N. Gabriel Martin
I am Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at the Lebanese American University.
I have taught philosophy at University College London and at the University of Sussex, from which I received my PhD in 2016.
My research is on disagreement.
The formulation of a question or disagreement often arbitrarily predetermines how the matter is to be resolved. In other words; asking the question a certain way already stacks the deck in favour of one side or the other. If we are to take disagreement seriously as an epistemological problem, we cannot limit discussion to strictly formulated disagreements which can be rationally resolved. Instead, I argue, questions about how to frame our most persistent and important controversies must aim at the critique, rather than refutation, of opposed beliefs, sets of beliefs, and worldviews.
I have taught philosophy at University College London and at the University of Sussex, from which I received my PhD in 2016.
My research is on disagreement.
The formulation of a question or disagreement often arbitrarily predetermines how the matter is to be resolved. In other words; asking the question a certain way already stacks the deck in favour of one side or the other. If we are to take disagreement seriously as an epistemological problem, we cannot limit discussion to strictly formulated disagreements which can be rationally resolved. Instead, I argue, questions about how to frame our most persistent and important controversies must aim at the critique, rather than refutation, of opposed beliefs, sets of beliefs, and worldviews.
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The motivational force and nature of such narratives will be the topic of this paper. Through an engagement with the writings of the early Levinas it will be shown that perhaps the most telling feature of these depictions of apocalypse are not, as might first appear, what they offer – a warning – but rather what they make clear such events could not offer – escape. It will be argued that this Levinasian limit of apocalypse is internal to the very structure of these narratives and itself constitutes that which is most philosophically telling about them.
The concept of 'escape', whilst explicitly investigated only in the very early text bearing that name 'On Escape', can be seen as structuring most of Levinas's philosophical work. In particular, the early texts – 'On Escape' itself, From Existence to the Existent, and Time and the Other – can be read as successive attempts to describe the phenomenon of escape in terms of three stages: its 'promise', those 'attempts' at escape which fail, and the true 'deliverance' of escape.
For Levinas escape is at its core always escape from Being. This already begins to problematise our traditional understandings of escape; if escape is to be from Being then presumably it cannot also be an escape to any particular being or arrangement of such. Levinas's multiple phenomenological accounts in his philosophical work more often than not describe phenomena which hold the 'promise' of escape. These phenomena are described as 'attempts' to get “out of being by a new path” ('On Escape', p. 73). What about the final, or last path? What about the apocalypse?
Apocalypse, in both its everyday and more nuanced religious meanings, gains its motivational power – it will be argued – from its promise of an escape from Being (an end to becoming). However, the apocalyptic 'promise' of escape is in its very attempt already an undoing of itself. This promise, like the tragic hero, holds within itself the seed of its own demise. The death of all, the lifting of the veil at the end of this age, already heralds the return of Being and with it the horror of the il y a only now nausea and vigilance are uninterrupted. In the post-apocalyptic wastes of these narratives Being has returned with more weight than it ever had. The Other and the ethical relation are lost to the shades of humanity which howl like the winds of a nuclear winter. The end times, tragically, continue. Apocalypse finds its Levinasian limit in its very promise – it offers no escape from Being.
The motivational force and nature of such narratives will be the topic of this paper. Through an engagement with the writings of the early Levinas it will be shown that perhaps the most telling feature of these depictions of apocalypse are not, as might first appear, what they offer – a warning – but rather what they make clear such events could not offer – escape. It will be argued that this Levinasian limit of apocalypse is internal to the very structure of these narratives and itself constitutes that which is most philosophically telling about them.
The concept of 'escape', whilst explicitly investigated only in the very early text bearing that name 'On Escape', can be seen as structuring most of Levinas's philosophical work. In particular, the early texts – 'On Escape' itself, From Existence to the Existent, and Time and the Other – can be read as successive attempts to describe the phenomenon of escape in terms of three stages: its 'promise', those 'attempts' at escape which fail, and the true 'deliverance' of escape.
For Levinas escape is at its core always escape from Being. This already begins to problematise our traditional understandings of escape; if escape is to be from Being then presumably it cannot also be an escape to any particular being or arrangement of such. Levinas's multiple phenomenological accounts in his philosophical work more often than not describe phenomena which hold the 'promise' of escape. These phenomena are described as 'attempts' to get “out of being by a new path” ('On Escape', p. 73). What about the final, or last path? What about the apocalypse?
Apocalypse, in both its everyday and more nuanced religious meanings, gains its motivational power – it will be argued – from its promise of an escape from Being (an end to becoming). However, the apocalyptic 'promise' of escape is in its very attempt already an undoing of itself. This promise, like the tragic hero, holds within itself the seed of its own demise. The death of all, the lifting of the veil at the end of this age, already heralds the return of Being and with it the horror of the il y a only now nausea and vigilance are uninterrupted. In the post-apocalyptic wastes of these narratives Being has returned with more weight than it ever had. The Other and the ethical relation are lost to the shades of humanity which howl like the winds of a nuclear winter. The end times, tragically, continue. Apocalypse finds its Levinasian limit in its very promise – it offers no escape from Being.