A philosophy of the encounter

Encountering the other has been the terms used by philosophers to depict a novel confrontation. This is not necessarily violent, or even an exchange of any sort. It can be as simple as two strangers meeting each other on the street, even if just passing by. An encounter hence, to begin with - is the perception of the other, in some form, through the faculty of the senses. And a true encounter, as I depict it, is reciprocal - it involves the others perception of yourself.

To clarify terms, can we think of a dialogue as an encounter? Not in itself, yet if in the dialogue, sets of ideas which are usually not compared to each other, heterogeneous practices, or divergent perspectives are provided the opportunity to be juxtaposed and compared - then we have a kind of encounter.

A reason why I don't include the dialogue itself as an encounter, is because very often - it is between familiars. Two or more people, who already have some adequation of each other. Here, we would be presented with a meeting, a reacquaintance etc. useful activities for sure - yet you may want to catch up on how each other's friends and family are doing, or what their last major project was like - herein lies the encounter with difference.

Is an encounter always an encounter with difference? Inasmuch as it is not what you have already apprehended as the same - yes. Yet, as Hegel noticed long ago in the beginning of his phenomenology - there can be no encounter with difference, no recognition of it without an understanding, if not a determination of what is the beginning. I do not say the same so as to provide examples which embody such a category.

Here, I am thinking of why for instance, in their masterpieces, Hegel and Marx begin from a singular concept; ie. perception in the phenomenology and the commodity in capital. A beginning is not a determination of what will come, yet it lays the ground, at least in the mind of the philosopher of what can come, and if what does come is not simply a repetition of this beginning - it will entail a difference. I include these sentences, not out of any defense of difference which I would like to erect in philosophy, a task which I believe Deleuze, and Hegel before him accomplish adequately, in different ways - but to introduce a way of thinking to a fresh gaze, and in a sense, this is the beginning of the encounter.

I would like to present the interview, as a site where such an encounter happens. There can be many kinds of interviews, yet my predilections for proletarian philosophy encourages me to take up the job interview - a mode, which by its very repetition (and in many cases, necessity, will find a traction and catchment area others may not find). An encounter, when not in public, between strangers exists in a sort of codified space. A place with its own rules, written and unwritten, sets of expectations, habits of thought and other such preferences.

A job interview - has a definite purpose in mind, to determine the suitability of a candidate in the execution of a task at hand, one (or perhaps more) determined by the entity, most often a company which initiates the encounter, via a phone call or email.

There may be a pre-history here, a potential candidate may see an advertisement, may have applied - and there are all sorts of useful learnings here, regarding what is happening in the job market, what forms of labor are desired, at what prices etc. Yet a meeting is the form of encounter that I would limit myself for the purpose of this essay.

Of course, there is no absolute necessity to begin with a job interview. Meeting a beautiful woman on a date, is too, an encounter - in a very different terrain, embodying an entirely other set of expectations etc.

From these two above mentioned situations however, which I believe may be common to a number of people - I would like to highlight important similarities, which may yet lead to digressions. These encounters are face-to-face, or if not at least not epistolary. They may be over the phone, or video call and hence - within such a mode of communication, enable the expression of immediacies, familiarities, and competences relating to them in a conversational medium.

They hence also serve as grounds, where an understanding of the other is inculcated, and this is true for both parties. Principly, these are formal procedures, inasmuch as the participants know, in advance, at some level - what they are seeking from the other. And not every encounter is like this, in fact, most aren't.

If I may do the grose violence of characterising the relations between an employer and an employee, as an exchange of services, then, in the world of capitalism - is it too far a stretch to at least think of the encounter between relative strangers on a date along similar lines? This is not to foreculde exceptions, merely acknowledge a background as it were to the glow of warmth and affection that may be immanent to a first love.

Anxieties, also are very much a part of the encounter - for there is always something at stake in them, in fact - a bartering of what it is that you and perhaps I will be doing with our lives, in however limited a fashion. An implicit acknowledgement of this, serves as a reminder - that this is not merely an exploration, an adventure, but yes, indeed a meeting, with definite, nameable, and definable objectives in mind, objectives which may indeed be asymmetrical between the parties concerned. This is the realm of negotiation.

Perhaps, now - an analogy may be made between the meeting of employer and employee and that between strangers on a first date - in the realm of an exchange of services, which does not seem entirely out of place. For such is the pitiable position that our enmeshment in the struggle to survive puts us in. And no resistance to such circumstances can begin, without, in some way, acknowledging them.

