Problems for a Butlerian Reading

It should be noted that this attempted comparison of the two authors goes against Butler’s intentions. As they claim, “I make eclectic use of various philosophers and critical theorists in this inquiry. Not all of their positions are compatible with one another, and I do not attempt to synthesize them here.”²⁵⁸ This does not in itself present a problem, as we may still find a synthesis in Butler’s work regardless of their intent. What is problematic is that Butler highlights differences between Levinas and Foucault while explicating their work.

These differences must be accounted for.

Here, Butler subscribes to some elements of the standard reading, particularly in the difference between a transcendental Levinas and historical Foucault. For example, Butler notes that although for Foucault “self-examination takes place in the form of an address to another, after having been addressed”, “the relation to the other is not as constitutive or disruptive as it is in Levinas…in Foucault we will not find an interrogation of passions of the soul that bear an irreversible imprint of the other on the self.”²⁵⁹ The address of the other in Foucault, contra Levinas, is always bounded within a particular social structure.

There will thus be a difference in the relation that the self takes towards itself in the two authors. As Butler points out, the emergence of the Levinasian subject is pre-ontological, and therefore departs from the scene of address.²⁶⁰ When it comes to the reflexive aspect of giving an account, the “self-recurrence” involved here will be infinite for Levinas, as it involves an infinite relation with alterity.²⁶¹ For Foucault on the other hand, the subject is able to take

257 Ibid., p. 134.

258 Ibid., p. 21.

259 Ibid., p. 128.

260 Ibid., p. 86.

261 Ibid., p. 129.

a certain (historically bound) relation to themself without any primal “imprint of the other”.²⁶² It therefore seems difficult to combine both authors when it comes to subject formation given these different locations of their scenes of address.

How then to respond to this apparent disparity present even in our Butlerian reading?

I see three ways, and I present them in order of increasing sincerity. Most flippantly, we can simply deny the importance of the points Butler makes. Why must we take their reading of Levinas and Foucault in its entirety if it seems to conflict with the kind of reading we would like to build?²⁶³ This is precisely the move that they take against Levinas, claiming that “it is possible to read his account against himself, as it were, and arrive at a different conclusion”.²⁶⁴ We may take a similar move with Butler in regards to Butler, and indeed Levinas and Foucault against themselves. We are not shackled to strict interpretations of these authors, and can take the notion of giving an account as it has been developed above to generate a broadly combined account of intersubjective ethical-subject formation that drawns on both authors whilst making no claims to complete exegetical loyalty to their text.

To take Foucault, Butler seems to buy-in to the ‘return of the self’ narrative of the later work of Foucault that has been argued against in this thesis. For instance, Butler claims that “whereas in his earlier work, he treats the subject as an ‘effect’ of discourse, in his later writings he nuances and refines his position”, emphasising the process of self-constitution and its value as critique.²⁶⁵ I will not rehash the arguments against such a reading here.

However, I would contend that the notion of subject formation in GAO as it has been developed above is more compatible with an inclusivist reading of Foucault. For example, the

262 Ibid.

263 Indeed, we may want to supplement Butler’s ideas at certain points. For instance, their notion of the social has been criticised as falling back on liberal assumptions of the private and public distinctions (see S.A. Chambers, ‘Subjectivation, the Social and a (Missing) Account of the Social Formation: Judith Butler’s ‘Turn’’, in M. Lloyd (ed.), Butler and Ethics, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2015, pp. 193-218.) In another direction, it has been suggested that Butler essentially sides with Foucault on the standard view – that she

ultimately claims that the intersubjective recognition of the other ultimately takes palce within a social context, and thus denies the alterity of the other (see K.D. Magnus, ‘The Unaccountable Subject: Judith Butler and the Social Conditions of Intersubjective Agency’, Hypatia, vol. 21, no. 2, 2006, p. 96-99.) While I follow Butler’s reading to a certain extent I thus also depart from it.

