http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/Educational-Theory/Contents/45_2_Child_etal.asp

Autonomy or Heteronomy?

Levinas's Challenge to Modernism and Postmodernism

Mark Child, David D. Williams, A. Jane Birch

College of Education

Brigham Young University

Robert M. Boody

Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations

University of Northern Iowa

INTRODUCTION

An increasing number of educators, finding themselves troubled by modernist assumptions and values, are turning to postmodernism for help in understanding and articulating their concerns. Generally speaking, postmodernism attacks a constellation of modem beliefs which construe the world as ultimately reducible, through rational/empirical means, to discrete entities, or essences, which are causally governed by universal laws. The "essences," and their governing "laws," are represented and reproduced in what Jean-Franccois Lyotard and others refer to as "metanarratives"1?grand stories which purportedly reduce the world to "unity, certainty, universality, and ultimacy."2

Postmodern criticism brings attention to the problematic aspects of these modernist beliefs by revealing their contradictory nature. Claims of unity, certainty, and universality assume that we can escape our selves, our bodies, our perspectives, but postmodern analyses attempt to show how, for instance, "theories," "ideas," and "knowledges" by which we make such claims are always taken up and projected by situated, embodied persons. They are thus perspectival, and if perspectival, then partial. And if partial, then not possibly universal, ultimate, or certain. Postmodern thought further argues that in ignoring the situated, temporal, partial aspects of human existence, we allow, encourage, and "justify" all manner of oppression, violence, political imperialism, and ecological disaster.

The authors of this essay find postmodernism, in general, to be helpful in understanding and articulating much of what is problematic about modernity, but will argue that there are certain postmodern tendencies which are problematic in their own right. For instance, we sympathize with those investigating postmodern analyses and interpretations who find themselves caught between a disturbing modernist tradition to which they can no longer give their loyalty, and postmodern critiques which seem to lead only to a state of impotence, eternally pointing out what cannot be done; pointing out what is oppressive, dangerous, or contradictory; but which also create a situation in which we become afraid to act positively lest in "acting" we oppress anew, or (what might be worse for academics) leave ourselves open to critique.3 This conundrum can lead to the conclusion that the only "safe" and "justifiable" activities are either relentlessly pointing out the modernist evils of others, or fashionably and "humbly" pointing out such evils in ourselves. But for teachers, researchers, and educational philosophers concerned about improving educational practice, who are confronted with immediate, practical, and ethical choices to which they must respond, postmodernism, if it is to be helpful, must do more than relentlessly point out "what we cannot do and cannot be."4

In short, while those struggling to respond better to the challenges of learning and teaching can benefit from the reflective awareness of limits provided by postmodernism, they are nevertheless unavoidably interested in what can be done, and more deeply, what ought to be done. Yet it is precisely the latter that postmodern criticism makes so difficult, because in pointing toward an "ought" or a "good" we place ourselves in a vulnerable position which, through the power of deconstructive criticism, will be shown to be another example of the very thing postmodernism attacks?the creation of metanarratives about "the good." Hence, if we are persuaded by postmodern arguments regarding the oppressive biases of modernist metanarratives, the tendency is to avoid ethics and focus on ontology. That is, we focus on the "is" (the possibilities, but more often the revelation of impossibilities) of embodied, situated existence. Thus the "is" (ontology) subsumes the "ought" (ethics). Moral obligation, then, if considered at all, is reframed in terms of ontology. For instance, one ought not accede to metanarration because doing so ignores the ontological reality of situatedness, which situatedness renders metanarration impossible and hence illusory. If our focus remains on ontology, the only "ought" that makes sense is that we ought to accept and argue for the "reality" of postmodern, situated Being.5 Ethics is thereby subsumed in ontology, and we get the suggestion that postmodernism marks the "demise of ethics."6

In this essay we will be taking up the issue of ethics in relation to postmodernism. We will argue that ethics, subsumed in the ontology of situatedness, is dangerously problematic in education and may lead to a reincarnation of the very violence postmodernism seeks to bring to light and overcome. We will be concerned with the question: Does the ontology of situatedness subsume ethics, and mark its obsolescence? or, Is moral obligation, beyond the work of ontology, still possible, or even renewed, in postmodernism? We will use the work of the Lithuanian-born French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas?which to our knowledge has not yet been seriously considered in American educational literature?to argue that ethics cannot be subsumed by ontology but rather precedes ontology. We should note at the outset, however, that what Levinas means by ethics (and by "precedes"), although related to traditional notions of ethics, represents a challenge to these notions.

Levinas begins his argument by showing how a particular tendency toward autonomy has pervaded modernism and continues to be prevalent, although in different manifestations, in postmodern thought, and that this tendency is related to the temptation to subsume ethics in ontology. The idea of autonomy that he calls into question is not simply the autonomous Self of Enlightenment thought, though it includes this, but is a more subtle notion of autonomy which is evident in postmodern work as well.

Levinas does not stop, however, with a critique of autonomy; rather, his critique leads into a new look at heteronomy wherein the ethical relation with the other person creates the conditions for the possibility of a break from the totalitarian, universalistic, reductionistic tendencies of modernism, and from the impotence, radical relativism, and potential violence of an inordinate focus on the postmodern ontology of situatedness and difference.7 We will argue that Levinas's work has important implications for educators who are not only concerned about what cannot, and ought not, be done in education (ontologically speaking), but who are equally concerned about what can and ought to be done (ethically speaking).

AUTONOMY

In a seminal essay entitled "Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity." Levinas distinguishes two general directions the philosophical spirit takes in regard to its search for "truth."8 One direction is toward heteronomy, the other toward autonomy.

The thinker searching for "truth" in the direction of autonomy (self-rule) finds truth in that which gains and sustains the freedom of the investigator; in that which maintains and extends autonomy. The search for that which secures autonomy implies the presence of powers which challenge, question, or encumber the would be autonomous self. Truth is sought, in large measure, to meet and overcome these encumbrances so as to maintain autonomy. The faith of this view is that if "truth" is found it will give the threatened self a means of neutralizing the threat, thus maintaining, and perhaps even extending, the freedom, enjoyment, and dominion of the thinker. Truth, then, does not threaten autonomy, does not call into question the free and independent researcher; rather, it precisely secures the freedom and independence of the researcher (PII, 49). "Truth," in this view, is the fortress of the autonomous self.

THE SELF(SAME) AND THE OTHER

We can begin to clarify further what Levinas is referring to in terms of seeking truth in the direction of autonomy by introducing the terms "same" and "other," which Levinas uses extensively. "Same" (translated from the French meme, which can be used to mean both same and self) denotes the self, and includes all that the self possesses (for example, knowledges, identity, objects, tools, place, home). "Same" not only refers to what the self possesses, but how it dwells in these, through labor, enjoyment, familiarity, and happiness.

"Other" denotes all that which is beyond the self, beyond the familiar, beyond the same?in other words, that which is exterior to the safety and comfort of the ordinary and the domesticated. (More will be said in regard to "other" later on in the essay.)

As noted earlier, the object of seeking "truth" in the direction of autonomy is to remain self-ruling; to go forth unencumbered. I am self-ruling only when I am in possession of myself, otherwise someone or something else "possesses" me and, if so, I am not in control. That which threatens self-possession must necessarily come from without, from the "other, " for the self(same) is in possession (control) of all else.

The object, then, of the self who is seeking and defending her own autonomy is, when confronted or disturbed by an other, to find some way of overcoming the threat which simultaneously maintains and justifies the autonomy of the self. That is, the self(same), attempts to reduce to the same (to herself and what is hers; to what is familiar) all that opposes her as other than herself, including other people. Through conquest, colonization, and possession the threat which "others" present to autonomy are brought under control.

