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RE-INTERPRETING DERRIDAS STRANGER TOWARDS KENOTIC HOSPITALITY QUA THE WAY OF PERFECT JOY

A thesis by Sem. Wilmar L. Rosales

Presented to The faculty of the Our Lady of the Angels Seminary In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts In Philosophy Quezon City, Philippines

March 2012

ABSTRACT During the Eulogy of Derrida, Caputo said that reading Derridas deconstruction was never meant to be a comforting experience. It was actually in defense of Derrida who was so misunderstood by many because of his deconstruction method. In the same way if this thesis has brought some kind of discomfort and irritation, the researcher is simply trying to be faithful to the style of his philosopher, and has no intention of flaunting arrogance. For this reason the student begs for understanding. When the researcher felt that responsibility alone would not be enough to justify the praxis of unconditional welcoming, the researcher resorted to a Metaphysics of the Self to reconfigure Derridas original the Guest-Host Framework in the hope of possibly understanding the kind of justice the stranger requires. The Metaphysics of the Self describes the reflective process of self-deconstruction. Here, Derridas stranger becomes the Guest Within as the authentic Subject goes back to the Self in response to the Delphic Call subsumed under Platos Dictum of Care which, in turn, also becomes the philosophical basis to embark on a brief survey on happiness from the East and from the West. The quest eventually led the Seeker at the doorstep of kenosis which became the eudaimonic key to unlock the secrets of a fulfilling existence The product of the east -west synthesis is a philosophy of growth which describes the Way of Perfect Joy not only as an ethics of sacrifice based on love but also as a mature philosophical response to the fundamental question: what is in the very nature of the functions of the human soul (the human factor) and eventually what matters most in life. This kenotic perspective did not only enable the authentic Self to confront the realities of pain, suffering and death, but also to understand the kind of justice required by the stranger. In the end, the researcher proposes, as a way of life, the praxis of Kenotic Hospitality to all our everyday strangers - a secular understanding of an all-embracing, non-exclusionary love subject to all, even to the point of death. This enduring love, identified as the motivating force, brings to a more positive light the gift of death as gain rather than a loss, without the violence to the Other and consequently, as a Gift of Self without fear and trembling. Kenotic Hospitality as a way of life brings about Perfect Joy - that desirable emotive state or feeling of well-being/goodness par excellence. Kenotic Hospitality is self-deconstruction is justice to the stranger.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It took 2012 Years to have all of YOU Thank You For the Jo[urne]y OLAS and OFM Communities The Society of Intern and Externs The Known and Unknown Strangers and Samaritans The ESHT Community My Family who are and will be Especially to GOD Who gave them all to me as a Gift

DEDICATION

For GOD. For my NEIGBHORS.. For myself.

And also in memory of Christine Tupio..

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement..i Dedication..ii Table of Contents..iii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study ..........1 B. Statement of the Problem.......5 C. Theoretical Framework......7 D. Methodology.........10 E. Scope and Limitation........11 F. Related Literature.....12 G. Thesis Schema...15 CHAPTER II: JACQUES DERRIDA (1930-2004) A. Brief Biographical Sketch ...17 B. Intellectual Influences..19 C. Major Works20 D. Derridas Deconstructive Philosophy..........20 E. Other Relevant Derridean Concepts.......23 1. Differeance.......23 2. Undecidability/Aporia..25 2.1. Justice....25 2.2. Mourning For The Other (Honoring the Other)........26 2.3. The Gift of Death (The Boundless Parameter of Sacrifice).......27 2.4. The Messianic Wholly Other...28 2.5. Politics of Friendship (The Democracy To Come)..29 CHAPTER III: HOSPITALITY AND THE METAPHYSICAL FRAMEWORK A. The Notion of Hospitality..31 1.The Other Understanding of Hospitality (Different Presentations)31 1.1. Etymology and the Paradox of Hospitality....31 1.2. Greek Mythology: Odysseus and Cyclops.....32 2.The Derridean Concept: The Guest-Host Framework....34 2.1. The Laws of Hospitality (Conditional Hospitality)..................35 2.2. The Law of Unlimited Hospitality (Alterity as Non-exclusionary Justice).....36 B. The Conceptual Basis and Framework39 1. Nothing Outside the Text - the Basis for (Re)-Interpretation39 2. The Need to Negotiate A Desirable Unconditional Welcoming........41

3. Metaphysics of the Self..42 3.1 A Concise Survey of Desire....46 a. The Desire to Know Ones Self....47 b.The Desire to Care for the Self.49 3.2 On the Wings of Kardia (Consciousness & Inner Identity)........51 CHAPTER IV: THE ATTEMPT AT DECONSTRUCTION A. Dismantling the Self in the World of Perfect Joy.....58 1. The Poverellian Deconstruction of Perfect Joy.58 2. A Concise Survey of Happiness and its Paradoxes...59 3. The Gift of Perfect Joy: Towards A De-centered Subjectivity.....68 B. The East-West Synthesis Towards Kenotic Hospitality...71 1. The Illusion...75 2. Moratorium (The Need to Deconstruct the Cognitive Self)....79 3. The Human Factor and the Philosophy of Growth (tamam, brh)....81 4. The Way of Perfect Joy (Towards a Better State of Becoming)......84 C. The Gift of Death: Kenotic Hospitality Qua The Way of Perfect Joy....88 1. The Concept of Kenosis (The Vedantic Key) .91 2. Twin Pre-Conditions of the Kenotic Perspective ....93 2.1. Let It Flow (Openness to the Possibilities of the Gift)....93 2.2. Letting Go (The Dual Self-Emptying Approach.....96 a. Self-Pruning: An Ethics of Care for the True Self..97 b. An Ethics of Non-Exclusionary Alterity...101 3. Kenotic Hospitality in a Nutshell...106 4. Prologue.............110

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION A. Synopsis.115 B. Philosophical Significance and Practical Implications.....117

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
The stranger is infinitely incalculable, priceless and irreducible because to savor the trace of every stranger is a singular and irreplaceable experience. We want to know; we want to understand our experience. We cannot fully understand, yet we must understand our stranger we have to learn to live and deal with our strangers.1

A. Background of the Study This thesis is all about Jacques Derridas deconstruction on the theme of Hospitality or unconditional welcoming which is inextricably linked to his notion about the stranger. Specifically, this philosophical inquiry is an attempt to re-interpret the concept of Stranger vis-vis Hospitality as a reconfiguration of Derridas Guest-Host framework towards a Metaphysic of the Self to explore the possibility of showing that Kenotic Hospitality could be the enhanced notion of unconditional welcoming and the experience of Perfect Joy as its logical consequence. The researcher here was primarily inspired by the Franciscan understanding of kenosis and perfect joy because no systematic study has yet been done dealing with the two concepts together as a subject of philosophical inquiry. One of Derridas principles in deconstruction states that nothing is outside the text. This is the basis why the researcher has attempted to reinterpret Derridas notion about the stranger in relation to the hospitality. Even Derrida is not exempted from his own deconstruction. To reinterpret is to deconstruct or to search the other meaning of this Derridean concept. The researcher observes that responsibility is not credible enough to justify Derridas praxis of unconditional welcoming. That is why the researcher assumes that there is a need to look for that missing link or that pre-condition or that kind of motivating force (desire) that will satisfy the requirements of rationality that will also make the practice of unconditional welcoming persuasive, convincing and desirable. But in order to achieve that enhanced understanding of unconditional welcoming, the researcher proposes a Metaphysics of the Self where the Subject must first go back to itself in order to confront the stranger within. Under this proposal, the Self as the Host negotiates with his own Stranger Within as its Guest in order to understand not only (1) the kind of justice it requires, but also in order to find out (2) what would make human being willingly practice the kind of hospitality being preached by Derrida, which would hopefully allow the Subject to find the path that would possibly lead to an enhanced understanding of unconditional welcoming as Kenotic Hospitality which brings about perfect joy. This thesis privileges freedom and perfect joy over responsibility, in the light of what is in the nature of the human soul or in the very nature of the human specie (the human factor). To understand what motivates human being, the researcher offers Kardia as an integral component under the Metaphysics of the Self, not only to justify how desire is processed within ones consciousness but also to offer a new way of understanding the relationship between mind, will and emotion (this is in contrast to the over-compartmentalized surgical treatment by Aristotle). A creature of deconstruction from the Hebraic tradition, the researcher proposes that Kardia represent the essence, the spirit, the substance, the very core of ones being: the central processing network of the mind-will-emotion; the heart of the matter, and could also be the what is of the true inner identity. The Metaphysics thus aims to highlight, through the Kardia,
1

Paraphrased from: Marko Zlomislic, Derridas Turn to Franciscan Philosophy, in Journal of Philosophy, Vol. II, Issue No. 2, pp. 66-73.

the intertwined functions of the mind, the will, and the emotion that is availed by the Subject to demonstrate coordination and harmony within the cognitive framework (human capacity for cognitive integration and synthesis). To find this missing link that motivates the human soul, the researcher further suggests, as part of the Selfs metaphysical experience (self-deconstruction), the conduct of a selective survey on eudaimonia as the telos. Thus, the quest for what is desirable on the Wings of Kardia (consciousness) leads the researcher to a perusal of happiness from different Eastern and Western traditions (the process of mediation). After this brief survey, the researcher will attempt to conceive a notion of perfect joy that would not only be unmistakably Franciscan but also containing the rich influence from selected Oriental philosophies. Here, the researcher suggests that the philosophical insights gained be processed and synthesized through an eclectic method which privileges the human potentials that would allow the subject-Self to confront the reality of pain, suffering, and death under a Philosophy of Growth in response to the fundamental question. The proposed philosophy of growth describes The Path of Perfect Joy as a way of life and as the road to maturity based on an ethics of sacrifice based on love which embraces an attitude of (1) openness to life (towards possibilities) together with (2) a dual kenotic approach towards life, in response to the fundamental question. This philosophical inquiry hopes to demonstrate that an enduring love that is found in the proposed ethics of sacrifice could possibly be the motivating force that could transform Derridas hospitality into a kenotic form of unconditional welcoming. The notion of self-sacrifice positively finds rational support as a form of Self-Pruning (or what is more commonly known as self-detachment in the oriental cultures or self-renunciation in Christianity) as a part of the self-dismantling/deconstruction process being proposed in this thesis. The researcher also offers the philosophy of growth as a response to life in order to understand what matters most in life (the fundamental question). Knowing what matters most in life is what makes life worth living and dying for; and therefore it is about knowing where an enduring happiness can be found in life (telos). Kenotic Hospitality as the product of a mature perspective could possibly provide meaning and dignity to human existence. Thus, to know what matters most in life is also to know how to rationally respond to the stranger. As a whole, the researcher will thus try to show that Derridas unconditional welcoming can be understood with sense and credibility only as a kenotic expression inscribed in a philosophy of growth that prescribes the Way of Perfect Joy as an ethics of sacrifice based on love. The researcher therefore hopes to contribute something of significance in fields of philosophy and franciscanism, specifically, (1) in the attempt to deconstruct Derridas unconditional welcoming as Kenotic Hospitality qua The Way of Perfect Joy, and (2) in the reconfiguration of the Guest-Host framework into an epistemic Metaphysics of the Self towards Self-enlargement (consciousness). Moreover, this work is personally significant for the researcher because of the unique opportunity to share a philosophy of growth in response to the fundamental question what matters most in life. This work therefore becomes a reflection of the researchers own struggle and search for meaning. Finally, the researcher chose Derrida because his deconstruction provides the needed intellectual autonomy in the conduct of inquiries which opens new space for creative possibilities. For this researcher deconstruction is also (1) a very potent tool to combat perceived errors and (2) a very effective medium to creatively explore uncharted possibilities, and

eventually, (3) as a demanding critical technique to re-think and discover rational possibilities towards the truth thus an opportunity to try out Derridas playing field and enter a subjective field of tensions and, from all these contradictions, make a choice of justice for the stranger. B. Statement of the Problem
A philosophical inquiry into the politics of stranger could lead to a point of undecidability which breaks away from the traditional logic of identity. An encounter with Derridas notion of hospitality vis --vis stranger leaves a trace that creates a dilemma and disturbs the status quo. To re-interpret is to awaken and resurrect the question on the truth about the stranger and about the praxis of unconditional welcoming.

In trying to understand Derridas unconditional welcoming, the researcher observes, among others, that this praxis of hospitality cannot simply be understood in terms of responsibility. There must be something more than responsibility to propel us to give gratuitously because no person in his right senses would unconditionally welcome a stranger even at the least expected and most inconvenient time unless there is an inner driving force that motivates the host to open his doors and accommodate the stranger, otherwise it is not anymore freely done (volitional). His notion about responsibility is not enough to persuade and convince rational beings to freely adopt and practice this unconditional hospitality even in the political arena. Why should I wake up in the middle of the night just to accommodate a complete stranger who could be a potential criminal? What is the sense of taking these risks? Why has it become my responsibility? It is not realistic, credible, or convincing. Moreover, responsibility is a restraint on freedom; and this sense of duty is not fool-proof and could be compromised. (Example: when the Nazi soldier is compelled, out of this high sense of duty and responsibility, to put the helpless Jews into the gas chamber and die). The researcher entertains the possibility that this notion of unconditional welcoming is incomplete and unsatisfactory because hospitality is inextricably connected to a kenotic element as the best possible motivating force that might possibly enhance its ethical ground; hence, this thesis. For this purpose, the researcher will try to explore, develop, and articulate these concerns guided by the following set of questions: 1. Who is Jacques Derrida and what is his method of deconstruction? 2. What is Derridas guest-host framework of hospitality in relation to the researchers negotiated metaphysical framework? 3. What is the researchers re-interpretation of Derridas stranger towards kenotic hospitality qua the way of perfect joy as the enhanced notion of unconditional welcoming? 4. What are the philosophical implications of the reinterpretation as Kenotic Hospitality qua The Way of Perfect Joy? C. Theoretical Framework The researcher will avail of the postmodern reality-frame of Jacques Derrida, using the deconstructive method. The researcher has chosen Derridas deconstructive analysis because it provides this researcher the needed intellectual autonomy which opens new space for creative possibilities that should eventually result to a critical re-working of every oeuvre of philosophy. Moreover, deconstruction releases us from the ossification of thought involved in thinking that a favored conceptual scheme is privileged over others.2 Deconstruction is thus best suited in
2

Thomas Mautner (ed.), The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, Penguin Group, England, 2005, p.150.

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investigations where traditional or common ways of thinking as an attitude are questioned in order to introduce new forms of consciousness and rationalities by exposing the manifold problematic tensions that may emerge through an examination of various contexts (including oriental philosophy, mythology, English literature, politics, religion, Franciscan spirituality, ethics, behavioral science, psychology, tourism, etc). Derridas perspective about the stranger and hospitality are not immune to permutations. The radical singularity of every encounter with the stranger gives birth to new forms of rationality and consciousness about life which could be an affirmation or threat to the status quo. For this project, the researcher relies on Derridas deconstructive principle: Nothing is Outside the Text. Using Derridas deconstructive method, the researcher will try to reconfigure Derridas original Host-Guest framework in order to re-invent an enhanced understanding of Derridas unconditional welcoming. To do this, the researcher proposes a Metaphysics of the Self where the Subject must first go back to itself in order to confront the stranger within. The Metaphysics of the Self would thus serve as the framework that would provide the Self the creative space and freedom (1) to present an alternative epistemological method (kardial consciousness) that would signal the start of a logical self-dismantling or self-deconstruction process and (2) to construct a humanist philosophy of growth as the synthesis of an east-west survey, that will eventually propose the dual self-emptying subjectivity of kenotic hospitality as the enhanced notion of unconditional welcoming that brings about perfect joy. The Way of Perfect Joy is the suggested name of the philosophy of growth which describes kenotic hospitality as a way of life (the marriage of western and oriental traditions). As a proposed humanist philosophy, The Way of Perfect Joy embraces both an ethics of the self and an ethics of alterity that comes under a broader ethics of sacrifice based on a nonexclusionary/all embracing love subject to all even to the point of death. In order to save on time and space, the researcher suggests that each topic found under Chapter III would only be given their concise treatment discussing only what are considered the essentials that would be necessary for the critical journey towards the path of perfect joy. Every step in Chapter IV (The Attempt at Deconstruction) would become a step in self-deconstruction and demonstrates the growth and progress in the Selfs consciousness towards its goal. In the process, the researcher will propose two innovative concepts: (1) Kardia describing the epistemological component of consciousness (mind-will-emotion), and (2) Self-Pruning (love of self) the first kenotic component of the letting-go process which also justifies the positive reception by the Subject towards self-sacrifice as gain instead of loss (the psychological aspect). In this Metaphysics of Self, the researcher proposes several steps beginning with Platos recommendations (know yourself and take care of ones self) as the philosophical basis that will not only justify the Selfs introspection-projection (centripetal-centrifugal) but will also encourage and propel the Self to continue with the quest to understand the various Eastern and Western notions of happiness as the telos - in the quest for perfect joy. The East-West survey will become the groundwork for a philosophy of growth which, in turn, conceives the path of perfect joy (eudaimonia) as a dual kenotic way of life. In response to the fundamental question, the philosophy of growth (as the way of becoming) privileges whatever is in the very nature of the human soul (the human factor which is oftentimes intentionally disregarded or forgotten) including the desire and capacity to love (the self and others) and be loved in return. It is also seeks to confront the realities of pain, suffering and death. The end result of this philosophical attempt will supposedly allow the researcher to demonstrate that a rationally desirable notion of unconditional hospitality is possible when it is

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viewed from a kenotic perspective (kenotic subjectivity); in other words, a neutral3 concept of Kenotic Hospitality as an ethics of sacrifice based on love4 that brings about perfect joy. The researcher further claims that such kenotic feature is not only compatible with Derridas notions of unconditionality, but also with the Franciscan praxis and understanding of kenosis and perfect joy. D. Methodology The researcher will use the expository and analytic method. In the attempt, the researcher appropriates, as his materials for deconstruction, selected concepts and principles which may be relevant in the development of this thesis from various Western and Eastern philosophers including useful Greek mythologies. The research materials will consist of primary and secondary sources from books, journals, articles, magazines, and other forms of publications some of which came from the OLAS library and the Rizal library at Ateneo De Manila, Q.C., while some significant data are taken from the electronic sources. The researcher will also consult thoroughly on the account of the said topic. The reader will observe all throughout the thesis that some of the words and phrases had been italicized and/or underlined. This is done in order to highlight the idea being emphasized by this student. E. Scope and Limitation This thesis, which is primarily a re-interpretation of Derridas stranger vis--vis unconditional welcoming, deals with the problem of the Self who tries to understand the stranger within so that the Self would, in turn, understand the truth about the stranger and the kind of justice required under Derridas unconditional hospitality. The bulk of materials culled for purposes of deconstruction were not always Derridean. The researcher also appropriates various literatures in aid of deconstruction. Aside from Derridean sources, the researchers quest for the truth about the Stranger will be supported by the great thoughts of selected Western and Eastern philosophers, while the building blocks to re-conceptualize The Way of Perfect Joy will come not only from Franciscan sources but also from those which could be excavated from other Western and Eastern thoughts. In the end, the researcher hopes to re-invent a secular understanding of kenotic Hospitality.

F. Related Literature Marko Zlomislic, Derridas Turn to Franciscan Philosophy, in Journal of Philosophy, Vol. II, Issue No. 2, 2008, pp. 65-76.
Derrida was exposed to Franciscan thoughts (Francis perception of the self) through the poem of Hopkins. The appreciation of the self is taste that whatever the taste is. It is how the self interprets self-experience. We cannot capture what is the Self-Taste as the experience of the self because only the self can interpret what is the self-experience. This is because the self is incalculable, irreducible, and priceless. As a corollary, there is no neutral interpretation as far as philosophy is concerned; all is interpretation, and interpretation is the way the self interprets in response to the world. All in all, Self-Taste is self interpretation of ones experience. The notion of self-taste is significant in the sense that it has helped inspire the researcher to develop his metaphysics of the self as a subjective approach that eventually projects outward.

3 4

Allows both secular and religious reading/interpretation of kenotic hospitality (two-way interpretation) Instead of Derridas grounding on friendship-fraternity alone

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Hope May, On Socrates, Wadsworth Philosophers Series (Wadsworth Thompson Learning, Inc.), USA, 2000.
This book will be a helpful guide to this research to formulate the method of going back to the self as far as Socratic elenchus is concerned and the value of his thoughts in terms of self-knowledge, morality, and human happiness. This book offers an alternative that the truth is not somewhere out there, but that it is in us, and that to know it, one only needs to lead an examined life. The researcher, on the otherhand, borrowed the concept of Socratic eudaimonia enabling the Subject to deconstruct Aristotelian eudaimonia that has been mistranslated and misconstrued as happiness itself; and also this will be a helpful guide in the development of the way of perfect joy as a philosophy of growth. Haecceity in Duns Scotus, in Medieval Theories of Haceeity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)http://www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-haecceity/ Haecceity is a concept created by Duns Scotus from the word haec, "this thing." According to Duns Scotus "Omne ens habet aliquod esse proprium" -- every entity has a singular essence. Agamben describes Duns Scotus as responding to the scholastic's problem of the principium individuationis. Against St. Thomas, who sought the place of individuation in matter, Duns Scotus conceived individuation as an addition to nature or common form, but not the addition of another form, essence or property, but of the ultima realitas, the "utmostness" of the form itself. This Scotusian view sees each thing as highly individualized and different from all other things so much so that each object is to him almost separate species. The concept of this-ness or haecceity is that aura of irreplaceability which distinguishes this being or entity from the rest. What is unusual or distinct about this being or entity becomes a useful guide for discernment during the uncovering or bursting forth of the truth about their being.5 Haceeity enabled the researcher to understand what is in the nature of the human specie, in general, and what is distinctly unique in the human specie, as an individual. Specifically, the Scotusian notion of haceeity is very useful in the development of the researchers concept of let it flow to understand the radical singularity of all living beings.Haceeity is also instrumental in the students understanding of a non-exclusionary form of alterity subject to all which converts all living beings as singular-plural, meaning, belonging to a generic class of others yet, at the same time, each retains this distinct singularity as the other like no other and therefore must be treated with equal respect. Maria J. Binetti, Kierkegaard's Ethical Stage in Hegel's Logical Categories: Actual Possibility, Reality and Necessity, in Cosmos and History in The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol. 3, No 2-3, 2007. The internal logic of Kierkegaards thought coincides with the fundamental dialectical dynamism of Hegels philosophy. During the past decades, the history of philosophy has kept Kierkegaards and Hegels thought apart, and their long-standing opposition has swept through the speculative greatness of Kierkegaardian existentialism and the existential power of Hegelian philosophy. In contrast to such unfortunate misinterpretation, this article aims at showing the deep convergence that relates interiorly the Kierkegaardian ethical stage with the most important Hegelian logic categories. Kierkegaard and Hegel conceive of the idea as the real power of subjective becoming, and the existence as the actual concretion of the ideal. To both of them, the pure enrgeia of freedom, which starts in the abstract and aesthetical possibility of the subjective immediacy, realizes itself as the actual concretion of finitude, assuming time and contingency by the eternal and necessary force of duty. The Kierkegaardian repetition is nothing but this powerful idea, mediating
5

Cabintoy, Being Brother-Brother-Being, Unpublished Thesis, OLAS, Q. C., SY-2010-2011, pp. 73, 121.