264 Ibid., p. 95. This is with regards to Levinas’ points around Jewishness and persecution.

265 Ibid., p. 17.

emphasis on the creation of self in relation to a framework of structural norms bears similarity with the reading of the early-mid work of Foucault proposed in chapter 2. In both we have seen a repeated emphasis on self-creation as an intersubjective process, involving a direct other, that undermines the accusations of Foucault as narcissistic. While not wanting to suggest a transcendental presence of alterity across Foucault’s work, what this repeated emphasis on otherness and a balance between individual and society suggests is some shared structural framework of subject formation across historical periods. While the specific make-up of this framework may vary, we can take this structure as providing a foundation for subject formation. This we can see also in Butler’s ‘scene of address’, thus providing us with a way of tempering Foucault’s historicity relative to Levinas’ transcendentalism.

We can take a similar approach to Levinas, using the notion of ‘giving an account’ to temper the transcendental side of his account. For example, Butler locates the giving of an account as an occurrence grounded in reality, given to a concrete other. As has been pointed to above, the address from the other does not come from nothing, but is situated in a worldly context, the scene of address. This dialogue is not infinite and indescribable in everyday language, but a real social interaction between subject and other. In the chapter on Levinas, we have also seen the importance that Levinas attaches to the embeddedness of the encounter with the Other. While this may seem to deny alterity, alterity is still maintained in Butler. We see this in the insistence that although the relation with alterity takes place in a concrete setting, the Otherness itself does not take the form of a literal other. As Butler claims, “whether or not there is an other who actually receives is beside the point, since the point will be that there is a site where the relation to a possible reception takes form.”²⁶⁶ We have a number of things going on in this quote. Firstly, in emphasising the importance of a site where the relation of reception takes place, Butler reinforces the point made about the relation with another being concretely located. At the same time, alterity is taken more as a function or condition of possibility than as literal other person. We thus see a balance being struck between a transcendental and specified alterity in Butler, that provides a way of making Levinas more compatible with Foucault.

To this solution it may be objected that it does violence to the positions of Levinas and Foucault. We can respond to this with a second point however. The aim of this present work

266 Ibid., p. 67.

is not to reconstruct and synthesize the works of Levinas and Foucault for their own sake.

Rather, my goal is to draw on these two authors to construct a broader theory on intersubjective ethical-subject formation that can act as a solid basis against criticisms levied against such critical notions of the subject. Within such a project, there is of course value in exegetical accuracy. A theory drawing on a robust account of both authors would appear more solid, and prima facie more plausible, than one that cherry-picked. However, there comes a point of diminishing returns with faithful interpretation. There can always be more nuance or refinement given to a particular conceptualization, author, or reading. At some point, however, this comes at the cost of being able to put these things in conversation with others. I would suggest that such a point has been reached here. In the preceding sections of this thesis I have devoted space trying to develop an account of subject-formative that encapsulates the key themes of both Levinas and Foucault. I would now suggest that we can risk taking their ideas outside of their intended context to use them to think a broader notion of ethical-subjectivity. We may put the question of faithful reconstruction here to one side.

Finally, this is especially the case given the combination being suggested through the work of Butler. As previously indicated, this work already puts Levinas and Foucault into different language, making them more amenable to one another. For instance, in speaking of Levinas’ face-to-face, Butler notes that “given how contested the visual representation of the

‘human’ is, it would appear that our capacity to respond to a face as a human face is conditioned and mediated by frames of references that are variably humanizing and dehumanizing.”²⁶⁷ It is necessary to take these frames into account, and update Levinas’

notion of the face. When it comes to subject formation, this can be accomplished by appealing to the Foucauldian account of self-formation in relation to structures of subjection. This is not to deny the value of Levinas’ view. It merely shows that it may only serve as an idealized form of social relations, and needs supplementing with further ideas to account for other aspects of intersubjective subject formation. The ideal is still important, to act as a balance and ensure that the alterity involved in intersubjective relations is not reduced to a relation with subjectivity. To take a sea-faring analogy, it is like the difference between the intended destination on the one hand and the present conditions on the other. While the destination (goal) is undoubtedly important in setting a course across the ocean, the immediate

267 Ibid., p. 29.

conditions of the weather or the vessel also determine what course can and should be taken.

This analogy suggests that while there may indeed be a difference between the levels of analysis taken by Levinas and Foucault, if we step back we see the way in which they in fact can contribute towards a mutual idea. Their differences here are two sides of the same coin, allowing us to account for differing aspects of intersubjective ethical-subject formation.