But there are other, more subtle ways of securing autonomy. For instance, we can bring others into possession by grasping and containing them within a theory, a concept, a theme, a class, a category, and so forth. The other who threatens is thereby reduced to discrete and certain knowledge. And, according to modernist assumptions, to know is to have power over the thing known. If the world (everything in it, including people) is in fact reducible to uniform and predictable "truths" which comprehend and sufficiently explain it, these truths will not pose a threat to the autonomy of the self. On the contrary, to "know" in this sense is to be able to calculate and predict with certainty, and that which is calculable is controllable. Thus the threat is neutralized. Autonomy, then, as Levinas interprets it, is the

feat of remaining the same despite the unknown lands into which thought seems to lead. Perceived in this way, [the autonomous thinker] would be engaged in reducing to the same all that is opposed to it as other .... [in doing so, the thinker] would be moving toward autonomy, a stage in which nothing irreducible would limit thought any longer, in which, consequently, thought, non-limited, would be free (PII, p. 48).

Or, again, in an ultimate sense, striving toward autonomy

can be interpreted as an attempt at universal synthesis, a reduction of all experience, of all that is reasonable, to a totality wherein consciousness embraces the world, leaves nothing other outside of itself .... The consciousness of self is at the same time the consciousness of the whole.9

This "feat of remaining the same" is not a denial of the reality of "others." On the contrary, the autonomous thinker does engage "unknown lands" but "remains the same by making of disparate and diverse events a history" (PII, p. 48). The "history" grasps or comprehends the others while maintaining the autonomy of the self; that is, in such a way that the threat to the self(same) and its adventures is neutralized. The nature of these encounters with that which is other is such that the other

instead of maintaining itself in the inexpugnable fortress of its singularity ... becomes a theme and an object. It fits under a concept already, or dissolves into relations. It falls into the network of a priori ideas, which I bring to bear, so as to capture it .... The surrender of exterior things to human freedom through their generality does not only mean, in all innocence, their comprehension, but also their being taken in hand, their domestication, their possession. Only in possession does the I complete the identification of the diverse (PII, p. 50).

Or, again, only in possession does the self regain and retain autonomy.

There is an affinity between what Levinas describes as the drive toward autonomy and the hegemony of the oppressor decried in feminist discourses. Those who oppress seek to reduce to the same (to possession) all that is opposed to them as other. Doing so maintains and extends the power of independence. This task of maintaining and extending autonomy can, as was mentioned above, be accomplished through a variety of drastic means such as killing, war, and slavery. But there are also more subtle, and for this reason more dangerous, forms of securing autonomy that are accomplished by means of grasping others in concepts, categories, themes, objects, classes, and so on. This "grasping" places others in nonthreatening positions?or, more precisely, gives the one seeking autonomy a way to possess them; that is, to have them controlled, comprehended, and contained. These are the kinds of oppressive relationships that feminists, among others, have worked to expose and overcome.

Yet feminists have further shown how even efforts that aim to overcome oppression through, for instance, "celebrating difference and otherness," have a tendency to become oppressive in their own right. The following words from bell hooks speak to this.

I am' waiting for them to stop talking about the "Other," to stop even describing how important it is to be able to speak about difference. It is not just important what we speak about, but how and why we speak. Often this speech about the "Other" is also a mask, an oppressive talk hiding gaps, absences, that space where our words would be if we were speaking, if there were silence, if we were there. Often this speech about the "Other" annihilates, erases: "no need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine."10

It seems that in spite of postmodern discourses which call into question oppression, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and violence, these very problems can be reproduced within postmodernism. This statement is not meant to imply that postmodernism is or was expected to have initiated a new era wherein oppression, authoritarianism, and so forth would disappear among those who became converted. Still, without expecting too much from analysis, we argue that the troubling tendencies in postmodern thought can at least be heard more critically, and that this "hearing" will allow for the possibility of responding better to the problems. We argue that an opening toward a better hearing of these "troubling tendencies" can be found in a critical analysis of what we refer to as a continued quest for autonomy within postmodernism. Despite the postmodern critique of the autonomous self of Enlightenment thought, a more subtle mode of securing and maintaining autonomy remains at work in much of postmodern thought.

THE ONTOLOGY OF SITUATEDNESS

As a postmodern thinker, my autonomy is secured and maintained by focusing on, and articulating the constraints of "situatedness" while simultaneously naming or implying "difference." I defend my autonomy through the work of constructing and reconstructing the ontology of situatedness. This work satisfies the criterion of maintaining autonomy because it provides me with a means through which to comprehend others; to render them intelligible; to respond to them, while also neutralizing their threat to my autonomy. That is to say, I comprehend others precisely as situated differently than I. This renders the otherness of others intelligible to me in the general terms of "situatedness," while also limiting the claims or demands others can make on me. In regard to the first part of the previous statement, I can say that you and I are situated differently (in this sense I understand you in your ontological existence). However, in regard to the latter portion of that statement I can say that precisely because we are situated differently, you do not know me, and I do not know you. In your inability to know me, you cannot make claims regarding me, nor I you. So if "to know" is to have power over the thing known, as Enlightenment thought claims, you do not and cannot have power over me because you do not and cannot know me. To be sure, you can use your powers to oppress me in all manner of ways, but you cannot justify your actions by claiming to "know me," nor win me over by simply applying your knowledge. You therefore cannot command me. I am autonomous with respect to you and your knowledge.

One might ask at this point why seeking autonomy in a postmodern manner is problematic, particularly if we are seeking to escape violence and oppression? It is not the "seeking to escape" per se that is problematic, but the fact that autonomy is assumed, without question, to be the appropriate condition to seek. Can we be so sure that autonomy, as such, is justified without recourse to anything further? It the aim of autonomy is to reduce to the same that which opposes us a other, then to seek autonomy with regard to other people is to appropriate them in some way that allows us to "possess" or "contain" them; to take away their "speech"; to take away what makes them persons. Thus, the seeking of autonomy can be violent.

If violence and oppression are to be avoided, the work of securing autonomy must itself be called into question; in other words, the autonomy of the "I," the very act of freedom, must be called into question and shown to be unjust. While the ontology of situatedness does indeed mark, name, and argue for the conditions of possibility for "difference" or "otherness," it does not call the freedom of the I into question ethically; does not refer to the shame that the I feels in seeing its use of freedom to be murderous and usurpatory. Of course, there is a sense in which the ontology of situatedness does call the freedom of the I into question. By articulating the limits of situated existence it questions the I existentially. But this actually works to secure freedom rather than call it into question. Knowing the ontological limits becomes itself a freedom; it enables self-rule. That is, "knowing" places the knower in a position both to comprehend the ontological limits of Being (and thus beings, which renders others comprehensible in these terms) and to take up resolutely that which is afforded, disclosed, or given within one's own situation. In other words, "knowing" places one in a position to take up resolutely and attenuate one's autonomy. The appeal to situatedness articulates the limits and possibilities of Being. But this ontology cannot account for the calling into question ethically of the very " cans" and I/cannots," the very freedoms, of Being. This issue is at the heart of the criticism Levinas made of Martin Heidegger, perhaps the most influential "postmodern" philosopher of this century.

