Bernhard Waldenfels in Place of the Other

In place of the Other

Bernhard Waldenfels

Published online: 23 April 2011

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This paper outlines the basic traits of a responsive phenomenology by

focusing on the issue of originary substitution. On the one hand, a phenomenology

of alienness or otherness and an ethics of the other in the sense of Levinas will prove

to be closely bound up with this sort of substitution. On the other side, this sub-

stitution can be concretised by transitional figures such as the advocate, the

therapist, the translator, the witness, or the field researcher; they all intervene from

the position of a Third without closing the fissure which opens between ourselves

and the Other, between the own and the alien. Precisely by focussing on the issue of

substitution, we have the opportunity to outline the basis traits of a responsive

phenomenology and to discuss some of its institutional consequences.

Keywords Substitution · Levinas · The Other · Derrida · Response ·

Responsibility · Phenomenology

Substitution does not rank with the main concepts of classical thinking. It is

completely overshadowed either by a holistic view according to which everyone

joins in the common place of a group, a family, a tribe, a nation or finally in the

common world of mankind, or it is minimized by an individualistic view according

to which everyone first of all occupies his or her own place. As long as our being in

the world is fixed on occupying a certain place, either in common or each person for

him- or herself, the possibility of speaking from the Other’s place seems to be

secondary and provisional. This changes as soon as one’s own position turns out

never to be completely one’s own, because we attain our own position only by

responding to the Other’s demand. Due to such a shifting of the social perspective,

we discover an originary form of substitution. The consequences are enormous.

B. Waldenfels (&)

Institut fur Philosophie, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany

e-mail: [email protected]

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Cont Philos Rev (2011) 44:151–164

DOI 10.1007/s11007-011-9180-y

On the one hand, our phenomenology of alienness or otherness and an ethics of the

Other in the sense of Levinas will prove to be closely bound up with this sort of

substitution. On the other side, this substitution can be concretised by transitional

figures such as the advocate, the therapist, the translator, the witness or the field

researcher; they all intervene from the position of a Third without closing the fissure

which opens between ourselves and the Other, between the own and the alien.

Precisely by focussing on the issue of substitution, we have the opportunity to

outline the basis traits of a responsive phenomenology and to discuss some of its

institutional consequences.1

1 The riddle of substitution

The terms “in place of” or “instead of” or, in other languages, ἀντί τινος, in loco,an Stelle von or au lieu de, lead us to a topical relation: “A appears in place of B.”

But should we stop here, we would get stuck in the perspective of a neutral observer,

describing given relations without being involved in anyone of them. Now,

substitution as we understand it means more than this. It means that somebody takes

somebody’s place. The place we are speaking from is more than a given point

within a homogeneous space. It refers to a privileged place, indicated by the word

“here.” Here is the place from which I perceive, move, speak, act and where I am

and where I find myself according to Heidegger’s Befindlichkeit. The demonstrative

pronoun “here” is, together with “now,” “I” or “you,” one of those occasional or

indexical terms which the early Husserl analysed in his First Logical Investigation.“Here” marks a place in the world. As we will see, by taking the place of the Other

we do not only change our position, but to some extent we enter another world.

Substitution becomes enigmatic when we consider the fact that I am at oncewhere the Other is. By means of substitution we do not exchange one standpoint for

the other. I am not in the place where the Other has been or will be, like through an

exchange of ideas which makes speaker and hearer change their roles. On the

contrary, I am precisely in the place where the Other is, uno loco. This is not to be

understood as if I would only imagine being there. Hobbes recommends that

everyone, wondering whether what he or she is doing to the Other is in accordance

with the law of nature, “should conceive himself to be in that other’s stead” (De cive3, 26). But following Hobbes by referring to the Golden Rule: “Do not that to

others, which you would not have done to yourself,” leads us on the path of

equalisation [Gleichstellung] and not of substitution [Stellvertretung]. Nor do I reachthe place of the Other, putting myself into the Other’s position by comprehension or

empathy as Theodor Lipps presupposes in his psychology of Einfühlung.Substitution must just as little be confused with care or with Heidegger’s solicitude

[Fürsorge], which leaps in for the Other [Einspringen] or leaps ahead of him

1 Concerning my conception of a responsive phenomenology see my books Antwortregister (1994, Engl.trans. by Northwestern Press, forthcoming), Bruchlinien der Erfahrung (2002), Schattenrisse der Moral(2006b) and the compact presentation of its basic presuppositions in Grundmotive einer Phänomenologiedes Fremden (2006a, Engl. trans. Phenomenology of the Alien—Basic Concepts: Northwestern Press,

forthcoming).

