Abstract
In the introductory essay I study the conditions by which it is possible to carry on an effective philosophical dialogue, finding in listening the characteristics without which dialogue is likely to become a monologue of the deaf.
First of all, I consider the difference between listening and hearing. With this distinction one needs to consider the early aspects of the activity of consciousness where one can individuate the presence of a primordial immediacy that, although not yet clarified in its essential constitution, exerts pressure against the I.
The most recent studies in both cognitive sciences and phenomenology have confirmed the importance of such an enigmatic presence, above all when one considers the processes of attention. On the first side, the cognitive sciences, it’s important to consider notions such as vigilance, voluntary attention, and orientation; on the second side, Husserlian phenomenology, there is the crucial difference between primary noticing, secondary noticing, and thematic intending.
How is the vision of the face no longer vision, but hearing and speech?
—E. Lévinas, Is Ontology Fundamental?
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Notes
- 1.
I would like to thank the Head of the International Board of Consulting Editors, Dr. Noa Z. Naaman, for her important contribution to the publication of this volume.
- 2.
This indication seems to be confirmed by Lewin (2005: 375): “We first perceive intention, and only later discern whether the agent is human.”
- 3.
The prominence of the pathways of sound perception as a condition of the possibility of listening should not lead us to believe that the other is only perceptible as a sound. The enigmatic dimension I am referring to can recall the meaning of Lévinas’ words, “face of the Other.” In this regard, Lipari (2012: 230) observes, “The face is neither figurative nor literal but is the expression of the demand of the other. Thus the face, like the face-to-face, is always dual. It is a relational and not an absolute term.” Lipari again observes that “the revelation of the face is speech …. And yet quietly embedded in this assertion of responsibility – the ability to respond – lies the prior action of listening. It is hidden behind a face, despite the centrality of speech and speaking.” With reference to the different ways in which the French phenomenology has understood the otherness, Dastur (2011: 165) has written: “For Levinas … this experience of the face of the other is the experience of a speaking and not in the first place corporeal presence. There are consequently three different ways of finding an access to the other: the look for Sartre, intercorporeality for Merleau-Ponty and the face for Levinas.” In conclusion, we can say that the enigmatic presence of the other is not reducible to any specific sensory dimension. This conclusion – I think – is magnificently summarized by Lipari’s words: “aural eye that listens.”
- 4.
Recalling Husserl’s ideas on attention is here made independently from the chronology of his philosophical production. I don’t consider the contribution of Philosophy of Arithmetic in which Husserl introduces the criterion for distinguishing between a plurality and a group and this criterion consists in a certain kind of regard. In this way, we find some anticipations of the acts of grasping which Husserl will develop in the more mature phases of his philosophy.
- 5.
As Lipari has written (2012: 228), “The self is always accompanied by a ‘bad conscience’ as to whether it has usurped the place of the other.”
- 6.
See the voice “Event” in Boileau and Dick (1993: 147–164).
- 7.
The episode has been studied in Pillion (1908).
- 8.
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Scarafile, G. (2014). Introductory Essay: «Sob o mesmo céu». Listening and Dialogue as Ethics of Communication. In: Riesenfeld, D., Scarafile, G. (eds) Perspectives on Theory of Controversies and the Ethics of Communication. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7131-4_1
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