«Face» and «mask»: the problem of authenticity and inauthenticity of human existence (based on the philosophy of E. Levinas)

Philosophy

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of authenticity and inauthenticity of human existence considered through the prism of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy of the Other — using the terms of the face and mask. This «ethical-and-phenomenological perspective» opens up new horizons in the study of this problem and overcomes ethical subject-centrism, characteristic of existentialism in general. The study looks at the main concepts of Levinas’s ontology of the subject: Self-identity, ontological vulnerability of the subject, his «spontaneous solipsism», as well as such a «deep phenomenon» as the face of the Other. This phenomenon reveals itself in four guises: 1) as an expression; 2) as an absolute; 3) as an ethical face; 4) as a trace of the Infinite. It is argued that for genuine existence there are neither masks on the part of the subject (both in relation to himself and in relation to the Other) nor masks on the part of the Other. Inauthentic existence, on the contrary, is associated with the presence of a mask as a consequence of the very nature of being of a Self-identical subject (with his «timelessness», «physicality», and «enslavement»): the presence of a mask acts as an illusion dictated by the «imperious solipsistic reflex» of the subject and his ontological vulnerability to the Other. In this case, the mask (inauthenticity) turns out to be the subject’s attitude toward himself, the world, and the Other, which is overcome only in the rupture of the Totality of his own consciousness and an ethical encounter with the face of the Oher. It is concluded that the authenticity of the Other, revealed by the subject in the face of the Other and ethical attitude toward him, determines the authenticity of the subject himself.