In his monumental work, Being and Time, Heidegger "calls attention to the forgetting of Being," and attempts to (re)establish the "preeminence of ontology over metaphysics" (PII, p. 53).11 Heidegger argues that in seeking the metaphysical we have forgotten the here and now, earthly existence; we have forgotten Being. What is needed, he contends, is an interrogation and recovery of the meaning of Being.12 Thus he takes up the question: What is the meaning of Being?13 His response to this question is to reformulate our thinking in terms of the verbal form of "Be-ing" rather than the nominative form "Being." This enables him to interpret "Being" as always already relating; always already interpreting; always already "there," Be-ing.

Heidegger's work brilliantly illuminates and renders intelligible what situated existence might mean. Dasein (literally, "Being-there") is Heidegger's way of referring to human existence as located, or situated, within and as a horizon. One's location as "Being-there" affords possibilities, or freedoms; it reveals and conceals. The freedom in "Being-there" consists in that which is afforded by one's place. in other words, the autonomy of Dasein is extended and maintained by taking up resolutely that which is afforded within the limits of Being-there. Heidegger's work exactingly and profoundly describes and analyzes many important aspects of what Levinas refers to as the self(same), or the play of earthly, sensuous existence (though the same and Dasein are not strictly synonymous).

Levinas's criticism of Heidegger's work is that his phenomenology illuminates the freedom of the self(same) in terms of Dasein, but does not refer to the possibility of the self(same) having its freedom called into question in other than ontological terms. Levinas argues that the ontology of situated, temporal, embodied existence does not concern itself with the experience of having one's freedom, the freedom of the 1, put into question such that one's actions, or potential actions, are shown to be unjust, violent, or evil. in other words, it overlooks the experience where one may, ontologically speaking, choose to commit violence, but where one concomitantly " knows" that doing so would be unjust; where one is therefore awakened to a shame in regard to one's acts or potential acts.

In Heidegger the focus remains on articulating the freedom of Being, and in resolutely taking up the freedom which is disclosed within the limits of Dasein. Thus, argues Levinas, he continues the work of securing and extending autonomy:

When [Heideggerl sees man possessed by freedom rather than possessing freedom, he puts over man a neuter term [the freedom in Be-ing] which illuminates freedom without putting it in question. And thus he is not destroying, but summing up a whole current of Western philosophy (PII, p. 51).

The tendency, then, in postmodernism to place highest priority on ontology is problematic to the degree that it tends to "illuminate freedom without putting it in question" ethically. The problem is not with ontology per se, but with the work of making ontology preeminent; of subsuming ethics in ontology. That is, we can make an ontological argument for ethics such as, a teacher cannot justify her teaching practices by appealing to a universal notion of what constitutes real learning because such universals are illusions. But an appeal to the ontology of situatedness does not account, for instance, for the teacher who, in her concrete relations with a particular child, finds her "project" deeply questioned and feels she ought not, in spite of her own good reasons to the contrary, do what she has the "authority" to do and the freedom to do. Moreover, it does not help us to get a sense for what might be happening when the teacher, who decides in fact to go ahead and do what she feels she ought not do, feels a need to justify her actions.

The ontology of situatedness is only suited to giving an account of ethics in terms of ontological, but not ethical, affordances and constraints. That is, ideas such as justice, goodness, and peace are argued for by showing, for instance, how our place in the web of Being is one in which we are always already related and relating to the world around us. Thus, being situated means being interdependent. Understanding our interdependence should render us more concerned about living peaceably within our respective situations. But what does "peaceably" mean? If we are seeking the "truth" of this word in the direction of autonomy, then we will seek to know what

living peaceably "is" ontologically so that we may then know how to live. But, as we have argued, the work of securing autonomy by means of ontology can lead to violence and oppression.

HETERONOMY

So far we have tried to show how the work of securing autonomy, as sought and justified in ontological terms, can lead to violence. The question that now faces us is, Is it possible to have autonomy called into question in a way that is not violent, coercive, manipulative, or oppressive? Levinas argues that it is possible, and that the "trace" of this possibility is found in the other direction the philosophical spirit is drawn in its search for truth?the direction of heteronomy.

The term "heteronomy" is often given a negative connotation: "Rule of the other" smacks of tyranny, totalitarianism, conquest, oppression, slavery, and the various ways in which such things have been carried on and justified by appeals to universal laws, essences, or human nature. But these "heteronomous" relations are in fact closer to what Levinas describes as the way of autonomy. The quest for autonomy

can be interpreted as an attempt at universal synthesis, a reduction of all experience, of all that is reasonable, to a totality wherein consciousness embraces the world, leaves nothing other outside of itself .... The consciousness of self is at the same time the consciousness of the whole (EI, p. 75).

An example of this kind of "heteronomy which is more like autonomy" in education can be found in Edward L. Thomdike, the early twentieth century psychologist and educator, whose words in the following quote set the tone and mark the direction of what has proven to be a very influential group of educational researchers and practitioners:

If there existed a perfect and complete knowledge of Human Nature?a complete science of psychology?it would tell the effect of every possible stimulus and the cause of every possible response in every possible human being. A teacher could then know just what the result of any act of his would be, could prophesy just what the effect of such and such a page read or punishment given or dress worn would be?just how to get any particular response, of attention to this object, memory of this fact, or comprehension of that principle.14

But even if the reader accepts our argument that these kinds of appeals to "heteronomy" seem to move in the direction of autonomy rather than heteronomy, heteronomy might still hold negative connotations. For instance, is it not "other rule" that instigates the modem "self-disciplining" so aptly and painfully described by Michel Foucault, wherein people are cleverly persuaded into being "obedient subjects"15 in order to gain certain privileges and aptitudes?16 On this issue Frank Pignatelli writes,

Foucault draws our attention to mundane semiotic operations?"small techniques of notation, of registration, of constituting files, of arranging facts in columns and tables that are so familiar to us now"?and traces them to issues of profound importance. The obedient subject is produced and sustained by a power faintly noticed and difficult to expose: a power that circulates through these small techniques among a network of social institutions such as the school. Commonly, practices such as examination and other small techniques?tables, charts, graphs, forms?fabricate and fix (objectify) the individual in his/her difference as they accumulate and sort a mass of signification. No one escapes one's position in this efficient, productive, web-like, operation. Trained and expected to gaze upon the deviant, professionals amass information on every form of service delivered to restore the deviant to normal status."17

This kind of manipulative "rule of the other" turned "self-rule," is not what Levinas means by heteronomy. Again, what Foucault describes is more in line with Levinas's description of autonomy. Recall that for Levinas autonomy seeks to reduce to the same all that is opposed to it as other. So, on the one hand, these "normalizing" operations extend the autonomy of those in power by rendering subjects obedient and hence controllable. Yet, on the other hand, as Foucault wisely notes, the subjects themselves are seduced into obedience because obedience promises to extend or at least preserve in some way the subject's perceived autonomy. Thus, this rule-of-the other type of "normalizing" becomes "autonomous" self-normalizing.

Foucault was very sensitive to the banality, subtlety, and ubiquity of coercive institutional practices and the often pitiful complicity of the "subjects" (or are they objects?) of these practices. Still, Pignatelli contends that his interest was not in merely pointing out this sad state of affairs; rather he was deeply interested in searching for that which "enables one to get free of oneself."18 In a sense, this interest anticipates the question we are exploring in this section: the question of the possibility of calling the work of securing and extending autonomy into question; in other words, the possibility of calling into question the work of reducing all others to the self(same). Such a "calling into question" could possibly pull the self out of itself, so to speak, because if the self is to "get free of itself," then its activities, its labor, and its freedom must be called into question.