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the flux of finite differences in the eternal identity of subject. However, for Kierkegaard as well as for Hegel there is an absolute contradiction, which promotes the overcoming of ethics. This journal will contribute a lot to the concept of Kardia, which allows both a subjective and objective perspective, and that of kenotic hospitality as a philosophy of growth that enables the researcher to deconstruct Cartesian philosophy (metaphysics). G. Thesis Schema Chapter I is the over-all plan which provides general information on the nature, purpose, form, content and main divisions of the discussions found in this thesis. Chapter II will provide a concise presentation of the Derridas life, works, and philosophy. The presentation of the Derridas notion of the hospitality as a guest-host framework and the researchers negotiated metaphysical framework in Chapter III will consist of an exposition of (a) the other understanding together with Derridas original position on hospitality, as well as (b) the conceptual basis and framework of this thesis which will briefly explain Derridas primary principle in deconstruction including the presentation of the proposed Metaphysics of the Self that highlights the Kardia. Chapter IV entitled The Attempt at Deconstruction essentially contains three (3) major analytical movements/divisions as proposals in deconstruction: (1) It starts with the initial attempt to deconstruct perfect joy as an object of the Subjects consciousness under the proposed Metaphysics of the Self. The researcher will also try to trace the originary philosophical concept of happiness including its paradoxes in life during the conduct of the brief survey. (2) This is followed by a Synthesis of Eastern and Western Thoughts on Happiness which contains the proposed philosophy of growth describing the path of Perfect Joy as a way of life that would eventually produce the notion of Kenotic Hospitality. (3) The concluding analysis of this Chapter is the attempt to justify Kenotic Hospitality qua The Way of Perfect Joy as the enhanced notion of unconditional welcoming and suggested as the best secular expression of a non-exclusionary all-embracing alterity subject to all. This chapter also traces the etymology of the word kenosis including their radical religious and philosophical applications by Lucien Richard, Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo. In the process, a non-religious ethical notion of sacrifice based on love is cultivated in this research to become the cornerstone of a kenotic perspective. The term pruning is also introduced in lieu of the over-used concepts of selfrenunciation and detachment which, in a more refreshing way, readily justifies a positive reception by the mature kenotic Subject towards the notion and praxis of sacrifice even unto death. A Prologue to the Chapter is added to highlight researchers evaluation on the supposed merits of Kenotic Hospitality. Chapter V is the summary and conclusion which will try to bring out the philosophical significance of the researchers findings.

CHAPTER II JACQUES DERRIDA (1930-2004)

A. Brief Biographical Sketch

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One of the most prolific and creative twentieth century philosophers who developed a strategy called deconstruction was born of an assimilated French speaking Sephardic Jewish family in Algeria on July 15, 1930. He was reared in an environment of anti-semitism and transferred from one school to another because of this discriminatory practice. He immigrated to France to study philosophy in 1950 where he became a great and early admirer of James Joyce. Joyce violated the protocols of received academic discourse, a transgression that even the Marxists had avoided. Derridas work on phenomenology at the cole Normale Suprieure earned for him a scholarship to Harvard in 1956-57.6 From 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy and logic at the Sorbonne before eventually returning to the cole Normale Suprieure to teach the history of philosophy until 1984. Since the mid-1970s, Derrida spent a significant portion of his time teaching and lecturing abroad, particularly in the United States, where he has held visiting professorship at such universities as Yale, Cornell, and, more recently, at the University of California, Irvine, where he was a professor of humanities.7 In 1984, he became a director of studies at the cole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.8 He died on October 8, 2004. In the last fifteen years of his life, Derrida would start talking about religion, telling us about his "religion (without religion)," about his "prayers and tears," and about the Messiah. He would even write a kind of Jewish Confession called "Circumfession" - a haunting and enigmatic journal he kept while his beloved mother lay dying in Nice, a diary cum dialogue with St. Augustine, his equally weepy compatriot. His critics failed to see that deconstructing this, that and everything in the name of the undeconstructible is a lot like what religious people, especially Jews, would call the "critique of idols." Deconstruction is satisfied with nothing because it is waiting for the Messiah which Derrida translated into the philosophical figure of the "to come" ( venir): the very figure of the future (lavenir), of hope, and expectation. Deconstruction's meditation on the contingency of our beliefs and practiceson democracy, for exampleis made in the name of a promise in the sense that it is a democracy "to come" for which every existing democracy is a but a faint predecessor state. This religious turn made many people nervous and uncomfortable but giving comfort is not what deconstruction was sent into the world to do.
When asked why he does not say "I am" an atheist (je suis, c'est moi), he said it was because he did not know if he were, believing that he lacks the absolute authority of an authorial "I" to still his inner conflict. So the best he can do is to rightly pass for this or that and he is very sorry that he cannot do better.9

Derrida exposes us to the "secret" that there is no "Secret," no Big Capitalized Secret to which we have been wired up by scientific reason, by poetic or religious revelation, or by political persuasion. The secret that is no secret is: We do not in some deep way know who we are or what the world is.
On Derrida's terms, we do not know the name of what we desire with a desire beyond desire. That means leading a just life comes down to coping with such non-knowing, negotiating among the several competing names that fluctuate undecidably before us, each pretending to name what we are praying for.10 B. Intellectual Influences

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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (trans.), Of Grammatology, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, USA, 1994. p. ix Matthew Calarco and Peter Atterton (eds.), The Continental Ethics Reader, Routledge, NY, 2003, p. 207 8 Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Derrida, Totem Books, USA, 1997, p. 13. 9 John Caputo, News Focus: Obituary: Frere Jacques, Third Way, Dec.32 2004 Vol. 27, No. 10, pp. 8-9. 10 John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Internet (11/19/11/ 11: 10 am): http://www.crosscurrents.org/caputo200506.htm

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Derrida was twice refused in the prestigious cole Normale Suprieure in Paris but he was eventually accepted to the institution at the age of 19. Hence he moved from Algiers to France, and soon after he also began to play a major role in the leftist journal - in the sixties he was among the young intellectuals writing for the avant-garde journal Tel Quel.11 His initial work in philosophy was done largely through the lens of Husserl. Other important inspirations on his early thoughts include Nietzsche, Heidegger, Saussure, Levinas and Freud. Derrida acknowledges his indebtedness to all of these thinkers in the development of his approach to texts, which has come to be known as deconstruction.12 Deconstruction has had an enormous influence in psychology, literary theory, cultural studies, linguistics, feminism, sociology and anthropology. Poised in the interstices between philosophy and non-philosophy (or philosophy and literature), it is not difficult to see why this is the case.13

C. Major Works It was in 1967 that the founder of deconstruction really arrived as a philosopher of world importance. He published three momentous texts: (1) Of Grammatology, 2) Writing and Difference, and (3) Speech and Phenomena. All of these works have been influential for different reasons, but it is Of Grammatology that remains his most famous work. In Of Grammatology, Derrida reveals and then undermines the speech-writing opposition that he argues has been such an influential factor in Western thought. 14 His preoccupation with language in this text is typical of much of his early work, and since the publication of these and other major texts (including Dissemination, Glas, The Postcard, Spectres of Marx, The Gift of Death, and Politics of Friendship). He has also had lecturing positions at various universities the world over.15 D. Derridas Deconstructive Philosophy
Theut offered writing as a pharmakon a remedy for deficient memory and limited wisdom. Thamus, the god of gods, will have to decide. Derrida wants the great issue to continue to be taken up today: Derrida wants to keep it (the pros and cons) in play.16

Deconstruction is a philosophical language using a strange tongue (Is. 28:9-12; 1Cor. 14:21). Derrida developed a strategy called deconstruction in the mid 1960s distancing himself from the philosophical movements and traditions that preceded him on the French intellectual scene (phenomenology, existentialism, and structuralism).17 For Derrida, our traditional ways of thinking and perceiving the world (together with their hierarchies and classifications) may still be rationally reconfigured by way of deconstruction. There are many different terms that Derrida employs to describe what he considers to be the fundamental way(s) of thinking of the Western philosophical tradition. These include: logocentrism, phallogocentrism, and perhaps most famously, the metaphysics of presence, but also often simply metaphysics.18 These terms all
11 12

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (trans.), Of Grammatology, p. ix Jacques Derrida, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am): http://www.iep.utm.edu/derrida 13 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am): 14 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (trans.), Of Grammatology, pp.15859, 163. 15 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am): 16 Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Derrida, pp. 25-32 17 T. Z. Lavine and V. Tejera (eds.), History and Anti-History in Philosophy, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Netherland, 1989, p. 99. 18 George De Schrijver, The Political Ethics of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jacques Derrida, Uitgeverij Peeters, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, 2010, pp. 176,177,223

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have slightly different meanings:19 All of these terms of denigration, however, are united under the broad rubric of the term metaphysics.20 In an interview in 1981 Derrida explains: "deconstruction is always deeply concerned with the "other of language. The critique of logocentrism is above all else the sear ch for the other and the other of language. The fundamental tendencies within Western thought, logocentrism: the belief in the existence of a permanent truth; egocentrism: the belief in a permanent self; phonocentrism: the priority of sound over the written word; phallogocentrism: the dominance of the male over the female paradigm; ethnocentrism: the superiority of one culture and intellectual traditions over others are the targets of Derrida's deconstruction. Deconstruction therefore is primarily concerned with something tantamount to a critique of the Western philosophical tradition. In fact, deconstruction releases us from the ossification of thought involved in thinking that a favored conceptual scheme is privileged over others.21
Deconstruction is generally presented via an analysis of specific texts. Deconstruction seeks to re-think at least two aspects/objects: (a) literary and (b) philosophical. The literary aspect concerns the textual interpretation, where invention is essential to finding hidden alternative meanings in the text; while the philosophical aspect is the main target the metaphysics of presence, or simply metaphysics.22 More importantly, deconstruction works towards preventing the worst violence. Indeed, deconstruction is a relentless pursuit of justice:23 deconstruction is justice (Force of Law).24 Deconstruction, as the practice of respecting alterity, both begins and ends with justice. 25 Thus, deconstruction has been, at root, ethical-concerned for the paradigmatic marginalized described by the Old Testament: "the widow, the orphan, and the stranger." Deconstruction's recognition that everything is interpretation opens a space of questioning; a space to call into question the received and dominant interpretations that often claim not to be interpretations at all. As such, deconstruction is interested in interpretations that have been marginalized and sidelined, activating voices that have been silenced. This is the constructive, prophetic, aspect of Derrida's deconstruction: a concern for justice by being concerned about dominant, status quo interpretations that silence those who see differently. Forgiveness, tolerance, death, hospitality, justice are key areas discussed by Derrida in his writings which make it clear that Derrida is concerned about ethics. He has even dedicated his works like Of Hospitality, Politics of Friendship to ethical dialogues.26 Hence the philosophy of deconstruction is not aimed at destruction or annihilation or anything negative rather it engages decentering. In fact it encourages reconstruction but "How could you reconstruct anything without deconstruction?" All that deconstruction aims at is to celebrate the

19 20

T. Z. Lavine and V. Tejera (eds.), History and Anti-History in Philosophy, p. 119. Affirmez la survie: Deconstructive Strategy. Internet (10/11/11/ 4:00 pm): http://derridaworks.blogspot.com/2007/08/deconstructive-strategy.html 21 Deconstruction and the Other, Interview with Richard Kearney, in Kearne y, Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1984, p.123 22 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am): 23 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am): 24 Chantal Mouffe (ed.), Deconstruction and Pragmatism, Routledge, New York, 1996 p. 34 25 Diane Moira Duncan, The Pre-Text of Ethics: On Derrida and Levinas, Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, 2001, p.138. 26 Jack Reynolds, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity. Internet(11/25/11/12:30pm): http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24867-merleau-ponty-and-derrida-intertwining-embodiment-and-alterity/

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pluralities, differences. Derrida is not against ethics but that of a categorical framing of ethical principles.27 E. Other Related Terms and Concepts

1. Differance
My aim is not to justify the invention of this word but to intensify its play. Everything is strategic, and adventurous. For these reasons, there is nowhere to begin. 28

Derrida first used the term diffrance in his 1963 paper "Cogito et histoire de la folie." This French term coined by Derrida plays on the fact that that the French word differer means both "to defer" and "to differ."29 (1) TO DEFER, meaning is forever "deferred" or postponed through an endless chain of signifiers. (2) TO DIFFER (relating to difference, sometimes referred to as espacement or "spacing") concerns the force which differentiates elements from one another and, in so doing, engenders binary oppositions and hierarchies which underpin meaning itself.30 The verb differer has a play of both space and time: (1) things differ spat ially; (2) putting something off is temporal.31 In short, differance refers to deconstructions playing field, the creative space, which opens up possibilities to invent or discover the other interpretations in a network of relationships between the specific text and their meanings. It is because of diffrance that meaning is possible. Regarding this field of tensions, it should be remembered that deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to neutralization: deconstruction must practice an overturning of the classical opposition, and a general displacement of the system by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing/double reading.32 It is here where Derrida tries to show that the meaning of the concept is fluid by reversing the dichotomies and arbitrary categories to create an ambiguity/contradiction (paradoxes/undecidability). It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of oppositions it criticizes. Since its indeconstructability is not due to the metaphysics of presence, it must emerge in the very spacing of what can be deconstructed. In this spacing, theologians and philosophers find themselves searching for answers to questions that have not been appropriately articulated. 2. Undecidability/Aporia Derrida has a recurring tendency to resuscitate terms in different contexts, and has recently become more and more preoccupied with what has come to be termed as possible-impossible aporias. Aporia was originally a Greek term meaning puzzle, but it has come to mean something more like an impasse or paradox. In his recent work, Derrida often insists that the condition of the possibility (of mourning, giving, forgiving, and hospitality, to cite some of his most famous examples) is at once also the condition of their impossibility. In his explorations of these poss ibleimpossible aporias, it becomes undecidable whether genuine giving, for example, is either a possible or an impossible ideal.33 In an interview by Richard Kearney on Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility, Derrida said: Ethics and politics start with undecidability:
27

Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (eds.), Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, Routledge, USA, 1999, p.77 28 Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Derrida, p.77 29 George De Schrijver, The Political Ethics of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jacques Derrida, p.270. 30 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am): 31 Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Derrida, p.75 32 Joshua Kates, The Voice that Keeps Reading: Evans Strategies of Deconstruction, in Philosophy Today, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1993, p. 321. 33 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am):

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If we know what to do, then there would be no problem, the decision would not be a decision but would simply be the application of rule. A decision has to go through undecidability and make a leap beyond the field of theoretical knowledge. So when I say I dont know what to do, this is not the negative condition of decision. It is rather the possibility of decision.34

2.1. Justice For Derrida, justice is outside or beyond the law, as it were, for law is a construct,35 and undeconstructible justice is necessarily not contained by the constructs of the law. True justice is not calculable, not a matter of economics or an algorithm: Law is not justice. Law is the element of calculation, and it is just that there be law, but justice is incalculable, it requires us to calculate with the incalculable; and aporetic experiences are the experiences, as improbable as they are necessary, of justice, that is to say of moments in which the decision between just and unjust is never insured by rule.36
It is precisely through this calculating with the incalculable that we approach justice; our decisions and experiences, by grappling with the incalculable or aporetic. Derrida writes that the experience of impossibility, of undecidability, provides the moment for belief, a moment of utter tension when there are both the room and the call for something as immeasurable as justice. The undecidable nature of the situation calls for an increase in responsibility in order to be just.37 Since, on the one hand, justice can only appear in the world through the practice of law, and, on the other, law can never satisfactorily fulfill the call to justice, law as it is practiced is both the only way in which justice can become real, and simultaneously the clearest indication of the impossibility of complete justice. Law both exhibits and undermines justice at one and the same time.38

2.2. Mourning For The Other (Honoring the Other) Derrida claims that responsibility for the other consists in respect for the Other and considers two (2) models of encroachment between self and other that is regularly associated with mourning: Derrida first points out the difference then shows the aporia involving introjection (love for the other in me) and incorporation (involves retaining the other as a pocket, or a foreign body within ones own body).39 In Memoires: for Paul de Man, Derrida also problematizes this success fails, failure succeeds formulation: Adhering to a paradoxical logic, he suggested that the so-called successful mourning of the deceased other actually fails or at least is an unfaithful fidelity because the other person becomes a part of us, and in this interiorization their genuine alterity is no longer respected. On the other hand, failure to mourn the others death paradoxically appears to succeed, because the presence of the other person in their exteriority is prolonged. There is an aborted interiorization at the
34

Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (eds.), Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogic with Jacques Derrida in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, Routledge, USA, 1999, p. 66. 35 Diane Moira Duncan, The Pre-Text of Ethics: On Derrida and Levinas, p.139. 36 John D. Caputo (trans.), Deconstruction in Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., New York, 1997, p. 16. 37 Lori Branch, The Desert in the Desert: Faith and the Aporias of Law and Knowledge in Derrida and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, December 2003, Vol. 71, No. 4, pp. 818819. 38 Dr. M. Susithra, Ethical Dilemmas in Postmodernism. Internet (12/26/11/7:17pm): http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/ethical-dilemmas-in-postmodernism-2259341.html 39 Johnson (trans.), Fors: The Anglish Words of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok , University of Minnesota Press, 1986, p. xvii.

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same time a respect for the other as other; hence, the possibility of an impossible bereavement, where the only possible way to mourn, is to be unable to do so.40 In Spectres of Marx, Derrida tells us how we should remember and mourn for the death of Marx and Marxism - the Marxist dogma machine. In other words, what we should choose to inherit from Marx. 2.3. The Gift of Death41 (The Boundless Parameter of Sacrifice)
Everyone is more or less afraid of the truth; and this is being human, for the truth is relating to being spirit - and this is very hard for flesh and blood. Between a human being and the truth lies dying to the world - this, you see, is why we are all more or less afraid. 42

The Gift underlies our more basic nature. It eludes all categorization while at the same time provides a meta-context within which all human philosophy and religion (erroneous or otherwise) takes place. For the deconstructionist, the Gift is that boundless parameter within which all deconstruction takes place and progresses. Deconstructionist discussions have revolved around the Gift and it's implications toward political, philosophical, ethical and religious tradition. Derrida also examines Heidegger and Levinas' claim that giving one's life for the other is the purest demonstration of individuality, an act requiring complete autonomy and which no other can accomplish in one's stead: One cannot give one's life to replace other's death, since one's sacrifice cannot exempt the other from his or her own eventual death. What is given "is not some thing, but goodness itself, a giving goodness, the act of giving or the donation of the gift - a goodness that must not only forget itself but whose source remains inaccessible to the done. Derrida's aim is to establish the priority of self sacrifice as grounded not upon utilitarian grounds but upon its status as radically individualistic gift. This makes the gift of death not only a priority in relation to the individual's response to the mysterium but now also to responsibility toward mortal others. In either case it requires the individual to face the dread on losing oneself completely without assurance of recompense. Derrida seeks to demonstrate that whereas responsibility and sacrifice ultimately transcend traditional ethics and morality, such responsibility causes one to tremble ( tremendum) in that it alludes to an unpredictable future. Here Derrida turns to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling as an exposition of such dread in the face of the unknown. 2.4.The Messianic Wholly Other Deconstructionism aims to slowly encompass and transform an ever greater spectrum of concepts central to the traditionally onto-theological worldview.
Messianism refers predominantly to the religions of the Messiahs (the Muslim, Judaic and Christian religions)... male sexuality might seem to be a strange prerequisite but it is only one of many. The messianic depends upon the various messianisms and Derrida admits that he cannot say which the more originary is.

For Derrida, the messianism of Abraham in his singular responsibility before God reveals the messianic structure of existence since we all share a similar relationship to alterity even if we have not named and circumscribed that experience according to the template provided by a particular religion. However, Derridas call/invocation for the wholly other to come, is not a call for a fixed
40

Lindsay, Culler, Cadava and Kamuf (trans.), Memoires: For Paul de Man (The Wellek Library Lectures), Columbia University Press, NY, 1989, pp. 6, 35. 41 David Wills (trans.),The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret, Univ. of Chicago, 2nd ed., USA, 2008. 42 Alastair Hannay (trans.) Sren Kierkegaard: Papers and Journals (A Selection), Penguin Books, England, 1996, p.614.

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or identifiable other of known characteristics, as understood in the average religious experience. His wholly other is indeterminable and can never actually arrive. Derrida recounts a story of Maurice Blanchots where the Messiah was actually at the gates to a city, disguised in rags. After some time, the Messiah was finally recognized by a beggar, but the beggar could think of nothing more relevant to ask than: when will you come? Even when the Messiah is there, he or she must still be yet to come, and this brings us back to the distinction between the messianic and the various historical messianisms. The messianic structure of existence is open to the coming of an entirely ungraspable and unknown other. Derrida does not mean waiting for a future that will one day become present but openness towards an unknown futurity that is necessarily involved in what we take to be presence and hence also renders it impossible.43 2.5. Politics Of Friendship (The Democracy To Come) For Aristotle, there are three kinds of friendship: those founded (1) on virtue ( family or primary friendship par excellence); (2) on usefulness (political friendship), and (3) on pleasure. The 2nd type of friendship has something troubling about it for the very order of this conceptuality as a whole. This type also has the traits of the 1st kind of friendship: (a) it constitutes a community (koinonia), and (2) it features justice (law). Friendship par excellence can only be human but above all there is thought for man only to the extent that it is thought of the other and the thought of the other qua mortal.
Translated into the language of the human and finite cogito: I think, therefore, I am the other; I think, therefore, I need the other (in order to think); I think therefore the possibility of friendship is lodged in the movement of my thought in so far as it demands, calls for, desires the other, the necessity of the other, the cause of the other at the heart of the cogito. But all thought does not necessarily translate into the logic of the cogito.

