Homicide as First Philosophy

What gives birth to philosophy and more precisely what makes possible the critical attitude? Is philosophical questioning driven by the astonishment produced by the mere fact of being (Plato)? Does it derive from our existential structure (Heidegger)? Is it the ethical interdiction produced by the Other that gives birth to the critical attitude (Levinas)?If we schematize these questions—which should not be taken as exhaustive—we can say that what leads to philosophical questioning is either the astonishment produced by being or the traumatism provoked by the Other. In the first case, the philosophical exercise is meant to elucidate what makes questioning possible. Philosophy consists in providing an elucidation of the question of being. It must let the being speak, either through a dialectical reflection, as is the case in Plato's dialogue, or through the paths opened up by poetry, as can be thought with Heidegger. In the second case, the philosophical questioning is provoked by that which resists knowledge. This is what happens in Levinas's thought when he considers ethics as the instance that gives birth to critique (1969, 43, 85). For Levinas, the Other surprises me. Because he or she happens by surprise, the Other puts into question my “natural attitude,” as Husserl would say. He or she questions me in my way of being and knowing. What Levinas named “Ethic as first philosophy” (Peperzak 1996 ) means that I happen to question my knowledge in the moment in which I'm put into question, radically, in my way of being (this being into question characterizes ethics). So, either philosophy takes place in the surprise that being provokes, or it happens as a being into question. Either astonishment is the first philosophical moment, or ethics is the first philosophy. In the first case, philosophy is primarily correlated to an ontology. In the second case, the philosophical question happens first as a practical moment, not as the theoretical question of being, but as the practical questioning of my being.Blanchot's considerations on the birth of the philosophical attitude amount neither to an ontological description, nor to an ethical being into question. Reading one fragment of The Writing of the Disaster (1986) where Blanchot reflects on the myth of the cavern, we could say that for Blanchot it is neither astonishment nor ethics, nor the transcendence of the Other, that makes philosophical questioning possible. It is rather murder, namely, violence and even an extreme violence, that makes it possible. In fact, when Blanchot reads the allegory of the cave, he highlights the fact that in order to philosophize, to question being, one has to leave the cave, to go outside. However, the outside exists through death, which interrupts the continuity and interiority experienced in the cave. What's more, death does not exist as a natural end, in which case it is no different from life. It exists as the act to make disappear, as the rupture of a continuity, namely, through murder. “Death is the act of killing,” says Blanchot in this passage of The Writing of the Disaster (35). Thus, for Blanchot, it would be murder, and not the surprise of being or of the Other, that conditions the birth of reason—or a certain kind of reason, one that questions itself. If this reading of the allegory of the cave is correct, Blanchot does not think “Ethics as first philosophy,” as Levinas (Peperzak 1996) does, but “Homicide as first philosophy.” More precisely, Blanchot's conception of philosophy is situated between Heidegger and Levinas—or, rather, in radical divergence from their thought. However, the interesting point here is that it is Blanchot's reading of Plato that allows for this new way of considering the birth of philosophy as well as the philosophical exercise.Before analyzing the surprising and problematic idea that homicide could be the transcendental or the birth of the philosophical exercise, I reproduce the fragment in question from The Writing of the Disaster. In this work, and in fragments directly meant as a reading of Plato's allegory of the cave, Blanchot writes: In Plato's cave, there is no word to designate death, and no dream or image to intimate its unspeakableness. Death is there, in the cave, as excess, and forgetfully; it arrives from outside into the words of the philosopher as that which reduces him in advance to silence; or, it enters him the better to set him adrift in the futility of a semblance of immortality, making of him a mere shade, the perpetuation of shadow. Death is named solely as the necessity to kill those who, having freed themselves—having had access to the light—come back and reveal, thereby troubling order, disturbing the tranquility of the shelter, and thus desheltering. Death is the act of killing. And the philosopher is he who undergoes the supreme violence. But he also calls upon it, for the truth which he bears and which he tells by his return is a form of violence. (Blanchot 1995, 35)This passage refers to Plato's Book VII, where it is insinuated that the philosopher is so disturbing and even that the practice of philosophy is so upsetting that one has the right to want to kill the philosopher who would have the purpose of freeing us from our condition of slavery. Book VII of Republic says the following: “And, as for anyone who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow get their hands on him, wouldn't they kill him? They certainly would” (Plato 1997, 517a). Indeed, this passage is extremely interesting because it articulates the exercise of philosophy to a threefold violence: that of the confinement in which a world devoid of thoughts holds us—the reader will remember that in the cave the men have “been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to in of because their them from their (Plato 1997, that of the that the fact of being by the act of from the cave, the first with the a form of a of the which to a of our of and of being, of of and that which the philosopher undergoes is so radical that it a this the reading of the allegory by Blanchot in this fragment articulates that the between philosophy and if this the one is the and it is to the philosopher is to violence, it is because he could leave it and think that to practice philosophy is to and that this is for the philosopher to be to violence. But Blanchot does not In this fragment from The Writing of the Blanchot does not violence. In the of who death in more one dialogue, Blanchot that the supreme violence that the philosopher undergoes is In this Blanchot the death and even the of the philosopher as a that as a The fragment “Death is named solely as the necessity to kill those who, having freed themselves—having had access to the light—come back and reveal, thereby troubling order, disturbing the tranquility of the shelter, and thus desheltering. Death is the act of in this the philosopher death, he the death he but he in a certain with death as the tranquility of if truth be he the of It is as if being with the of this the death that the philosopher is not It is It is and named for the first as the of Death exists as the philosopher is to Blanchot, Plato's cave there is no word to designate Indeed, the between philosophy and death is not the between death as an end, or as the of the nor as a in neither a nor a The between philosophy and death happens as It has not an existential but also a It is a So, the here is the following: in order to think one has to to death, but in order for there to be death, there must be murder. Because The Writing of the Disaster is a it a that would make this fragment However, I think the or the in this fragment from the of that it The first is the following: philosophy as a to and as an that and Blanchot that philosophy with the in of the outside philosopher is the one who back from the and in this way The philosopher who to the cave from where he has the does not what is into the cave, but rather the Thus, and this is the second would not so with a of by which the truth is as with a of even of In a Blanchot on the idea of Philosophy would not one to but to the of murder, and even its philosophy would with the for these this fragment questioning the condition of of philosophy. What makes it for to to to the who have freed What makes it to question being rather to be by the by the The fact that the death the idea that no outside or the cave could be If the cave is a place of mere a an a death, the of the can birth to a a a question. In this the philosophical exercise death and does not exist this which is because it does not for death, it Thus, the first idea can be up in this the of philosophy death, the of death is that is to the in of an outside into an in that calls for I return to my this is to to the question of the between violence and this passage is a In the or we to that to is to with For death is an act that allows the of the Plato For death is for the of the of In it is a question of making with or The fragment from The Writing of the Disaster that in order to it is to death, to as with in and who that is with the of the for Blanchot there would be no thought murder, thought murder. But if thought death, if it a murder, philosophy to rather to If the condition of of thought is murder, we up in violence, more the of the what I to get these by them in the of Blanchot's reading of is that this but fragment from The Writing of the Disaster consists of a critical It new for the critical of and it does so by a new way of the violence that philosophy. it has in these I think that Blanchot's is a or rather a of Plato's work, more precisely, of the that death in the philosophical can for that The is a of the and of the of Plato In the death is the of a philosophical that is the same a on the that death in the access to truth but also on the between death, and philosophy. also or in The This consists of an of to to the of death, and of an of the way death or that also This that from the between death and gives to a new way of to a new exercise of philosophy that is to In the of is and to death for and for of the consists of that he that he He has no knowledge that he could or is of no to In The the of death calls into question to the point where it is no possible to say not to reads rather in this that is no to not (Blanchot In this one can say that The in The of In these of death in The a new way of the between death, and philosophy. In we have also a fragment of The Writing of Disaster the myth of the cave that is in the place that has to Plato's it is the of death that allows us to philosophy in what it but also in what its It to me that for these we can say that Blanchot's this because of the that death in this in a new reading or a of Plato's work, and in this in a new of we the way in which Blanchot articulates or even these of death, and we that a critical is the critical that characterizes philosophy. I the word here not in its as an that what it is possible to but in the more that we could namely, as a questioning of our of says that I the he questions the way in which is in a knowledge and in a way of knowing. For to practice philosophy consists first of in between a knowledge for which the is and a knowledge that the of an In this between these of death a If we with the to is to death in correlated through the it is a of what is and to from what it is also a of from of in a way so as to from This is in the that one of those who practice philosophy in the is to practice for and (Plato 