There is, then, an affinity between Foucault's question and ours, but as Pignatelli describes, Foucault's "project of freedom" remains in the language of "self-detachment," "surprising oneself," "self-interrogation," and in terms of various modes of questioning which are initiated by the self.19 We believe that the question of what I/enables one to get free of oneself" is vital, but we, with Levinas, question whether "self-detachment/interrogation/surprise, etc." is possible; whether the self(same) can of itself question or exceed the same? Would it not require something beyond the same to call the same into question; to disturb the happiness of "autonomy"?

FACE-TO-FACE?

There is no doubting the domination and cruelty which have been carried on and "justified" in the name of heteronomy. Still, notwithstanding the banality of such things, Levinas points toward an aspect of human relations, an aspect of human encounter, where the autonomy of the I is called into question prior to violence. This relation is concretely experienced in face-to-face social relations, and will be shown to have the structure of heteronomy.

"Face" is a term used in a special way by Levinas. He describes its use thus:

A face is not like a plastic form, which is always already deserted, betrayed, by the being it reveals, such as marble from which the gods it manifests are already absent themselves .... In a face the expressed attends its expression, expresses its very expression, always remains master of the meaning it delivers. A "pure act" in its own way, it resists identification, does not enter into the already known (PII, p. 55).20

In our common social life we encounter others. In these encounters it is usually necessary to respond in some way. Others make demands, wittingly and unwittingly, to which we respond. Thirty children in a 20'x 30' classroom for seven hours a day command, demand, and require response from me. When confronted with demands, my response may be to bring to bear all my resources so as to bring the disturbance under control. Under the force of my powers, the one responsible for the "disturbance" may very well succumb to my strength, or to my "ruses," or "play along with my game," so to speak. Or alternatively he may "resist me with all his force and all the unpredictable resources of his own freedom" (PII, p. 50). But there is another possibility, a possibility at the heart of Levinas's philosophy:

[H]e can also?and here is where he presents me his face?oppose himself to me beyond all measure, with the total uncoveredness and nakedness of his defenseless eyes, the straightforwardness, the absolute frankness of his gaze. The solipsist disquietude of consciousness, seeing itself, in all its adventures, a captive of itself, comes to an end here: true exteriority is in this gaze which forbids me my conquest. Not that conquest is beyond my too weak powers, but I am no longer able to have power: the structure of my freedom is ... completely reversed (PII, p. 55).

Here Levinas is appealing to the experience of being "arrested" and "disarmed" in a face-to-face encounter; the experience, when in the course of everyday work (in the classroom, the library, the hall, the laboratory, and the street, for example) I unexpectedly find myself face-to-face with another human being and in the encounter find myself fundamentally questioned, called out of myself, beckoned to respond. Such encounters are not something for which I go out looking, or something that can be anticipated or planned, or the particulars of which even concern me beforehand; rather, they come as a surprise, when I least expect it, in ordinary social experience: "[W]hat was I looking for here? Whence came this shock when I passed, indifferent, under another's gaze?"21 The following narrative describes an experience which comes from the research conducted at a local elementary school by one of the coauthors of this essay.

I had several lists of students I wanted to interview. One list was those who had been most frequently complained against in the classroom judicial system. Of course, I did not want to single these students out in front of their peers, nor did 1 want them to know that I was interviewing them because they were the most frequent "law breakers."

When one of the students, a nine-year-old boy, walked into the room where I was interviewing, he nervously commented, "What am I coming in here for?" and punctuated his question with an anxious and forced giggle. His nervousness was unusual. Most of the other students I had talked with didn't seem nervous at all. I told him that Mrs. Laycock and I and several other teachers were very interested in knowing how this experiment with "free inquiry time" turned out, and were particularly interested in knowing how the students felt about it. (My strategy, which I hadn't taken much thought for, was to start by asking broad questions about the larger program, and then to bring him around to talking about the judicial system.) As I explained this, he did not at first look at me, but his countenance changed from a nervous smile to a somewhat proud, relieved, and guileless look that seemed to say, "Oh really, I'm glad you want to know my opinion, and I'll gladly give it to you." Then, in what appeared to be a second thought, he stole a couple of quick glances at my eyes. He was checking my sincerity. I could see it in his eyes. I felt the impact. His look?"the total uncoveredness and nakedness of his defenseless eyes, the straightforwardness, the absolute frankness of his gaze"?shot a wave of guilt through my body. He was opening up to me and offering a tentative trust. Yet I had already betrayed his trust. Although I was sincere in my desire to know what his opinion was regarding the class judicial system, asking his opinion about the overall program was simply a ploy to get him talking.

In his response to me, I found myself face-to-face with a singular human being?wholly other than me and my project. His open and generous response disturbed me, disoriented me, and opened my eyes to my betrayal and my injustice. In the encounter I sensed not only my injustice, but his goodness. I was transformed. "My positions collapsed." I did not and could not use (possess) or "grasp" this child. His face invited me to put an end to my violence and my "imperialism."

Here we have a relationship with an other wherein the autonomy of the self is called into question, not by a violent imposition, but through a resistance that can only be properly referred to as ethical. The face of the other draws me out of myself and invites me to put an end to my violence, not "like a force blocking my force, " but by "putting into question the naive right of my powers" (PII, p. 58). The resistance of the face, then, is not a show of outward force, cunning, or strategy. "In his face the other appears to me not as an obstacle, nor as a menace I evaluate, but as what measures me" (Pll, p. 58).

The relation here, then, is not merely a calling into question, rationally or ontologically, but is a questioning of the very use of my freedom. Moreover, the questioning is also a summons to moral responsibility, because to call the very use of my freedom into question, not by limiting it ontologically, but by resisting it in the absolute uncoveredness of the face, is to reveal my injustice, or potential injustice, and to concomitantly invite justice.22 The invitation to justice is experienced as desire for, or in behalf of, the other. The face of the other gives birth to moral conscience, and moral conscience renders justice and injustice meaningful. Thus, Levinas contends, "justice well ordered begins with the other" (PII, p. 56).

This, of course, does not mean that I will always respond justly; it merely means that the opportunity is afforded, "To know or be conscious is to have time to avoid and forestall the instant of inhumanity. "23 To hear the call?the summons to responsibility?obligates faithful response, not because it is "imposed" upon me, in the negative sense of that term, but because I "feel" my obligation in the face of this singular human being. "This relation," Levinas writes, "does not do violence to the I, is not imposed upon it brutally from the outside, despite itself, or unbeknown to it, as an opinion; more exactly, it is imposed upon the I beyond all violence by a [resistance] that calls it entirely into question" (TI, p. 47). Or, again, "The being that expresses itself imposes itself, but does so precisely by appealing to me with its destitution and nudity?its hunger?without my being able to be deaf to that appeal" (TI, p. 200). To turn away from this obligation, to resist, neglect, or wage war would be to betray not only the other, but myself as well. In the midst of such betrayal, I cannot present myself to myself with complacency because "my responsibility is untransferable, no one could replace me .... [It] is what is incumbent on me exclusively, and what, humanly, I cannot refuse" (EI, pp. 100-101). In struggling to respond appropriately, we find ourselves in service instead of in control: "The relationship with the other puts me into question, empties me of myself and empties me without end, showing me ever new resources. I did not know I was so rich."24

We should say here that Levinas's idea of ethical obligation or justice is sometimes interpreted as an obligation one feels for "destitute" or otherwise "needy" human beings for whom one has pity. But for Levinas ethical obligation does not coincide with pity. In fact, pity is often, better suited to the way of autonomy because it tends to totalize the destitute and needy, sees them as wretched, reduces them to an image, but does not allow them to "speak" or, worse, stifles their speech by turning away from the face. In pitying them rather than "hearing" them, we offer help?if we do offer help?that is often not helpful. For Levinas, although it may be the case that those to whom one feels morally obligated to respond may be "destitute" or in some way "needy," it is not their destitution or neediness that elicit a desire to respond justly, but their goodness. The ultimate expression of the face says, do not murder. The ethical force of this command is only possible as goodness. Murder is forbidden in the face-to-face relation, not because it is publicly sanctioned or constrained, but because the self(same) is confronted by the other from a "height," a height which resists ethically. Such resistance only makes sense as goodness.