Comrades who may share a common cause, business partners, husband an wife, parent and child - each in their own way, transcend the determination of the encounter from its purely negotiatory stage. Business cycles, habits, preferences etc. and a familiarity with them have a way of formalising certain relations, and there is much to be said here, yet this is not what I would like to take up now.

Psychoanalysis has provided us, if I may characterise it in these terms, a psychic history of the encounter of a subject as it were. From an initial object attachment to the mother's gaze, voice and breast, to an recognition of the authority of the father - the beginning of the oedipal scene, to the imbibing of the forms of sublimation that the representation of authority entail etc. Yet, this is an encounter which remains immanent to the subject throughout, even in its encounter with the other, what is drawn on is an image to retroactively construct the same, characterizing it in new ways, strengthening an ego (a word I do not use in any pejorative sense).

An encounter, which to me, can only be an encounter with differences is essentially a kind of estrangement from oneself, and there is a component of this which is not entirely determined by us - the place as it were, is open to the other's expression, necessary in fact, to be receptive of it. The name that Lacan offers such a depiction is the Symbolic.

Maybe it is now easier to notice how an encounter is not very much unlike how a writer may seek to reach for an audience, or at least a solitary reader, bearing in mind possibilities of common terrain, shared idiom, reference, etc. Any such awareness of the other requires to begin from an understanding of commonality, if we are not to dismiss the other merely as a kind of alien or anomaly.

Literary critics have long studied plot in novels, and I believe it is fitting that the word is used to represent a premise as well as the outline of the events of a story. I think of plot, here - as the place of the encounter, not merely the physical location, but in what stage of in life one encounters the other, as an infant, a students, a teenager etc.

How the other is characterized, or better yet, chooses to represent themselves, forms an index, for the subject as to how she, he or it may be broached. Whether, a similar characterisation, consonance, flavour, or position has been witnessed earlier will mark the kind of repetition, if any that the subject may register.

Essentially, it is important to note that the encounter, as depicted here, is empirical - the fragments of it which may exist in memory, such as a smile, a voice, a face, a napkin, a note - instances which are stored in the mind. This is not to say that an encounter cannot be a deduction, and even speculations of all kinds have an element of it in them, my point however is that in some form, even if only as an idea - it is material.

The durations within which such encounters happen, whether an email correspondence over years, a brief insult at a traffic light etc. are often and easily beyond our own determinations, for in a catalogues of the other, as yet unnamed, yet principly not the same, it is difficult to think in any register which does not eventually envelope the world itself - and here we see perhaps an oft neglected use of naming. The ability to demarcate specificity is as important to identification as it is to distinguish that which is identified from everything that is not the same. Sassuere - a linguist asserts that this in fact is how words derive their meanings in any case.

An encounter, if allowed, can powerfully alter the course of your life. An opening to the place of difference which the other may offer, a willingness to see the world from that position, bearing with oneself, the traces of impressions, hopes and expectations like various coloured lenses - allows for a shared intelligibility, and this is treasured among those of who seek to be understood ie. have something to say. Alain Badiou seeks to characterize such an encounter as the Two-Scene, as the exploratory and creative moment in love. I would welcomes such a way of thinking, yet include perhaps a little shamefacedly, a prosaic element into this - for the first brushes of love cannot carry through a whole relationship, and all the challenges it will face. Nor will a tagline or blurb hold a reader to a text.

The world is full of such moments, and often, in fact in most cases it will not be a person in flesh and blood. The comfort of a well made chair, as opposed to one which does not readily fit one's back, preferences in cuisine, choice of room freshner - are all encounter which we face at some point, yet perhaps are not remarkable enough for the ambitions of this text so begun.

Yet such choices, for they may indeed be choice provided they can be afforded, can and do change how life is lived and experienced. Perhaps not major punctuations, but noticeable in ways that make their presence felt.

Being able to name such encounters, characterising them as I have done above is a mediatory task that helps, at least me, to focus my attention and energies to what it is that may be happening, to what requires addressal, to how it may be changing me or my circumstances, and in stopping for a moment to acknowledge these - I hope to create perhaps nothing more than miniature snapshots with extended captions, moments which can be shared, or passed alike, by a gaze not my own, which views them in ways which I cannot, from whose differences I may learn.

However, an encounter can be a contestation - an engagement where the alterity of the other is besieged, and minorities of all kinds face such situations, and shall I say, minors know of this all too well, even if they do not or can't readily express it.