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[Vorausspringen].2 Finally, substitution has nothing to do with sharing common

places like bed, town or country. By such attempts we miss the point. But how could

it happen that I am at once where the Other is, considering that our bodily situation

touches the uniqueness of our individuality and that occupying a certain place is

required for any “sphere of ownness,” for any Eigenheitssphäre in Husserl’s sense?

Must we not admit that a radical substitution would come up either to an

expropriation of the Other or to an expropriation of myself? How can I be just where

the Other is staying without stepping quasi on the Other’s feet or without displacing

and dislodging the Other? Does substitution not require that I am precisely there

where you are and where I cannot be? The kind of impossibility that shows up here

calls for counter-measures, which might save what seems to be saved. Substitution,

yes, one may argue, but not before it has been cautiously trimmed and normalised.

Thus what seems impossible becomes possible without disappearing in the clouds.

2 Normal substitution

The riddle of the substitution seems to be soluble if it is taken as something

secondary; this would mean that I am not properly there where the Other is. This

switch over reminds us of the obstinate attempts to degrade signs and pictures to

secondary remedies, restricted to mere representations. Thus substitution only

means that I am primarily there where the Other is not, being secondarily there

where the Other is, and controversially the same.

We can distinguish several variants of substitution within the framework of

normality. The first variant does not raise great problems. It concerns provisionaland retrospective forms of substitution, limited to certain periods of a lifetime.

Something takes the Other’s place while it is not yet or any more occupied by the

Other. For example, the guardian speaks in the name of the minor,3 the testator in

the name of the deceased. In a similar way one treats faintness or insanity as

deficiencies which need some Fürsprecher. In all these cases there is a need for an

auxiliary form of substitution that fills in the vacant place, but not completely; for

we must respect the Other’s quality of person which makes him or her substitutable,

but not replaceable. Any complete substitution would extinguish the Other’s chance

to occupy a place; nobody would be left to be answered for, and substitution would

destroy itself. But how do we arrive at taking the Other’s place and at keeping it

open, doing both at once?

We get a step further by representing substitution as a form of delegation.Delegations take are constituted between different persons, each standing on his or

her own feet. Sometimes one contents oneself with first steps. So someone may

pinch-hit for the Other without waiting for his or her agreement. But the status of a

substitute needs more. Substitution in its full sense implies that somebody transfers

rights, duties or competences to another, whether by an informal agreement, by a

2 See Being and Time, § 26.3 The German expressions Vormund and Unmündiger are closer to the possibility of Fürsprache(= speaking in name of).

In place of the Other 153

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formal contract or by the election of representatives. Similar to contracts, the

transfer can be performed ad hoc for a certain period, or for an indefinite time.

Something is only transferable if it can be detached from the represented person.

This concerns, first of all, diverse kinds of function, unless the functions are bound

to an individual office-holder. In any case, substitution remains something

secondary as long as it comes from the person to be represented and remains

dependent upon his or her responsibility. There are various ways of delegating. I can

delegate an authority or competence by my signature or, in case of emergency, by a

simple hint; I can yield to others the power to sign “on order”; but I can in no way

delegate the signature itself without giving up my personal rights. The other will

only be able to act in my name if I keep my name; as a mere functionary I could

indeed be replaced. The provisional and posterior substitution mentioned above

takes it bearings too from substituting responsible and living persons; this happens

in such a way that the guard anticipates the minor’s agreement and the testator

decides in the sense of the deceased. Substitution always leaves margins for

decisions on one’s own discretion. But it is also exposed to patronizing, to arbitrary

decisions, to the pursuit of one’s own interests, to falsehood and deceit. Novels

dealing with heritage affairs are full of such manoeuvres which pertain to the risk of

social life and to its institutional embodiment.4

Normal forms of substitution appear most frequently in the fields of right and

politics. We should note that the representative form of parliamentary democracy is

neither the primary form, nor is it undisputed as we learn from Rousseau or from the

early Marx. Supposing that the people’s will were to manifest itself immediately, all

representation would not only be superfluous, moreover it would be a source of

social alienation.5 But even if institutional representations are accepted as

unavoidable, due to the artificial elements of our sociability, they are normally

based on autonomous self-activities. First subsistence, then substitution, this seems

the right order. The substitutive speech or action is, so to speak, made of lent goods

which are lent until they are recalled. Accordingly, Hobbes distinguishes between

the natural person, speaking and acting in his or her own name, and the fictive

person, speaking and acting in another’s name.6 As long as substitution is anchored

in the consent of the represented person, it easily fits into the classical scheme of

dialogue. The dialogue, which at its core is free from domination, is complemented

by a dialogue, which at its core is free from substitution.7

Improper forms of substitution that are produced by misuse are to be attacked and

curbed. Accordingly, Socrates insists that his interlocutors witness for themselves

