they know what they want?

Ethics is important

o Simply put: “all things being equal…”

What will you put in the contract

P 232

What the initial situation must annihilate, mrore than anything else, are

the effects of contingency, due to nature as much as to social

circumstances, so-called merit being placed by Rawls among these effects

of contingency.

Rawls: if you follow this procedure, the law will last forever

2)

Liberty principle

o Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive

scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar

scheme of liberties for others. (rawls)

o Like human rights

o No one should have more, no one should have less.

Mathematical equality

o Basic liberties

Political liberty, freedom of speech and assembly,

liberty of conscience and freedom of thought,

freedom of the person, the right to hold personal

property, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and

seizure

o In the original position and under the veil of ignorance,

people will work with the liberty principle

Difference principle

o Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that

they are both (a) reasonably expected to be everyone’s

advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open

to all. (Rawls)

o Social and econ inequalities:

The distribution of income and wealth, and

differences in authority and responsibility

Taxes

With great power comes great responsibility

Liberty principle + difference principle= justice as fairness

236

the question therefore arises of deciding to what extent an “ahistorical”

pact can be binding on a “historical” society

no institution that has lasted as an ideal one

236

my thesis is that this conception (the rawlsian principles of justice as

fairness) provides at best the formalization of a sense of justice it never

ceases to presuppose.

237

at the end of this course, two conclusions stand out. 1) one can show it

what sense an attempt to provide a strictly procedural foundation for

justice applied to the basic institutions of society carries to its heights the

ambition to free the deontological viewpoint of morality from the

teleological perspective of ethics. 2) it appears that this attempt also best

illustrates the limits of this ambition.

Student failing example. Conflict in following the norm

Conclusion

Disobedience and violence necessitate “the sieve of the norm”

found in the categorical imperative

The moral norm finds its culmination in the contractual and

procedural formalization of the principles of justice that prevent

injustice

The social contract—and, as such, the moral norm—runs into its

limits when faced with the conflicts of practical and situational

application

Self and practical wisdom: conviction 1/25/11 8:04 AM

The tragic spectacle

Spectacle- there’s an unusual character to what you’re seeing

Everything is Illuminated

The rigid search

o Time, narrative, identity, otherness

Lista

o Trachimbrod

o It does not exist for you. You exist for it.

o You collect just in case

Baruch

o Became blind to jewishness

Norm…

o Challenged by the fact that if you remain a Jew, you will die

o Baruch let go of that norm

Tragedy

o All his life, he was blind

o Baruch was never really happy

o When he killed himself, he was contented

o Some people are subject to the situation that whatever

they do will end up bad

Because they break the rules

Conflict=tragic situation

Drawbridge story

Conviction

o What you are capable of and culpable of

We’re not that different from each other

Not a tragedy

Narratives can change a character in another narrative

Baruch the tragic hero

Melancholy

Would end up not happy

Always as if he was dreaming

Recourse to ethics

Ethics is more fundamental than morality

Morality needs…

Morality springs conflicts which call for a recourse or a return in place

P. 240

A morality of obligation, we stated, produces conflictual situations where

practical wisdom has no recourse, in our opinion, other tham to return to

the initial intuition of ethics, in the framework of moral judgment in

situation.

General aim: limit of morality necessitates ethics

Particular aim: self-respect in conflict necessitates self-esteem

o Tragic spectacle: forces one to disrespect a self

Misconception

P. 240

It is not a matter of adding a third agency to the ethical perspective and

to the moment of duty

Agency is not a third step

Do we use our initial intention? Intention develops. But still the

same

Hegel: Thesis anti-thesis synthesis (3rd agency)

P. 240

This manner of referring morality back to ethics is not to be taken to mean

that the morality of obligation has been disavowed

How complex it means to be good

Norms that produce conflict show the gravity of… being good (?)

Antigony (painting)

Ricouer dedicated this section to his son

Using that personal tragic spectacle and turning it into something

philosophical

Antigony had to bury her brother

Creon is the hero who learned too late

P. 242

These, then, are the features of the non-philo character of tragedy:

adverse mythical powers echoing the identifiable conflicts of the roles; an

unanalyzable mixture of constraints of fate and deliberate choices; the

purgative effect (catharsis) of the spectacle itself at the center of the

passions it produces.

Catharsis followed by metanoia

Realm of the…

No learning yet. It happens after

P 243

And yet tragedy teaches us

In the tragedy, you see how the norm has limits

Particularly in the tragedy, all these point to the fact that the

norm produces conflict

Clear that the tragedy teaches us

o Why:

Philos vs. ekhthros (between friend and enemy)

Creon, as king, distinguishes between friends and enemeies

using political norms

Antigone, as citizen, also distinguishes between friends and

enemies using political norms—but chooses not to despite the

consequences

Tragic conflict: when roles are confused; competing values

Tragedy is a spectacle

o Doesn’t end there

o Not fated for something

o Narrate your story as it goes along

o Everything is still a spectacle

There’s a limit to morality

The tragic hero does not lack conviction

o There’s always going to be a choice

o In choosing one, you’re already disrespecting yourself by

not choosing the other

o Conviction= what you believe in is also what you are

responsible for

The belief is ascribed to you

The conviction of the tragic hero is characterized by phronein

(thinking, decision, tragic wisdom)

o Characters didn’t lack wisdom and choice

o But with how the conviction was…, it was fated to be

doomed

o Critical: the hinge of the door (to swing this way or that)