Derrida observers that the great ethico-politico-philosophical discourses were dominated and undermined by double exclusions especially in democracy where the brother (fraternity) relation prevails over the name of the father: (1) the exclusion of friendship between women and (2) the exclusion of friendship between a man and a woman. But even if all friendship is in some respect political, there is only one kind of friendship. The question What is friendship? but also Who is the friend (both or either sex)? is nothing but the question What is philosophy? When men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality (Aristotle).
Is this incommensurable friendship, this friendship we are attempting to separate from the classical notions of fraternity? Is it still a fraternity a fraternity ranging infinitely beyond all literal figures of the brother, a fraternity that would no longer exclude anyone? It will be more than a nation, it will be a civilization, and it will be a family. When will we be ready for an experience of freedom and equality that is capable of respectfully experiencing that friendship, which would at last be just, just beyond the law, and measureless up against its measurelessness?44

CHAPTER III
43 44

Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am) George Collins (trans.), The Politics of Friendship, Verso, London, 2005, pp. 200-203, 224, 240, 251, 265-266, 278, 306.

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HOSPITALITY AND THE METAPHYSICAL FRAMEWORK A. The Notion of Hospitality 1. The Other Understanding of Hospitality (Different Presentations) The contemporary usage of the word, Hospitality, seems to have lost all its depth. Hospitality as an observed phenomenon around the globe means merely what hotels and restaurants do nowadays. 45 In the Philippines, Filipinos celebrate hospitality as a way of life. In fact it has become an important trait which had been highlighted at the helm of a vigorous tourism program on the part of government. Filipinos also celebrate their fiestas to showcase their unique brand of hospitality. The culture of hospitality in the country has evolved into an extravagant barrio-fiesta bonanza of lavish meals and beverages plus entertainment galore and pageantry. In the old Philippine tradition, hospitality welcomes "the stranger" as one worthy of being considered a household member, marking a willingness to make room for another's unique presence. 1.1. Etymology and the Paradox of Hospitality Hospitality is derived from the Latin word hospes (meaning both guest and host)46 which in turn is formed from two words: hostis which originally meant guest, stranger, foreigner, and later morphed through French into the English word host, (meaning a large body of warlike individuals or army, which eventually came to mean hostile foreigner or enemy) and pets (meaning to have power). So the literal meaning of hospes is lord of strangers. Being a host means having power over guests.
Strangers were at once volatile and attractive. This ambiguity was reflected in the seemingly opposite terms surrounding relations with strangers: hostes, meaning both host and enemy; hostis, with roots in words suggesting both enemy and guest.47

The trunk of hospitem, which literally means lord of strangers shifted through Old French and New French while losing the h and the em, then picked up the h again on reentry into Modern English to hospital, and eventually gives us host, meaning someone who receives guests (guest is from the Germanic side), and also originally meant both host and guest and stranger and enemy). And finally, hostia meant victim or sacrifice and in Late Latin and French became a technical ecclesial term for the Body of Christ served during the Eucharist: the Host.48

1.2. Greek Mythology: Odysseus and Cyclops In the Iliad and the Odyssey, the practice of hospitality can be perceived as a cardinal virtue among their characters. 49 Odysseus, the great wanderer is himself praised for his exemplary hosting. In both epics, the gods themselves sometimes put on human disguises and assume the role of guests who would later give them good news or extraordinary gifts. Thus, hospitality implies their reverence and respect for the gods that creates a readiness for reciprocal relationships with strangers. Those who do not attain such openness are considered barbarians. A single act of welcoming usually by means of a meal can result in a bond of friendship that lasts
45

Tobias Jones, Open-door Policy. Internet (12/10/11/ 1:00 pm): http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/13/tobias-jones-life-ordinary-hospitality. 46 Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion (Vol. 6), Macmillan Publishing Co.,N.Y.,1987, p.470. 47 Babak Amouoghli, A Tale of Hospitality and Hostility. Internet(12/10/11/ 1:43 pm): http://www.philosophynow.org/issue84/Cache_Hidden 48 For the Love of Words: A [Guest] Sabbath Meditation on Hospitality. Internet (12/10/11/ 1:43 pm): http://schmexas.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/for-the-love-of-words-a-guest-sabbath-meditation-on-hospitality/ 49 N.S. Gill, Odysseus the Stranger: The Worlds of Homer and Odysseus. Internet (12/10/11/ 2:00 pm): http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/homerodyssey/a/OdysseusStrange.htmhttp://ancienthistory.about.com/od/home rodyssey/a/OdysseusStrange.htm

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for generations.50 Hospitality had rules and the most infamous breakers are the suitors of Penelope, the wife of Odysseus (Ulysses). Odysseus as a philosophical hero is hailed as model of tough friendship (that is, true friendship) by Philodemus, Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre. The unwillingness of Odysseus to accept received opinion at face value plus his creativity and the intelligent originality of his method makes him a moral reformer in a world marred by preconceptions. His unconventional behavior puts our conventional judgments to the question.51 Although he was clever and cunning, he used his craftiness in the pursuit of heroic deeds and never for selfish reasons. The hospitality story of Odysseus and Cyclops is all about meals and strangers, or rather strangers as meals. In this traveler tale, Odysseus visits the cave of the Cyclops as an experiment to test their custom if he could avail the gift of hospitality which by tradition was intended for strangers. The experiment failed. The golden-tongued Greek was not able to charm the giant, Polyphemus (son of Neptune) who refused to honor the custom of hospitality and instead ate some of the travelers crew. Odysseus did not know that the Cyclops had another custom; the giants were practitioners of cannibalism. The escape of Odysseus comes only after managing a two-stage diversionary trick. Odysseus managed to escape, first, by blinding the giant and next by inventing the name nobody which served a double meaning. Odysseus and the remainder of his crew made their escape underneath sheepskins in order not to attract the neighboring Cyclops. When Polyphemus tried to alert his neighbors for help he shouted: Nobody has blinded me. However, the other giants could not make any sense out of what he was saying. 52 2. The Derridean Concept Of Hospitality: The Guest-Host Framework
Hospitality is a very general name for all our relations to the other.

The advent of the stranger, as Dillon states, is fundamentally deconstructive. It always brings to presence the strangeness, heterogeneity, and supplementariety of the human way of being as such, and thereby, also, the political challenge human being faces to address that strangeness in survivable and hospitable ways.53 The relativity of the stranger exists because the stranger is a concept without a counter-concept: the category of the stranger is the counterconcept (or contrary concept) to all concepts of social order. And this, exactly, is the promise of the stranger. Hospitality is a contradictory concept and experience in itself that is possible only on the condition of its impossibility, producing itself as impossible, which is the condition of its possibility. The stranger is not necessarily an other although he/she could easily become one. The whole point of trying to advance a notion of hospitality is to welcome the stranger rather than rendering him/her as the other. It refers to solidarity of strangers in that every act of engagement is a form of solidarity.
It is aimed at pointing to the perils of closure, at the prevention of closing spaces to the stranger, othering him/her. It is a notion aimed at encouraging engagement with the stranger without losing the spaces for alterity on both sides. The notion of hospitality allows the guest to remain a stranger instead of becoming another (on one extreme), or of being assimilated (on the other).54 (Incorporation and Introjection in Mourning/Honoring)

50 51

Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, p. 471. Silvia Montiglio, From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought, University of Michigan, USA, 2001, pp.1821 52 The Value of Hospitality. Internet (12/13/11/9:30 am): http://www1.union.edu/wareht/gkcultur/guide/8/web1.html 53 Mustafa Dike, Pera Peras Poros: Longings for Spaces of Hospitality. Internet (12/12/11/2:14 pm): http://www.uvm.edu/~jwaldron/Theory,%20Culture%20and%20Society/12dikec.pdf 54 Mustafa Dikec, Pera Peras Poros: Longings for Spaces of Hospitality. Internet (12/12/11/2:14 pm):

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Derrida argues in Of Hospitality that hospitality is an aporia, a possible impossibility. He makes a distinction between two forms of hospitality: conditional and unconditional. Thus, Derrida explains the difference between the laws (plural) of hospitality and the law of unlimited hospitality: 2.1. The Laws of Hospitality (Conditional Hospitality) For a country to be hospitable towards immigrants, for example, we need guidelines, an immigration process, rights and duties, etc. For that, we need means of identification, such as a birth certificate or other papers. These conditions are synonymous with having the power to control guests. However, as we move further in the direction of conditions, we get further from hospitality. Derrida says that hostility is one of the many ways to regulate an undesirable foreigner. According to Derrida, anyone who encroaches on my home, on my ipseity [selfhood], on my power of hospitality, on my sovereignty as host, I start to regard as an undesirable foreigner, and virtually as an enemy. The irony is that this hostility towards the undesirable foreigner was triggered by the desire to protect what gives one the possibility to ho st. Derrida also talks of this desire: I want to be master at home, head of house, to be able to receive whomever I like there. 55 Derrida further explains that we will regard as a hostile subject anyone who invades and threatens our mastery at home, and we risk becoming their hostage.56 His point is relatively simple; to be hospitable, it is first necessary that one must have the power to host. Hospitality hence makes claims to property ownership and it also partakes in the desire to establish a form of self-identity. Secondly, in order to be hospitable, the host must also have some kind of control over the people who are being hosted. If the guests take over a house through force, then the host is no longer being hospitable towards them precisely because they are no longer in control of the situation. Any attempt to behave hospitably is partly betrothed to the keeping of guests under control, to the closing of boundaries, to nationalism, and even to the exclusion of particular groups or ethnicities.57 2.2. The Law of Unlimited Hospitality (Alterity as Non-exclusionary Justice)
To give the new arrival all of ones home and oneself, to give him or her ones own, our own, without asking a name or compensation, or fulfillment of even the smallest condition. 58

I have to welcome the Other whoever he or she is unconditionally, without asking for a document, a name, a context, or a passport. That is the very first opening of my relation to the Other: to open my space, my home - my house, my language, my culture, my nation, my state, and myself. I don't have to open it, because it is open, it is open before I make a decision about it: then I have to keep it open or try to keep it open unconditionally. But of course this unconditionality is a frightening thing, it's scary. This entering my space unconditionally may well be able to displace everything in my space, to upset, to undermine, to even destroy, then the worst may happen and I am open to this, the best and the worst. Since this unconditional hospitality may lead to a perversion of this ethics of friendship, we have to condition this unconditionality, to negotiate the relation between this unconditional injunction and the necessary condition, to organize this hospitality, which means laws, rights,
55

Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/ Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond , Stanford University Press, USA, 2001, p. 53. 56 Babak AmouOghli, A Tale of Hospitality and Hostility. Internet(12/10/11/ 1:43 pm ): 57 Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond, pp. 151-5. 58 Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/ Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond , p. 77.

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conventions, borders of course, laws on immigration and so on and so forth. If we contemplate giving up everything that we seek to possess and call our own, then most of us can empathize with just how difficult enacting any absolute hospitality would be. Despite this, however, Derrida insists that the whole idea of hospitality depends upon such an altruistic concept and is inconceivable without it. In fact, it is this internal tension that keeps the concept alive.59
Alterity is not only interruptive but constitutive as well. Hospitality is also about recognition that we are hosts and guests at the same time in multiple and shifting ways. Hospitality, in this sense, is a refusal to conceive the host and the guest as pre-constituted identities. It is about the recognition that they are mutually constitutive of each other, and thus, relational and shifting as all identities are.60

The following is a condensed excerpt from one of the interviews with Derrida61 which shows how hospitality is connected with his political ethics as a deconstructive philosophy and why it should prompt us to begin our own deconstructive work and re-think our identity: We all have, especially in Europe, this problem of immigration, to what extent we should welcome the Other in order to think of a new politics of hospitality, a new relationship to citizenship - a New International in Spectres of Marx beyond the concept of the cosmopolitical, more than citizenship, beyond the classical concept of democracy. Democracy should not be limited by the classical concept of citizenship by the concept of border and immigration. There is an urgent task to re-elaborate, to re-think, to re-engage and to be committed differently with these issues. Hospitality should be neither assimilation, acculturation, nor simply the occupation of my space by the Other. That is why it has to be negotiated at every instant, invented at every second with all the risks involved, without a pre-given rule. People try to have us swallow the idea that globalization means the free market, or that the concentration of tele-technological communications beyond the States is what makes globalization possible, and what should be supported or simply accepted. The transformation of international law implies a transformation of the global market, and you cannot touch the global market without touching capitalism. It is because of new developments of capitalism that everything is shaken. In this field of concrete and urgent questions, we have to do both, to speak and to act. Democracy means, minimally, equality - and here you see why friendship is an important key, because in friendship, even in classical friendship, what is involved is reciprocity, equality, symmetry, and so on and so forth. There is no democracy except as equality among everyone. When Derrida was asked: Do you think that there is this interplay of the Other and yourself in this friendship so that you are in some ways the Other and that the Other is in you? Jacques Derrida answered in the affirmative. However he warns that it complicates the issue, because the Other is not simply the Other as coming from the outside so to speak. One is the one, I am the one, one is more or less the one and everyone is more or less the one and more or less one with him or herself, which means that the Other is already inside, and has to be sheltered and welcomed in a certain way. We also have to negotiate the hospitality within ourselves - to this one in ourselves, to this image that might exclude this other one or be allergic to this other one. We know that someone who does not negotiate this hospitality in him or herself in a certain way cannot be hospitable to the Other, that is what the Greeks taught us. That you have to solve the problem within yourself, and it is already a society, a multiplicity of heterogeneous singularities, to be really smiling
59 60

Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am) Mustafa Dikec, Pera Peras Poros: Longings for Spaces of Hospitality . Internet (12/12/11/2:14 pm): 61 Geoffrey Bennington, Politics and Friendship: A Discussion with Jacques Derrida . Internet (1 December 1997): http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/pol+fr.html

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to the Other. If you are at war with yourself you may be allergic to the Other, that is what complicates the issue. (Emphasis supplied)

B. The Conceptual Basis and Framework 1. Nothing Outside the Text The Basis for (Re)-Interpretation Derridas deconstructionist philosophy somehow has been brought down supposedly to a single defining line: there is nothing outside the text.62 This is predicated upon the desire to expose us to that which is wholly other (tout autre) and to open us up to alternative possibilities."There is nothing but context"63 and "No meaning can be determined out of context, but no context permits saturation."64 What he is actually saying is that there is nothing outside of context.
Like a text or book which must be interpreted, we are actually actively interpreting all of reality. The very experience of the things themselves is a matter of interpretation: If everything is interpreted, then that implies that there are other interpretations of everything as well.

Derrida is always reluctant to impose my text, your text designations too conspicuously in his texts. This is partly because it is even problematic to speak of a work of deconstruction, since deconstruction only highlights what was already revealed in the text itself. His more violent and transgressive aspect of deconstruction is illustrated by Derridas consistent exhortation to invent in your own language if you can or want to hear mine; invent if you can or want to give my language to be understood.65 He is prone to making enigmatic suggestions like go there where you cannot go, to the impossible, it is indeed the only way of coming or going.66 His key terms are always changing, because depending upon who or what he is seeking to deconstruct, that point of equivocation will always be located in a different place.67

2. The Need to Negotiate A Desirable Unconditional Welcoming The researcher postulates that the praxis of Derridean hospitality is unacceptable and unsustainable on the basis of his circuitous explanation on responsibility alone. There must be something more than responsibility to propel us to give gratuitously because no person in his right senses would unconditionally welcome a stranger even at the least expected and most inconvenient time unless there is an inner driving force that motivates the host to open his doors and accommodate the stranger, otherwise it is not anymore freely done. His notion about responsibility is not enough to persuade and convince rational beings to freely adopt and practice this unconditional hospitality even in the political arena.
In fact, Peter Goldman, in his incisive comparative analysis of Derridas work with that of Czech Philosopher Jan Patocka, claimed that Derrida's analysis of responsibility in The Gift of Death is incoherent and marred by contradictions.68
62 63

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (trans.), Of Grammatology, p.158 Peggy Kamuf, (trans.), "Biodegradables: Seven Diary Fragments," in Critical Inquiry 15 (Summer 1989), p. 875. 64 James Hulbert (trans.),Living On in Harold Bloom et al., Deconstruction and Criticism, Seabury Press, New York 1979, p.81. 65 Patrick Mensah (trans.), Monolingualism of the Other or Prosthesis of Origin , Stanford University Press, California, 1998, p. 57. 66 David Wood, John P. Leavey and Ian McLeod (trans.), Thomas Dutoit (ed.), On The Name, Stanford University Press, California, 1995, p.75. 67 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am) 68 Peter Goldman, Christian Mystery and Responsibility, Gnosticism in Derrida's The Gift of Death. Internet (12/26/11/7:20 pm): http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0401/pg_DERR.htm

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Indeed, why should I wake up in the middle of the night just to accomm odate without any conditions a complete stranger who could just be a potential criminal and who could not only deprive me of everything I own, the hard-earned fruits of a lifetime, but also kill me, those who are dear to me and the rest of the household? What is the sense of taking all these risks? Why has it become my responsibility? And why should I betray myself? What is the point and where is the rationality in all this? Prior to the act of hospitality itself, the authentic Subject comes to a point of making a decision where the Subject is still free to take the risk or not. It is only then after deciding that the Subject begins to assume the responsibility. Prior to this decision, he is not obliged. In a hospitable world, one is free not to answer.69 This is well demonstrated by Derrida in his ethical deconstruction of the people of Sodom. The moment Lot welcomed the strangers he becomes totally responsible for his guests this hospitality includes protection from harms way, from being raped by the men of Sodom, even to the point of offering his own daughters in exchange for the dignity and honor of his guest who were about to be sexually molested.70 The researcher entertains the possibility that Derridas notion of unconditionality or atleast his explanations and justifications are incomplete and unsatisfactory. The researcher equally entertains the possibility that this Derridean kind of hospitality is hinged on a precondition and that it is inextricably connected to another ideal which should possibly serve as the appropriate or best possible motivation for humanity that might possibly enhance its ethical ground; hence, the need to go beyond the frontiers of hospitality to find out the truth behind the praxis of hospitality vis-a-vis the stranger. 3. The Metaphysics of the Self
We also have to negotiate and solve the problem of hospitality within ourselves

Re-interpretation is always a subjective activity which necessarily starts from selfconsciousness that would later on allow the Self to project outward as an enlargement of the Self. But this subjectivity does not prevent the Self from understanding objective values and principles in life. The quest for that radically other hidden meaning of the stranger in relation to unconditional hospitality would therefore have to begin within the consciousness of the authentic thinking self. The experience begins with the self and this could only require deep contemplation in order to draw a metaphysical conclusion how the praxis of hospitality could possibly be best conceived beginning with ones subjective experience with his/her own stranger from within. Thus, the original guest-host framework and experience has to be re-configured and transformed as a Metaphysics of the Self where the Self as the Host encounters his/her own Stranger as the Guest Within. Both share one and the same lodging/domicile and require space within the house of consciousness. The researcher therefore would like to verify through selftaste the epistemic claims on the mental phenomena of re-interpretation and express his findings this time by way of eclectic deconstruction.
In the Gift of Death, Derrida replaces the traditional notion of God with the incorporeal, radically individualistic element of personal existence, and in so doing likewise transfers the origin of

69

Gerald L. Bruns, Derridas Cat (Who Am I?), in Research in Phenomenology, Vol.38, Issue 2008, pp. 204-423 70 Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/ Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond , pp. 151-153

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responsibility from a dreadful encounter with the transcendent mysterium to an indiscernible (secret) encounter with the invisible within oneself.71

The Other is already inside, and has to be sheltered and welcomed in a certain way. We also have to negotiate the hospitality within ourselves - to this one in ourselves, to this image that might exclude this other one or be allergic to this other one. We know that someone who does not negotiate this hospitality in him or herself in a certain way cannot be hospitable to the Other, that is what the Greeks taught us, that you have to solve the problem within yourself, and it is already a society, a multiplicity of heterogeneous singularities, to be really smiling to the Other. If you are at war with yourself you may be allergic to the Other, that is what complicates the issue.72 Derridas obsession, in this philosophical narrative woven around that fine theme of hospitality, takes its time in drawing the contours of an impossible, illicit geography of proximity. A proximity that would not be the opposite of an elsewhere come from outside and surrounding it, but close to close, that unbearable orb of intimacy that melts into hate. If we can say that murder and hate designate everything that excludes closeness, it is insofar as they ravage from within an original relationship to alterity.73
Derrida's insistence on the conscience deriving from secret intimacies with the invisibility of one's own otherness leaves little basis from which one might argue for its binding relevance to behavior. At best, it seems, the conscience so defined might give rise to a mystical encounter with oneself.74

Socrates, the mystic philosopher, said that the secret to being wise was to realize that we really do not know much. Everybody wants to think that what they believe is right, and they cling to the beliefs that they are familiar with, even when they do not fully understand the issues. It takes a great deal of humility to admit the limits of ones knowledge.75

The authentic self needs to reflect to open its own eye of illumination in order to comprehend the truth behind the stranger vis--vis hospitality (or hospitality vis--vis the stranger). But in order to arrive at the best possible rational conception of hospitality, the researcher will have to use a certain degree of discrimination in the choosing the possible from the impossible or from the not yet possible or from the absent or what has not yet arrived. This is so because deconstruction makes appear an impossibility that becomes its proper and sole possibility.76 The researcher however admits that such interpretation will never be neutral (the eclectic basis) as in all theories offering new rational ways of interpreting reality in order to promote a new way of responding to life that would lead to a new way of living: change begins with the self - to change the world, this change must first begin with our selves.
Deep within us all, emergent when the noise of other appetites is stilled, there is a drive to know, to understand, to see why, to discover the reason, to find the cause, to explain, to know the unknown. It is our curiosity which motivates us to investigate and study. It can demand endless sacrifices that are made without regret though there is only the hope, never a certain promise of success. 77

71 72

David Wills (trans.), The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret, p. 109. Geoffrey Bennington, Politics and Friendship: A Discussion with Jacques Derrida. Internet (1 December 1997 or 08/08/11/ 10 am):http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/pol+fr.html 73 Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/ Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond , p. 4. 74 Scott David Foutz, Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death. Internet (01/14/12/7:38 pm): http://www.quodlibet.net/gift.shtml 75 Ancient Greek Philosophy in Shattering the Sacred Myths. Internet (12/26/11/7:20 pm): http://www.evolutionary-metaphysics.net/ancient_greek_philosophy.html 76 JacquesDerrida,Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,Internet (08/12/11/4:00 am): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/ 77 David Opderbeck, Lonergan on the Desire to Know, Through a Glass Darkly . Internet (09/28/11):

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All human being by nature desires to know. Both Nyayan and Vaishesikan philosophical traditions under Hinduism claim that the supreme good results from knowledge.78 According to Aristotle, the highest good for human being can be found in theoretical inquiry and in the contemplation of truth. This alone brings complete and continuous happiness because it is the activity of the highest part of the complex nature of human being.79 Thus, the researcher probes into the vastness of an unfathomable and infinite space we come to know as the realm of consciousness with the singular mission to possibly understand and unlock the unexplored portals of hospitality: What could be this satisfactory concept of rational hospitality for the Derridean stranger? What will make it desire-able? What is desire? 3.1. A Concise Survey of Desire To understand the force which moves rational human soul to action, the quest for motivation begins with Aristotles orexis. The Greek word orexis (, , ) means desire or longing, from Oregomai which stands for an excitement of the mind. Eventually in De Anima, Aristotle concludes that practical reason and desire act corporately as the sources of purposive motion (De Anima iii 10, 433a9-16), even though, ultimately, it is desire whose objects prick practical intellect and set it in motion (De Anima iii 10, 433a172).80According to Aristotle:
Orexis is a reaching out, or desire, which supplies the human being with a premise of the good (pp. 304, 306). This premise of the good comes by way of the uniquely human awareness of itself through an awareness of its object of desire. When applied to the emotional faculty, this intentional awareness that contains a view of its object ultimately culminates in a reflexive view of itself as triggered by thoughts of its object.