4 Concerning the relations between citizens, Hobbes assumes that anyone who represents another does so

either by or without the order of the represented (De homine, 15, 2). As to the relation between

guardianship and violence see Hirsch (2004, pp. 223–230).5 The fact that Rousseau explains the origin of the state, just like the origin of the language, without

referring to any mediation, shows that the different modes of representation are closely connected. See

Derrida’s comment on Rousseau in Grammatology.6 cf. Leviathan, I, 16 and De homine, 15, 1.7 The later Frankfort School around Jurgen Habermas speaks of a “herrschaftsfreier Dialog,” based on

mere arguments; accordingly I would speak of a “vertretungsloser Dialog,” based on mere autonomy;

both forms of dialogue can only be defended to a certain extent.

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what they say, without relying on other witnesses that may perhaps be false (Gorg.472 b–c). Truth speaks for and by itself. Thus the true dialogue has no need of a

judge because everyone is judge and speaker in one and the same person (Rep. 348b). Consequently, classical dialogue does not so much care for substitution, and this

does not really change when in our days the dialogue turns into a universal

hermeneutics or in a rule-governed discourse.

3 Originary substitution

I designate a substitution as originary if it makes us stand on our own feet, taking atonce and from the outset the place of the Other. Accordingly, one speaks for and by

oneself, while speaking for and from the Other. Thus the mentioned impossibility,

which lets me be where the Other is, would be more than a pure chimera. But how

does this happen?

At this point, we shall resort to a distinction, known from linguistics, but also

from authors such as Lacan and Levinas: the distinction between saying and what is

said or between the enunciation and the enunciated.8 On the one hand, what is saidcorresponds to the intentional or propositional content. This is part of a speech act

I am performing, but it can as well be performed in place of the Other. So the

advocate pleads for the client by adopting the client’s interests. More precisely,

I perform a speech act in place of others by saying what they mean, but are not in a

position to say, and I do so by deciding what others will, but cannot defend.

Everything the substitute is saying and doing has to suit the expectations of those for

whom he or she substitutes, even if the agreement remains more or less

hypothetical. We substitute for each other by means of the said and within the

horizon of what can be said. On the other hand, an originary substitution takes place

on the level of saying, and this in such a way that my saying covers the Other’s

saying. This sort of covering-over [Überdeckung], joining my own and the Other’s

saying, clearly differs from acts of taking over [Übernahme] common sense

contents. While I am speaking, it is the Other’s demand which speaks through my

voice. If my own and the Other’s saying would completely coincide, the

representative difference between the representing and the represented would

simply vanish.9 All substitution would be futile. Were I and the Other to speak withone voice, we would no longer speak for each other. One and the same logos would

speak through each of us.

By contrast, where something occurs to us which is simply said and exchanged,

the event of saying leads us into the region of pathic experience. To the extent that

our saying and acting does not only show a certain sense and follow certain rules,

but rather happens here and now, it takes on certain traits of a pathos or

Widerfahrnis. What happens to me in terms of a certain affect or appeal bestows on

me the status of a patient, the latter taken in a wider sense. In this context I make use

of the Greek word pathos which has a triple meaning; it denotes the passivity of

8 See Waldenfels (2005a, ch. 11, 2005b, ch. 7).9 See Waldenfels (2002, p. 34).


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endurance, the vulnerability of suffering, and the fervency of passion. The term affectcomes rather close to it, provided that we do not conceive affect in terms of

subjective states, but as af-fect, what literally means something “done to,” similar to

the meaning of words like al-locution, ad-dressing, or ap-pealwhich suggest a sort of“speaking to.”10 The pathic, characterised in this way, should neither be confused

with the pathetic as an intensified expression of the pathic, nor with the pathological.The latter confronts us with a whole scale of deviations which continue to touch the

phenomenon of substitution. On the one end of the scale, we discover a lack of

responsiveness, which causes a sort of apathy in which the pathos is drying up; on the

other end, we come across a blockade of response, which means that we are

captivated by the pathos. Whenever and wherever something happens to us by which

we are struck, we touch the impossible, considering that something crosses our

intentions, exceeds our expectations and leaves behind our projects and arrange-

ments. Such a surplus of impossibility that shows up at the core of our experience

may be called lived impossibility, and this stands in contrast to logical, ontological,

practical, or technical impossibilities which shipwreck on the given conditions.11

