"L'Interloqut" Jean-Luc Marion

II

Phenomenology has perhaps never had a more pressing There wouldn't be any sense in denying that Dasein
task to confront than the determination of what -- or subverts the subject, even and especially when the
possibly who -- succeeds the subject. Nevertheless, it subject is understood in terms of the Husserlian tran-
has never definitively decided between two kinds of scendental phenomenological subject. Being and Time
succession, between either abolishing the subject for- not only calls into question the transcendental Kantian
ever, in order to replace it with the very absence of an I; it calls into question the phenomenological I in
heir (as Nietzsche claimed he had done) or hesitating to general as well as the very core of this/, even when this
repeat, each time, the function of subjecti(vi)ty accord- I is understood in the sense given to it in the Logical
ing to an always new mode. On the subject of the Investigations. In what does this questioning consist?
subject, phenomenology has never ceased oscillating Subjecti(vi)ty no longer has as its objective the objec-
from one to the other postulate, from the possibility of a tivization of the object, because the ultimate instrument
heritage to that of a "new beginning". This hesitation of this objectivization -- intentionality -- no longer aims
may enable us to inscribe phenomenology at times at the constitution of an object but at the opening of a
within the field of metaphysics, at times outside of its world. The intentionality constitutive of an object
limits. The question of the subject's posterity will remains, but it is limited to the status of a particular case
therefore not find even the outline of an answer as long of the fundamental determination of the Being-in-the-
as the way in which phenomenology claims to go world of the one who, from then on, renounces the title
beyond the subject, and hence the metaphysical subject, of "subject", since he abandons the objective of the
has not itself been sketched out. Asked in another way: objectivization of the object, in favor of the title of
does phenomenology offer a path that leads to the Dasein. One must not be mistaken: the analysis of
overcoming of the subject? We shall examine this instrumentality occupies a central role in the analytic of
question through the obviously privileged case of Dasein because it establishes that what is in the world is
Dasein, whose ambivalence Heidegger defined in Being not at first there in the form of objects constituted
and Time. according to the objectivization exercised by a subject,
We ask then: to what extent does the analytic of but in the form of a specific manipulability which, in
Dasein accomplish the abolition of the metaphysical return, determines Dasein itself, handled, as it were, by
subject? Dasein reaches its specific and authentic truth that which it handles. Dasein is not in the world as a
in the figure of care (Sorge), which identifies it as spectator, nor even in a constitutive way, but as a party
anticipatory resoluteness: "Dasein becomes 'essentially' possibly challenged by what it encounters. The world
Dasein in that authentic existence which constitutes never amounts to the sum of constituted objects, since it
itself as anticipatory resoluteness (vorlaufende Ents- in no way consists, but is opened in making a (whole)
chlossenheit)." 1 We must therefore ask if this ultimate world. However, it can only be opened in this way in as
determination of the meaning of Dasein's Being enables much as, more essentially, Dasein produces the opening
it to succeed the subject -- or if we should still expect in general, by going into ecstasies. Dasein's ecstasy lies
another. in that, far from grounding itself in its being, or from

Topoi 7 (1988), 175--180.

grounding its being in itself, it is the entity for which ecstatic structure of care (Sorge) is realized phenome-
what is at stake, each time, is nothing less than its Being nologically: what does resoluteness resolve, what deci-
-- even better, the entity for which, when what is at stake sion does resoluteness lead Dasein to, in relation to
is its being, what is at stake is just as well the Being of what does it manifest Dasein? Resoluteness can be
all other entities. Such an appropriation of Being to the I l o c a t e d in several phenomena which are organized
-- "The Being of any such entity is in each case mine around it: anxiety, the consciousness of debt, Being-
(jemeines)" (Being and Time, w -- must not be towards-death as anticipation. Each of these presents a
interpreted as a subjection of Being to the figure of the common characteristic:
ego, indeed of egoism; if Being is each time mine, it is (a) Anxiety leads to the phenomenological experi-
because Dasein is incapable of attaining Being in any ence of the nothingness of all entities, unchanging or
other way than by staging itself in the first person, else manipulable: "In that in the face of which one has
exposing itself to the possibility of death; Being is anxiety, the 'It is nothing and nowhere' becomes
disclosed to Dasein only as a possibility reserved for the manifest" (Being and Time, w That this no-
one who engages himself by naming himself an irre- thingness might, and even should be interpreted as the
placeable first person. The "mineness" of Being no world, does not in any way change the fact that anxiety
longer implies that the I would assume a substantially opens upon nothingness, with nothing more than this
ineradicable subjectivity, but rather that Being remains very nothingness.