Despite his rigid hierarchies in the categories of knowledge and his consistent obsession with paradigms of intellection, Aristotle did accept modes of understanding other than formal logic. This is best evinced in his theory of emotions as outlined in his Rhetoric. According to this formula, emotion is a phenomenon that is linked to concrete human existence while at the same time being fundamentally involved with cognition.
Aristotle construed thought as a necessary condition of emotion. He showed that emotional response is intelligent behaviour based in human cognition. Secondly, his theory of the emotions is based upon the uniquely human irrational part of the soul, aware of its concrete existence. For him, emotion is uniquely complex that it is simultaneously linked to the concrete and the cognitive. Aristotles project reconciled the rational with the concrete.81

a. The Desire To Know Ones Self Knowing ones self then is the first step towards authenticity. In this inner world shared by the self and the stranger within, the raw encounters could be described as an annoying experience marred by ignorance and perplexities which often leads to contradictions, chaos, confusion, violence, fear, anxiety and enmity. At this point, the researcher appropriates Mahatma Gandhis philosophical view and interpretation of Arjunas attitude in Bhagavad Gita from Hindu philosophy. According to Gandhi
http://www.tgdarkly.com/blog/?p=2288 Sanderson Beck, Ethics of Hindu Philosophy. Internet (01/06/12/9:43 pm): http://san.beck.org/EC11-Hindu.html#1 79 Runes, Dictionary of Philosophy, Citadel Press, NY, 2001, p. 40. 80 Aristotles Psychology, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet (12/26/11/8:30 pm): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/ 81 Brian Ogren, Aristotles Rhetoric and the Cognition of Being: Human Emotions and the Rational-Irrational Dialectic. Internet (http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol8/aristotle.html
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the battlefield is the soul, while Arjuna represents human being's higher impulses struggling against evil. According to him, the text is not concerned with actual warfare so much as with the "battle that goes on within each individual heart"82 The encounter with the stranger within creates a dilemma and disturbs the status quo. Thus, in this metaphysics of the self, the arjunal self finally realizes that it would neither be ethical to disregard, to forget, nor to tame this stranger within: while it supposedly manifests symptoms of bestial tendencies, it is not a beast; it is simply the raw/unripe Other within. Rather than foisting a negative or indifferent attitude towards the guest from within, the self resolves this dilemma and negotiates by befriending the stranger; as a friend, the Self becomes the devoted good father-mother (the source) who will not feed its begotten child poison to eat; thus more aware and self-absorbed, through patience and fidelity (authenticity), the Self, thru a benevolent praxis of ascendancy, fosters an informed alliance and practices care to better understand the stranger that just grew from within. The stranger was begotten without the self having willed the affinity and procession thru a common umbilical line. The Other is already within the Self (akin to a thrown existence). If there is to be inner peace and harmony, the Other Within is to be understood, welcomed and sheltered as a practical response. Together, under the aegis of the host-self, they enter a firm partnership to brave the perils of the world; to find their rightful place under the sun; to discover the richer meaning of their shared destiny. One is the One! In the authentic subject, the experience culminates in a reflexive view of itself. The authentic subject is the one who desires to know ones self. The desire to know ones self gains access and space within when the Selfs present consciousness of the stranger is interrupted, suspended, and set aside as a certain kind of rupture through intentionality. The rupture provides the moratorium space to know ones self and eventually how to take care of ones self (constitutive). The researcher would like to demonstrate that the Delphic and Care dicta, together with their avowed goals of truth, wisdom, and perfection of the soul, reflect the initial signs of growth and progress in the long road to maturity in this quest for that best possible motivation behind hospitality (towards the font of and rationale behind hospitality). The edict of moratorium in turn summons the mind, the emotion, and the will to make a response to the oracle which puts into question the hostselfs dealing with his guest within: Is this the ethical way to treat your stranger-guest within? By what ethical principle should the relationship between the Host and Guest Within be governed? The silhouette stranger transmits a faint pranic/vital message (through the umbilical line, through the kindred arteries and veins of self-awareness) for care, for hospitality.

b. The Desire to Care for the Self Taking care of ones self is the first principle in Platonist philosophy. This means that knowledge of the self is only the consequence of caring for ones self.
In Plato's Apology, Socrates presents himself before his judges as a master of epimeleia heautou. You are not ashamed to care for the acquisition of wealth and for reputation and honor, he tells them, but you do not concern yourselves with yourselves, that is, with wisdom, truth and the perfection of the soul.83

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considers philia to be both necessary as a means to happiness and noble or fine in itself (1155a56). Aristotle describes philia as a form of love for another and explains that in order to feel the highest form of philia for another, one must feel it

82

Steven Rosen, Krishna's Song: A New Look at the Bhagavad Gita , Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., USA, 2007, p. 21. 83 L. H. Martin, Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self. Internet (12/23/11/ 11:20 pm): http://www.foucault.info/documents/foucault.technologiesOfSelf.en.html

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for oneself; the object of philia is, after all, "another oneself."84 Thus for Aristotle self-love is compatible with love of others (1168b1719, 1168b2527).
The good person must be a self-lover, since he will both help himself and benefit others by performing fine actions. But the vicious person must not love himself, since he will harm both himself and his neighbors by following his base feelings (1169a1215).85

Eight centuries later, one finds that Christian self-denial/asceticism, like ancient philosophy, places itself under the same sign of concern with oneself. The obligation to know the self is one of the elements of its central preoccupation.
Epicurus writes that it is never too early, never too late, to occupy oneself with one's soul. One should philosophize when one is young and also when one is old. It was a task to be carried on throughout life.

Michel Foucault interpreted care for self as a form of Technology of the Self, as a selfformation technique to refashion ones life like a Greek work of art the art of living. For him, this is a creative exercise of a positive form of power. After living a sexually active gay life which led to Aids, Foucault advised moderation and lived the remainder of his days cultivating friendship in the most meaningful way he could.86 From the foregoing texts, we recognize the notion that it is not selfish to focus on care and concern for self and is most often associated with some form of altruism. We also observe that care for self is connected with knowing ones self and involves the truth about ones self and the obligation to be honest with our selves. 3.2.On the Wings of Kardia (Consciousness & Inner Identity)
With all your mind, with all your heart, and with all your strength

In the attempt to fully comprehend the significance behind the twin axioms (knowing and caring for the self), the reflexive Self turns to Kardia a creature of deconstruction from the Hebraic traditions combined with a Hegelian-Kierkegaardian approach plus a touch of authenticity from Heidegger to help find the motivating force behind unconditional hospitality. Maung defends his metaphysics of the self: The ideas presented here have, perhaps, in one form or another and at some point of time, crossed the thoughts of many, for they are reflections on the very nature of our being. Having been left deeply unsatisfied with the attempted objectivation of a phenomenon that is irreducibly subjective, I leave here my own account of what is, to me, the necessary fact of my being. The mediations presented here are, I feel, what transcend the physical facts about the objective world, and are, therefore, independent from them. They cannot logically be refuted, nor can they undermine anything that our scientific enquiry is capable of providing us. Given the inaccessibility of my subjective self to others, one may treat my ideas as mystical speculations. Since they are reflections on the phenomenon that is my incontrovertible first-person existence, they are, to me, the absolute truth about my consciousness.87 In a moment of intense meditation, the self-absorbed Subject under this Metaphysics of the Self summons the mind, the emotions, and the will to cooperate in this newfound cognitive
84

Steven Luper-Foy and Curtis Brown, The Moral Life, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, USA, 1992, pp. 33-36. 85 Altruism and Egoism, Internet (01/15/12/ 1:03 pm): http://mydaysaway.blogspot.com/2010/08/altruism-andegoism.html 86 L. H. Martin, Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self. Internet (12/23/11/ 11:20 pm): 87 Hane Htut Maung, Consciousness: An Enquiry into the Metaphysics of the Self, Lulu Press, USA, 2006, p. 9.

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enterprise to ponder and find out what gives delight, what gives pleasure, what would motivate human being to practice unconditional welcoming, that would possibly help define a more satisfactory and more rational conception of unconditional hospitality, and thus also help discover the appropriate ethical response to strangers. In English, the term heart is seen as the seat of emotion or kindness (i.e. good-hearted, cold-hearted, soft-hearted, hard-hearted or broken-hearted). In Hebrew, the term "heart" has a broader meaning, going beyond the meaning held by Western culture, to include the thoughts and logic of a person. In contrast, English considers the term mind to represent the seat of thought. It is for this reason that there is no Hebrew term for the English word mind.
In the Old Testament, the word heart is always used figuratively; in fact it was mentioned over 800 times in the bible, but never referred to the physical pump that drives the blood in the body. The Hebrew people see the heart as the source of ones inner self, the seat of emotion, understanding, volitional will and conscience. Thus, the heart can think, understand and be intentional. Jewish thought understood that human nature had a complex and intertwined quality.88

The researcher proposes that Kardia represent the essence, the spirit, the substance, the very core of ones being: the central network, the processing center of the mind-will-emotion; the heart of the matter, and could also be the what is of ones inner identity. The Stranger may be viewed as a frequent visitor and stays in this lodge as a guest. The host-self or True Self may, in order to maintain/preserve its power to host negotiates just terms and conditions (based on Derridas non-exclusionary notion of justice). The host self is animated by genuine friendship par excellence (alterity) to define the extent/limits of hospitality during the strangers temporary occupancy of this lodge (Aristotles philia of the first kind: also described by Derrida as friendship within the family). The stranger-guest within is treated as a member of the family. Under this deconstructive approach, the Kardia would therefore mean many things other than the physical heart. In metaphysical terms, it is the incorporeal which is the consciousness itself that is associated with the mind, will, and feelings. Because of this association with the mind, the will and the emotion, the Kardia could also be understood as the causative, activating, or essential principle which animates the Self. It is the heart of the matter which includes the past and present thoughts and the logic or reasons. Kardia is the cause of the purposive activity: the activity of developing toward self-consciousness, freedom, truth, etc that generates comprehension. It is the conveyor and the vessel which bears the inputs that defines our thoughts, our feelings, our intentions and our drives which contribute to help define our personality. It is the what-is of our inner identity, the true self as it in fact is. The relating self is identified through its Kardia even as the Kardia provides the inner identity; hence, Kardia denotes the essential nature of the self and the very core of ones personality our Kardia tells us who we really are. The spirit penetrates/pierces through the Kardia to read the purity of our thoughts and intentions.
It would be a mistake to suppose that our present ideals, in which thinking is separated from feeling, are rooted once and for all in human nature; or even that the organization of our thinking is set for all time in the rational hemisphere of the brain.89

There will always be this self-interpretation (self-taste90) and this interpretation by the self of the objects of its thoughts. And no matter how it is interpreted (whether from an objective or
88

The Material Aspect of Humanity Heart and Mind. Internet (01/06/12/9:57 pm): http://helpmewithbiblestudy.org/7Humans/EssenceHeartMind.aspx 89 Suzi Gablik, The Re-enchantment of Art, Thames and Hudson Inc., USA, 1991, pp. 56-57. 90 Mark Ziomislic, Derridas turn to Franciscans Philosophy. Internet (December 2008.pdf):

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subjective angle), it will never be a neutral interpretation. It will only be a question of proximity which is processed within the central network (Kardia) where the will, the mind, and the emotions inter-act. The human soul is not a machine that appears to be interpreting without emotions (machines function in accordance with a superficial logic built into the program). The dangers therefore of the so-called scientific thinking (objectivity) is to preach a fiction in human logic and promote how to think like machines/computers instead of how to think as humans.91 Let us consider for a moment how one can suddenly explode in laughter or in tears or in anger, or could even get a heart attack after reading the contents of a letter or newspaper; while the same missive may not evoke the same response from another person). Kardia is the spirit and this spirit is the truth about the Self. Bertrand Russell, more or less, confirms this potential for harmonious and coordinated function: The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one human being's deeds. The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest.92 The Self has the potential towards knowledge, towards the truth about human existence, towards self-actualization, through its self-consciousness. In other words, the self becomes object to itself and comes to know itself to be this object. It becomes self-consciously, self-thinking thought. It is conscious (a) of itself as its own world and (b) of the world as perceived by the self (Kierkegaardian-Hegelian): Actuality of ones authenticity always involves the unity of the mind, the will and the emotion. Kardia itself is the freedom to overcome the distinctions that waters down the true significance of the mind, the will, and the emotion. It is also that existential freedom which allows the thinking self to entertain possibilities to become the authentic Homo Sapiens-in-theworld and that authentic Being-towards-Death (from the authentic Heideggerian Being). It is the freedom that allows the self-absorbed self to become that authentic Being-in-and-for-Itself (in essence and in actuality), that Being-for-Another (perceptibility).93 To see beyond the individuals perspective is to engage with the world from a participating consciousness (Gabliks terminology) rather than an observing one. The mode of distanced, objective knowing, removed from moral and social responsibility is now proving to be something of an evolutionary dead-end. Objectivity strips away emotion, wants only facts and is detached from feeling. Objectivity serves as a distancing device, offering the illusion of impregnable strength, certainty and control. Becoming uniquely ourselves need not be framed
http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue4/zlomislic The same holds true with some philosophy which promotes how to think more like other animal species rather than as human specie. Today we are slowly being eaten up by computer logic at the expense of interpersonal skills in the cultivation of human relationship. 92 Bertrand Russell, Value of Philosophy, in Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: Basic Readings, Routledge, USA 2005, p. 28. 93 Carl Mickelsen, Hegel Glossary. Internet (12/23/11/11:25pm): http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hegel%20Glossary.htm
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through the model of the separate Cartesian ego.94 In fact, Aristotles project on rhetoric opened alternative forms of perception and consciousness.

CHAPTER IV THE ATTEMPT AT DECONSTRUCTION The quest for the appropriate ethical ground (motivating force) which would make Derridas unconditional welcoming credible and desirable led this researcher to the conduct of a brief survey from the East and from the West on the notion of happiness (eudaimonia) as the ultimate goal in human existence (telos). The researcher proposes that, if identified, the missing ethical ground would enhance Derridas notion of unconditional welcoming and consequently would make it the best expression of justice for the stranger. The student also suggests as an integral part of his hypothesis that kenotic hospitality is the product of a growing-up experience inscribed in a philosophy of growth which, in turn, is but the logical outgrowth of an east-west convergence. The philosophy of growth describes the path that leads to perfect joy (The Way of Perfect Joy). Eventually, the researcher proposes that perfect joy could only be experienced by a Subject who embraces the kenotic perspective as a modus vivendi. The researcher acknowledges perfect joy as part of the Franciscan tradition from which the student initially draws inspiration for his thesis. However, this does not preclude him from inquiring into the views of other ancient traditions or from re-inventing a secular understanding of the concept. The investigative exercise described in this chapter actually captures the metaphysical experience of the Seeker which started with the deconstruction of the Self and now gradually projects outward to understand the other than the self (the other selves). The conduct of this eastwest survey therefore signals the early beginnings of growth towards a mature perspective. A. Dismantling the Self in the World of Perfect Joy To deconstruct the self is to dismantle the self in meditation. Down through the ages, philosophers and poets, politicians and theologians, friends and strangers have argued about the nature of happiness. They have not been able to settle on what happiness is exactly, but that has not kept them from chasing it down. In the final analysis, happiness may be a lot easier to experience than to define. Inspired by Franciscan notion of happiness, the researcher considers it fit that this survey on the eudaimonia starts by showcasing the reflective skills and deep insights of the Il Poverello. Below is his profound understanding of perfect joy. 1. The Poverellian Deconstruction of Perfect Joy
94

Suzi Gablik, The Re-enchantment of Art, p. 178.

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The poet-beggar, Francis of Assisi, is not to be left out with his own deconstruction of perfect joy. Through Brother Leo, he begins by welcoming us in his own meditative field of tensions about the gift, offering five situations of grace which we usually associate with the ways of holy men and women. The perplexed mind is soon introduced to the nesting place of perfect joy:
if we endure all those insults and cruel rebuffs patiently, without being troubled and without complaining, and if we reflect humbly and charitably that that porter really knows us and that God makes him speak against us And if we bear it patiently and take the insults with joy and love in our hearts if we endure all those evils and insults and blows with joy and patience conquering oneself and willingly enduring sufferings, insults, humiliations, and hardships for the love of Christ What have you that you have not received? - For we cannot glory in all those other marvelous gifts of God, as they are not ours but God's But we can glory in the cross of tribulations and afflictions, because that is ours! Brother Leo, write: that is perfect joy!95

2. A Concise Survey of Happiness And its Paradoxes More than 2,000 years ago, there was a man who had enough wisdom and psychology to understand the fundamental question and the thinking ways of humans. This exemplary man taught that the key to life is in the praxis of the heart and not just the mind (knowledge) alone; thus, he encouraged his followers to practice what he preached with their entire mind-willemotion. He also advised his people to prune their worldly concerns; instead they were encouraged to seek first a regime(n) of justice, with the cryptic assurance to attend to what humans really yearn and thirst for in their hearts (Mt. 6:33). It was a promise of inner tranquility and perfect joy! Be still he assures to soothe us, do not be afraid there is no cause to fear and tremble. One of the tragic distortions today under western metaphysical thinking is the way selfinterest has been presented without bothering to make distinctions. The cobwebs of western metaphysical thoughts have undermined a wholesome search for happiness from a clean slate. Unlike in the East, contemporary Western thinkers identified the human self-interest as the Ego and eventually gave self-interest a bad name. In the West, we cannot anymore talk about selfinterest and self-interestedness without their narcissistic and pejorative connotations and is therefore something that is ethically inappropriate. Ego has become an evil within. Yet, as if to confirm the amnesia among western-trained thinkers, Aristotle did preach that it was perfectly alright to love ones self and made clear distinctions between two kinds of self-love (1168b17 19).96 The Stoics think of philosophy as a way of life (Aetius, 26A). According to Stoic philosophers, happiness is a good flow of life, "the sum of all good; for the sake of which everything is done. To live a happy life is to lead a virtuous life. One must live in accordance
95

Raphael Brown (trans.), Little flower of St. Francis, in Marion Habig (ed.), St. Francis of Assisi, Writings and Early Biographies: English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis , Franciscans Herald Press, Chicago, USA, 1973, pp. 1319-1320. 96 Altruism and Egoism, Internet (01/15/12/ 1:03 pm): http://mydaysaway.blogspot.com/2010/08/altruism-andegoism.html

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with nature in order to be happy.97 According to Plato, a happy life consists in moral actions flowing forth from a virtuous character. True happiness, for him, is found only in the performance of one's own duty.98 Aristotle describes eudaimonia as the telos the ultimate end and purpose of human existence (Nicomachean Ethics). For Aristotle, happiness is the perfection of human nature. Since (hu)man is a rational being, human happiness depends on the exercise of his reason in an excellent manner. Unfortunately, Aristotle, the first taxonomist of emotions, describes eudaimonia simply as an activity rather than an emotion or a state.99 By introducing happiness as a concept by which we should evaluate ourselves, Aristotle has virtually made happiness an elusive goaland in this way this happiness has created its own discontent.100 In the East, the pursuit of bliss has always been conducted in the context of religion. For the mystics, bliss is a religious/spiritual experience of transcendental joy characterized either by their union with Ultimate Reality or the realization of ones true mind: As a philosophy, Hinduism is the union between reason and intuition. Hinduism has sought to recognize principles and practices that would lead any individual to become a better human being and live in harmony with dharma (the right way of living or the eternal law). Vedanta has been a word to describe a group of philosophical traditions concerned with the self-realization to understand the ultimate nature of reality (Brahman).101 The practice of Dharma leads to the attainment of the Moksha (the highest of all desirable things)102 - the experience of peace, joy, strength and tranquility within ones self. Real happiness comes from detachment from all needs. The main aim of detachment is to liberate the self through meditation (Zen).103 Anand (bliss) means perfect joy, enjoyment of divine power or heavenly joy. It is the state of mind of the householder who performs his duties keeping his mind absorbed in contemplation all the time and remaining in a state of perpetual bliss or anand. He lives in the world, conducts all the social activities, and serves his fellow beings to the best of his capacity. He enjoys the comforts, but does not get lost in the pleasures. This is the attitude of detachment of a person who lives in the world but still remains cut off from the evil effects of the worldly attractions of maya (illusion).104
The soul is (1) misled by matter, and (2) subsequently entangled and entrapped. This tendency is the maya. Only in goodness does the soul begin to develop wisdom to see things in the real light. Thus, enlightenment means moving away from tamas (ignorance) towards sattva (illumination of

97

Jennylene San Diego, The Stoic and the Epicurean Philosophy on the Good Life. Internet (01/15/12/ 1:03 pm): http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_bakaoukas4d1.htm 98 Plato and Aristotle. Internet (01/15/12/ 1:19 pm): http://www.blavatsky.net/magazine/theosophy/ww/additional/ancientlandmarks/PlatoAndAristotle.html 99 The connection between eudaimonia and happiness is indirect, in Jonathan Barnes , Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 2000, p. 124 100 Work Without Dread: Metaphysics of Happiness. Internet (01/15/12/ 3:09 pm): http://workwithoutdread.blogspot.com/2007/10/metaphysics-of-happiness.html 101 In a nutshell, Brahman is formless, infinite and eternal. All reality has its source in Brahman. It is the material and efficient cause of creation. Brahman is all knowing and it is knowledge itself. The supreme good results from knowledge. Hinduism seeks to overcome the illusory world through knowledge and intuition. According to Vedanta, the highest aim of existence is the realization of the identity or union of the individuals Innermost Self (atman) with the Ultimate Reality (Brahman). Brahman could therefore be construed as the experience of bliss. John M. Koller, Oriental Philosophies, Princeton University Press, New York, 1969, pp, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92. 102 John M. Koller, Oriental Philosophies, pp. 41, 45, 49, 50, 94. 103 Thich Thlen, Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice, Dharma Publishing Press, California, 1975, pp. 104-112. 104 Paul Williams, Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, Routledge, USA, 2005, p 179

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knowledge). By so doing, the soul gradually escapes the clutches of maya and moves towards liberation.105

After having nearly starved himself to death, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha or Enlightened/Awakened One) realized that extreme forms of self-denial did not work and later discovered a path of moderation called the Middle Way to attain Enlightenment.106
The Buddha is only a guide and a teacher of the Eightfold path that leads to spiritual awakening. The journey to attain a deeper form of happiness requires an unflinching look into the face of a reality where all life is seen as dukkha or mental dysfunction. Nibbana or Nirvana (everlasting peace) is that state of deliverance from all suffering and sorrow. Ultimate Happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving (ill-desire) in all form.107

The doctrine of not-self (anatta) is central to Buddhism: the physical body cannot be a permanent, trustworthy self because it is finite, mutable, and failure-prone.108 If we identify "self" with the body (the flesh), then we do not only set our Self up in the pursuit of desiredriven pleasures for the body (which could lead to hedonism, selfishness, greed, exploitation and domination); we also set our Self up for an identity crisis (which could lead to mental disorders and suicides). The starting point of Confucian philosophy is the daily duty to cultivate our closest loving relationships (filial piety) - the expression of happiness. Happiness is not just a matter of selfinterest; it is to be created and performed in a social context. The Chinese Confucian thinker, Mencius, taught that a person will experience intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues.
The mind played a mediating role between the " lesser self" (the physiological self) and the " greater self" (the moral self) and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood. If we do not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", that force would shrivel up (Mencius,6A:15, 2A:2).