To the extent that originary substitution takes on pathic features, it joins the

above mentioned paradox of a lived impossibility. In contrast with the variants of

normal substitution, originary substitution is not characterised by an attempt to

occupy the Other’s place by myself, but rather by the fact that I start from theOther’s place. I start from where I cannot be, and where everything that strikes me,

whether the Other’s gaze, the Other’s word, or the Other’s gesture, has its origin. To

a certain extent, I am the Other for whom I substitute. Others are no duplicates of

me, but doubles that we encounter from a distance out of reach.

Aside from this, the pathic, which touches substitution, is doubled and multiplied.

Whenever I am affected by the presence/absence of the Other, I am simultaneously

affected by what affects the Other. The pathos of Otherness rises, so to speak, to a

higher power, passing through the Other’s pathos, for example, when I am seized by

the Other’s joy, fright, or concern. Sympathy and antipathy, and even more so

consent and dissent, are posterior forms of response, rising from the depth of pathos.

Further, since my response starts from what has happened to me, coming up from

elsewhere, I will never be completely in my place and in the right place (in loco).The Other is literally “implanted” in me, as Jean Laplanche puts and shows it.12 Just

as according to Laplanche’s general theory of seduction, the seducer is seduced for

his or her part, the representative is represented for his or her part. Not unlike

pathos, the process of substitution rises to a higher power.

Finally, the inner tension of substitution can assume an extreme form. There is a

possible over-identification with the Other, which prevents us from answering for

the Other, and there is the splitting off from the Other, which on the basis of the

participation of the Other in me, entails a self-splitting off of myself. In terms of our

10 The German language contains numerous expressions of addressing, marked by the prefix an-, seeAnruf, Ansprechen, Anspruch, Anblick, Anreiz, Anrühren, Antasten, Angreifen, Antun, Andenken, Angehenand so on. A part of them are used by Husserl, Heidegger and their followers in the context of a

phenomenology of affection, affectivity, interpellation, pathos, or Befindlichkeit.11 See Waldenfels (2009).12 See Laplanche (1997), Waldenfels (2005a, ch. 13).

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responsive phenomenology I would like to speak alternatively of a pathos without

response and a response without pathos, or of being abroad without being at home

and of being at home without being abroad. But both trends have to be taken as

asymptotic approximations; otherwise our experience would properly go to pieces.

What has been shown has an important consequence. Substitution turns out to be

a basic component of our experience, no less than the mediation by pictures and

signs. The supplement d’origine, introduced by Jacques Derrida (1967b) in his

debate with Husserl in Voice and the Phenomenon13 and with Rousseau in his

Grammatology14 with regard to writing, has its equivalent in an originary form of

substitution. In the eyes of Levinas, this substitution is ethical through and through.

Its effects are defined in a hyperbolic way as hostage and obsession. Here is not the

place to go into further details.15 I only want to stress that there is a radical sort of

the “irrepresentative” [Unvertretbare], transgressing every form of representation.

It is remarkable to see that in our Western tradition the motive of substitution

bears a strong religious and theological stamp. Take the idea of expiation: Jesus as a

sacrificial lamb prepared by the biblical figure of scapegoat; take the representative

force of the Eucharist and, finally, God’s ecclesiastic substitutes on earth, followed

by emperors and kings by the grace of God. More generally speaking, the religious

aura of a phenomenon suggests something over-determinate, and transgressing the

limits of the ordinary. It remains to ask how a process of secularisation can avoid

getting stuck in a mere normalisation.

4 Figures of substitution

Let us conclude by presenting some fitting transitional figures that are able to evoke

the diversity of the phenomenon of substitution. In each case, we will meet with

something like the Third Party that intervenes in the relation between me and the

Other, between the own and the alien, yet without striving after a final mediation.

This kind of intervention, which literally means “coming between,” is rather

different from Hegel’s dialectics, which achieves an all-encompassing mediation.

