supposed god is thereof defining, confining, circumscribing, and of formulating hypo theses,
of applying categories and differences, of claiming an a priori, etc. And
that is exactly the topos of a deep crisis in the Humanities in the early
21st century: On the one hand as an unacknowledged crisis in the
Human Sciences insofar as they take the limits for granted or given,
thus not allowing for a reason to question them. On the other as an
unacknowledged crisis in the continuous flow of constructions, where
any distinction is possible and applicable, and thus no limit decisive.
In these language games, though with a critical and suspicious eye,
the “work” of deconstruction takes place, as a work of tracing limits
back to their origin, of translating these limits into other languages,
of questioning the limits, but also of making aware that some limits are
decisive and may not be overlooked, even though they may be equivocal.
Supposing that God is there, the crisis of the Humanities is a crisis
concerning alterity and subjectivity, hubris and humility, response and
responsibility, and (pace Parmenides) the limit between the One and
the Other.
No matter which genealogy of the modern Self we apply, the
relationship between alterity and subjectivity remains a determining
problem in the Humanities. Any text study, any inquiry on ethics, on
gender, on power structures, on violence, on religion, even the work
of translation, is based on a certain preliminary decision concerning
the relationship between oneself and the other (person, text, culture,
religion), in most cases an implicit one. What generally signifies
modernity since Descartes is that the critical instance for distinguishing
between the one and the other is captured by the subject itself, even
though this conquest of the power of definition is followed by a chronic
doubt and later suspicion concerning (i) the presuppositions handed
over from earlier generations and (ii) the ability of the modern subject
to judge critically between true and false. Such suspicion has in-
creasingly been directed towards the construction and identity of the
“I,” as is also the tenor in Derrida’s criticism of logocentrism, self-
presence, the priority of the voice, and “onto-theology.”
The problem involved in such discussions is evident: Even when
priority is given to the Other, as in Levinas’s philosophy, the Other is
constructed or “invented” by the one who defines, through negation
and differentiation, even when we admit that we do not and cannot