For Zhuangzi, ultimate happiness is nothing but Wu Wei, the skill of doing nothing against the Way (Dao). Zhuangzi draws a clear distinction between two kinds of happiness: The Dao, a mysterious power which fills the cosmos and is reflected in the workings of nature, is the source of a much deeper form of happiness.109 Thus, for Zhuang Zi "perfect joy is to be without joy." This means that there is joy in life in simply being oneself, in letting things be, not in striving for it. Contentment and well-being become possible the moment you cease to act on them. And if a person practices non-doing wu-wei, he/she will have both happiness and wellbeing.110 In Catholicism, the ultimate (eschatological) end of human existence consists in felicity (Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia), or "blessed happiness", described by the 13th-

105

Magdalena Alonso-Villaba, Philosophy of the East, UST Publishing House, Manila, 1996, pp. 16, 17, 63. 106 Magdalena Alonso-Villaba, Philosophy of the East, , p. 87-88. 107 Magdalena Alonso-Villaba, Philosophy of the East, pp. 95-96, 101 108 John M. Koller, Oriental Philosophies, p. 136. 109 Zhuangzi -Pursuit of Happiness. Internet (12/22/11/ 2:34 pm): http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/zhuangzi/ 110 Manuel B. Dy, Zhuang Zi's Perfect Joy: An Answer to the Contemporary Predicament? in George F. McLean (ed.), Civil Society and Social Reconstruction, The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, USA, 1998, pp. 237-250.

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century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.
The Union with God is realized in the Beatific Vision (1Cor 13:12). The knowledge of God face-to-face is the knowledge of God as God (1Cor 13:12); for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). Divinization is the Lambs Gift of Self to His Bride. Happiness springs from the knowledge of the truth , from the vision of God face to face, from sharing in His life. This happiness is so profoundly a part of the deepest aspiration of human beings.111

Our contemporary Western thinkers have a variety of notable approaches to explain the concept of happiness. The students personal survey from St Augustine to John Locke, Kierkegaard, and Haidt, from Bentham and Mill to Kant, Hegel, and Freud; from William James, Marx and Engel to Nietzsche, Marquis de Sade and Schopenhauer up to Robert Nozick and lately the Happiness Research Studies of renowned behavioral scientists, only serves to highlight the fact that happiness as a metaphysical idea is indeed an "enigmatic signifier" - one whose meaning overflows the ability to grasp it and therefore keeps us going in search of something which has not been properly identified. Even Aristotle presents an aporia when he demonstrated the conflict between philia and the self-sufficient nature of a fulfilled life. It is said that the blessedly happy and self-sufficient people have no need of friends. For they already have [all] the goods, and hence, being selfsufficient, need nothing added (1169b46).112 What then is the Ego? Is the Ego the self or is it just a desire? Is ego the representation of the evil within? Is evil an outer force or something from within? From the foregoing, we need to examine closer and find out the various levels of selfinterest according to their desirability in order to understand why many times human being would deny their selves in favor of a greater self-interest/self-benefit. The Self needs to dismantle and deconstruct to attain perfect joy. Deconstructing self-interest could also mean going back to the originary experience: As soon as a new human life is born, the infant positively responds to life. The positive responses found in breathing, feeding, sleeping, and crying, all show the raw anhd natural inclination of human beings towards life. Humans want to live. Our leading scientists and bio-engineers today are not only resorting to herbal medicine and other non-traditional therapeutic approaches but also continue to experiment on stem cells and are relentless in their search for that elusive fountain of youth and that elixir of life that would prolong human life, eliminate aging and disease, enhance our potencies, and make us live forever. Unfortunately, human beings are not immortal. But for the authentic Homo Sapiens, the reality of death gives rise to a subjectivity that human being is first and foremost an ethical being.113

111

Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained: A Commentary on John Paul II's Gospel of the Body , Ascension Press, USA, 2004, pp. 242-270. 112 To solve the conundrum, Aristotle offers three (3) answers: (1) The first is due to the inherent goodness for others [1169a1920]); thus, being a wholly virtuous and fulfilled person necessarily involves having others for whom one is concerned without them, one's life is incomplete: the solitary person's life is hard, since it is not easy for him to be continuously active all by himself; but in relation to others and in their company it is easier (1170a6 8). (2) Good people's life together allows the cultivation of virtue (1170a12). (3) Finally, he argues that one's friend is "another oneself. Anyone who is to be happy, then, must have excellent friends. Internet (1170b19) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia 113 Peter J. Leithart, Derrida on Gift. Internet (08/10/11/ 2: 15 pm): http://www.leithart.com/archives/002003.php

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It is said that Christianity is a response to the inevitability of death. Under this blissseeking tradition, the freedom-loving Self is given a choice: the path of unending suffering and misery, or the path to eternal life and bliss. The self is to make an obvious choice between a curse and a blessing. Because the self loves itself, the self naturally wants to live forever. The rational self is supposed to take the logical path that leads to immortality. However, the price of taking the path to immortality is a life of renunciation, of foregoing, and giving up many things in favor of a far greater benefit eternal bliss. The desirable Christian life is the fundamental question in Luke 18:18: What must I do to live forever? In the bliss-seeking tradition of Christians, the blessed life is expressed in the Beatitudes in accordance with the great mandate of love for God and for neighbor (Mt. 5:1-11; 22:34-40). The perfect joy of the Christian community is experienced in the genuine praxis of charity in truth (Eph. 4:15). In the Old Testament, Noah and Job were called perfect because they were blameless and righteous men. The righteous being for his own good willingly cooperates with the plan of the Maker. And so, human being is emancipated by Gods grace but human being must cooperate (John Paul II). The word perfect in Hebrew is TAMIYM/THUMMIM (taw-meem') meaning entire, but also means truth, integrity, from the root word TAMAM (tawmam') meaning coming to completion or to its fullness and is used in its spiritual sense - to grow ripe in the fullness of Truth, in the love of God (the ultimate reality).114 A similar understanding of tamam is reflected in Hope Mays book, On Socrates. May explains that eudaimonia is the point that one reaches when one attains the completion and perfection of their nature:
The Greeks believed that the desire for eudaimonia is in everybody, and hence that everybody yearns and searches for it, and hence for the perfection of themselves. Accordingly, the perfection of oneself was believed to be the most pleasurable and complete state that a human being can reach, and unlike other states, being eudaimon was permanent (On Socrates Eudaimonism).115

The Christian solution to the human dilemma where the happiness of human beings lies is cryptically articulated in The Peace Prayer of Saint Francis.116
Here is a Christian paradox: To gain ones life, one must first lose it: happiness depends on being willing to give everything for others. The more perfect the sacrifices, the more perfect the joy.117

In Tolkiens the Lord of the Rings, we find the mysteries of friendship lived in the face of death, and of the self-sacrifice that is necessary that others may live. Even greater than the bitterness of our failures and our death and our descent into nothingness is the rescue that awaits us, swift, unexpected, bringing joy more poignant than grief, a joy made possible only by the existence of sadness, a good brought about by the evil, but which overcomes evil with the love whose name is pity. Tolkien faces the reality of conflict and death, but does not see them as the last word. 118

114

Meaning and Etymology of the Name Thummim, Internet (01/17/12/07:03 pm): http://www.abarimpublications.com/Meaning/Thummim.html 115 Hope May, On Socrates (Wadsworth Philosophers Series), pp. 88-89. 116 This beautiful prayer does not appear in any known writings of St Francis. The prayer was apparently written in France during WWI, perhaps by Fr. Bouquerel. Internet (01/16/12/10:37 am): http://wahiduddin.net/saint_francis_of_assisi.htm 117 Perfect Joy. Internet (01/15/12/ 12:42 pm): http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/2980 118 Project MUSE Tolkien Studies Love: The Gift of Death. Internet (01/15/12/ 11:43am): http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/tolkien_studies/v002/2.1greenwood.html

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The hero descends into death and is wounded forever, but his very wounds are his glory, a testimony to a merciful love that goes through and beyond death. The Lamb is victorious, and his victory is that he now stands forever as one slain.119

Perfect Joy could also be the Brahman experience from the Sanskrit verb root, brh, meaning to grow (brhati, that which grows, and brhmayati, that which causes to grow). 120 The mature soul is the awakened self who has attained a level of enlightenment on the ultimate nature of reality. The authentic subject is the earnest seeker of true knowledge who goes through a gradual unfolding process in the exercise of his reason and freedom. The delightful feeling one gets after an illumination experience is a sweet feeling of personal triumph and gratefulness that leads to inner tranquility. This illumination experience becomes a turning point in ones existence. 3. The Gift of Perfect Joy: Towards A De-centered Subjectivity
The aporia that surrounds the gift revolves around the paradoxical thought that a genuine gift cannot actually be understood as a gift .121

In this Metaphysics of the Self, the gift of perfect joy is the Gift of Self to itself which needs to be unwrapped. This in itself is the aporia. How can this gift be truly considered a gift using Derridas standards? The giver experiences the gift of perfect joy as a consequence of the exercise of unconditional hospitality. Both the Giver and the Receiver here have not done anything to violate the rigorous rules of Derridean hospitality. And yet the Giver received something in return by reason of his/her Hospitality. The Giver somehow felt this pleasant sense of well-being and a deep sense of self-satisfaction a sense of fulfillment. Under Derridean standards, the Giver is said to have already received a counter-gift; the giver received the gift of perfect joy. If we are to evaluate further this subjective phenomenon from a Derridean perspective, the counter-gift of perfect joy may be viewed as a Faulty Gift but Without Fault (researchers own phraseology). It is a faulty gift because of the compensating element as a consequence of hospitality. But it is also without fault because the counter-gift did not come from the recipient of hospitality; but as a unique emotive response from within the giver himself; hence, a Gift of Self to itself (Doubling Effect). It was a gift that was not sought by the giver at the onset of hospitality. The giver practiced hospitality with the purity of intentions and without any illusions of recompense from the receiver. In fact, the Perfect Joy Experience is often unrecognized as a benefit. The gift of perfect joy came about as a natural reflexive-response from within the cognitive Self. Such intense affect is a normal phenomenon being in the nature of human beings to experience more abiding or enduring emotions. After having given goodness in the purity of intentions, the giver in turn feels an equal energy of goodness or well-being. Perfect Joy (like happiness) is thus observed as a mental and emotional experience - as a concrete lived experience. It has also been considered as a desirable state of well being attained on account of or due to an act which is impressed with profound meaning or value in human existence. This experience is supposed to define an ethical path that makes life worth living and dying for.

119

The Heroes of Middle-Earth. Internet (01/16/12/11:05 am): http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-01-029-f 120 Alonso-Villaba, Magdalena, Philosophy of the East, p. 9. 121 Jack Reynolds, Possible and Impossible, Self and Other, and the Reversibility of Merleau-Ponty and Derrida. Internet (01/16/12/11:20 am): http://philpapers.org/rec/REYPAI

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It is said that a joyful disposition exudes well-being - a positive energy, an aura of wellbeing that shines around the person and creates a positive impression about ones personality. It is observed as an over-all sense of personal satisfaction and contentment (equanimity). It could acquire an abiding and enduring quality. A humble and pleasant disposition comes with the wisdom about life and human existence. It also comes with maturity: a receptive and responsive sensitivity to life and human nature. Life becomes bearable. The notion of perfect joy carries with it a de-centered subjectivity (self-enlargement towards alterity). It signals the progress of the focus in meditation from the self moving outwards as it now relates to the world and to the other than the self (the other selves). This means that perfect joy can only be experienced when the Seeker goes beyond the self to develop an altruist response in life. The seeker needs the other to experience perfect joy. Thus, it is proposed that the above initial considerations would serve as the philosophical building blocks to re-invent Derridas notion of unconditional welcoming (alterity) as Kenotic Hospitality the enhanced notion of Hospitality which is not grounded on responsibility but on love. It is argued that responsibility only burdens freedom and could undermine the truth; while love is free to do whatever it sets out to do. Love, as a force, harms no one (it does no violence to the other), rather it builds us up towards the eudaimonia. The metaphysics of the self allows the Seeker to self-deconstruct on the road to maturity to maximize kardial coordination in order to distinguish the fine difference between the True Self and Not-Self and to engage a self-pruning process (detachment) in order to overcome the negative tendencies that raged within. The researcher would therefore like to point out that Kenotic Hospitality is the child of this east-west synthesis. B. The East-West Synthesis Towards Kenotic Hospitality
A decision has to go through undecidability and make a leap beyond the field of theoretical knowledge. So when I say I do not know what to do, this is not the negative condition of decision. It is rather the possibility of decision"122

What are the ways by which human beings experience consciousness and how do they interpret reality? What makes it real? What makes this experience credible? What makes it meaningful? These are but a few of those questions which are sought to be answered under this metaphysics of the self in search of that credible ethical ground in the praxis of hospitality even as the Seeker consolidates his subjective experience under a humanist philosophy of growth based on ethical realism. Today there are some scientifically inclined thinkers who dismiss the possibility of a purposeful creative process in nature and therefore for them, human existence is but a selfish and meaningless struggle for power. And yet, until now the scientific community has not been able to come up with a plausible explanation why the universe exists, nor was the community able to disprove that human life does not have some kind of cosmic purpose. Whether there is indeed a cosmic purpose or not, the rational response would be: to keep our minds open to both possibilities, and to thoroughly examine them both to their eventual conclusions.123 The best rhetoric an atheist could offer is that there is no after-life; only an after death life on earth continues Even philosophers are trapped in their own logic entertaining the possibilities of
122

Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley, Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, Routledge, USA, 1999, p. 66. 123 Evolutionary Metaphysics in Shattering the Sacred Myths Internet (12/26/11/7:20 pm): http://www.evolutionary-metaphysics.net/metaphysics.html

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the Unchanging, the Absolute, yet they cannot by the logic of their own discipline claim an absolute truth. Everything is theory.124 Can we then define philosophy as the habit of speculating with the use of reason? Is that all a human mind can do? Speculate, seek affirmation from others, decide and act on those speculations? A life of theories? What for? What about reality? Whatever happened to those quests for truth, for true knowledge? Philosophy does not answer questions; philosophy questions answers.125 Philosophic contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps - friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good and bad it views the whole impartially. And since no definite answers can be known to be true, we nevertheless deal with them because the questions (1) enlarge our conception of what is possible, (2) enrich our intellectual imagination and (3) diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because (4) through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought. In fact, the unalloyed self-contemplation starts from the not-Self and through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity.126 Everyone is more or less afraid of the truth; and this is being human, for the truth is relating to being spirit and this is very hard for flesh and blood Between a human being and the truth lies dying to the world this, you see, is why we are all more or less afraid.127 And yet many great discoveries started out as experiments, as hypothetical statements, based on an idea, a belief, a hunch, an intuition, or perhaps simply a spark of inspiration. Soren Kierkegaard once said: during the first period of a human being's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk. At every period of the world's history some philosopher has asked the eternal question: Is there, in the universe or outside of it, an underlying Reality which is eternal, immovable, unchanging? The ancient Egyptians believed, as Hermes taught: "Reality is not upon the earth, my son. Nothing on earth is real. There are only appearances. Appearance is the supreme illusion." In the still more ancient East, only the eternal and changeless was called Reality. All that is subject to change through differentiation; and decay was called Maya, or illusion.128 On the other hand, even after the metaphysical death of God, western m etaphysics has left behind a weakened and dysfunctional perspective of reality, while it tries to cleanse itself from all authoritarian influences (the so-called fallacy of appealing to an authority); human subjectivity had to re-claim certainty and meaning in its own right (the problematique). The tremendous changes human civilization went through in our on-going history requires a serious re-assessment of the epistemological-ontological understanding of things to rethink its logic and find out the what-is-amiss - to retrieve from antiquity what was forgotten and enter again the space of a fine-tuned epistemological continuum to reclaim and integrate what is truly inherent in the human soul.

1. The Illusion
124

On the End of Postmodernism and the Rise of Realism Internet (01/02/12/ 1:51 pm): http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Postmodernism.htm 125 Ruel F. Pepa, Nurturing the Imagination of Resistance: Some Important Views from Contemporary Philosophers . Internet (11/12/11/2:00 pm): http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_85.html 126 Bertrand Russell, Value of Philosophy, in Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: Basic Readings, p. 27. 127 Alastair Hannay (trans.) Sren Kierkegaard: Papers and Journals (A Selection), 1996, p. 614. 128 Magdalena Alonso-Villaba, Philosophy of the East, pp. 16, 17, 63.

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The freedom from the illusion of Self is the true spiritual freedom that lies on the far side of the door labeled sacrifice. It is the door that many approach at some stage of their spiritual journey but only a few tried to push open against the weight of their own fears and doubts. 129

History tells us that humanity has been looking for meaning in the wrong places. It was somehow (1) partly because of our unique cultural tradition, the way we have been brought up to think and respond in life; and (2) partly because of the wrong desires which dominate the person from within. Humanity has been betrayed by his own society. Greed, the insatiable desire for more, has been the root cause of all the evils of global capitalism that has vexed human being under a spell of teleconsumerism. As Kahlil Gibran once said: unless the exchange be (done) in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

In an age of fast information exchange, human being could only try to cope up with the latest in a techno-culture of instant convenience and gratification. We have allowed ourselves to be entertained under a bubble, an illusion, a superficial existence which we have unwittingly invented to keep ourselves busy.130 Everything points to a downhill trend in human values even as human being feels the unprecedented fury of nature. The growing pressures of cataclysmic events are coming to a point that it will not anymore allow our pressured selves to enjoy the ethics we proposed under normal circumstances. We are entering a time of great crisis and tribulation after an age of great distortions; a time of peace without peace; human being is at the dawn of a new consciousness for the entire humanity it bids us to re-examine the way we perceive everything around us. How do we perceive reality today?
The accelerated pace of life brought about by the advances in electronic technology and the stiff competition to survive, and the sense of urgency and duty do not allow us a nymore to be self-aware and conscious of ourselves. Man has allowed himself to be governed by the corporate clock at the expense of relationships and our homes. Most of the time, we are unconscious about ourselves; we live in auto-pilot, stuck in our old habits; and we cannot see our way out. 131

In When Society Becomes an Addict, Anne Wilson Schaef points out that our belief in the addictive system as the only reality is itself an illusion making us believe that there is no other reality. The loss of our visionary being has led us into addictive functioning; and the addictive nature of consumer society separates us from an awareness of ourselves as visionary beings. To move toward recovery, we must admit addiction on a systemic level and move beyond our own participation in this disease process. We must see our present culture for what it is: an addictive system.
Most of the neurosis and the vacuum of meaning from which we suffer result from the isolation of the ego-mind from the archetypical unconscious (Carl Jung): Jung even went so far to claim that myths are more sustaining in our lives than economic security. This is not the objective knowledge of the

129

Bruce Lyon, The Secret of Sacrifice. Internet(11/16/11/ 10 am): http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~blyon/Articles/secretsacrifice.htm 130 We have deluded ourselves in a continual attitude of denial ( escapism). With the help of media, we have been captivated to cope and cooperate, to need what we do not need under the barrel of an economic gun (globalization) and thereby constrained to play a fast-paced consumerist game dictated by the first world economies in order to survive. The new game made it seem impossible to choose another option. It seems like there is no other way, and, many times, it appears that there is no way out there is no escape. 131 Being Present with Inner Awareness. Internet (01/17/12/11:41 am): http://www.women-at-heart.com/being-present.html

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spectator observing at a distance, analyzing, or describing without being drawn. Rather, it is sacred egodeconstruction.132

The role of ethics is supposed to find out (what ought) what is commendably human, humane and humanizing in accordance with the natural functions of the human soul. In Aesops fables, animals were assigned human attributes; at the other end of the pole, we find some radical philosophers today who want to privilege the animal or the bestial qualities in human being to justify his negative tendencies within. Yet, not all animals are wild and ferocious.
In The Animal That Therefore I am, Derrida expresses his intense oppositions to the concept of the Animal. According to Derrida, the confusion of all non -human living things within the general and common category of the animal is not simply a sin against rigorous thinking, vigilance, lucidity, or empirical authority, it is also a crime.133

Derrida coins the word animot (combining the Latin anima, meaning soul, with the French mot, meaning word) and suggests that the reader mentally substitute this word whenever animal is used. We can only speculate on the reason why Derrida has chosen a domesticated animal as his philosophical pet (Derridas cat: the other like no other):
This cat he explains does not belong to the animal specie or genus of that sort but is the irreplaceab le living being who enters my space, into this place where it can encounter me, see me, even see me naked.134