We see then that in the face-to-face relation the "structure of my freedom is completely reversed" (PII, p. 55). While freedom before meant the happy enjoyment of autonomy, freedom now consists in the possibility of either responding in good faith to the call of the other (heteronomy), or putting it off, defending my position, and "justifying" my alternative action (autonomy). The former response opens up and gives, to the other person, to the community, to the world. The latter response closes down, isolates, and creates a world of mutually antagonistic egos.

Before finishing this section we need to return to the word "heteronomy," and briefly consider the question of why the face-to-face relation is heteronomous. The face of the other calls my freedom into question and summons me to responsibility; the call commands me. in order for the other to call my freedom into question the other must disturb me, and do so from beyond me-and-what-is-mine; from beyond the self(same). The "I" must exclaim, "What was I looking for here? Whence came this shock when I passed, indifferent, under another's gaze?"25 Hence, my relation with the other has the peculiar structure of the idea of infinity. That is, I maintain a relationship with a being which I cannot "contain"; a being which is over and beyond the self(same). In every moment the other exceeds the self(same). This is the idea of infinity: I maintain a relationship with that which I nevertheless cannot comprehend, surround, grasp, or contain. I maintain a relationship with that which is infinite with respect to me. Levinas writes,

[The idea of infinity] has been put into us. it is not a reminiscence. It is experience in the sole radical sense of the term: a relationship with the exterior, with the other, without this exteriority being able to be integrated into the same (PII, p. 54).

Here we have a relationship of the self with the absolutely other who commands me. A relationship that is therefore "through and through a heteronomy" (PII, p. 58).

In the remaining sections of this essay we will attempt to clarify further certain relevant aspects of Levinas's philosophy and its implications for educational theory and practice. We will begin with the issue: If the other(person) is absolutely other, then how can I possibly have a communicative relationship with her? How can I "hear" the call of the other(person), while she is absolutely separated from me?

DISCOURSE, THE ABSOLUTELY OTHER, AND THE SELF

The face-to-face relation assumes some sense of "communication" or "discourse." Yet the discourse in this relationship is not founded on sameness; in other words, on the mutual sharing of ideas or an exchange of common meanings. Rather, it is founded on absolute otherness, absolute separation. The separateness implied in the relationship of the self with an absolutely other(person) is a key to Levinas's philosophy and is also one of the more difficult ideas to understand. Absolute otherness, or separateness, seems to make communication impossible. But Levinas argues that true discourse?wherein the other(person) "speaks" and I "hear" and respond?is precisely only possible in terms of absolute otherness.

In our common usage, the idea of absolute separation between two or more beings would mean that the beings would have no discourse. This is true enough, but only if the separation between the self and other is viewed and constituted from a third person's perspective. From this "outside" perspective, it is possible for the third person to "see" a separation between two other beings; the beings are oblivious to each other, separated by some "gulf " seen by the third person. But this separation is constituted by, and within, the totality maintained by the third person. Thus, it is questionable whether the separation is absolute because the third person reduces the absolute distance between the two beings through her own constitution of this "separation" within her own gaze. We do not, then, have absolute separation when i1separation" is constituted by a third person.

"Radical separation between the same and the other," argues Levinas, "means precisely that it is impossible to place oneself outside of the correlation between the same and the other" (TI, p. 36). The separation Levinas is referring to in terms of "absolute" is not that which is viewed from the outside. Rather, he argues that irreducible separation is only possible for an I?that is, the first person perspective.26 Levinas's question, then, is, What are the conditions for the possibility of absolute (that which cannot be reduced or dissolved, or again, that which continually absolves itself) separation from the first person perspective? Or, more simply, what are the conditions for the possibility of absolute separation between me and you? The answer to this question marks the "commencement" of discourse.

From the first person perspective, the relationship of absolute separation takes on a different meaning and new possibilities. As first person I, the self(same), am comfortably "at home." There are "others" in my world, but they are familiar, I know them, they are "mine." That which is outside my world, outside my "home," is of occasional concern to me, even frightening at times, but this "out-there" is precisely I/out-there, " and for all I know it may not in fact be threatening to me?I don't know. So, in a sense I am "separated" from the "out-there," but not absolutely. The "out-there" remains part of the same, part of me and what is mine, because while it may trouble me, even frighten me, it is still mine?still my mysterious black box. Under such conditions I do not experience irreducible otherness. Thus, the separation is not absolute.

But in the face-to-face relation with the other(person), the separation is absolute and irreducible precisely because in the encounter my ego is ruptured, and I "hear" the call of the other, as absolutely beyond me and mine. The other(person) is absolutely other. I cannot contain her. She overflows the same. In other words, she puts the idea of infinity in me. To receive the idea of infinity is to receive what cannot be contained by the receiver.

A being receiving the idea of Infinity, receiving since it cannot derive it from itself, is a being taught in a non-maieutic fashion, a being whose very existing consists in this incessant reception of teaching, in this incessant overflowing of self (TI, p. 204).27

To receive the idea of Infinity is to be in a relationship of irreducible separation.

But what does this "to receive" mean? To receive the other qua other, to meet face-to-face, is not merely to be aware of a lurking mystery, a black hole which bumps up against and frightens me; this would simply place the other in the mystical "out-there." Yet the reception is not reducible to the thought that thinks it (to a priori themes, categories, words, ideas, etc.). Rather, it is a thought that thinks more than it thinks; a thought that has been put into me. In encountering the other face-to-face I am given to "know" more than I know. I cannot grasp her, she continually withdraws, I cannot contain her.

This should not be mistaken as "the purely negative incomprehension of the other, which depends on our bad will, [and which] must be distinguished from the essential incomprehension of the infinite, which has a positive side, is conscience and desire." (PII, p. 59). The other calls me out of myself; out of the comfort and enjoyment of "home," toward the Stranger.

The face-to-face relation is such that separation is precisely a form of intimacy. As Jo Anne Pagano intuits it, it is "to be near yet separate.28 Paradoxically, it is only in receiving "teaching" from the other, which comes to me from beyond myself, that absolute separation, from a first person perspective, is intelligible. Only under the condition of such absolute separation, could I, first person, possibly and continually come to know that I didn't know her, that I cannot totalize her, and that she is therefore absolutely other. This student is simply not what I thought. Her expression, her speech, her word, exceeds my definitions, themes, and categories. Hence, she does not "teach" me simply by the use of gestures, concepts, or words familiar to me?wherein she would merely be appealing to my prior knowledge?rather she attends her speech; she comes to the assistance of her own discourse with a "miraculous abundance; an inexhaustible surplus" (TI, pp. 96-97). It is precisely for this reason that the relation between the self and other is irreversible, asymmetrical. In the face-to-face encounter the self and the other do not merely exchange ideas; rather the face of the other speaks, and her speech is a singular, irreducible gift, not an exchange. Thus, the gift "does not conquer, but teaches. Teaching is not a species of a genus called domination, a hegemony at work within a totality, but is the presence of infinity breaking the closed circle of totality" (TI, p. 171).

