Goulet.pdf

Deborah Bird Rose
In calling out, I take a stand, and I now clarify this position. I noted
that recursive epistemology leads one directly into ethics. This is so for
several reasons; for me the most interesting point is the convergence
between biological theory (see, for example, Maturana and Varela
1998 ), and late- twentieth-century philosophy’s turn toward ethics.
Emmanuel Levinas, a major twentieth-century philosopher of ethi-
cal alterity, moves away from the insular totalizing self and toward
relationships. “Self is not a substance but a relation,” Levinas ( 1996 ,
20 ) writes. Recursivity between subjects posits a similar mode of be-
coming and thus requires “abandoning the ontologies of our time,”
as Levinas ( 1996 , 24 ) so forcefully puts it. Thus, the anthropologist,
too, becomes embedded in intersubjective encounters and engage-
ments. It must, therefore, give primacy to ethics. Ethics involve rela-
tions between self and other and thus actively abjure homogenization,
appropriation, objectification, and amputation. Both self and other
matter in their difference: in their capacity for relationships and for
mutual influences.
Methods for intersubjective encounter depend, I believe, on a radical
theory of dialogue. Although Fabian ( 1991 , 394 ) objects to the term
dialogue because he thinks it sounds soppy—“anodyne, apolitical,
conciliatory,” I think that the term has a good history and an excellent
future. Granted that the term dialogue is often used loosely; I mean it
quite precisely. Dialogue is a form of ethical practice among subjects
(not a subject–object relationship, but a subject–subject relationship).
Dialogue seeks connection with others and need not be restricted to
human others. The philosopher Emil Fackenheim ( 1994 , 129 ) draws
on the work of Rosenzweig to articulate two main precepts for struc-
turing the ground for ethical dialogue. The first is that dialogue begins
where one is, and thus is always situated; the second is that dialogue
is open, and thus the outcome is not known in advance.
The situatedness of dialogue is context-specific. It includes the here
and now of the encounter—its place and its time. It includes the his-
tory of the place and the personal and social histories of the parties to
the encounter. The situatedness of dialogue means that our histories
precede us, and that the grounds of encounter are never abstract or
empty. In the Victoria River valley, for example, the ground between