Would it be a surprise to say that Filipinos are actually fond of and even mesmerized by bestial qualities? This glamorized appeal is portrayed in Filipino propensity with the Chinese zodiac calendar (Year of the Black Sea Dragon) and Kung fu movies (Snake in the Eagles Shadow). There are also not a few Filipinos, especially the rich and older set, who are more attached and could be observed intimately talking to their pets (and plants) than with fellow humans (philia for animals). Language is friendship.135 Perhaps it is because animals and plants do not have the gift of human language and therefore unable to talk back. It has been said that the eyes can also say many things but for Derrida, the staring eyes of the cat made him very uncomfortable that it made him ask, Who am I? and could only wonder how he appears (Who is he?) from the point of view of this other who is not human. In a hospitable world one is free not to answer. Excuse me, whose Cat am I supposed to be? This is the start th at opens a new perspective a world of more differences (in honoring alterity) for deconstruction.136
Gerald Bruns asks, what does it mean to no longer be able to say I? That is, to recognize ourselves as beings who are singular-plural: entities from which nothing can be excluded, not animals, not machines, not each other? Has the human become a poetic concept, like the divine in need of constant revision? What does it mean to be compelled to ask these questions? To be more human (or is it less)? To be more (is it less) free? Clearly, being human has never been a given ( On Ceasing to be Human).137
132 133

Suzi Gablik, The Re-enchantment of Art, pp. 49, 52, 56, 57. Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I am, Fordham Univ. Press, New York, 2008, pp. 47-49. 134 Do You Believe in the Animal?, Boria Sax Review of Jacques Derrida: The Animal That Therefore I Am. Internet (12/19/11/ 10:28 am): http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14720 135 Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/ Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond p. 98. And see also in Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (trans.), Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Stanford University Press, California, 1997, pp. 10, 51, 91, 96. 136 Gerald L. Bruns, Derridas Cat (Whom Am I?), Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, Issue, 2008, pp. 404-423. 137 Bruns was talking about a philosophy of communion, a challenge to see the world again in the non-exclusionary eyes of pure altruists, perhaps the way Francis and some cosmics did. Internet (12/28/2011 11:09 pm): http://english.nd.edu/news/25962-newest-book-by-prof-gerald-bruns/

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We simply take too many things for granted and never bothered to even stop to inquire into the quality of our thoughts and actions. We have become forgetful, we allowed ourselves to be uncritically swept away by the they-self and even by the novelty of dangerous ideologies and philosophies (a case of misprudence). In the end, we have become strangers to ourselves. We do not really know who we are. In Derridas terms:
We do not know the name of what we desire with a desire beyond desire. That means leading a just life comes down to coping with such non-knowing, negotiating among the several competing names that fluctuate undecidably before us, each pretending to name what we are praying for.138

2. Moratorium (The Need to Deconstruct the Cognitive Self) It is therefore important to take a pause (moratorium) in order to pay attention to ourselves to know ourselves. We have to explore again ourselves to gain better insights about ourselves. I interpret, therefore I am I use mind-will-emotion; therefore I am being and becoming I deconstruct (dismantle) the self; therefore, I am becoming. Finding the path that leads to perfect joy could be a very difficult and confusing experience. It is like being stuck in an intersection full of intoxicating street signs pointing in all directions. How would I get there? It has already been said: we fail to attain happiness (and in our case, perfect joy) if we deliberately seek it. So many intelligent people equate fun and pleasure with happiness. If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then pain must be equated with unhappiness.139 But, in fact, the opposite is true: more often than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.140 Most of us have been deluded into believing that happiness can only be achieved through a fun-filled, pain-free life. Despite the fact that fun-filled activities do little to contribute to our over-all happiness, people continue to cling to the idea that in order to be happy, we need to have fun.141 The Epicurean Man142 today has created an amusement-park society to help us relax and temporarily forget our problems. However, they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.143 Instead it has led human being into the very emotion he was exactly trying to avoid: unhappiness. Many of the things we do to achieve happiness actually stifle it. The fun-filled world is filled with unhappiness.144
Many people think they will be happy if they get a better job, but this makes happiness reliant on the future and keeps the person unsatisfied in the present. And instead of getting happier as they become better off, people get stuck on a hedonistic tread mill: their expectations rise at the same pace as their

138 139

John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Internet (11/19/11/ 11: 10 am): Happiness Equates with Fun? Internet (01/19/12/10:14 am): http://www.tk76recycle.com/show_news.asp?id=39 140 Lessons in Happiness from Hollywood Internet (01/19/12/10:18 am): http://www.simpletoremember.com/jewish/blog/lessons-in-happiness-from-hollywood/ 141 Judd Biasiotto and Tommy Dorsey, In Pursuit Of Happiness Internet (01/19/12/10:26 am): http://www.dorseywright.com/internal/index_pursuitofhappiness_int.htm 142 Epicureanism got its bad name because of a hedonist normative claim that pleasure and pain is (1) the only ultimately good- and bad-making features of human life and also (2) the only ultimate ends of all our voluntary pursuit and avoidance. 143 Happiness Equates with Fun? Internet (01/19/12/10:14 am): http://www.tk76recycle.com/show_news.asp?id=39 144 Judd Biasiotto and Tommy Dorsey, In Pursuit Of Happiness Internet (01/19/12/10:26 am):

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incomes, and the happiness they seek remains constantly just out of reach. 145 Ezra Bayda reminds us that happiness should be a by-product of a fulfilling life and not a goal.146

Today's philosophy of happiness is strongly influenced by the Happiness Research. Happiness Research is the quantitative study of happiness, positive and negative affect, wellbeing, quality of life and life satisfaction. Happiness is a state of mind; it is inherent in our soul. Someone can be extremely unhappy while experiencing pleasure and someone can be happy even though external circumstances are unpleasant.
Happiness has little in common with fun and pleasure. They are not the same thing.147 Fun is what we experience during the act. Happiness is what we experience after an act.148 It is a deeper and more abiding emotion. Pleasure is not sustainable; it is not continuous. 149 There are no guarantees with pleasure, it is brief and when separated from our essential purpose, pleasure leaves emptiness and pain as its aftermath. While pleasure is totally reliant on the five senses, happiness could be independent of them.150

Finally, Suzi Gablik in The Re-enchantment of Art warns us of the pitfalls of Cartesian Dualism that has bewitched our consciousness of the things around us and offers the perspective of the continuum:
It is the essence of modern alienation that we are bewitched by our particular vision of separatenes s the mechanistic idea that we can know the world only from the outside by distancing ourselves from it. Cartesian dualism sees no connection between the subjective world of thought and the objective, outer world. Today, this dualistic Cartesian subject versus object model of cognition is being replaced by a new picture, which sees the inner and outer world as a continuum151

3. The Human Factor and the Philosophy of Growth (Tamam,brh152)

We cannot really say about anything we have not experienced or projected atleast in our thoughts.

Instead of inquiring first into the possible rational motive behind the praxis of hospitality, perhaps, this project should have started with the question about our human nature. When the researcher proposed this thesis, the fundamental question which should have steered this inquiry, should have been: What is natural in the human specie? Is the logic being presented by Derrida and the rest of the philosophers (including this researcher) in agreement with our human nature? Speaking of hospitality, is there a spring from which it flows, a far greater virtue which can rightly be identified as basic in our nature as humans, something which could also be considered not only a part of our rational nature but also an undeniable part of our natural

145

Alex A. Lluch and Helen Eckmann , Finding Ways to Be Happy in Simple Principles to Feel Better & Live Longer, WS Publishing Group, California, 2008, p. 78. 146 Ezra Bayda, Beyond Happiness: The Zen Way to True Contentment, Shambhala Publication, Inc., Massachusetts, 2010, pp. 4, 7, 24,132. (Kindly see Internet: books.google.com.ph). 147 Victory Oyeleke, Does Pleasure Equate to Happiness? Internet (10/11/11/2:00 pm): http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/sunday-zest/3159-does-pleasure-equate-to-happiness 148 Zig Ziglar, A Goals Program is a must in Over the Top, The Zig Ziglar Corporation, 1994. 149 Paradox of Hedonism. Internet ( 01/19/12/11:49 am): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_hedonism 150 Victory Oyeleke, Does Pleasure Equate to Happiness? Internet (10/11/11/2:00 pm): 151 Suzi Gablik, The Re-enchantment of Art, pp. 54-55. 152 Alonso-Villaba, Magdalena, Philosophy of the East, p. 9.

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appetite (desire)? Or as philosopher Stanley Cavell puts it: Can a human being be free of human nature?153 Having thus in mind, the human soul functions to seek it without need of external prodding or encouragement just to do so. Hence, it becomes possible for humans to cultivate it with a passion. By passion, the researcher means whole-hearted devotion as a rational appetite. This must be so because it is fundamental in the rational human being; it is also a basic desire. Happiness is simply the desirable emotive consequence of this originary desire which leads to inner peace. Tamam: The Ripening Process and its Paradoxes All flora and fauna go through an auto-movement process called growth. It is a manifestation of life. Among human beings, barring untimely death, every one supposedly goes through a stage of development in life. The word growth has become synonymous with development and progress. Thus, we try to classify the different levels or dimensions of human growth based on our heritage of knowledge. Experts in different fields would also devise ways to describe the human conditions and responses. We explore ways to enhance our condition and go through personality development programs, selfhelp modules, or self-awareness/discernment exercises, spiritual exercises or otherwise. Even a philosophical glimpse on growth already transcends a variety of sub-disciplines including epistemology, metaphysics, religion, anthropology, human nature, psychology, psychoanalysis, neuro-science, politics and ethics. But what is unsettling in the history of humanity is that despite our milestone celebrations of human achievements, the Homo Sapiens failed to integrate the wisdom from the ages into the cultural fabric of daily life (Dysfunctionalism). Being aware early in life of the practical significance of the ripening process and working on it has never been ingrained in us. Learning to do it has simply become a program or module of special interest just another consumer commodity to choose from. The way to maturity and the ability to grow and develop our interpersonal skills have been diluted by a culture of instant gratification (instant coffee, instant internet connections, faster travels and communications around the globe). The way to maturity never became a way of life. Humanity failed to learn from the lessons of the past (George Santayanna). Grow Up!154 The researcher therefore postulates that psychological growth (which leads to that wholesome disposition known as maturity) is a human function, with cognitive and emotive appeal, and its cultivation a desirable state to be in. Analogously, a well-cultivated or welldeveloped Kardia leads to inner harmony and consistency of human functions. 4. The Way of Perfect Joy (Towards a Better State of Becoming) The student proposes The Way of Perfect Joy as a way of life (dharmic155). It is a philosophy of doing life confronted by the reality of pain, suffering, and death. It is a maturing sense of Self that is continually conscious through self-deconstruction that is always critically open to possibilities.156 The way of perfect joy is a passionate journey on the level of ideas and in

153 154

Gerald L. Bruns, On Ceasing to be Human, Stanford University Press, California, 2011, Prologue. We usually hear this expression among grown-ups, but we seldom give it some deep thought. And yet, the paradox is that, deep within, human always wants to improve and feel better about him/her self. It is natural to desire to become a better person. However, it is in the way each human being tried to interpret these signals from within when frustrations and disappointments arise. Life is complex and was never meant to be easy. 155 The way of Perfect Joy is in some sense similar to the Hindu understanding of Dharma or the right way of living. 156 In Hinduism, the mature soul is the awakened self who has attained a level of enlightenment on the ultimate nature of reality.

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the realm of relationships to attain perfection. I deconstruct-reconstruct; therefore I am becoming kenosis. To walk the path of perfect joy is a desirable state of be-ing that is all at once self-diffusive (kenotic) and dignifying (empowering). It is an ethical path a dialectic way of continual negotiations and adjustments through life a double movement towards a better state the synthesis of becoming a better person: (1) Cognitive Content - It is the affirmation of the true self, the moral self, steered on the path of deconstruction in response to the fundamental question that leads to perfect joy (the anand) and (2) Cognitive Form - It is further suggested that The Way to Perfect Joy also involves Kardial purification designed to re-direct the mind, the will and the emotion towards greater harmony and coordination. Together, the above double movements in self-dismantling (self-deconstruction), is the path to maturity that must be cultivated to attain eudaimonia. The self-dismantling experience leads the Cognitive Self at the doorstep of kenosis to become the building block to develop a philosophy of growth that describes the Way of Perfect Joy as a kenotic way of life. The student assumes that kenosis is the key to unlock the secrets of a fulfilling existence. As a philosophy of growth, The Way of Perfect Joy has the following primary features: (1) The Way (the path that leads to) of Perfect Joy (the philosophy or way of life) is the means to attain perfect joy (the feeling of goodness par excellence). The researcher therefore argues that, contrary to contemporary western beliefs, happiness in terms of perfect joy can after all be pursued by following the path laid down under this proposed philosophy of growth. The great paradox (like the path to eternal life) is that the hardened soul simply chose to look the other way around.157 (2)The Way of Perfect Joy is designed to improve ourselves, to become better persons, towards a mature perspective in life. A mature perspective leads to a mature way of responding in life which, in turn, leads to a mature way of life (lifestyle). Altruism, which is a distinguishing mark of Kenotic Hospitality, is one of the hallmarks of a mature perspective. Thus, the researcher postulates that the kenotic perspective found in The Way of Perfect Joy requires the earnest cultivation in an excellent manner of a mature perspective in life. On the other hand, Perfect Joy is here understood as a peak experience that comes from a mature perspective.
157

To be clear, the quest for that enhanced notion of unconditional welcoming leads the Seeker at the doorstep of kenosis that is inscribed in a Philosophy of Growth known as The Way of Perfect Joy (the fulfilling life) which, in turn, describes the practice of Kenotic Hospitality that brings about the experience of Perfect Joy. Perfect Joy, as that feeling of goodness par excellence, is the ideal state of Kenotic Hospitality. As an affect, Perfect Joy is a reflexive response to the cognitive awareness of the Subject on the profound value assigned to the self-emptying experience or encounter. This means that Perfect Joy is experienced by reason of Kenotic Hospitality. In Kenotic Hospitality love and sacrifice always goes together; hence, it is only logical that the hallmarks (main feature) of perfect joy would also be that of sacrifice based on love. Otherwise stated, the conscious Subject experienced perfect joy because of this sacrifice based love that is inherent in Kenotic Hospitality. Thus, unlike our classical understanding of happiness, perfect joy may be experienced even during the act of Kenotic Hospitality itself as a profound experience. So it has been proposed that joy is experienced only when the act of hospitality is deeply impressed with meaning and purpose . It is further suggested that it is love which makes the unconditional welcoming a most meaningful personal experience: love allows us to understand what matters most in life. But this joy is perfected only by that sense of righteousness in the notion of self-sacrifice that is inherent in this kenotic expression of love. For it is this kenotic love which enables us to endure pain and suffering with joy. Thus, where there is Kenotic Hospitality, Perfect Joy is just right behind. It is when the feeling is sustained and abides after the act that the Subject experiences this blissful sense of self-satisfaction and fulfillment peut etre (par excellence). From a Christian perspective, it is the love of strangers (philoxenia) that brings us to a face-to-face experience with God (Matthew 25:40).

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Growing up requires Kardial coordination. The lifetime exercise of the desirable features embraced under this proposed philosophy of growth is to be viewed as a virtue which demands discipline, sacrifice, and even pain.158 One of the unmistakable marks of maturity is altruism. Altruism is not an unnatural attitude; it is not contrary to human nature as many would presuppose. There are some thinkers who believe that human being is basically selfish, self-autonomous, and has no need for others, a belief which in effect is a rejection not only of human beings natural need to communicate and relate, but also his natural ability to show love and concern for others. If it were so, then humanity would have ceased to exist. Altruism comes from our ability to care, which in turn comes from our cognitive faculty to place value on different objects of perception. Things become distinct objects of cognition by learning to compare and differentiate one from the other. We learn to recognize the existence of something, to distinguish and know the value of one by either comparing or relating it to another existent or being through our various senses (including common sense as explained by Aristotle). In the same way, we only come to experience a positive sense of self-worth, when we try to relate ourselves with the rest of our own kind (the human species). What good does it do to a super rich human being when he is the only one alive? He still needs somebody to appreciate and value what he has and what he has done. Without the other, it would be hard for us to find meaning in what we are doing on this planet and why we are here. It is still a form of inward (introspective) contemplation mediated by the presence of others, so that to pay attention to ourselves would eventually require us to pay attention to what is other than the self. Meaning comes from having a sense of being useful (the freedom in our functionality), in being of assistance, and in being needed; and thus from this experience we derive a satisfactory sense of accomplishment, a sense of worth that is confirmed by that delightful feeling of inner contentment and tranquility (inner peace). This is so because we do not want to feel useless, unneeded, or neglected. A useless life is a meaningless life. To satisfy this basic psychological need we can choose directions that lead to happiness, a sense of fulfillment and purpose in life (the eudaimonia). But it has been also said that to find this meaning would require summoning the strength to understand what we have and what we do not have, to know what we can and cannot do, to understand who we are and who we are not, and to know what we really need to live rather than just exist. To find the meaning of things and assigning meanings are part of human beongs rationality. It is part of our desire to know. On the other hand, language came about because of the Selfs desire to communicate with others. It is one of the best things that happened to humanity. The Self needs to express, to communicate. Language allowed the Self to be understood by other human beings. The Self desires to communicate; it is also part of our rational nature. Language allowed the Self to be able to express what the Self wants to convey to the other. Without the other, verbal and written language would be of little use for the Self. Because of the desire to communicate, the Self also needs to give its trust to someone who can understand, someone who is willing to listen someone
158

Growing up to become a mature person is a gradual and oftentimes a very painful process. It is a desirable state to be in. More often than not, an emotionally immature person behaves like an ego-centric child selfobsessed and self-absorbed. Immature people could be exceptionally intelligent or talented persons, yet they could hardly handle their own emotions and not a few could also be insensitive and exploitative . They do not know how to deal with criticism and rebuke. They have been used to satisfying themselves and desire all the attention they could get. Many of them cannot endure hardship. They do not understand the true meaning of self-denial and therefore they do not know how to tame and discipline their flesh. They are simply focused on their needs. They could also have a very different way of viewing justice. The emotionally immature person is such a selfish person [that he/she is incapable of extending, in a sustained manner, Derridas unconditional hospitality (alterity par excellence)].

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who is also willing to help and to give. If humans do not really need the human other, then there would be no need for language. The essence of language is friendship and hospitality . I relate, therefore I am. C. The Gift of Death: Kenotic Hospitality Qua The Way of Perfect Joy
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. -Reinhold Niebuhr

Today, it is not anymore enough to question answers! It now becomes urgent to be part of the answer, to actively cooperate in finding the answers, the solutions to our societal problems. No one wants to live with a grumbler in the house a fault-finder who neither lifts a finger nor offer concrete ideas to help solve problems (pseudo-activism). For Derrida, we have to act, to actively participate within that space to effect the needed transformations (example: the transformation of domestic and international laws). For Francis, the life of a Friar Minor is tied to the kenosis of Christ. The researcher was emboldened (a) to expand the Franciscan notion of Perfect Joy as the consequence of the kenotic experience; (b) to transpose it as a gift in the Derridean tradition of deconstruction; and (c) to incorporate the same as a part of a philosophy of growth (the way of Perfect Joy as an East-West synthesis), primarily because there is no available literature that has attempted to systematize the notion of Perfect Joy as a serious philosophical theme or study. The researcher explores the possibility of offering two movements under a philosophy of growth in the attempt to provide a better alternative to responsibility by looking for a more credible, more convincing and more persuasive basis for the exercise of Derridas unconditional w elcoming. These two-fold movements are also viewed as the twin pre-conditions or components of a kenotic perspective necessary to attain the moksha the highest of all desirable things (the fulfilling existence). The first pre-condition is the pre-requisite attitude of openness to possibilities and may be understood as a forerunner which involves the creation of a thinking space that is at once critical of what is in the nature of things. This includes receptiveness to the reality of pain, suffering and death (ethical). It is akin to John the Baptist who clears the way from the cobwebs of western metaphysics to admit the tout autre (par excellence) who is to come. This, in turn, paves the way or introduces the next movement; The second pre-condition involves the twin kenotic principles of self-pruning and alterity. It involves sacrifice based on an enduring love for self and for others, respectively. Together, the two pre-conditions constitute the researchers idea of the kenotic perspective. In other words, both constitute the building blocks of kenotic hospitality. Although kenosis and perfect joy are undeniably Christian in origin, the researcher suggests that love as used here is primarily a non-exclusionary term; in other words, a secular or non-religious understanding about an all-embracing love. It applies to self-love and the love of enemy and may also be understood in the social context as that love practiced by a community, as a deterrent to greed (profits, unbridled exploitation of resources, monopolies) in economic terms or, politically, the love of country enshrined in our preamble (Philippine Constitution) as a way of doing government without discrimination transcending all kinds of borders (without boundaries). It is therefore not just caritas as suggested by Pope Benedict XVI and Gianni Vattimo, but also similar to the Palli word metta and Mo Tses notions of love jian (Ai)159. This way it becomes truly universal in the sense that even atheists and non-believers could readily adopt and
159

Magdalena Alonso-Villaba, Philosophy of the East, pp. 159-163.

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relate without being required to be converted first. From a Christian perspective, the hidden theological implications of this abiding principle (value) remain unimpaired, notwithstanding the secularized attempt.160 In the process, the researcher would like to demonstrate that the kenotic elements under this philosophy of growth (1) provides an enhanced understanding of unconditional welcoming, (2) makes the praxis of unconditional hospitality desirable without need of further encouragement, and (3) eventually leads to the experience of perfect joy. In other words, the student-researcher proposes Kenotic Hospitality as the enhanced understanding of Derridas Unconditional Welcoming which this time does not only involve an ethics of alterity but also an ethics of the self. As praxis, it is the Gift of Death; as to its effects, it offers the Gift of Perfect Joy. On the otherhand, the missing link would be love the animating force that transforms Derridas unconditional welcoming into the kenotic praxis of hospitality. 1. The Concept of Kenosis (The Vedantic Key) Kenosis is a Greek term for self-emptying (ekenosen), or self-humbling. The ancient Greek word knsis means an "emptying", from kens "empty". The word is mainly used in a Christian theological context (Philippians 2:7).
The kenosis of Christ denotes self sacrificial love which includes the willingness to give up his divinity! Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. If we want to be human fully human human like Christ, we need to empty ourselves in order to be filled with the self sacrificial love in order to serve others. Kenosis is the only way to be human.161

Kenosis (for-otherness) constitutes the person as person. A Self that is tuned towards the other finds self-fulfillment (the eudaimonia). The issue of authentic selfhood turns on the issue of love for neighbors. We are authentic selves only in direct proportion to our ability to be affected by and related to others. There is no love without compassion. In the kenotic life everyone is our neighbor, whoever happens to be at hand, unconditionally, without discrimination. This is why a kenotic love includes the love of enemy (Derridas hostipitality).
Such love is based neither on favoritism nor instinctive aversion. There can be no exclusiveness, no partiality, and no elitism. Kenotic love is characterized essentially by its universality. The practice of hospitality in Matthew 25: 34-46 is not only an obvious ethical demand but also a hermeneutical principle of comprehension. It is a challenge to see the stranger the way Jesus Christ did.162

Since philosophys religious turn, present-day philosophers use the concept of kenosis to search for new ways of speaking about God in an era after the death of God. Thus, Gianni Vattimo makes a connection between secularization and the end of metaphysics as forms of kenosis, in which the Christian God sheds more and more of his traditional metaphysical properties, in order to arrive at the real truth of Christianity. Derridas wanderings through

160

The researcher cannot help but to go along with the long-established fiction in the so-called pure philosophical disciplines as if religion is detached in the discourse about life [as if we are also detached from speculative thought (philosophy) and mythology]. It is a paradox towards a pagan universality that resists the very nature of religion as a daily conduct. Ones daily conduct is his/her religion. 161 Kenosis: The Only Way to Be Human. Internet (12/28/11/2:00 pm): http://frted.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/kenosis-the-only-way-to-be-human/ 162 Lucien Richard, OMI, Living the Hospitality of God, Paulist Press, New Jersey, 2000, pp. 77-78.