Generally speaking, our sort of originary and not merely subsidiary substitution

does not get off the ground unless we assume that no one is completely in his or her

place. Only under this condition we are able to speak for the Other, beyond speakingwith and about the Other. This implies that even the Third, instead of staying simply

outside, is touched and addressed by those for whom he or she answers. To that

extent, the Third is a transitional figure, always transgressing the limits of the order

it represents. The Third stands neither inside nor outside, but on the threshold.

13 English traslation by Leonard Lawlor (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, forthcoming).14 English translation.15 See Levinas, Autrement qu’être (1974), ch. IV. As to the ethical meaning of the term “substitution,” we

must be careful not to take the term “für den Anderen” or “pour l’autre” simply as the negation of

“against” and in the sense of “in favour of.” Whereas the Latin word pro, just like the German word für,suggests such an interpretation, the Greek word ἀντί, which in many compounds signifies “against,”

points rather in the opposite direction. That speaks well for separating the substitutive und the altruistic

meaning of für or pour.


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However, this is only true on the condition that the Third does not fall back upon the

role of a normal substitute, being nothing more than part of the order to be

represented. The transitional figures we are going to present resemble “transitional

objects” of Donald W. Winnicott.16 These appear in a crucial phase of the little

child’s self-growth, helping it to come over the mother’s absence, such as the

wooden spool in the fort-da-play, depicted in detail by Freud.17

4.1 Advocate

As the first figure we present the advocate who passes for the prototype of

substitution. Advocates plead for the client’s claims and interests, no matter if the

client appears as a complainant or as a defendant. The introduction of lawyers,

attorneys, or counsels is not self-evident. As we know, at the Athenian court

everyone, that is to say every full and male citizen, had to defend his own affair

even if he ordered a written speech; similarly, in the popular assembly the citizens

took personally part in deliberations and decisions. Only in ancient Rome did

representation take on distinct contours. Still, even if the special role of advocate is

provided, we must keep in mind that all complainants or defendants stand up for

themselves from the outset, charging an advocate, and they stand definitively for

themselves in agreeing or disagreeing on an arrangement and receiving the

sentence. The final judgement does not tolerate any substitute. The advocate leaves

the lawsuit scene, so to speak, only as a second order winner or loser. This conforms

to what we called a normal substitution.

Nevertheless, things are more complicated. The lawsuit starts from a personal

violation which is going to be interpreted as an infringement of law and to be

transformed into a case for trial. This means that the legal proceedings originate

from an event which is filtered and treated by the law, but by no means engendered

by it. Personal violations are more than breaches of law; they set the legal process in

motion, yet without being absorbed into it. An offence can be punished or repaired,

but it cannot be extinguished by jurisdiction. There is always something left, that is

to say, a surplus of justice, only able to preserve the jurisdiction from being

degraded to the mechanisms of a mere law machine.18 Were the advocate to behave

like a simple chess-player, interested only in questions of victory or defeat, the

incompetent lawyer would be the best advocate. There would not be any need for a

Board of Attorneys, which, like the Medical Board, takes care of licensing and of

observing the professional ethos.

4.2 Therapist

The activities of the therapist, whether in the general function of physicians or in the

special role of a psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, are integrated into an

16 1971.17 1976.18 On the role of justice see Waldenfels (2006b, ch. V); further, in reference to Levinas, Waldenfels

(2005a, ch. 12, 2005b, ch. 7).

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institutional framework which is no less complicated than the juridical framework.

Parallel to the advocate’s client, the therapist’s patient or client appears as

somebody suffering from diseases, disturbances, or pains; such personal sufferings

are transformed into cases of sickness, but from the outset they are more than

general cases. A sub-system, governed by leading differences such as healthy/

unhealthy or legal/illegal, is a life construct and by no means a life sphere.

Therefore, the Third cannot be identified with the prevailing embodiment of a code,

such as the homo medicalis, the homo legalis or the best known homo economicus.Such constructs of man, which return in the formal approach of the recent system

theory in terms of anonymous codes, are to be deconstructed without invoking the

phantasm of a “total man”—as yet the younger Marx used to do.