To be taught, to learn what I did not know?with this "learning" being beyond mystery but prior to comprehension (reduction to the same)?this is the peculiar relationship of "face-to-face," and is the condition for the possibility of discourse; i.e., a discourse between me and an absolutely exterior being. Thus, for Levinas, "the face-to-face both announces a society [a we], and permits the maintaining of a separated I" (TI, p. 68).

THE SAME

It may seem from our earlier analysis of the work of autonomy that the realm of the self(same), the ontological situatedness of an existent, is a "bad" thing, something which ought to be somehow done away with. This is not what we have meant to argue. Without a "home," it is impossible to welcome the Stranger. Moreover, the peculiar things we "have in common" with others?for instance, concepts, themes, categories, institutions, programs, class, race, sex, culture, and various other aspects of our situatedness?are part of the wherewithal of the same. We take up this "wherewithal" in our daily labor and commerce: "No face can be approached with empty hands and closed home" (TI, p. 172). But what Levinas wants to argue is that it is not the ontology of our situation (which includes our "wherewithal"), which grounds our being, but the ethical relation between self and other(person):

[The ontology of situatedness, of being-there is) not the foundation of the site, the quintessence of all the relations that constitute our presence on the earth. The relationship between the same and the other, my welcoming of the other, is the ultimate fact, and in it the things [wherewithal] figure not as what one builds but as what one gives (TI, p. 77).

"Not as what one builds," as in the rhetoric of securing autonomy, "but as what one gives" in response to others. "Speech," for instance, "is not instituted in a homogeneous or abstract medium, but in a world where it is necessary to aid and to give" (TI, p. 216). The ethical relation renders ontology meaningful, not the other way around. Speech, language, labor, and production are not the "always already" of existence; rather, they are the fruit of ethics. Thus, the work of establishing the preeminence of ontology over all else?which we have argued is a mode of securing autonomy?can be interpreted as a consequence of resisting the other, and not the antecedent of the relation. That is, the quest to justify autonomy in terms of ontology does not logically precede the face-to-face relation, but proceeds from it. There is no need to justify autonomy until it is called into question ethically. It is only when autonomy (self-rule) becomes an ethical issue that the need to justify it has a compelling interest.

What we are questioning, then, is not the self(same) per se, but the response which, in its encounter with an other(person), seeks to reduce the other to the same. The I is "capable of shutting itself up against the very appeal that has aroused it, but also capable of welcoming this face of infinity with all the resources of its egoism" (TI, p. 216, italics ours). It is this ethical relation, and particularly, the latter "capability," we are interested in highlighting. When we, as researchers and as teachers, find ourselves face-to-face, called into question, called out of ourselves beyond the safety of our "projects," how do we respond? No matter what we do, we will call upon the resources of "the same," the resources of the self, to bear our response. Our response may issue in, for instance, rules, laws, institutions, policies, agencies, curricula, or courses. Hence, whether we respond in good faith or not does not preclude forms, shapes, ways, modes, texts, materials, techniques, orders, concepts, or themes. Levinas's critique does not deny the reality nor the necessity of such things. What he is arguing is that the ontology of these "things"?in other words, appeals to connectedness, relationships, and embodiment?does not exhaust their meaning. Ontology does not respond to the face of the other(person) which attends the things, animates them, carries them, and exceeds them .29

EDUCATION

In the introduction we said that this essay would be directed toward educational theorists and practitioners who are simultaneously concerned about the problems of modernity and drawn toward postmodern criticism, but also deeply troubled with some of the apparent implications of postmodern thought. One of these implications is the paralysis that seems to come in the wake of relentless deconstruction. Feminist educators have been especially vigilant in working this issue; that is, in acknowledging the important contributions of postmodern thought, while also struggling with the problems it invokes.30 For instance, the critiques of mainstream feminism coming from women of color and other marginalized groups in the 1980s indirectly questioned claims of feminist pedagogical authority and encouraged more sensitivity to difference, situatedness, and voice in pedagogical theorizing and practice.31 Yet pedagogical efforts to be sensitive to these "differences," and efforts to overcome the oppression that indifference to them creates, continue to reproduce oppressions. Elizabeth Ellsworth argues that practices advocated in the literature to overcome oppressive conditions,

are repressive myths that perpetuate relations of domination. By this I mean that when participants in our class attempted to put into practice prescriptions offered in the literature concerning empowerment, student voice, and dialogue, we produced results that were not only unhelpful, but actually exacerbated the very conditions we were trying to work against, including Eurocentrism, racism, sexism, classism, and "banking education."32

She argues that the relations of domination are even more complex, partial, and contradictory than these prescriptions of "openness" allow for; than any prescription could possibly accommodate. Thus, she points out the infinite "dangers" of any position we might take, and encourages more careful and sensitive attention to, and acknowledgment of, the myriad of complex power relations into which we are woven.

But the support and insight which has come from this convergence of postmodern thought and feminism has not come without bringing additional problems for feminism and feminist pedagogy, problems which have been anticipated by feminists who have been very uneasy about an alliance between feminism and postmodernism. To be sure, postmodern criticism has been helpful to feminists in revealing and disrupting oppressive, seemingly inevitable, totalities which deny difference and silence the voices of others, but it has not been very helpful for those who must act in schools; those who face thirty children six hours a day, for instance. When everything one does is revealed, through deconstructive analysis, to be a new version of oppression, one may be led to conclude that the only thing that can be done is the work of "appropriately" and fashionably touting what cannot be done. While this relentless critique has engendered more careful attention to the haunting specter of continually becoming the very thing you decry, some feminists nevertheless see postmodern criticism as reducing the possibility of positive action to futility.33 In this atmosphere of critique, human agency is rendered dubious and extremely limited, because it is shown that, on the one hand, those things over which we think we have the power to choose are hopelessly constrained by our situatedness and hence really outside our "agency" and, on the other hand, no matter how we try to avoid totalitarian acts, we fall into them anyway, wittingly or unwittingly. All this seems to move in the direction of radical, solipsistic difference; that is, "your world is beyond me; I don't know you, you don't know me. So you do your thing, I'll do mine."

Feminists, in general, have been unwilling to take up this extreme position which seems to be implied in some versions of postmodernism, and have been especially vigilant in keeping questions regarding agency, justice, authority, and responsibility alive. These questions have to do not only with ontological limits (what we cannot do), but with possibilities (what can be done), and more particularly with ethical possibilities (what we ought to do).

As we have noted, the ontology of situatedness is not silent in regard to this issue regarding "possibilities" (what can be done). It responds by encouraging the work of resolutely accepting one's place in Being and taking up, creating, and extending personal freedom within its constraints. An example of this can be found in William E. Doll's book, A Post-modern Perspective on Curriculum. Doll, calling upon the postmodern critique of modem science, argues that postmodernism has placed us on the verge of a major transformation in all the disciplines, but particularly in education. He writes,

I believe a new sense of educational order will emerge, as well as new relations between teachers and students, culminating in a new concept of curriculum. The linear, sequential, easily quantifiable ordering system dominating education today?one focusing on clear beginnings and definite endings?could give way to a more complex, pluralistic, unpredictable system or network .... curriculum will be viewed not as a set, a priori "course to be run," but as a passage of personal transformation.34

The personal and educational transformation Doll speaks of is argued for and justified by appeals to postmodern ontology. He speaks again and again throughout his book about "shoulds " and "oughts, " but these are always defended in ontological terms. He assumes, he says, "that 'ises' can be transformed into 'oughts."'35 So to comprehend the way things are ontologically will render an appropriate list of things we ought to do, and will furthermore provide all the necessary reasons and justifications for doing so.