inaccessible to Dasein as long as itself does not take the (b) The conscience which experiences its debt
risk of exposing itself without reserve, without appeal (whatever this debt might be) hears a call in this
and without certainty, as if to the possibility of the experience; however, this call neither evokes nor
impossible. From intentionality to "mineness", the requires any compensation, any obligation, any ontically
subject, master of its being and owner of its objects, ascribable price. "What does the conscience call to him
disappears in order to give way to Dasein, which sets to whom it appeals? Taken strictly, nothing. The call
against the subject a double paradox: first, Dasein fails asserts nothing, gives no information about world-
to constitute an object, but exposes itself to manipula- events, has nothing to tell" (Being and Time, w
tion, second, Dasein has no substantiality, but arrives as Conscience does not open Dasein onto the entity of the
its own Being only by taking the risk of exposure in world but onto its own transcendency; strictly speaking
person. it opens nothing to Dasein, except itself;
(c) Being-towards-death apparently marks an excep-
tion: so far as we know it is nowhere indicated that it
III
might open upon the nothing to which, nevertheless, the
That Dasein realizes its own Being by risking itself in analysis seems to appeal. It only opens Dasein onto the
person is evidence that it sublates the subject. "Mine- possibility of impossibility. But, more precisely, the
ness," by which what is at stake is always only me in my anticipation of Being-towards-death (or rather in it)
being and even in Being, disqualifies all claims to the ultimately opens Dasein to absolute possibility --
self-foundation of an unconditioned /. However, once absolute since it even embraces the impossible -- which
understood, this still does not prevent us from asking privileges it as an ontological entity. If, "in Being-
another question: under what condition does Dasein towards-death, Dasein comports itself towards itself as a
realize the "mineness" which characterizes its mode of distinctive potentiality for Being" (Being and Time,
being? The literal answer lies in a formula: "Resolute- w one must conclude that it does not relate
ness (Entschlossenheit) is a distinctive mode of Dasein's itself towards anything else. Thus the three phenomena
disclosedness ( Enschlossenheit)" (Being and Time, w which determine Dasein's Being as care only define
343). Dasein's disclosedness displays itself, in a distinc- anticipatory resoluteness as an ecstasy opening upon --
tive mode, at the moment of resoluteness. Resoluteness, strictly -- nothing.
understood as anticipatory resoluteness, brings out Or rather, anticipatory resoluteness leads to nothing-
Dasein's being as care (Sorge) and enables access to the ness in as much as it is then a question of an entity's
meaning of being as temporality, thought in terms of the nothingness; but, by this very nothingness, it "isolates"
future. It is a question then of determining how the (vereinzelt) Dasein by referring it to the ontico-ontologi-
 L'INTERLOQUI~ 177

cal transcendency which sets it apart from the intra- then, that Dasein may only overcome the subject by
mundane entity. Such isolation does not by itself or first once again miming it?
of all mean that Dasein should, following a traditional
theme (Augustinian, for example), in se redire. Dasein's
isolation does not lead it back to itself, but realizes its IV
essential determination: to be, without any possible
substitution, itself itself. What was formulated at the The Self's-Selfhood being posited as such -- non-sub-
beginning of the analytic of Dasein as "mineness" stitutable, by virtue of care and according to anticipa-
(Jemeinigkeit) is pronounced at the end as "Selfhood" tory resoluteness -- defines Dasein in terms of a specific
(Selbstheit): "Dasein's selfhood has been defined for- existential autarky. Assuming it is actually achieved, this
mally as a way of existing ..." (Being and Time, result gives rise to two interrogations, directly linked to
w Dasein exists as itself. Resoluteness does not the question of a possible overcoming of the subject and
resolve anything because what is at stake is the possi- of the seriousness of its succession.