1997, that by from by it from it the of and in this it Thus, of an is possible on the condition of a practical an existential to an In order to it is to and be to a from a and thus This by which makes of the a in which it is precisely a of in the that in because he through is by a certain of the but by a certain or even of the The this and theoretical is by an The first of The is us into this and death we not (Blanchot For death is it is an of the consists in what is from what is a which the of and the philosophical death, the death, the one to which the philosopher is an of the of dialogue, of a certain But for Blanchot, death is precisely that which is and in the moment that death arrives there is no to it, one can neither death in a moment in nor Death is the of what it exists as but not as It is of the order of an that Blanchot calls The being the of death as a moment in as a it has the If by that is to by for Blanchot it is rather the as it is not that is Blanchot for instance of the of in the that rather being the of being, a mere the In Blanchot, refers to a as its The consists in this in a critical reading of the that death in the philosophical If with the of death as a the means that this is the of in the of a It makes of the a of death, rather an I to we with this critical it that Blanchot's reading of Plato the of philosophy. the between being and it neither being nor but their as I have Blanchot's consists in a of the between death, and philosophy. Because the questions the by death, it the of the and the into a that Blanchot calls the consists in a form of knowledge that also a of what the or, rather, the on the It from a a that leads to as well as a of The from the of what interrupts knowledge. It puts what is in between us and not what the what is in me. The which could also be the is the of an but For this reason, the critical of the consists in a new of the philosophical exercise that consists in a new way of In the it is a of the rather the it is a of the rather the the philosophy does not in a of the nor in a in but in a of where the of the the the It is a practice of the that in the of is not thought as a but as the that for in the of the of to say the same the one who says it is the (Blanchot The Other from the of being It is not its Thus, Blanchot's reading of Plato consists in a of the between philosophy and into the between death and Blanchot, Plato's which is to is as he to of that is to to what is an and not an does not the it is through that he gives to as the to He does not he he interrupts and interrupts form to the through his death, he to be by and to a that of the (Blanchot The critical of The consists in that death is but it is It is the that and thus from the right It is this that Blanchot's reading of the allegory of the cave is as a of and Blanchot his on that which from Death in a that is to and and It of the it what Blanchot the allegory of the cave is precisely the fact that the condition of to the fact of not being able to to to In The Writing of the Disaster he for Plato us Plato in the myth of the cave is that men in of the or the right to or to (Blanchot 1995, It is that in this Blanchot the allegory of the cave not as an image of the that philosophy but as that in which Plato For Blanchot, the allegory of the cave says Plato It is as Plato not the cave, but the cave And it is as the cave not a image but a place where one is to a or a This could that the of in which the is from the of that consists in and being not a a and be would for this is not have the cave, this cave where one does not us up the from which Blanchot and The Plato's thought to that it the of thought rather the of the The Writing of the Disaster Plato to the Plato us Plato in the myth of the cave is that men in of the or the right to or to (Blanchot 1995, Philosophy as a would not make us leave the cave. It would even lead us back into The and the of philosophy would be in the cave, in the What is this that would be not a means to philosophical but also an end, a Is it an of philosophy or on must return to the in the allegory of the cave, but this we must on the fact that here the point of the philosophical is an that of the who The fact that Blanchot that the allegory us more Plato philosophy leads us to think that here the image is not a means a but an It is what one does not to which one one to have it, through through philosophy. this or the that Blanchot makes of it, the that Blanchot on the myth of and Blanchot In the cave, the not from their place nor in of What's for Blanchot is that they In the myth of into the world of the the to In the he can make through his but he to This is a can if from the to will a second and is with the of For Blanchot, this that is a or an because it is not a of in or where is in the but of in and Blanchot writes: not to would be no to would be to the of his which does not want in truth and but in in with and is for the that bears the of the of The reading of the myth of thus the necessity of a is to be with the with the death that in life. kill would be in order to to the of the to be to the Other in its namely, in its point is for the necessity of death as murder, as in order for philosophy to in and is to to being. death, being takes place as being. However, for Blanchot the question of being be the first philosophical question. What one outside is death as the of It is as that which makes being If to is to go we to to being. More precisely, we to to the that being and that gives birth to its to its a rather a philosophical death, a death, one that from in Blanchot is the condition of of philosophy because philosophy a a that one of the cave. to go outside the cave to as is the case in Plato's Republic and even in reading of It means the