Let us single out the special part of the analyst which has been thoroughly

considered and modelled by Freud and his followers. First, analysts are quite far

from playing the role of the Other by attracting the desire of the analysand, as if the

cure were a continuation of life conflicts by other means. The analyst precisely

stands in for something that he himself is not and takes a position that substitutes for

somebody else. Still, analysts are by no means reducible to a neutral instance,

representing the society’s common mores in terms of a moral censor. In this case the

analyst would be nothing more than the amplifier of an order, already in force. By

contrast, the analysis runs through processes of transference and counter-transfer-

ence. The transference is the special case of a between-event, a Zwischenereignis.This does not mean, on the one hand, that one speaks with his or own voice, and on

the other hand with a meta-voice, as if one would perform a sort of reflection à deux.By contrast, what takes place is a superposition of the diverse voices through which

affects and conflicts find their expression. The analyst stands in the place of further

persons with whom the analysand settles his or her old conflicts. In addition, there

arises the possibility of displacements of affect [Affektverschiebungen] if somebody

loves the Other instead of…, for example instead of the mother or the brother (cf.

the Latin phrase aliquem diligere fratris loco). The shifting of conflicts allows us to

live through former experiences anew, instead of repeating them under constraint.

The very place of suffering, encompassed by the talking cure, escapes both the

analysand and the analyst; to a certain extent, the same holds true for the relation

between the patient and the doctor. What happens to us as pathos cannot be acquired

like a knowledge or a skill, nor can it be solved like a problem.

The analyst does not stand for the irreplaceable [Unersetzliche] of the other

person, but for the non-substitutable [Unvertretbare] of a pathos to which he is

responding as an analyst. If the analyst would take the role of the Other without aThird, the distance necessary to him or her would be lacking—a distance that is

required to make the analysand respond by him- or herself. By contrast, if the

analyst would take the role of a Third without the Other, the due proximity would

vanish, which prevents the patient’s suffering from being reduced to a normal case

of health experts. Something that at the first sight looks like a special problem of

psychoanalysis is really a component of the therapeutic process as such. The

physician too, diagnosing an uneasiness and calling it by its clinical name, does not

cease to speak from the place of the patient who is touched by something adversarial

or threatening. This does not change when the patient is deprived of her or his own


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voice. Finally, the transfer pertains to the non-everyday of everyday life. The simple

question as to who speaks to whom when we are speaking opens paths to deep

events, impelled by early identifications, seductions, projections, introjections, and

by the quis pro quo of parasitic feelings such as jealousy, envy or revengefulness.

We learn from Nietzsche the extent to which sentiments are darkened and poisoned

by resentments. To some extent, every conversation, not only the diplomatic talk, is

double-edged and even hybrid.19

4.3 Translator

No matter how polyglotal they may be, translators do not move upon the languages

like a spirit moving upon the face of the waters. They move between the lines.

Which language do they represent when fluently switching from a language of

departure to a language aimed at, ranging to further languages, and where do they

themselves stand? Anyone who translates [ubersetzt] does so by passing over

[übersetzen] to another bank, as Heidegger puts it in his lecture on Heraclitus.20

Translators represent speakers or authors within a linguistic region where the

original language is more or less inaccessible. They would have little success if they

would behave like second authors; they will only succeed when they present

something that has been said or written in a new way, and when the words that are

going to be translated remain perceivable, according to Walter Benjamin’s demand

that a good translation should be trans-parent [durchscheinend].21 This is to say, thattranslations never occupy the place of the original and that they always show

something of their alien origin. The pathos to a higher power—“a pathos of a

pathos”—emerges again with regard to the fact that translated authors, for their part,

bring to language what stimulated their own writing, without being at one’s own

disposal like a secure heritage. The nearer the translation comes to the mere

exchange of information, the more the initial asymmetry between the departing and

the aimed at language vanishes—and the more the pathic element vanishes, too,

namely, the element that is inherent in the process of speaking and writing, of

listening and reading, which are beyond simple contents to be conveyed. To a

certain extent, the search for linguistic equivalencies can be made pragmatic and

automatized; one must only neglect everything that is unequal, like the special fees

that accompany a simple exchange. In this way, the otherness or alienness that is

immanent to the parole parlante, would be reduced to mere deviations from the

normal course and code of the parole parlée. However, even a good translation,

being careful to preserve the features of alienness, moves between the extremes of

over-exactness and an all too large liberty. In any case, every translation knows its

“lucky finds” that create an osmosis from one text to the other.

19 See Waldenfels, Vielstimmigkeit der Rede (1999), ch. 7: on “hybrid speech,” and Waldenfels,

Schattenrisse der Moral (2006b), ch. IX: on “parasitic passions.”20 Heidegger (1979, p. 447 f).21 See Hirsch (1995).