bility of Dasein venturing towards its own destiny: to be (a) The first interrogation points to an aporia that is
the entity in whose being what is at stake is Being itself. external to the project of Being and Time; if the Self's
Selbstheit must resolutely be understood as constancy of autarky still defines Dasein, to what extent does Dasein
the Self (Selbst-stiindigkeit), as Heidegger tells us still "destroy" the metaphysical project of a transcen-
directly: "Selfhood (Selbstheit) is to be discerned dental I unconditioned because self-constituted? Dasein
existentially only in one's authentic potentiality-for- doubtless overcomes all subjecti(vi)ty by challenging the
Being-one's-Self -- that is to say, in the authenticity of permanency of the hypokeimenon or of the subject of
Dasein's Being as care. In terms of care the constancy of the res cogitans. However, the Self's autarky remains
the Self (Stiindigkeit des Selbst), as the supposed connected with the strange motto of a " . . . sta'ndig
persistence of the subfectum, gets clarified. But the vorhandene Grund der Sorge", i.e. constantly present-at-
phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being hand basis of care (Being and Time, w in such a
also opens our eyes for the constancy of the Self way that the reflexive characteristics of "to make up
(Stiindigkeit des Selbst) in the sense of its having one's mind", "to exhibit oneself", "to precede oneself",
achieved some sort of position . . . Existentially, 'Self- "to anguish oneself", etc. -- there each time for nothing
constancy' (Selbst-stdndigkeit) signifies nothing other else than the Self -- might seem to mime the self-
than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure reflexivity that has been understood as self-constitutive
of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the of the transcendental subject, indeed of all subjectivity.
Self's Selfhood (der Selbstheit des Selbst)" (Being and Dasein's confrontation with metaphysical egology (from
Time, w Whether one understands the Self's Descartes to Hegel) may remain unachieved and even
Selbst-stiindigkeit in the sense of an "autonomy," a undecided, like a battle that is suspended before the
"constancy of the self," or a "self-positing"2 does not winner is known. 3 Above all, Dasein may not com-
ultimately matter that much, provided these approxima- pletely overcome the thematics of the subject, as
tions really aim at thinking the prodigious paradox of Heidegger's project of a "destruction of the history of
the analytic of Dasein: for the ecstasy of care neverthe- ontology" nevertheless expressly implies in its second
less leads to the radical autarky of Dasein, standing section. In short, we can risk the following hypothesis:
alone by itself, as the singular Self. Autarky: as para- the analytic of Dasein does not so much designate what
doxical as it seems, the term is appropriate since all the succeeds the subject as the last heir of the subject
extensions of intentionality (Being-in-the-world, anxiety, himself, to the extent that Dasein offers a path whereby
conscience, Being-towards-death) never have as their it may tear itself away from subjectivity, without itself
end the disclosure of an entity but instead, in order to being successful. What -- or who -- must come after the
lead Dasein back to its "mineness", then radicalized in a subject will no doubt only be brought to the light of day
self-positing Selfhood, the disclosure of the nothingness through Dasein, but also after Dasein, indeed against it.
