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My worry is that this emphasis on service to others has gotten lost in the secondary literature, where the tendency is to focus on epistemological issues instead. This book tries to correct this error by showing how Levinas’s epistemological insights flow out of his claims about ethics, hence the title Putting Ethics First. However, there is a difference between establishing this interpretive point and the larger insight it is intended to convey. For me, Levinas’s novelty consists in how thoroughly he appreciates how urgent it is to help those who are vulnerable. From this perspective, many of the debates over whether he violates his own claims about the limits of language and comprehension strike me as missing the point, which is precisely to set aside such theoretical debates in order to actually help those in need. I believe that I succeed in establishing this book’s interpretive point, but I worry that in doing so I may have fallen into this pattern of focusing too heavily on the theoretical at the expense of the ethical.
So, what I wish to do in this prologue is allow myself to indulge in a different style of writing. I try to be clear throughout this book, but I do write in the voice of a philosopher who is concerned to defend an interpretation of Levinas. I think that I succeed in establishing this interpretation, but I worry that in the process, I may have failed to say enough about the book’s larger point in an appropriately emotional or passionate tone of voice. For now, then, I want to take a step back and allow myself to write in a looser, more direct way about what I hope to show. To do this, I want to say something about what I think Levinas has in mind when he talks about “face-to-face encounters with the other.” The face-to-face encounter with the other is arguably the cornerstone of his philosophy. Here, then, is the best example I can give of an encounter.
2. Face-to-Face Encounters on Interstate 84
It is December 24, 1999. My father is driving home along I-84 toward Brookfield, Connecticut. Here is how I picture him in my mind.
He is happy. Ordinarily, he loathes this part of the day; it is the worst part of an unpleasant job. He works as a tool and dye maker at a woodworking mill in Danbury, Connecticut.