Totality and Dialogue

In "Violence and Metaphysics," Derrida says that no "logos as absolute knowledge can comprehend the dialogue and the trajectory toward the other" because "the other is the other" and "all speech is for the other." For Derrida, "A total logos still, in order to be logos, would have to let itself be proffered toward the other beyond its own totality. If, for example, there is an ontology or a logos of the comprehension of the Being (of beings), it is in that 'already the comprehension of Being is said to the existent, who again arises behind the theme in which he is presented'" (the quotation is from Levinas). Whether it takes the form of a philosophy of neutrality (Heidegger) or a philosophy of subjectivity (Husserl) attempt a speech that makes speech a totality, and thereby obliterate the other, which obliterates speech.

The point is this: Speech is by definition directed toward an other, and thus is inherently dialogue. But an absolute logos must encompass both the speaker and the dialogue partner in a totality, but this single overarching discourse cannot be a genuine logos because it is not itself in dialogue (since it overarches and transcends dialogue). Yet - and this Derrida does not say - is it really possible to exorcise the specter of totality? Isn't there some empirical support that there is "eternity in the heart"?

Has Derrida, again, perhaps stumbled on another vestigium trinitatis? The eternal Logos is the "totality" of all the words of the Father, the One in whom all things hold together, the First and Last Word, who as Word corresponds exactly to the Speaker, differing only in that He is the Wholly-Spoken and not the Speaker or the Breath.

And yet, because God is Triune, this absolute Logos is simultaneously relative to His Father and the Spirit. He comprehends both sides of dialogue, but is Himself in dialogue with another. He is without the structure of language (logocentrism) yet He is not outside dialogue. There is no meta-Logos that comprehends the eternal round of Triune communication and communion, but there is the Second Person of the Trinity in/as whom the Father utters Himself through the breath of the Spirit. Totality and dialogue are, shall we say? equally ultimate in the Triune fellowship. The Trinity means precisely, does it not? a totality that does not obliterate the other and does not obliterate dialogue.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 03:52 PM

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