160 B. Waldenfels

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4.4 Witness

An especially revealing figure of transition proves to be the witness who—as the

Latin word testis, derived from tri-stis, suggests—stands by as a Third, but as a

Third of a special kind. Testimonies of witnesses are frequently used in court when

something has happened elsewhere and those who have to form a judgment on it

have not been present. Qualified as witness are those who have seen with their own

eyes and heard with their own ears. Hence Plato explains our need for the legal

witness by referring to the lack of autopsy which makes us dependent upon knowing

by hearsay (Theaet. 201 b–c). Historians are accustomed to invoke so-called

Zeitzeugen, that is to say, contemporaries of what has happened. Testimonies can be

completed and tested by circumstantial evidence and anonymous sources. Yet if this

were the whole affair we would certainly need witnesses to compensate for the

limits of our life experience, but in principle, they would be dispensable. We could

have seen for ourselves what witnesses had really seen if the appropriate

circumstances would have been present. Once more, this kind of substitution

would be nothing more than secondary. If our experience were to be reduced to

given data, we could make use of monitors to fill in the lacunae of our experience.

To a certain extent, surveillance devices are even more reliable as any living

witnesses; since automats do not understand what they record and do not suffer from

it, they render everything that fits to the program without wonder and pity.

Evidently, living witnesses are in a different situation, since they are more or less

involved. The fundamental constellation to which they are submitted can be

described as follows. Witnesses testify what has happened to Others or has been

done by Others, and they testify it to Others who failed to be present. Obviously, the

witness does not appear as the agent. In this case, the testimony would amount to an

avowal; for this reason, in lawsuits, defendants have the right to remain silent in

their own affair.22 The witness appears just as little as an observer and this for

several reasons. Speaking of the Other’s experience, the witness refers to what has

happened to somebody and what has done by somebody. This may be either a

natural catastrophe such as the eruption of the Vesuvius, recorded by Plinius on the

margin of his own death, or a crime such as the murder of the widow by

Raskolnikov. Testimonies are basically unrepeatable. One can bear testimony of a

discovery like that of X-rays or of America, but not of purposeful experiments

which are valid as being repeatable in principle.23 Thus witnesses report what

Others have done or endured. Now, at the same time they have to answer for whatthey report. With this they have to show sufficient credibility which cannot be

compensated for by any certainty on the side of the testimony’s addressee. The

receiver of testimonies is forced to give credit to the witness words, or nothing will

22 Even Heidegger’s daseinsmäßige Bezeugung, which does not refer to acts of witness, but adheres to a

sort of Selbstseinkönnen (cf. Being and Time, § 54), covers the phenomenon of bearing witness only in

part.23 Provided we take into account the course of natural history, things become more complicated, even for

scientists. With respect to fossils, we speak of findings; they are less remote from witness than

experiments are, considering that they are not lived like lived experiences, but no less produced by

experiments.


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happen. Swearing in court does not increase the epistemic, but only the moral

certainty. In this respect it differs from taking finger prints or using a lie detector,

which by the way does not discover lies but only the excitement of a supposed

liar.24

There is something more that closely touches our issue. The witness is not like a

reporter who is interested in certain events, either spontaneously or by order; the

witness becomes a witness nolens volens. Certainly, the reporter can be urged to

play the part of the witness.25 In any case, every bearing witness starts from

something happening to someone, whether an accident or an assault, an injury, or an

eruption of collective violence. To what extent the situation of a witness that is

involved in the situation differs from the condition of an uninterested observer can

be seen from the fact that anyone who becomes a witness of an event can be held

accountable (juridically or at least morally) because he or she withheld succour or

refrained from doing something. We may qualify witnesses as powerless or

unconcerned, but once confronted with an event, which calls for invention, none of

us turns out to be a simple free-rider or deadbeat. Witnesses are involved in the

event that they are giving witness to. They are forced to speak from an event, before

speaking about it. Here we meet again with an originary form of substitution.