We do not mean to be overly critical of Doll's work because we feel that much of what he says needs to be said. Nevertheless, precisely because of his inordinate focus on ontology, his book exalts the work of autonomy, self-creation, and personal transformation. In all of this there is nothing which calls the very use of freedom, the very taking up of that which is afforded in Being, into question. He does talk of "perturbations" which disrupt the "system," but the disruption is always described ontologically, and the resolution of the disruption is also described (hypothesized) in ontological terms.36 He speaks of the need for community and dialogue, then struggles to justify these in terms of the "ises" of earth life. The resistance of the face, ethical resistance, doesn't seem to have a place in the conversation. Instead, the focus is on the self resolutely taking up its "possibilities"?"everything that is possible is permitted"37?and thereby transforming and re-transforming the self. The work of education and curriculum planning becomes solely a task of providing environments where students can find their possibilities, take them up, and move toward self-transformation. Thus the ultimate work of education becomes the work of securing and extending autonomy.

IT IS NOT I WHO RESIST THE SYSTEM .... IT IS THE OTHER

Perhaps it has been easy to retain the quest for autonomy in a postmodern politics of education because one of the things postmodern criticism does best is to expose oppressive social, political, and cultural metanarratives. An easily understandable response to such expos6s is the labor of emancipating ourselves from the revealed tyranny and oppression. Granted, the emancipatory possibilities of postmodernism are decidedly less grandiose than those of modernism, due in large part to the recognition that our historical, temporal existence as located bodies places us in situations which surround and constrain us?"situations" we cannot simply transcend. Still, in spite of these "limitations" it remains possible to accept resolutely one's situatedness, and to seek as much as possible to escape the coercive aspects of one's location?the "subtle and treacherous poison" (PII, p. 48)?by exploiting the possibilities afforded by one's location.

Certainly a call to accept resolutely one's situation and to seek out and take up the freedoms afforded within one's location provides some hope to teachers in public schools and other educational institutions who find themselves victims of the "subtle and treacherous poisons" of impersonal, coercive administrative bureaucracies and other organizational networks. For such people the thought of taking up the work of securing and extending autonomy as much as possible has a strong appeal. But as we have argued, the work of securing autonomy turns out to be violent. The question we would like to pose here, then, is: Is it really autonomy (self-rule) that these teachers are seeking? Is this really what they desire?

Levinas does not suggest, in the face of the dangers posed by the quest for autonomy, that we simply resign and submit ourselves to oppression, or that we somehow deny the importance of freedom. Freedom is vital. Two of the most socially destructive forms of oppression are when people are refused the liberty to respond to the obligations they feel toward one another, or are forced to take up externally, violently imposed "obligations" without any choice in the matter. But Levinas's work does suggest that there are some serious dangers in setting up "autonomy" as the foundation, justification, and focus of our efforts to educate and "emancipate" students academically, socially, and culturally. It is our belief that many of the educational efforts which we describe in the language of autonomy were originally initiated as heteronomy, as a desire for the other. That is to say, the teacher hears the call of the student and struggles to respond appropriately. But in the heat of the struggle it may be easy for the teacher to forget the initial impetus to the effort. The justification of her struggles might then devolve from a struggle to respond in good faith to the call of the other (heteronomy), to a narrower focus on her own struggle to overcome the system (autonomy seeking).

Levinas concludes a chapter subsection in Totality and Infinity entitled "The Breach of Totality" with the following words: "It is not I who resist the system; ... it is the other" (TI, p. 40). In the rhetoric of autonomy it is always "I who resist the system"; that is, the self gathers its resources to wage war on the oppressive system. "The system," used in this way, usually refers to something which is in some way dominating, violent, stifling, or otherwise oppressive. Notice, there is a clear affinity between the "system" and what we have described as the work of reducing the other to the same; the work of securing autonomy. In the rhetoric of autonomy, "the system" is always something which oppresses the I, something "outside" the I. In the face-to-face relation the terms are reversed. In this reversal, the self(same) becomes "the system." The other(person) confronts me, "the system," and disturbs me. Hence, it is not I who resist the system (I am the system); it is the other(person).38 The other(person) calls me into question, " empties me of myself and empties me without end, showing me ever new resources. I did not know I was so rich."39

SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

What we "ought" to do in education cannot be answered definitively because answers to such questions are inextricably tied to our own situations?so the ontology of situatedness contends, and we would agree with this contention. But the point we have been arguing is that the preeminent "ties" are not ontological; rather, they are ethical. Thus Levinas's work does not provide an "is" that determines, as far as can be determined, the "oughts," nor does it provide a common ethic such as an abstracted code of conduct. In Levinas, the ethical is born and reborn in face-to-face relations, which are not the work or accomplishment of the I, something "I" choose; rather, they are what I cannot avoid. Granted, I may go through all kinds of evasive contortions, but I cannot sidestep face-to-face encounters. When I least expect it, I will find myself exclaiming, "Whence came this shock when I passed indifferent under another's gaze?"

Therefore, since the face-to-face is not something that I control, Levinas is not setting forth a "'particularly recommendable' variety of consciousness" (PII, p. 58) that we ought to adopt?for instance, today I will try to teach my class heteronomously; or, today I will try to "infinitize" my students rather than totalize them. The ethical relation is beyond the power of the self(same). I cannot infinitize another person. The very attempt to do so would not "infinitize" but "totalize" her. As a teacher, I cannot assume that it is within my power to "teach," in the sense Levinas uses the word. I can only respond straightforwardly and in good faith to the summons to responsibility that I hear. If the student welcomes me in my otherness, he is taught. But, again, this is not something which I can impose upon the students through my skill and knowledge. I can only respond to the "summons" by straightforwardly and vulnerably presenting my face; by offering myself and all that I have.

So as "teacher," what I "ought to do" is called forth in my face-to-face relations with others. The other?this child, this woman, this man?penetrates the walls of my ego and teaches me, and the "teaching" beckons my response:

Back in class, we quickly returned to the morning discussion and explored our views and values in relation to Esther's story [about the complex familial and societal challenges the birth and life of a Downs Syndrome child presents]. Close to the end of the day, Janet [who, below her neck, could only move her thumb], who had remained silent till this point, said in her dry raspy voice, "Someone sitting right here in front of you has said she would consider amniocentesis. I want her to realize that if she aborts a child that child could have been me." Immediately the tears welled in my eyes, and I could not control them. I was that person. I, who saw myself as an advocate for people with disabilities. What did this statement say about me? That I would be an advocate but I sure as hell didn't want a child like that! I felt sick. I realized in a moment of instant deep reflection that I wasn't the person I believed myself to be. 40

The other(person) calls to me. I am taught. To turn away from the face of this child, this woman, this man, is to do violence?not because of some universal or categorical law imposed upon me, or which I impose upon myself, but because I feel my obligation. I am taught.

For educational researchers, theorists, and practitioners concerned about the troubling aspects of both modernism and postmodernism, Levinas does not provide prescriptions, but he does provide a different way of looking at the questions: "What can I do?" and "What ought I do?" Too often, as researchers, teachers, and theorists we are tempted to respond to these questions by seeking?through methodology, ontology, epistemology, and so forth?for Gyges' ring;41 to see, but not be seen; to speak, but not be spoken to. Concerning Gyges, Levinas writes, "Gyges is the very condition of man, the possibility of injustice and radical egoism, the possibility of accepting the rules of the game, but cheating" (TI, p. 173).