The tragic spectacle reveals “the limit that points up to the

human, all too human, character of every institution” (245)

o Limited because created by human beings

o The contract is still a founding fiction (norms, institutions,

human creations)

Stronger temporal aspect

Betrays its human character

It leads person involved to have a conflict

Tragedy, via its catharsis, appeals to “deliberate well”

Antigone: “I told you so”

o The spectacle of the tragedy teaches you after suffering

and then tells you t deliberate well

From phronein to phronesis

Learn from the prhonein and then put them in your phronesis

(educate your phronesis)

P. 247

By refusing to contribute a “solution” to the conflicts made insoluble by

fiction, tragedy, after having disoriented the gaze, condemns the person

of praxis to reorient action, at his or her own risk, in the sense of a

practical wisdom in situation that best responds to tragic wisdom

What you hold in esteem becomes subject to

Ought and the want lose their distinction because of conviction

I do this not only because I want to, not because I have to but

because I believe in this

After college

o Go back to what you want to do

o Regret is noting other than learning too late

Conclusion

“I am a human being.”

What am i?

It includes all the basic dimensions of being human

o Being able to think and to question

o Disciplines

o Discussions of historicity, embodiment, temporal (I have a

limit)

o What makes you identifiable, being one and the same

person

“It’s me!”

no one else can tell you who you are

the narrative works retroactively. It recounts the past.

Not just to be identifiable. This is me to the other

Here I am

Projection to the future

This is what I’ll be. Promise you made to another person.

Ethics, morality, working towards an aim, wanting to be happy

along with others

But is that enough?

Here is where I stand!

To have a conviction

To believe in what you are doing

Patapon=no sense of drawing myself to myself. No conviction

Conviction gets harder as you get older

Time strengthens your conviction

You can count on that conviction I made

Ricouer=to be human is to believe in something

To be human is to have hope

Conviction as attestation to the self’s capacity and culpability

Living it out=testimony

Has its flaws

Bear witness to your existence

To be oneself called upon in the second person at the very core of the

optative of living well, then of the prohibition to kill, then of the search for

the choice appropriate to the situation, is to recognize oneself as being

enjoined to live well with and for others in just institutions and to esteem

oneself as the bearer of that wish. (Ricoeur)

Jackie: to be human is to laugh

1/25/11 8:04 AM

1/25/11 8:04 AM

P. 160

Last few sentences of paragraph 1

You make something that someone else can recount

P. 162

By narrating a life of which I am not the author as to existence, I make

myself its coauthor as to its meaning.

Story

Ryuji- To be human is to recognize other people’s stories. Recognizing.

Face to face. Esteem. self

Golda-

Anton- conflict; agent and sufferer; not always in control; moved to a side;

suffering but you still try to choose a path; to accept the fact that you’re

not the author of your story

Hanz

Wowie-

Raz- synthesis

Wowie

Quote:

Sometimes, no matter how much faith we have, we lose people. But you

never forget them. And sometimes, it's those memories that give us the

faith to go on. (Unknown)

Semi-Script

-Was healthy until the prime age of 60

-Had amnesia due to a stroke

-Could only remember the names of her children and some members of

her family but doesn't know how she's related to them

-She was living a 2nd childhood. Acted like a child.

It was difficult for me to accept this while remembering my lola

It just left me scared because I couldn’t imagine anyone living a life

without remembering what happened in it, who they considered as their

family, and the happy moments that made them feel so alive.

It was like starting with a clean slate but with no more hope for that slate

to ever be the same or even be filled up because of her condition

Until my lola died, I was really hoping for a miracle to happen.

The kind of miracle you see in movies wherein a person with amnesia

would regain all of their memories. But, it never happened

My heart sank the moment I found out that she had to pass away without

remembering her life

She had to pass away without even knowing how people around her had

loved her

She had to leave without even remembering me as her apo and how she

had influenced my life

After some time of grieving, I decided to just remember who my lola was

before she had her amnesia

I began remembering her when she still had all her strength

Like when we would go up the rooftop of our condo at 8am to catch the

morning sun with my brother who was a baby then. She said that the

morning sun was good for his health

There were also the times when she would buy me pets from outside the

church. She’d get me a new one every time my previous pet would run

away or go to heaven

In remembering all of these things, I realized how much of my lola was

still alive in me and how much she had esteemed me as I was growing up.

it made me happy to think that we shared some memories and these

memories weren’t lost like I previously thought because even though my

lola had amnesia and couldn’t remember them, I still held on to those

memories and I wanted to keep them so I could remember them for her as

well

It was my way of esteeming her or respecting her life and worth as a

person even after she had passed away

What’s most important to me about me and my lola is that I still

remember her

Concepts:

Esteem

Esteeming the self

Seeing worth in everyone (no matter who they are or what

condition they’re in)

Narrative

Encountering others in the story of our lives

We encounter them and their stories

We influence each other

Their stories become part of our story

Recounting

Dynamicity of one’s narrative can influence others

Extra quote thingy for raz: Their story, yours and mine -- it’s what

we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each

other to respect our stories and learn from them. —William

Carlos Williams”

1/25/11 8:04 AM

Ph102

Documents

Transcript of Ph102