of all entities. Resoluteness itself discloses the world Hence the second interrogation:
through the ecstatic structure of care only by positing (b) which designates an aporia that is internal to the
Dasein's Self in itself and as Self alone. Is it possible, project of Being and Time; if the Self's autarky defines
178 JEAN-LUC MARION

Dasein's specific transcendency, how might this autarky general as an autarkic Self; it may not appeal, at the
-- which no entity can disrupt (precisely since it only moment of anticipatory resoluteness, to Being, since, in
manifests itself by transcending absolutely all entities) -- any case, it appeals only to itself: "Dasein is at the same
care in any way for the question of Being in general? time both the caller and the one to whom the appeal is
The distortion -- very visible, even if not always made" (Being and Time, w Heidegger found the
discovered -- between the question of Being in general solution to this paradoxical aporia only at the expense of
and the analytic of Dasein, a distortion which traverses the Kehre, which, in a sense, sacrifices everything that
Being and Time and almost necessarily determines its Being and Time had managed to thematize -- the
incompleteness, 4 does not stem from a weakness in the analytic of Dasein -- in order to conform to what it had
presentation of Dasein; quite on the contrary, it is not achieved but only aimed at: the question of Being in
precisely the exemplary success of this presentation that general. This heroic reversal is marked, among other
installs Dasein in the autarky of Self-positing, without innovations, by the disqualification of Dasein's autarky;
any other determination than its own resolve towards its since anticipatory resoluteness, as the self;s appeal to
own opening; as much as the analytic definitely leads, in itself, runs aground on ontological neutrality, it must
the two sections of the published version of the text, to submit to an appeal which it neither performs, controls
the identification of Dasein with the Self of autarkic or decides: this appeal -- the appeal by which Being
resoluteness, it still never confirms the project evoked claims Dasein as the phenomenological agency of its
by the "Introduction" to Being and Time -- that of manifestation 5 -- is called the Anspruch des Seins in the
establishing phenomenologically a strict equivalence "Postface" to What is Metaphysics? as well as in the
between the question of Being in general and Dasein's Letter on Humanism. Contrary to Being and Time,
Being in particular. Section 83 of Being and Time where the appeal is always an appeal to itself (Ansprechen
should perhaps be read as the in fine acknowledgement seiner selbst) (Being and Time, w here Being's
of the absolute impossibility of a regulated and phenom- appeal claims Dasein, as it were, in advance and from
enologically guaranteed transition from Dasein as the outside; a choice must be made between the Self's
autarkic Self to the question of Being in general: "Can anticipatory resoluteness and the claim of what is, from
one provide ontological grounds for ontology, or does it now on, called man (and not Dasein): Heidegger has
also require an ontical foundation? and which entity chosen -- the Anspruch des Seins comes before and
must take over the function of providing this founda- therefore "destroys" Dasein's autarky. Man answers a
tion?"; it is in terms such as these that the "problem of call which claims him for Being, instead of Dasein
principle which still remains 'veiled'" is finally acknowl- deciding about and resolving itself to its Own possibility
edged (Being and Time, w The aporia therefore as Self. By man one must understand, against all
lies in a contradiction which is all the more radical since "humanisms", the one who comes after the subject, but
it emerges from the exemplary success of the analytic of also after the Self, because he lets himself be claimed by
Dasein: the Serf, positing itself as such through an the Anspruch des Seins. He should be called der
anticipatory resoluteness towards possibility, does not Angesprochene, the one upon whom a claim is made.
accept any extrinsic determination: neither the world After the subject, even beyond Dasein, emerges the one
(which this resoluteness opens and therefore precedes), who knows how to hear Being's claim.
nor the entity (which it transcends), nor time (whose This thesis marks Heidegger's second advance
authentic temporality only becomes phenomenologi- beyond subjecti(vi)ty, a more radical move than the first,
cally accessible through this resoluteness) -- so that although more silent. This thesis, however, gives rise to
nothing, not even nothingness itself, can here evoke, say, a questioning that is even more redoubtable than the
or even sense Being. Here, Being does not yet exert any difficulties it had managed to overcome. For if Dasein
neutrality to the detriment, for example, of an other; on indeed undergoes an analytic, which reveals it as
the contrary, neutrality goes against Being, according to resolute towards and in its autarkic Selfhood, the one
the absolutely indeterminate autarky of the Self -- who is interpellated, who is called upon by the claim of
absolutely indeterminate, except for its own resolute- Being, does not, at least explicitly, benefit from such an
ness-the ultimate phenomenological face of Dasein. The analytic. But ifDasein answers the question of Being in
SeWs neutrality disqualifies Being itself. general as interpellated much more than as resolute, the
Dasein may not accede to the question of Being in "new beginning" remains suspended over an analytic of
 L'INTERLOQUI~ 179

the claiming interpellation, which is precisely what is authority of the claim. The me no longer testifies to the I
lacking. Dasein comes after the subject by renouncing a contrario, but acknowledges the nullity of the I under
the self-constitution of the transcendental I, but it still the authority of the claim which interpellates me.