Levinas argues that in spite of our efforts to play Gyges' game, or even in spite of our efforts to conscientiously do "good," we will frequently find ourselves unexpectedly face-to-face with others. We will find ourselves fundamentally questioned, called out of ourselves, and taught. Although the "shock" may or may not make obvious what we ought to do in particular, it may provide a direction in which to respond and-struggle. Too often we turn away from this "shock," seeing it as a threat rather than an opening through which we may both welcome and give to the other, and in so doing find new life.

Perhaps rather than resting our hope on eventually articulating the situated "isness" of existence so as to control the "oughts," it would be more wise to attend to the disruptions and disturbances which call our autonomy into question; which break through concepts, themes, institutions, and programs, offering new freedoms and new opportunities to respond justly. Perhaps it is the struggle to respond continually in good faith to the call of the other that needs more attention in education.

At the conclusion of the essay "Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity," Levinas suggests that the starting point of philosophy is not contemplative wonder, as is commonly claimed, but the face of the other(person). The other(person) calls one out of oneself and marks a "start. " This implies not one primordial Start, but a continual starting and restarting in response to those with whom we live, work, and play. Levinas's work shows us that our relationships will always be constituted by interruption and obligation. Furthermore, interruption and obligation do not occur in tidy cycles. In a sense, we are always already obligated to others and that obligation is never fulfilled, for in the attempt to fulfill it we are interrupted, called into question again. Being taught is "rupture and commencement" continually (TI, p. 203). Consequently, these fundamental interruptions do not allow a project to become The Final Project, for the essence of our obligation to the other ultimately consists not of a project to be completed, but of justice and goodness, for which there can be no completion. Levinas suggests that the starting point of philosophy is the face of the other(person). We would like to suggest that the starting point for better education is to be found in the same place.

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MARK CHILD is a Ph.D. candidate in Instructional Psychology, Brigham Young University. His primary areas of scholarship are curriculum theory and curriculum design, teacher/researcher collaboration, and qualitative inquiry. DAVID D. WILLIAMS is Associate Professor of Education in the Instructional Science Department, Brigham Young University. His primary areas of scholarship are educational evaluation, qualitative inquiry, international education, and teacher education. A. JANE BIRCH is Director, College of Education Computer Laboratory, Brigham Young University. Her primary areas of scholarship are moral and character education and home education, The address for these authors is 201 McKay Building, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602.

ROBERT M. BOODY is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, 643 SEC, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0607. His primary areas of scholarship are teacher knowledge, inquiry, and reflection, and classroom and program evaluation.

1. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).

2. Stephen Daniel, "Paramount Strategies of Philosophical Historiography," Epoche: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 1, no. 1 (1993): 42-43.

3. See, for example, Jurgen Habermas, "Modernity versus Postmodernity," New German Critique (1981); Nancy Hartsock, "Postmodernism and Political Change," Cultural Critique 13 (Winter 1989-90): 15-33; and Landon E. Beyer and Daniel P. Liston "Discourse or Moral Action? A Critique of Postmodernism," Educational Theory 42, no. 3 (1992): 371-93.

4. Lawrence Hazelrigg, Claims of Knowledge: On the Labor of Making Found Worlds (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1989), 195.

5. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1927/1962).

6. Zygmunt Bauman, in Postmodern Ethics (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993), refers to this possibility, though he does not believe it is the only, or most desirable, possibility for postmodernism.

7. Levinas uses the French autrui (the personal other) and autre (the general other; all that which is "other than" myself: things, even people in a limited sense I. Levinas's translators usually capitalize the "personal other" to distinguish it from the general other. in order to avoid confusion here, we will simply add to "other" a parenthetical "(person)," when necessary, so that whenever the personal other is intended we will write "other(person)." There are some uses of "other" where it would be appropriate to place the parenthetical addition, but the context in which it appears makes it obvious that the personal other is intended.

8. In Emmanuel Levinas, "Philosophy and the idea of Infinity," Collected Philosophical Papers, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987),47-59. This article will be referred to as PII with page numbers in the text for all subsequent references.

9. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 75. This book will be referred to as EI with page numbers in the text for all subsequent references.

10. bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End, 1990), 151-52.

11. These and other quotes in this section are Levinas's words and not Heidegger's.

12. Martin Heidegger Basic Writings (New York: Harper and Row, 1990).

13. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time.

14. Edward L. Thorndike, The Principles of Teaching: Based on Psychology (New York: A.G. Seiler, 1916). See also David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1982).

15. Frank Pignatelli, "What Can I Do? Foucault on Freedom and the Question of Teacher Agency," Educational Theory 43, no. 4 (Fall 1993): 411-32.

16, Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1979).

17. Pignatelli, "What Can I Do?" 412-13.

18. Ibid., 417-20.

19. Ibid., 417.

20. We realize that this still remains rather obscure, but the way in which Levinas uses "face" is not something easily defined, or better, is not something which can be "defined." But we believe the reader will get a sense for "face" as he or she moves through the remainder of the essay.

21. Emmanuel Levinas, "Meaning and Sense," in Lingis, Collected Philosophical Papers, 94.

22. Emmanuel Levinas, "Ethics as First Philosophy," in The Levinas Reader, ed. Scan Hand (Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), 75-87.

23. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969)35. This book will be referred to as T1 with page numbers in the text for all subsequent references.

24. Levinas, "Meaning and Sense," 94.

25. Ibid.

26. Although we may, of course, assume third person positions, we are all, even as third persons, unavoidably in some sense a "first person."

27. "Maieutic" refers to Socrates' doctrine that every idea introduced into the soul was already there. Maieutics is practiced by a teacher who uncovers these ideas that are already in the student; that is, brings them to consciousness.

28. Jo Anne Pagano, Exiles and Communities (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 40.

29. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981).

30. See, for example, Linda J. Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 1990).

31. See bell hooks, Talking Back (Boston: South End Press, 1989); Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Freedom, Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1984); and Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).

32. Elizabeth Ellsworth, "Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering?" Harvard Educational Review 59, no. 3 (1989): 298.

33. See for example, Hartsock, "Postmodernism and Political Change"; and Christine Di Stefano, "Dilemmas of Difference: Feminism, Modernity, and Postmodernism," in Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism, 63-82.

34. William E. Doll, Jr., A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum (New York: Teacher's College Press, 1993), 3.

35. Ibid., 162.

36. Ibid., 163-66.

37. Emmanuel Levinas, "Ethics as First Philosophy," 78.

38. The claim that "it is not I who resist the system, but the other" may sound harsh to those who are suffering severe oppression, but in Levinas's view it is the only real hope that does not reincarnate the very violence it seeks to overthrow. This does not preclude political struggle. Responding ethically may demand political struggle. Yet in spite of the struggle, if the oppressors are to be called into question ethically, they must come face-to-face with those they oppress, they must see them as other, as goodness. It is not within the power of the oppressed, through strategem, cunning, etc., to force the oppressors to question themselves ethically. All the oppressed can do is to present their "faces," straightforwardly and vulnerably (ethically speaking).

39. Levinas, "Meaning and Sense," 94.

40. Heather Raymond, "Reflection and Touching of a Heart" Orbit, 23 (4) 11.

41. Gyges is a mythical character in Plato's Republic who has a ring that makes him invisible.

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EDUCATIONAL THEORY / Spring 1995 / Volume 45 / Number 2

ⓒ 1995 Board of Trustees / University of Illinois