Witnesses respond to something happening, being involved in an indirect way, and

they respond in a specific way, not only by intervening to the best of their power,

but above all, by bringing to light or to language what they have seen—or by

refraining from doing this. That testimonies of this kind are especially important in

the cases of misfortune, disaster or crime, is due to the fact that victims do not only

need our help, but as well our reminding words and pictures.26

The testimony written in blood, the Blutzeugnis, is a borderline case that is

generally attributed to the martyr. We would like to speak of victims by virtue of

their convictions, alluding those who commit an offence because of their

convictions [Überzeugungstäter]. No doubt, martyrdom may warrant the authen-

ticity of a conviction, but it does not prove its truth. Various fixed and fanatic ideas

find their martyrs as well, among them the suicidal assassins who recently populate

our political everyday life. From time to time we see how Blutopfer, that is to say

bloody victims, are redubbed, Blutzeugen [martyrs]. Many traditional memorials of

war bear testimony to an ordered substitution, ordered in the name of the people, of

the patrie, and at the very least in the name of a Führer, a Duce or a Caudillo.

24 For good reasons, the records of lie detectors, which in the meantime are improved by more

sophisticated procedures like neuronal introspection, are not admitted in court. That resembles statements,

extorted by torture. Close to Aristotle, who decided to call actions, performed under constraint, “mixed

actions” (cf. Nic. Eth. III, 1), we can approximate the corresponding case of witness by speaking of

“mixed testimonies”.25 The Iraq war has contributed to blur the roles by permitting to take along reporters as witnesses, in war

actions like the thrust of tanks. We should also take a special interest in so-called live transmissions which

represent a mixed form of report, creating the possibility of a mediated co-presence.26 An especially perverse arrangement of giving evidence, reported from Pakistan, prescribes that women

have to prove their rape, although only male witnesses are admitted.

162 B. Waldenfels

123

4.5 Field researcher

Let us take as a last example the researcher working in the field. Since the time of

the Polish explorer Boris Malinowski, ethnology or cultural anthropology has

adopted and disseminated the method of participant observation. This mixture of

nearness and remoteness preserves the explorer from observing ethnic customs,

rituals, and expressions simply from the outside as if looking from another star.

From this perspective, all that is alien or heterogeneous would be crammed into one

and the same frame of reference; even if one pretends to follow the lines of a

continuous universalisation, the results often betray nothing more than “the masters

of their own spirit” [der Herren eigner Geist], as Mephistopheles is mocking in

Goethe’s Faust. The “strange moons of reason,” explored by Marcel Mauss in his

ethnological studies, fade away when the great sun of reason outshines everything.27

Still, participant observation does not postulate that the researcher converts and

simply joins in. Exploration needs a certain distance, even a special sort of

ethnological epoche, in order to enable the explorer to have an eye for what is alien

or heterogeneous and to give voice to it.

What appears as highly problematic is the simultaneity of contact and distance;

they cannot be united in a third position. Explorers speak and write about those withwhom they live together for a while and to a certain extent. Belonging to a common

field of action is unavoidable, yet the same field functions at once as a field of

observation. In another context, I have proposed a sort of double game, implying

something like a double look, a double ear and a double speech. All attempts to join

both sides together lead to half-hearted compromises, as can already be seen in

Malinowski’s diaries; here the author returns to the same prejudices which he had

combated on the terrain of research. If there is something to protect the research

from these consequences, it seems to be precisely the originary form of substitution,

this time applied to the task of ethnography. This would render possible a special

kind of Fremddarstellung—a presentation of the alien—which, in accordance with

Fremderfahrung, or the experience of the alien, starts from what is alien, even if it

continues dealing with it in the framework of a certain order.28

Viewed from this perspective, the ethnologist assumes the task of a cultural

interpreter. We Europeans or occidentals are not to be reproached for being who we

are, but we are to be reproached for the tendency to Europeanize and Americanize

the whole world, including the place from where we are invited to respond. Today

this tendency passes under the cloak of globalisation. Provided this tendency

prevails, we will never properly speak in place of the Other, but always exclusively

in and from our own place. Even ethnologists, who work as Fremdheitswissens-chaftler, as investigators of the alien, are tempted to seek shelter behind their own

interpretations and constructs. However, in the end we will never speak of the Otherwithout speaking from the Other. This pertains to the ABC of every phenomenology

27 cf. Darmann (2005).28 I refer to the chapter “Paradoxien ethnographischer Fremddarstellung” in Waldenfels, Vielstimmigkeitder Rede (1999).


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of otherness or alienness. Eurocentrism as well as any other form of ethnocentrism

seems to amount to something like a repressed substitution.

Let me sum up what has been explained. Originary substitution means that we

will never speak of the Other and even with the Other without speaking from the

Other’s place. This holds true as long as we do not fall into the sleep of pure

normality. The transitional figures we have presented could be like guards on the

threshold of otherness.

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