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As kind of introductory remark, let me state that I'm not academically-trained in philosophy, so my apologies if this comes up as a rather simple question.

I was reading Logique de Levinas by JF Lyotard, and I came upon, at the very beginning of the book, the following axiom which Lyotard coins as the enunciation clause, that is:

If "A is B", then "A is"

If we admit this axiom, which Lyotard states to be of dramatic importance in phenomenology, we're lead to aporia in some statements of Levinas, for instance:

Le tout autre est autre que tout ce qui est.

Loosely translated, "the Other is different from everything that is". But therefore, "Other is", which leads to a contradiction because it is different from anything that, precisely, is.

I'd like to know if there's some material there in the literature that discusses in a more pedagogical way this problem!

Thanks a lot!

Mauro ALLEGRANZA
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Hermès
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    You can see it discussed in French in connection with Derrida (google translate helps): on the link below there is a comment "the formula 'Tout autre est tout autre' is untraductible. It may be enunciated litterally only in French" https://www.idixa.net/Pixa/pagixa-1703011128.html – sand1 Jul 15 '19 at 18:37
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    "A Unicorn is a Horse with a horn"; therefore "A Unicorn is (exists ?)". Do you agree with this kind of argument ? – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jul 15 '19 at 18:54
  • @MauroALLEGRANZA Is a unicorn a horse with a horn? Really? If a unicorn really *was* a horse with a horn, then, yes, it *would* exist. For a thing to have a a quality requires that it exists to begin with. And, no, inexistence is not a quality. All this, however, depends on what you read into our ordinary assertions. What's a quality? What's a thing? What is existence? Is a thing the bundle of all its qualities? – Speakpigeon Jul 15 '19 at 19:21
  • ah, interesting question! –  Jul 15 '19 at 19:24
  • @sand1 "Tout autre est tout autre". A perfectly good and obvious translation would be! *Every other is totally other*. But, it may also be a play on words, like, "*Being entirely other is something else altogether*". This being Derrida... – Speakpigeon Jul 15 '19 at 19:28
  • Lyotard seems to imply that the clause is a BIG deal: "If we try to escape aporia from positivism and propositional logic, the clause seems inevitable, if not desirable [...] Indeed, the enunciation clause is the absolute key wish seems to allow to derive the 'substance' of the utterances from the 'subject' of the enunciation, as in Descartes' *cogito* [...] We can show, that in almost any philosophical discourse, this clause is used. For the philosopher, the interdiction of the said clause, formulated by the logician (by Russell for instance), is equivalent to the interdiction of philosophy" – Hermès Jul 15 '19 at 20:09
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    This paradox has a very long history, I will only give one pointer. Quine called it Plato's beard ("*nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not?*"), although it is, more properly, Parmenides's. Quine discusses the inference "Pegasus is a flying horse, therefore, Pegasus is", and Russell's solution, in [On What There Is](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/05f2/9bb9be63647f8897775461c18e96026cec20.pdf). But it would not work for Lyotard or Levinas. – Conifold Jul 16 '19 at 06:00
  • Thanks a lot for the answers ! Read the first half of Quinn's article, not finished yet. At this point, I find it kind of puzzling that the words [vacuous truth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth) have not appeared yet... Maybe that's just a thing for mathematicians... – Hermès Jul 16 '19 at 09:27
  • This [answer](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/63985/37256) is to a seemingly different question. But I think it applies here as well. If you wish I can tailor it to your question... But I don't know French! – Rushi Jul 19 '19 at 03:14
  • 'If god is the most perfect being, god exists'? – CriglCragl May 25 '21 at 22:16
  • @sand1, is derrida telling us that there exists a philosophical concept which can only be validly expressed in the french language and no other? – niels nielsen Feb 21 '22 at 06:44
  • @Conifold, . – Agent Smith Jun 15 '23 at 02:58

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Coucou !

À commencer, permettez-moi me pardoner pour mon français. Je me suis enseigné la langue, mais je vois que vous le lire, alors quelle oportunité pour practiquer ! Et, à votre question...

Je recommenderais que vous rigardessez le programme The Atheist Experience parce qu'il y a une hôtesse qui dit qu'elle ne pense pas que le néant peut exister parce que, si il existe, alors c'est quelque chose parce que c'est le néant. Il y a, fundementalment, une contradiction entre l'existence de le néant et la nature de le néant.

Comme des autres gens ont dit, la question du non-existence est beaucoup étrangé car il doit exister pour que autres choses n'existe pas, mais comment peut être que quelque chose que, par sa definition, n'existe pas peut exister ?

Je dirais que le néant en fait existe mais en la métaréalité. Il y a des choses (selon moi, presque tout) que nous ne pouvons pas savoir si elles existent en réalité ou si elles n'existent pas. Exemples seriont comme les unicornes, les cygnes noirs (métaphoricallement), &c.

J'suis comme vous en que je ne suis pas un étudiant (ni j'ai été un étudiant) de la philosophie, mais j'ai un interêt pour elle, donc je ne peux pas vous diriger à des livres ou pensées de cette thême, mais j'espère que ceci ait été util comme une exploration de la thême.

Curtis Sheppard
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