claims itself by the autarky of resoluteness; it remains The disaster of the I, that is, the sole overcoming of
for Dasein to let itself be claimed by an agency other the subject, only occurs with the claim. However, does
than itself (here, Being), in order to finally succeed the the extent of this disaster still allow the me, scarcely the
subject without still inheriting subjecti(vi)ty. Only the phantom of a subject, to be named by a concept? We shall
one who is interpellated breaks with the subject, but designate the me as the "interloqur" (Angesprochene):
Dasein does not yet abandon itself to interpellation. (a) Interloqu~, first because it is summoned by the
claim, with a radicality and a power which deny him not
only the autonomy of a subject constituting itself in its
V atomic substantiality, but also the autarky of a resolute-
ness that is determined by nothing; the interloqud
The claim, then, calls me. I have not yet said/, since the discovers himself always already compelled to a rela-
claim has already hailed me, hence named and sum- tion; in metaphysical terms, it would be necessary to say
moned me as me. Moreover, the only appropriate here that the derivative and secondary category of
answer to the claim that names me is a "this is me!" relation -- which, in principle, must never apply to what
without any L Contrary to all appearances, it is not a is substantial, the primary category -- not only does
question here of the classical critique of the objective indeed apply to it, but also subjects it to the point of
I/me by the transcendental I (as it is in Kant, Husserl, disqualifying it: the interloqud finds himself the deriva-
and Sartre): for to be precise, by denouncing the tive pole of a relation in which he no longer has any
transcendent I as an empirical or constituted objective, of the (autonomous, autarkic) substantiality implied by
the critique reestablishes an even more radical tran- even the least subjecti(vi)ty;
scendental I, non-constituted precisely because con- (b) Interloqud, then, because he experiences a sur-
stitutive; here, in a metaphysical regime, the relativity of prise. The surprise here is strictly opposed to ecstasy
the empirical I stresses all the better the absolute (the ecstasy of intentionality as well as that of anticipa-
primacy and, in this sense, autonomy of the constituting tory resoluteness); ecstasy indeed institutes the subject
L On the contrary, when the claim interpellates me, the outside of himself, but still in terms of himself as the
I/me which it imparts to me thereby designates not any originary pole of his own overcoming. On the contrary,
autonomous and unconditioned transcendental /, but the claim's surprise surprises the interloqud to the extent
rather only the interpellation itself. The experience of that he is deprived of any polarity of his own; surprise
the me whom I hear myself speak does not offer any seizes the interloqud in the sense that it seizes all
proof of a transcendental I, but, as a pure and naked polarity of subjecti(vi)ty in him: the interloqud is less
experience, it assigns me to the claim. The pole to which torn away from himself -- since he perceives himself
the I/me refers cannot be any hidden I -- invisible precisely without even the least self -- than constituted
because always already there, the singular pole of an by an unassignable claim as a me without ground,
already determined phenomenological horizon -- but is without subject, without any place other than this very
rather an unconceivable, unnamable, unpredictable interpellation. Surprise, in the interloqud, is a reprisal
agency: more precisely, the claim itself. No doubt, upon against his very ecstasy: surprise dispossesses (d@rend)
hearing myself interpellated, I experience an interpel- the interloqud of his ecstasy.
lated me, but, literally, I experiences a me orphaned of (c) Interloqud finally in the sense of an interlocutory
any transcendental and constitutive I; I experience judgment; interloquer means, according to ancient
myself means that the I (simple, without being double) French judiciary language, (<ordonnur qu'une chose
experiences itself as a myself~me. I experience myself sera prouv6e ou v~rifi6e, avant qu'on prononce sur le
being claimed, that is, called upon in the accusative -- fond de l'affaire)) (Littrd), to establish the fact before
interpellated as suspect and not as subject, named in the speaking the law, and, in the meantime, to suspend the
accusative and therefore dispossessed of any nominative procedure. The interloqud is submitted, in a more
function. The interpellated me marks the absence of any essential sense, to an interlocutory judgment, since all
constituting I, under the, in this respect totalitarian, questions quid jugs? concerning his transcendental
180 JEAN-LUC MARION

subjectivity, his powers, his limits and his figures the moment of the claim, neither by whom nor by what
(including that of Dasein) must acknowledge that they it is claimed. Only the indeterminacy of the claiming
are preceded by the question quidfacti ? agency enables the claim which, otherwise, would not
The fact which is here irrevocable consists in the surprise and hence would not institute any interloquO.
