The Question of Alterity and the Problem of Encounters, Communication, and Dialogue

"L'anaiyse de la perception d'autrui rencontre la difficulte de Principe que souleve le monde culture!, puisqu'elle doit resoudre !e paradoxe q'une conscience vue par !e dehors, d'une pensee qui reside dans!' exterieur, et qui donc au regard de !a mienne, est deja sans sujet et anonyme" --Merleau-Ponty "Nous naissonsgrace a autrui, nous vivons avec autrui, nous devrns mourir un jour avec ou sans autrui.Comment concevoir I'existence humain et meme I'humanite de I'homme sans !a relation a autrui sans qu'elle soit assume?" --Dominique Janicaud Alterity was the essential discovery of great voyages undertaken in 15th and 16th centuries. The exploration of new continents confronted Europeans with people different from them, whom they did not even imagine their existence. Before these "savages", these" primitive" people who seemed to live near nature, Europeans adopted diverse perspectives. For some respect, curiosity, interest; for others assimilation and predation. Europe, from 16th century to 19th century, whether in the American, African, or Asian continent, intended to subject the Other, to exploit, to convert it to a culture, to European civilization, the conveyor of progress. For the Other is difference, and difference is dreadful, appalling, also, it must be driven underground. Faced with these encounters, what has been the attitude of writers, philosophers, etc., across the centuries? Some denounced injustices, seeing themselves as defenders of the oppressed and awakeners of consciences. Others, on the contrary, where the mouth pieces of the dominant discourse, the apostles of the colonial order, considering that civilization and progress justify all the violence done against people considered as inferior. In the 21st century the problem of alterity yet exists and it still goes unanswered. Also, in the United States it is a constant subject of debate in philosophy, especially in continental philosophy. Philosophy, specifically Western philosophy, has a horror of the notion of the other; it prefers Being that has no alterity. Philosophy as such is essentially structured around Being, immanence, and autonomy. The primary behavior of the world at large, is positioning. Further to me, is the unknown; the inaccessible, and practically everyone. Then there is an approach which can be one of resentment, reciprocity without recognition, contract (which implies exchange, competition, and defiance) and the gift. Into the bargain, the fundamental problem in contemporary philosophy, especially contemporary continental philosophy, is the importance it accords to relation, which is primarily difference, the difference between A and B. These two people can hardly understand themselves inasmuch as they are different, therefore, they are doomed to mutual misunderstanding thanks to their differences. By laying too much emphasis on difference, there is a tendency to show the abyss that separates people. Now, all communication supposes something that is common. If I had nothing in common with the other, I could not communicate with him. It is necessary that sameness prevails over the other for communication to become possible. If I am incapable of seeing in front of me a human being, if I see only what I think by representing a "Jew," a "Moslem," or an "American," "black" etc., it is clear that the image of the other contributes to reinforcing separation and to render impossible all communication. Post-war currents of thought have insisted overmuch on alterity to the disadvantage of unity. Contemporary thinkers as such, seem to have misread the Greeks. In existence, Plato emphasizes, things participate in the Sameness and Other. Nature surmounts in advance our dual categories. Nature as such promotes difference, but it promotes difference only within the identical. There is in reality a reciprocal inclusion of alterity and identity. Difference never completely differs; resemblance never resembles completely. …