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negative theology are also inspired by kenosis. We need a kenosis, an emptying of language, says Derrida, to allow a new way of speaking about God.163
Gianni Vattimo is known for his optimistic nihilism in Weak Thought (il pensiero debole) which for him is an affirmation of the present condition of existence characterized by the increasing erosion of the traditional metaphysical and rational foundations of modernism. Vattimo argues that it an optimistic phase of intellectual and cultural realization that will lead to an actual ethical, social and political transformation. 164

For Vattimo, it is incumbent on philosophers to become politicians, which is the most political choice today. As Marx is often quoted: a philosophy that does not become nonphilosophy is useless.165 The researcher would like to explore how the above data could be harnessed to develop a philosophical rather than a theological concept of Kenotic Hospitality. Thus, an eclectic concept of kenosis is herein considered as the vedantic166 key to possibly defog the mist that has beclouded and undermined the eudaimonic quest since antiquity. 2. Twin Pre-Conditions of the Kenotic Perspective (towards Moksha) 2.1. Let It Flow (Openness to the Possibilities of the Gift) The researcher proposes that Let it flow [an eclectic combination of the subjectivities of (a) Derrida on the gift, and that of (b) Zenos good flow of life in accordance with nature with that of (c) Zhuang Zi on the wu-wei] signifies not only this (1) openness to the boundless expression of hospitality as a radical individualistic gift but also this (2) openness to life that respects the natural flow and order of all things: The first suggests the messianic openness for things to come. It connotes the boundless parameter of deconstruction the critical space for creative possibilities. It is an open- minded attitude not only for further truths, but also a fallibilistic kind of broad-minded disposition in the articulation of questions that makes room for untruth. As the Pentecostals put it: it is a certain kind of hospitality that is not willing to close down the possibility of God, and in the possibility that God is at work in all kinds of diverse ways and contexts.167 Richard L. Purtill argues: In a world that challenges and question every proposition, we must reason in order to believe and, while reasoning alone will not lead to religious commitment, it can give us reason to believe.168 Viktor Frankl approvingly quotes the words of Nietzsche: He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.169

163

Rene van Riessen, Hermeneutics of Kenosis: The Road of Dispossession in Man as a Place of God: Levinas' Hermeneutics of Kenosis, Springer Publisher, Netherlands, 2007, p. 173. 164 Vattimo distorts metaphysics with an ethic of values by reading the history of philosophy through a religious perspective, rather than reading the history of Christianity through a philosophical lens, Vattimo is able to see love as the point of convergence. As the message of the Christian gospel empties into philosophical nihilism, it finds its precise fulfillment and destiny. 165 Santiago Zabala (ed.), Weakening Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Gianni Vattimo. Internet (01/15/12/ 2:00 pm): http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23057-weakening-philosophy-essays-in-honour-of-gianni-vattimo/ 166 Vedantic as used here refers to that potential to transcend the limits of self-identity and to see ones connection with the larger picture; thus, ones connection with others - harmony in alterity (unity in diversity). 167 Engaging and Understanding Difference and Otherness: Yong and Williams. Internet (01/19/12/2:21 pm):http://prodigal.typepad.com/prodigal_kiwi/2011/06/engaging-and-understanding-difference-and-othernessyong-and-williams.html 168 Purtill, Richard L., Reason to Believe: Why Faith Makes Sense, Eerdmans Publishing, USA, 1974. p. 82 169 Harold Kushner cites Viktor E. Frankl in Mans Search For Meaning, Beacon Press, USA, 2006, p. xi.

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The second is openness to life that includes respect for nature, the natural habitat and anything that is in the nature of things (that also takes into account the human factor). As a result, the Self seeks foremost to preserve and promote what is human, and the pursuit of what is humane and what is humanizing in human being. It also connotes a reverence for the value of life (live and let live). It is equated with letting things be. It is learning to listen intently and feel the pulse of life in nature. Hence, it is an attitude that does not want to tamper with nature. It also suggests a realistic view of life and the ability to accept the facts and facticity about life as they unfold which allows the Subject to confront the reality of pain, suffering, and even death. It is associated with the ability to adjust and to gracefully accept adversity and human limitations. Openness seeks a new language, new articulation; new rational expressions to arrive at the truth about human being in general and every human being in his/her singularity (uniqueness). Let it flow also brings an awareness of the inter-connectedness of things (the continuumcommunio perspective) which allows the Seeker (1) to acknowledge the radical singularity of all living beings (2) to acquire a sense of purpose170in all forms of life, and thus (3) respond accordingly. Such pursuit leads to the path of Perfect Joy. Perfect Joy here becomes an appreciative response towards life: towards the unpredictable gifts of life, the unexpected favorable turn, the surprise visits of truth, the unfathomable kindness of events, for the gracious provisions of this earth, for the solutions that cannot be anticipated, for the awe and wonder at the puzzles of creation. More than anything else, we experience perfect joy when we have gone beyond ourselves in order to reach out and empty ourselves for a cause greater than ourselves. From a Neo-Platonist perspective of mystics, it is the emotive response which rejoices in the self-emptying provisions of the One, the infinite life-force which is greater than us. 2.2. Letting Go (The Dual Self-Emptying Approach)
Derrida's aim is to establish the priority of self sacrifice as grounded not upon utilitarian grounds but upon its status as radically individualistic gift.

It is proposed that Letting Go described as an Ethic of Sacrifice Based on Love (the gift of goodness to the self and for the other) is to be understood as an emptying process which works two ways: The first action is related to our dealings with the Not-Self or the Physiological Self, and involves Self-Pruning based on the love of self (letting go those worldly concerns which Ezra Bayda describes as our attachments and addictions, our expectations, our sense of entitlement, and our fear-based emotions). In the Christian context, this would mean a life of self-denial, renouncing worldly fame, wealth, and power and involves temperance and the avoidance of sin. In the Franciscan tradition, this is the life of poverty and simplicity. This attitude has an expanded meaning for the Friars Minor because it involves humility, a lowering of the Self subject to all especially the poor, the oppressed, the neglected, the powerless, the voiceless, and the marginalized. (Derrida has also rallied behind the cause of the marginalized). It is from this Franciscan concept of humble and self-less service that the second twin action of sacrifice based on love for the other was initially conceived and adapted in a philosophy of growth. This philosophy of growth is the product of the researchers synthesis of
170

Evidence in positive psychology suggests that people who focus on living with a sense of purpose as they age are more likely to remain cognitively intact, have better mental health and even live longer than people who focus on achieving feelings of happiness. [Kindly see Shirley S. Wang, Is Happiness Overrated?: Study Finds Physical Benefits to Some (Not All) Good Feelings. Internet (01/19/12/2:02 pm): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200471545379388.html]

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eastern and western thoughts. Eventually, this Alterity is developed here as the praxis of nonexclusionary alterity subject to all. In this project, this second component is the altruistic response to our totally other (the stranger). This response is the consequence of an understanding/illumination which inspires the Kardia to care, to reach-out, and show kindness and concern for others. In the Christian context this selfless or disinterested stance is understood as self-emptying act based on love as an expression of love (the righteous/perfect life). In Derridean terms, this is hospitality towards death based on responsibility as an expression of justice.171 a. Self-Pruning: An Ethics of Care for the True Self The authentic Self will have to learn to let go, to give-up and forego many things. The Self will have to learn to detach and liberate itself from the Illusion of Self. The key word to describe this first action is Self-Pruning which is the affirmation of the True Self (Atman, the Greater Self, or the Moral Self) and the rejection of the Not-Self (Annata, the Lesser Self, or the Mis-oriented Self).172 It is proposed that Self-Pruning (detachment) is a gift of goodness to the Self. If we view detachment in terms of self-denial, it may easily be perceived as a form of sacrifice. But it could also be positively understood as a form of self-love that allows the Self to love others a radical impoverishment for the sake of self in order to make the desirable response for the Stranger. Essentially, it is an ethics of care for the true self. Emboldened by the new literary space offered by deconstruction towards justice and inspired by allegorical/figurative methods of reasoning, the researcher proposes the pruning perspective (trimming/weeding-out) to justify the positive view of the Self who assumes a kenotic perspective.173 It is argued that the pruning perspective174 allows the subject to view sacrifice as gain instead of loss. Hence, the pruned subjectivity is the mature perspective which is viewed as an enhancement of the human potential to function in an excellent manner. It is therefore suggested that, in the kenotic perspective, the Subject goes through this pruning process to bring out the true self (the Pruned Self) to its optimum condition and therefore desirable level. There is a wealth of analogy in pruning aside from its freshness. Aristotle himself argues that love of self is not incompatible with the altruistic love for friends (philia) which became Derridas basis for his concept of hospitality ( philoxenia: love of strangers). Metaphysically, true love of self, as a type of self-interest or self-interestedness, is not an inappropriate mental attitude, in the same way, that it is in our very nature to desire to care for our selves and to desire to know ourselves and whatever there-is in-the-world. It is in our interest as an individual-in-the-world to attend to these self-concerns if we are to grow and if we truly care. We prune ourselves because we want to improve in life and become better persons (love of self). It is said that the secret of loving others is not to control them; but the secret of loving ourselves is to control ourselves. If human soul is to dress the earth, it must first learn and
171 172

Rachel Bowlby(trans.), Of Hospitality/ Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to Respond , p.144. Judd Biasiotto and Tommy Dorsey, In Pursuit Of Happiness Internet (01/19/12/10:26 am): 173 Pruning is a horticultural practice involving the selective removal of parts of a plant such as branches, buds, or roots. The reasons to prune includes deadwood removal, shaping (by controlling or directing growth), improving or maintaining health, reducing risk from falling branches, preparing nursery specimens for transplanting, and both harvesting and increasing the yield or quality of flowers and fruits. 174 To prune in French tailler, includes to polish, while elaguer, also means to cut out the fancy stuff. In German, backpflaume or beischneiden includes circumscision while streichen also means to delete. In Dutch, besnoeien also means to dress, while trimmen, includes attitude control.

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understand how to dress himself/herself from within. The Self must learn to control itself if it has to bloom to maturity. To be able to respond accordingly and avoid further complications, the Self must be mature enough to master its will, its mind, and its emotions - the Kardia. Indic traditions are rich not only in recommendations of non-attachment as a path to tranquility but also in their long history of analysis of conscious states associated with traditional meditation practices designed to produce calm concentration (Zen Meditation). The authentic self will have to deconstruct again, to sort it out until what remains are the bare essentials.175 Knowing what the bare essentials are, is to know what matters most in life. This is most significant because if we know what really matters most in life then we will also know how to respond to strangers. More often than not, those who have less in life knows what it means to live by the day, what is needed to be able to survive in a day, how much it really cost to last the day; and yet the paradox is that they are not aware (and therefore also do not know any better) that human being need not really go through the glitters of a luxury-driven existence just to be human to experience an excellent life (the good life). Most of those material surplus or extras are usually the vanities of a capricious existence which could distract the uninitiated immature self from attaining its true self. As Derrida would phrase the paradox: the secret is that there is no secret, but in some deep way, we just dont know who we are or what the world is.176 Man cannot live forever. Heidegger once said that from the moment a person is born, the possibility that one can die any minute already begins (Being-towards-Death).Each one of us cannot escape death. Perhaps, when we recognize that we do have a limited existence we begin to ask ourselves: what then are the things that really matter in life? What then is life all about? And what if the self was diagnosed and advised that it only has one year to live? How about a month to live, a week or even just a day? How will the dying self propose to live the remaining days of its life? With whom will the dying Self spend those most intimate final moments? It is said that how the Self intends to spend intimately those final days on earth is the best way to be everyday of our lives! We want every moment to count. We want quality life. We want to live and die with dignity. I relate, therefore I am (relationships). If the Self is conscious about dying everyday, about his finitude, then it will understand what really matters most in life. The self will be able to distinguish between surplus and bare essentials. The bare essentials consist in learning to value the gifts of life. And the bare essentials are what matters most in life. When we release what is extraneous in our lives, we can recognize what really matters.177 But to know what matters most in life, it would not be enough just to pay attention to the self; one must also pay attention to others. Corollarily, to rely on knowledge alone would not be enough to understand the truths about life and respond accordingly; we also need to listen intimately to the pulse of life, of the things and events around us teeming with life through our hearts.

175

Bertrand Russell offered what he called "a form of Occam's Razor": A principle that generally recommends selecting from among competing hypotheses the one that makes the fewest new assumptions. This principle suggests that we should tend towards simpler theories until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. 176 John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Internet (11/19/11/ 11: 10 am): http://www.crosscurrents.org/caputo200506.htm 177 Kenosis. Internet (01/19/12/3:00 pm): http://www.kenosisspiritkeepers.org/

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The kenotic encounter requires attentive listening and the willingness to enter into anothers world and be transformed by this world. The welcome of hospitality performs the transformation of oneself by the existence of the other.178 This is the domain of alterity. b. An Ethics of Non-Exclusionary Alterity
One who truly values the gift of life must also have the wisdom how to use it

The other twin action under this self-emptying project is the praxis of non-exclusionary alterity (subject to all) and also involves the concept of self-sacrifice based on love for others. It is said that one cannot begin to experience love for the other (alterity) unless the self transcends and discovers oneself outside his own self. David Hart wonders if Derrida has "uncritically succumbed to a Kantian rigorism that requires an absolute distinction of duty from desire" but suggests that it is difficult to explain why "the thought of the gift must be confined to so narrow a moral definition of gratuity or selflessness, purged of desire." Hart also wonders whether selflessness devoid of desire is so far from hate: "Would there not be something demonic in a love without enchantment, without a desire for the other, a longing to dwell with and be recognized by the other?"179 The researcher also senses something that is not in the natural flow of things, something that is not in accordance with our logic as human beings. As a gift of death, the praxis of alterity is a personalistic act and is supposed to be the best expression of the Self towards the other. In trying to conceive a notion of measureless friendship (unconditional welcoming) as a basis for justice in the realm of politics, Derrida was actually trying to combine the Pauline notion of Christian fraternity with the Aristotelian notion of philia (friendship par excellence). On the otherhand, the Aristotelian notion of philia of the first kind (friendship based on virtue) is also a form of love. Thomas Jay Oord has argued that if philia is a type of love, it must be defined so as not to contradict love. Oord defines philia as an intentional response to promote well-being when cooperating with or befriending others. Oord adds that philia also gives humans authentic friendship.180 Richard Norman concurs that the concept of the fully human life coincides with the Platonic and Aristotelian concept of genuine happiness.181 If we go strictly by Derridas standards, his notion of alterity is supposed to be the best possible way of honoring or respecting the otherness of the other without expecting anything in return.182 Derrida has always suggested that it should be non-exclusionary; in other words, nobody is excluded, left-out or marginalized by this praxis or law or principle and that includes the atheists and the nonChristians. It also means that even the choice of the language to describe this alterity should not be discriminatory as to undermine a certain class. Derrida even rejects the notion of fraternity that excludes father and women, couples etc. When we say nobody is left out it implies a notion of alterity that dissolves the I and converts all living beings as singular -plural, which means belonging to a generic class of others yet each retains this distinct singularity as the other like no

178

Nell Becker Sweeden, Book Review: Living the Hospitality of God by Lucien Richard . Internet (01/24/12/ 9:42 pm): http://www.bu.edu/cpt/resources/book-review/living-the-hospitality-of-god-by-lucien-richard-omi/ 179 Peter J. Leithart, Derrida on Gift. Internet (08/10/11/ 2:15 pm): http://www.leithart.com/archives/002003.php 180 Craig A. Boyd, Introduction: Perspectives on Love and Agap in Visions of Agap: Problems and Possibilities in Human and Divine Love, Ashgate Publishing Company, USA, 2008, p. 9. 181 Plato & Aristotle: The Role of the Emotions in the Pursuit of Eudaimonia . Internet (01/24/12/9:15 pm): http://niallmarkey.hubpages.com/hub/Plato-Aristotle-The-Role-of-the-Emotions-in-the-Pursuit-of-Eudaimonia 182 Jacques Derrida. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet (08/11/11/2:00 am):

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other (haceeity183 of Scotus) that must be treated with equal respect, in contrast to the double standards of carnivorous humans who ironically claim to champion the cause of animals. Bruns 2011 reading of Derrida emboldened this researcher to call it the communio perspective.184 It is also a Derridean challenge that brings to the fore the anthropocentric bias (at the expense of animals) in the ancient concept of sacrificing animals (Cains gift) as an offering to appease the gods which was further brought to its extreme limits in the case of Abraham-Isaac (human sacrifice). Are we then going to treat the rest of the animal specie as humans? Is it wrong to kill all kinds of animals and insects? What then do the Christian Animal-Protection groups have to say about Peters dream in Acts 10: 9-17? Verse 12 describes all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air; does this include the dogs? Can we really be kind and hospitable to animals and then also eat animals for food? Do we make them sacred and untouchable when we make them our pets? Is there such a thing as animal hospitality? Will it make a donkey human if it were given the gift of language? (In Numbers 22:28, Balaam was spared by the angel because of the talking donkey). Legend has it that Francis practiced a kenotic love for all creatures which is somewhat similar to the communio and continuum perspective separately described by Bruns and Gablik. This differance or field of tension is the reason why this researcher, in formulating the concept of Kenotic Hospitality, tried to approximate the Derridean ideals of alterity by providing for openness towards this incalculable alterity to allow boundless possibilities in the interpretation and praxis of kenotic justice. The researcher claims that kenotic hospitality is the best expression of justice for the stranger. This alterity is not grounded on philia/philoxenia alone, but on a non-exclusionary allembracing love subject to all even to the point of death. Alterity as the ethical praxis of kenotic hospitality is best conceived as love. To understand this love is to understand pain and sorrow. It presupposes sacrifice. This is so because in the act of love, giving up and sacrificing all personal considerations is the first step.185
Those motivated by the secret of sacrifice experience it as gain and not loss. They walk upon the way of sacrifice opening door after door, each one leading to greater and greater annihilations of the very self until nothing remains but bliss.186

Mother Theresa once said: I have found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love... As a motive, love is a paradox in the sense that the reason for the praxis of love is love itself. Love is its own motive (love for the sake of love). Love is more credible than sacrifice as a motive because to choose sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice borders on masochism. Under this concept of measureless alterity subject to all, love and sacrifice also goes together. I love, therefore I am!
The poverty of being unwanted, forgotten, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty which we must start to remedy in our homes. Love begins at home and it is not how much we do but how much love we put in that action (Mother Theresa).

How can we entertain strangers as guest in our houses when we do not have a home? Is the house a home? Heidegger once said that homelessness is the contemporary problem par excellence. Heidegger wants to draw our attention to a deeper malaise: the alienated sense that there is no safe place to dwell, that we no longer understand what it means to have a home. Hospitality, kindness to strangers, is only possible when one has a sense of home. Today, we
183

Haecceity in Duns Scotus, in Medieval Theories of Haecceity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). See Internet http://www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-haecceity/ 184 Internet (12/28/2011 11:09 pm): http://english.nd.edu/news/25962-newest-book-by-prof-gerald-bruns/ 185 Basant Kumar, Contemporary Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, India, 1999, p 84 186 Bruce Lyon, The Secret of Sacrifice. Internet(11/16/11/ 10 am): http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~blyon/Articles/secretsacrifice.htm

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often think of home as an utterly private enclosure against the world: every persons home is his/her castle. Home ought to be seen as a place where we can grow and develop and where we can invite others to do likewise. Until we return to a worthier understanding of home, we can not expect to live up to the virtue of hospitality.187 Love as the basis of alterity in the praxis of Kenotic Hospitality does no violence to the other than the self: dilectio proximo malum non operator plenitutodo On the other hand, what others describe as the folly of self-sacrifice is never viewed as a loss by the Subject who is overwhelmed by this kenotic love; rather it is perceived as a positive tendency (a natural potential of the human soul) which has something to do with the growing-up process the pruning perspective. 3. Kenotic Hospitality in a Nutshell It is suggested that the praxis of kenotic hospitality, under the proposed philosophy of growth, involves (1) openness, and (2) the twin self-emptying actions of kenosis as its main generative components (constitutive). The bulk of research material also confirms that perfect joy is the natural emotive/affective by-product of kenotic hospitality. Besides Francis, this is confirmed, among others, by Indian philosopher Basant Kumar when he categorically said that: The ideal of love is the state of perfect joy.188 Thus, the researcher postulates that as a philosophy of growth, the Way of Perfect Joy is the praxis of Kenotic Hospitality which, in turn, brings about perfect joy. Kenotic Hospitality is broader than Derridas concept of unconditional welcoming: (1) the notion of alterity which kenotic hospitality embraces is not simply based on philia which implies the combined notion of friendship, brotherly love, and philoxenia. Under this proposed deconstruction-(re)construction of Derridas own version of hospitality, philia is subsumed or embraced under an all-embracing/non-exclusionary love as one of the suggested innovations under this project; (2) Moreover, the praxis of Kenotic Hospitality qua the Way of Perfect Joy does not only presuppose an openness to possibilities but also involves the more positive concept of Self-Pruning (detachment from worldly concerns and illusions) which is retrieved and reintroduced as the true love of self, the kenotic perspective that would eventually emancipate the Self from the Maya and allow the Subject to love the other in a selfless or rather excellent manner (Aristotle). Self-Pruning allows the subject to love the Self without the pejorative connotations from the west. It has already been said that reading Derridas deconstruction was never meant to be a comforting experience. Perhaps, the best way now to dispel the feelings of discomfort by the Christian critiques of Derrida is to cite the following verse from the Christian bible: Greater love has no one than this: to lay down ones life for ones friends (John 15:13). This means that the Christians who practice fraternal love are the first people who are expected to understand kenotic hospitality precisely because this enhanced version involves welcoming the risks joyfully even if it would cost the giver his very life.189 A hallmark of deconstructive analysis is differance. Using differance effectively as the medium to create undecidability, Derrida has in effect challenged his readers to solve the puzzles of life, to
187

Robert J. Wicks, Review: Living the Hospitality of God. Internet(01/22/12/9:45 pm): http://www.amazon.com/Living-Hospitality-Robert-Spirituality Selections/product-reviews/0809139987 188 Basant Kumar, Contemporary India Philosophy, p. 84. 189 In response to Heidegger and Levinas' claim that giving one's life for the other is the purest demonstration of individuality, Derrida observed that what is given "is not some thing, but goodness itself, a giving goodness, the act of giving or the donation of the gift.