claim itself, which, already and definitely, redefines all What is at stake is an anonymous a priori, which
of the interloquO's characteristics; nothing can be said of functions perfectly, without identifying itself, since it
the interloqud -- neither according to truth, nor accord- consists only in the following: the interloqud's recogni-
ing to evaluation, nor according to resoluteness -- which tion of a minimal a priori: the claim itself -- the I
would not at first be determined by the claim. The sole a recognizes itself as interloqud as a consequence of the
priori, the claim still does not come under either claim itself. The interloqud provides the beginning -- the
conscience or the horizon, which it rather precludes. most basic, hence the first, determination -- which
The sole fact, the claim nonetheless comes before all abolishes the subject: selfhood is initially wounded by
limits and all rights, since this fact is not the fact of any the very fact that, before the self can constitute itself, the
subject, and, perhaps, not even the fact of itself. claim has already exiled it outside its "mineness". The
Summons, surprise, precedent, the claim therefore wound which originally tears selfhood obscurely mani-
institutes the interloqud, without defining him in any fests the origin itself -- the interloqud. Before ever
other way than by his status as interloquL For before I knowing by what or by whom, the I surprises itself, as
am anything, before in me I exists or I invent, the interloqud, and has always done so.
possibility of being a subject or a Dasein, surprise must
indeed summon me, interloqud. In the beginning,
amazement; at first, admiration. Notes
However, the thesis that only the interloqud comes
after the subject is subject to an objection: the claim can Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward
Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), w All subse-
only install the interloqui as such if some agency
quent citations from this text are to this edition and will be cited
performs it; it is necessary then that the claim ultimately parentheticallywithin my essay by Being and Time, section number/
be referred to a pole whose initial word rends sub- page number.
jecti(vi)ty. Who or what claims the interloqud? If we 2 Selbst-stiindigkeitis translated as "self-maintenance,""maintien de
mention here God, the other, moral conscience, auto- Soi-mOme (autonomie)" in Etre et Temps, translated by Martineau
affection, figures of difference, Being itself, etc., this only (Paris, 1985), 227 and 316, and as "Self-constancy,""constance de
sol-retiree" in Etre et Temps, translated by F. Vezin (Paris, 1986),
enables us to name the difficulty, not to solve it: as a
382. The ambiguity of the Sth'ndigkeit attributed to Dasein, whose
matter of fact the interloqud would become in all cases a Self has just been emphasized (more than opposed to) as "stfindig
derivative and regional agency -- a simple variation of vorhandene Grund" (my emphasis) seems to justify the use here of
the subject, situated or placed in relation with an other the Kantian term positing.
agency; the interloqu~ would therefore regress to the 3 On this point, allow me to refer to my essay, "L'ego et le Dasein:
Heidegger et la "destruction" de Descartes dans Sein und Zeit", in
level of a particularized subject. This objection relies,
Revue de Mdtaphysique et de Morale, 1987/1.
however, upon an illusory assumption: that it is neces- 4 Similarly,on this point see "Differenceontologique et question de
sary to be able to name this agency which makes a claim l'6tre -- un ind~cid6 de Sein und Zeit", in Tijdschrifi voor Filosofie,
upon me, in order to know myself instituted as inter- 1987/3.
loqu~; on the contrary, according to the order of 5 I draw here from my discussion of the emergence of the Anspruch
phenomenological description, I identify myself as des Seins in "L'angoisse et l'ennui: Pour interpr6ter Was ist
Metaphysik?, in Archives de Philosophie, 1980/1.
interloqug before being aware not only of my subjec-
tivity but also of what or who leaves me interloqud. The
University of Poitiers
imprecision, indeed the confusion of the claiming
agency does not weaken the claim but rather testifies 8, rue Descartes,
that the interpellation of the interloqui as such occurs 86000 Poitiers
from the very beginning; just as surprise surprises the France
subject, surprise surprises the surprisor himself; the I
discovers itself interloquO precisely because it knows, at Translated by Eduardo Cadava and Anne Tomiche