cave in its that it is no a what is is the of the What is is the of the one is no one is one has their one is because one In Plato there is a the cave and the the of and the world of in Blanchot to go outside the it being of the Because homicide is a that to it this of if we can the necessity of a in order to and if we can that in order to we to what the of homicide as a condition of of violence that can in its namely, by to namely, to in its and Plato from the allegory of the cave, which is no a place of but a place of and he the allegory of the cave from the myth of In order to the one would first have to the of Philosophy from a or a rather in a to But can the of The precisely that death that there is no of the fact that the cave is a place of the of the of of these I on a passage from and the to and on that Blanchot makes of in The the necessity of that Blanchot in his reading of the allegory of the cave is in fact an of the necessity of a on This that what Blanchot calls is or but that exists in its because of the way and our to In and the to which is in The of Blanchot on the between and In the of Blanchot the act of as an act of The would be a However, does not kill in the of the of it the of death for In fact, in his on Blanchot death not in the named but in the act of I speak, death in not in the that it the of an in order to its but in the that in order to it has to the of the Indeed, Blanchot in In this death exists with and not the that gives us the as the between and between and to the as it, the can be but this is by its and or and death, exist because of this we can thus in to our The homicide that conditions the of philosophy the of It is because death that homicide is possible. Death from our as Indeed, it is not a question of this in its is not an image of death, but the of in a the transcendental of death, its condition of is because there is Thus, if we death as we can on in its this to the of what can one of the rather, what makes of the cave an of the can say that in order to of the cave, there is no of a philosopher who would be different from the as is the case in reading of the is no to be as which in Because for Blanchot death is in the that makes the death being. the the the moment in which one the an Indeed, in order to leave the cave, there is no to be a but to to death, and the that it Blanchot says in The Writing of the a is more a It is not a mere that is a means for a it is a a and In a Blanchot makes of the allegory of the cave the allegory of in the myth of the cave is also the myth of the to what to to is not one of the of more it is the condition of a of the as Plato also which puts us to with the of the one or way of should thought to this be one of this and that philosophy is a of is no to that one must as a word is more a (Blanchot 1995, to this first there is a between the that the philosopher undergoes and the of that he The is the of the of violence is the of through Indeed, the philosopher the death he happens to be through his our philosopher is he who undergoes the supreme violence. But he also calls upon it, for the truth which he bears and which he tells by his return is a form of (Blanchot 1995, The supreme violence that the philosopher is the death The of that the philosopher the is the of the by the it is the that when the philosopher to the cave and this place, which is the into a place where one the between and The philosopher does not exercise the supreme he a of this form of violence is that which to the supreme violence. If there is murder, it is because we no in the by If there is murder, as Levinas it is because the as Other, it is because a me or because the of an we from What does the fact that death exists with to the question of my second in to this question. In Blanchot, death is a questioning moment that is to and death on but precisely because it on what makes death possible is also what we have to back to the critical point of in The Death as a as a moment in is Death is by its It into the the to death, it the to its namely, to that can be the death, but as Thus, as as can kill that Blanchot this is taken from Blanchot says in his on The to kill says Blanchot in these the of the In this the kill this Blanchot is not of this that does not derive from and that the can kill What be is the of the by Blanchot can kill a but he him in Blanchot the is one is by the of death, by the of the In as a this but what one will be able to is to the the that this death its it the moment of what Blanchot calls in a on the of the (Blanchot death as but as what is also to and that for It is in the that the to For this reason, Blanchot's idea of homicide is not to idea of an in order to kind of or we experienced as The fact that is possible by and that to death as means that is not a It is and back to our Blanchot's reading of the allegory of the cave leads to a of what makes philosophy its critical Heidegger on one and Levinas on the attitude of questioning knowledge neither on the surprise of being nor on the surprise of the Other. It neither to an nor an For Blanchot, the for homicide the of questioning being because death the that is to question us because they and they us because their is for Blanchot is the act of If it a mere natural fact, it would not be However, happens a with that to and to In a certain in the moment in which we speak, we because we and by we But because is by death, is an instance the same to and Blanchot is not making an of the the point is to that we in violence because we by But because this structure is we not to violence. What us into violence, even into murder, is also what us in the to This this between and what it, is the birth of thought. It is not an It is a moment of that one neither in a of nor in as a