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reflect and enlarge our consciousness to find out for ourselves the best possible ethical path from the heap of ideas, from a pile of possibilities not -even-yet-conceived. Derrida experimented on the notion of philia as a fraternity of friends exacting justice among themselves as an expression of hospitality; Derrida simply stretched the boundless possibilities that challenge the Christian understanding of love. He tries to put it to the test to find out how far human being would, under extreme pressure, be willing to go (remember the case of Abraham?): are we now ready to open our doors in the middle of the night to a complete stranger who could be a potential criminal?
In Philippians 1:20-24, Pauls goal was to glorify God in his body, whether this was by life or by death. For Paul to live is to live out the life of Christ but he also has this desire to depart and be with Christ which for him is better by far because to die is gain. Paul believes that he fought the good fight: I have completed the race, and I have remained faithful (2 Tim 4:7).

On the eve of his death, St Francis after breaking bread and blessing his brothers said: "I have done my part, may Christ teach you to do yours."190 Francis found true joy in having done what pleases the Lord. In the face of insults, injuries and offense, Francis finds joy having responded the Gospel way for the love of the crucified Christ. For him it is personal victory in his quest for perfection towards Christ for the greater glory of God. He knew what hunger means and what it meant to own nothing. Being poor himself, Francis learned how to give generously the best part in him for the love of God and neighbor. Francis was a simple but tireless man who with trust and confidence in the love of the Lord joyfully and humbly devoted himself entirely in the perfection of the Gospel Life in his thoughts, in his words and in his deeds. Francis gave his best effort; he ran the race and welcomed the extra mile with the marks of the passion on his body: the stigmata.191 For him death is the gateway to heaven
Let us be assured, hospitality is definitely a human characteristic but we need go further, and also think of hospitality toward death. Love begets love. The challenge responds to a challenge; a gift of death for a gift of death. In the fixity of our mourning, we have perhaps forgotten this movement of invitation which is hospitality, and sacrificed a little of our humanity to the desire to know. 192

Kenotic Hospitality is our own funeral service towards our dying self (towards-death). This is the proposed mourning if the Self truly knows how to love and respect itself and others. Under this metaphysics, the True Self mourns to inherit wisdom from the paradoxes in life. Finally, mourning could also be the Franciscan legacy of dual honoring (mutual respect) that we intimately give and receive as brothers in the generic sense (symmetry/mutuality), without expecting any material reward (asymmetry). It also reminds us that we are not in any position to condemn strange articulations in the search for justice. Justice without judgment (without bias, conditions, limitations, hesitations, doubts, or fears), as a gesture of unconditional welcoming by the dying self, demands genuine love and friendship, and will always involve risks, pain, and sacrifice. Kenotic Hospitality, as the supreme human expression of love and justice, is thus proposed as the outstanding feature of the excellent life (from the West) that approximates the moksha (from the East) and brings about perfect joy (Franciscan). This kenotic love is alterity stretched to its very limits to the point of weakness so that in our weakened state, we should turn our attention to the other than our selves to give what remains in us and is really ours to give in order to experience the beautiful and the sublime in human existence and thus sustain that sense
190 191

St. Francis of Assisi. Internet (01/22/12/9:51 pm): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm St. Bonaventure, Part II. Major Life of St. Francis in Marion Habig (ed.), St. Francis of Assisi, Writings and Early Biographies: English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis , pp. 747-752. 192 Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to Respond , pp.140, 144,146, 154.

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of self-satisfaction and fulfillment even unto death. I function (Aristotle); therefore I am. I selfdeconstruct/reconstruct, therefore I am becoming kenosis. 4. Prologue: The Way of Perfect Joy is the practice of Kenotic Hospitality - the enhanced notion of Derridas unconditional welcoming. On the otherhand, it was an abiding love that animated and transformed the Derridean praxis of unconditional welcoming into Kenotic Hospitality which, in turn, brings about perfect joy. Love is the spring from which it [Kenotic Hospitality] flows, a far greater virtue [than the sense of responsibility] which can rightly be identified as basic in our nature as humans, something which could also be considered not only a part of our rational nature but also an undeniable part of our natural appetite the human soul functions to seek it without need of external prodding or encouragement just to do so. Hence, it becomes possible for humans to cultivate it with a passion. By passion, the researcher means wholehearted devotion as a rational appetite. This must be so because it is fundamental in the rational human being; it is also a basic desire. Happiness [Perfect Joy] is simply the desirable emotive consequence of this originary desire which leads to inner peace. Love is the motivating drive that comes from a kenotic perspective which in turn guides our thoughts and actions in response to what matters most in life. Thus it is suggested that if we know what really matters most in life then we will also know how to respond to our strangers. As a corollary: to know what matters most in life, it would not be enough just to pay attention to the self; one must also pay attention to others. For it is love that allows us to understand what matters most in life; it is the same kenotic love that enable us to give cheerfully - to endure the pain and suffering with joy; and (from a Christian perspective) it is the love of strangers that brings us vis-a-vis the human faces of God (Matthew 25:40). On the otherhand, Perfect Joy is the joy of the righteous one: There is no joy without love, but its righteousness always proceeds from our willingness to personally endure pain and suffering even to the point of death, all in the name of love. Hence, it is joy perfected by loves righteousness. The East-West survey in search for an alternative to responsibility led to the doorstep of kenosis. The researcher eventually found out that, as a way of life, kenosis inevitably leads to perfect joy which is unmistakably Franciscan. For Francesco di Bernardone, the life of a Friar Minor is tied to the kenosis of Christ which is a life of poverty and humble service subject to all (ethic of sacrifice under Phil 2:7). For Francis, perfect joy comes only by enduring pain and suffering for the love and glory of Christ. Kenosis as a life of renunciation and self-giving love is definitely a hallmark of a Franciscan life and could enhance Derridas concept of unconditional welcoming under a philosophy of growth which privileges the human factor and confronts the reality of pain, suffering and death in response to the fundamental question in life. Kenosis offers operative principles to guide our thoughts and actions; it has the potentials for subjective becoming - towards self-actualization. This radical self-emptying perspective of poverty-lowering and alterity (which are also embraced in the oriental notion of detachment and sacrifice) speaks of a wide range of Gospel virtues which also carries with it the messianic promise of inner peace and joy. The kenotic perspective (subjectivity) illuminates the other wise morbid and absurd, obscure and senseless rattle about a kind of hospitality to death.193 The Franciscan notion of kenosis makes Derridas
193

Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Of Hospitality/Anne Dufuormantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond , pp. 144-146.

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gift of death (unconditional hospitality) sensible as the practice of non-exclusionary alterity subject to all even to the point of death. The concept of sacrifice that is found in an enduring love is the authentic expression of Kenotic Hospitality. This love is the boundless expression of alterity. From a Christian perspective, the Way of Perfect Joy allows the praxis of kenotic hospitality out of love for God and neighbor for the greater glory of a Trinitarian God. As a result, the supreme mandate of love becomes the motivating force that enhances Derridas concept of unconditional welcoming. From a non-Christian perspective and for the purpose of this philosophical discipline, the secularized view of love is appropriated to allow the Subject to perceive this enduring principle from a non-theological perspective; thus, as an objective value, kenotic hospitality becomes a non-exclusionary concept by which every Christian and non-Christian including atheists can relate to. As a philosophy of growth, the Way of Perfect Joy opens up boundless possibilities in the praxis of kenotic hospitality for self and for others the measureless expression of kenotic justice. As an expression of justice and righteousness, Kenotic Hospitality is broader than Derridas concept of unconditional welcoming in the sense that it does not only involve a stretched ethical understanding of alterity but also includes an ethics of the self, both of which constitute the eudaimonia (the fulfilling existence). Kenotic Hospitality, as a way of life, is thus suggested as the eudaimonia. Kenotic Hospitality confirms the personalistic truth that human being becomes fully himself (as a unique human person) to the extent that he gives himself as a free gift to others (The Gift of Self).194 As a gift of self, this Franciscan derivative is a personal gift of death which allows the subject to welcome life and death without regrets. It makes life worth living and dying for. It is under this enhanced understanding that unconditional welcoming becomes a risk that is willingly and joyfully assumed without need of further encouragement. Kenotic Hospitality offers the incalculable promise of the Gift of Perfect Joy. The promise is incalculable precisely because it is a Self-Taste (a singular subjectivity of the promise which has infinite possibilities, as to form and content, and into the future). The promise of Perfect Joy overcomes Derridas dread of the unknown the dread of losing oneself completely without assurance of recompense.195 The promise of perfect joy provides the assurance to overcome our doubts and our fears, and makes the pains and difficulties in life more bearable. Under this kenotic perspective, human being need not fear and tremble anymore responsibility (duty) becomes superfluous as a motivating factor (with love, there is no more sense of compulsion) as to freely embrace unconditional welcoming as a means of doing justice for the stranger. Kenotic Hospitality is self-deconstruction is justice.

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION C. Synopsis

194 195

John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Borzoi Book, New York, 1994, pp. 202, 209 Scott David Foutz, Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death. Internet (01/14/12/7:38 pm): http://www.quodlibet.net/gift.shtml

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What began as a deconstruction of the Derridas stranger in relation to hospitality eventually lead to the Way of Perfect Joy as a philosophy of growth. The researcher argues that one cannot understand the kind of hospitality that the stranger really deserves unless one deals with his own stranger from within. Reconfiguring the original Host-Guest framework entails the development of the Metaphysics of the Self to show that the task of re-interpretation begins in our consciousness. This involves contemplation. The Metaphysical experience describes the meditative adventures of the Self, the gradual process of cognitive enlargement. Every step along the way became a step in deconstruction. Under this Metaphysical approach, the Guest-Within represents the stranger. Instead of taming the Stranger-Within like a beast, the Host maintains his power to host by befriending the Raw Other, whom the host engages in a partnership to brave and comprehend the perils-of-the world (the illusions) in order to understand through SelfDeconstruction, their shared destiny (Derridean notion of negotiating). To justify the envisioned long journey ahead, the Self consults and embraces Platos Delphic and Care dicta as the twin ethical driving-force that would propel the Self to launch an inquiry and examine Derridas Hospitality in relation to the Stranger, through introspection cum mediation. Life is not only about the self; it is also about the other. To pay attention to ourselves means we also have to pay attention to what is other than the self if the Self is to truly understand. This was also possible because of the moratorium or negotiated truce entered between the Host and the Guest from within. On the Wings of Kardia describes the taxing survey of western and eastern thoughts on happiness in an effort to find the path that leads to perfect joy. The path to understand perfect joy is also a path of growth riveted with deconstruction. The synthesis of the insights gained from the survey bloomed into a philosophy of growth (maturity) which involves two-fold movements: (1) openness, and (2) the twin self-emptying actions: Self-Pruning and non-exclusionary Alterity subject to all even to the point of death. Growth is the logical outcome of knowing ones self when the Seeker sincerely engages or devotes himself in the cultivation of the virtue of meditation in an excellent manner. The need to understand what matters most in human existence, allows the de-centering of our consciousness to project outward and eventually find meaning and purpose only by relating our humanity with others and discover the continuum, the communio between the Self and the Other Selves. Maturity rejects unbridled reckless hedonistic thoughts which refuse to honor difference that does violence to the True Self and the other. In the end, the researcher proposes that Kenotic Hospitality is the enhanced notion of Derridas unconditional welcoming. The student further suggests that Kenotic Hospitality, which is an ethics of sacrifice based on an abiding love, leads to perfect joy.

D. Philosophical Significance and Practical Implications Philosophy is an intellectually demanding discipline. Only those who are willing to learn and only those who are willing to develop their rational faculties will persevere. The knowledge that truly inspires genuine growth is one that is the product of our reflective skills . Trying to decipher and to understand the complex realities in life was never meant to be easy! Socrates himself left us a footnote to wisdom: Socrates claims that the meaning of Apollos oracle is that humans cannot possess wisdom. Real wisdom was the property of God alone. But even if humans can never attain wisdom, Socrates does not believe that the quest for wisdom is pointless. In fact pursuing the unobtainable goal of wisdom is the most beneficial thing that a

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human could be doing. Rather than pursuing money, fame, and political power, humans would be most benefitted by leading the examined life. The philosophical significance of this study primarily lies in the attempt itself to reconfigure the original Host-Guest framework to be transmogrified into a radical Metaphysics of the Self which paved the way for the Deconstruction of the Self. The east-west synthesis based on the human factor allowed the researcher to break away from certain traditional approaches in western metaphysics and to radically adopt an eclectic non-traditional reading of kenosis from the perspective of human growth and as a more humane and humanizing response to the fundamental question. It is also a hermeneutic reading that involves a double movement from the religious to the secular from the philosophical to the non-philosophical - a philosophical rereading of religious terms (deconstruction) - to bring out a non-religious (neutral and universal) understanding of enduring principles (the objective values) - the underlying truths behind Kenotic Hospitality as a perspective and as a praxis that would hopefully contribute to the flourishing of human civilization. The primary focus of this thesis is the deconstructive task of re-interpreting the stranger in relation to unconditional welcoming and to propose a secular understanding of kenotic love as the missing ethical ground that will possibly enhance Derridas praxis of hospitality for the stranger, understood this time as Kenotic Hospitality qua The Way of Perfect Joy. Hence, the philosophy of growth as the logical consequence of the Metaphysics of the Self is incidental yet foundational in its character and serves to support the main hypotheses. It is incidental in the sense that it is not the main focus; it is foundational because it provides the main framework. The nuggets of wisdom sometimes expressed in the form of aphorisms that are found along the road to maturity cannot really be helped when we synthesize western and eastern thoughts and only serves to dramatize the growing-up experience based on ethical realism, the eclectic process of self-enlargement that primarily relies on human logic which are discussed not without showing the contradictions, the aporias, the paradoxes in life in conformity with Derridean tradition of deconstruction. The researcher argues that the thesis has left the reader enough thinking space to re-examine the dysfunctional state of doing philosophy. Kenotic Hospitality as a philosophy of growth is in fact a messianic challenge to maintain this open channel to understand the boundless possibilities of doing justice for Derridas stranger. On the otherhand, to dismiss love as theology and therefore un-philosophical borders on hypocrisy (mental dishonesty) aside from the fact that it rejects what is in the very nature of the human soul which even the great exponents of western philosophy, Aristotle and Plato recognize. Finally, this eclectic approach to a philosophy of growth in fact suits the Filipino way of thinking, of perceiving reality. This Metaphysics of the Self is therefore first and foremost Filipino. The proposed philosophy of growth is a message against dysfunctional philosophical thoughts that has plagued many to think that it is fashionable to be hypocrites rejecting wisdom that sound like a guide book. Some really do not want it on a silver platter but would rather have something which is more challenging, something which involves more sophisticated thinking that would allow them to err, in a disastrous way, in reckless interpretations. Perhaps we should re-examine what the aim of ethics truly is. We only have one life to live and none to spare in case we make a mistake. Do we really want the answers or do we just want to experiment and entertain ourselves with anything new or fanciful like the pagan Greeks of old? The proposed Way of Perfect Joy as a Philosophy of Growth does not only privilege the human factor (to understand better the early Greek notion of virtue as the natural function of the human soul in relation to desire, to the telos and the eudaimonia the epistemo-psycho-

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ontological aspect) but also confronts the reality of pain, suffering and death (ethical realism). Unmediated by a philosophy of growth, human interpretation of what matters most in life could be distorted by immature ideologies possessing hedonistic tendencies, producing unwanted results. It rejects the contemporary western notions of self-interestedness and the ego (in particular, that of Levinas) and retrieves Aristotles categories of self-love in harmony with the oriental view of the True Self and the Not-Self while at the same time adopting Socratic eudaimonism and Zhuangzis Wu-wei, to enhance Gabliks continuum (cosmic) perspective of reality together with the contributions of Kierkegaard, Hegel, Heidegger, Vattimo, and Bruns to contemporary philosophy. As a creature of deconstruction, Kardia was a response to Western Philosophys extremely surgical approach in taxonomy which only gave birth to weird philosophies about life leading to more confusion and absurdities in their practical application, and thus only undermined the human ability to integrate the triadic components (mind-will-emotions) into one harmonious operation. Too much emphasis on their distinguishing features has disregarded the more important question (how they are inter-connected and how they could be made to coordinate according to human nature- according to his natural functions and potentials as an authentic being) how they could be harnessed to enhance being-becoming. Pruning is also introduced as an ethical concept to justify the positive psychological view of sacrifice as gain instead of loss. Through this more positive view of self-abnegation, renunciation or detachment, the Seeker is able to gain perspective even in uncomfortable and stressful situations. It is also hoped that as a shared response to the contemporary world, the raw materials that are found in the radical concept of Kenotic Hospitality (qua kenotic justice) would be useful in the further enrichment of ongoing studies in Franciscanism. Love does not need philosophy to justify itself. The language of philosophy is simply availed to expose their paradoxes in the human condition. It does not rely on words to be understood. It is the universal language which need not be reduced to words precisely because the concept primarily denotes action. It could stand alone. Unlike oral and written language, love transcends all cultural barriers over time and space, because it penetrates the heart and minds of people of every nation, of every race, sex, creed or ideology (whatever the religious or political persuasions or callings they may have). All of us, young or old, are capable of recognizing and perceiving this feeling. This capacity is an inherent part of our very nature as human beings. As if in a dysfunctional state of denial, philosophy simply looked the other way around. The only paradox is how to deconstruct, to interpret and transpose this boundless love in the world of politics in terms of the global economy and perhaps in terms of political ecumenism or the ecumenical continuum based on that notion of alterity par excellence to achieve the desired non-exclusionary unity, equality and justice. The notion of sacrifice based on love reminds this seminarian of the prophetic argument of Caiaphas based on expedience (John 11:47-54). On the otherhand, Kin of Ata by Dorothy Bryant also makes the researcher dream again of the early Christian community where no member goes hungry because each one literally helps feed each other, carrying each others burdens/cross (which is also symbolized by the love miracle vis-a-vis feeding the multitude). Each one helps build the other in the praxis of what they believed was the eudaimonia (the fulfilling life). They were practicing Kenotic Hospitality. In the same vein, the natives of this archipelago were once in the habit of showing hospitality at the slightest excuse. These Indios who obviously had a good life, were often observed merrymaking by their Colonizers and were

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later accused of being indolent as a ruse to make them their slaves instead. The happy-golucky natives always share the food and wine they had with their guests; the parasite invaders simply reversed the order so that now they ate only the best from the bounties of the land which they have shamelessly coveted for themselves and eventually violated the dignity and common wealth of the people. The animals, the fruits and vegetables were in abundance but they only get what they need and never thought of storage the way manufacturers today do. They never knew what greed means until these profit-oriented foreigners came to introduce strange ideas that would later deprive them of the life they knew. In hindsight, the possibilities in the praxis of kenotic hospitality are limitless, but few dare to thread and press the possible limits of our potentials because it calls the self towards death until nothing is left not even ones identity all in the name of sacrifice based on this abiding love. What is left is just the trace, the spirit, and at the end of the day, we ask ourselves: Was it really worth it? How will I still know when I am already dead? Zhuangzis skull might as well retort: How did you know that you will never personally know the truth beyond death? As a seminarian trained in the Franciscan traditions, what matters most in life is to become the person God wants me to be. Just like Francis, my assurance lies in staying close to the Beloved Son in whom the Father is most pleased. Our belief in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah is the rock (the cornerstone) of our faith. At the end of the day, we are not Muslims, Jews, Christians, Catholics or otherwise (from the Abrahamic tradition); we are not even Buddhist, Hindus or Animists (from the Brahmanic faith); not even atheists. Let none of us be deceived by what is proper in a name. For at the end of the day, we all stand naked and unbound before the scale of loves righteousness that is inscribed within each one of us. Our nakedness will make us see what we have become; but our freedom will test the limits of our goodness in response to the frailties of our condition. Righteous love is not blind; rather, it will make us see what matters most as clear as the li ght of day. What is then in a name when it will only serve to widen the gap and create more fractures in life? Where is that genuine non-exclusionary alterity and communio? (The singular-plural I) And who, for the sake of the love that many people preached, is willing to make the first move to give up and sacrifice this name? Is this aporia or simply difficult? Love needs no prodding because it is self-emptying until everything is given up for others. With significance, this treatise could be used as the building block to a philosophy of sacrifice and dying in public service (the enhanced patriotism) based on the political ethics of Kenotic Hospitality that does not only renounce the traditional way of doing politics but also rejects a culture of corruption and incompetence in public service (ethical housekeeping). The concept of self-deconstruction could also be an open challenge to explore the possibilities of applying Kenotic Hospitality to enhance the local Bayanihan Spirit at the barangay level by re-inventing Damayan Lagi as a communal ethics of care based on love. Justice does not necessarily involve love; but Love always includes justice.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY A. PRIMARY SOURCES: Derrida, Jacques, The Animal That Therefore I Am, Marie-Louise (ed.) and David Mallet (trans.), Fordham University Press, New York, 2008. The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret, David Wills (trans.), the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2008. The Politics of Friendship, George Collins (trans.), Verso, New York, 2005. Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, Rachel Bowlby (trans.), Stanford University Press, California, 2001. Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogic with Jacques Derrida, in Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (eds.), Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, Routledge, 1999. Monolingualism of the Other or Prosthesis of Origin, Patrick Mensah (trans.), Stanford University Press, California, 1998. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (trans.), Stanford University Press, California, 1997. Deconstruction in Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, John D Caputo (edit.), Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., New York, 1997. On The Name, David Wood, John P. Leavey and Ian McLeod (trans.), Thomas Dutoit (ed.), Stanford University Press, California, 1995. Of Grammatology, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (trans.), Johns Hopkins University Press, USA, 1994. "Biodegradables: Seven Diary Fragments," trans. Peggy Kamuf, Critical Inquiry,Vol.15, no. 4 (Summer 1989) Memoires: For Paul de Man (The Wellek Library Lectures), Lindsay, Culler, Cadava, and Kamuf (trans.), Columbia Univ. Press, NY, 1989. Fors: The Anglish Words of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, Johnson (trans.), University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Deconstruction and the Other, Interview with Richard Kearney, in Kearney (ed.), Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1984.

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Living On in Harold Bloom et al., Deconstruction and Criticism, Hulbert, James (trans.) Seabury Press, New York, 1979.

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