SEVEN PAPERS ON EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS ... - Wagner College

existence, that I exist, which others instantiate. My being-consciousness, as the "face" of my
existence, does not show itself to me except in the faces of others.
J. The Existence of the Other, Once More
I will conclude with another look at the other. Consider this scenario: A stranger comes into the
room where I am seated reading and sits down at a table a few feet away from me. We look at
each other and exchange glances. I turn back to my book. The stranger leaves, unnoticed by
me. The encounter between us was brief, yet we have validated each other's existence. What
happened?
The stranger's body entered my visual field and became a pattern of objects for my
perceptual consciousness. His body's visible appearance was preceded by a few audible hints
of the nearness of something moving, perhaps of something living. The rhythm of the footsteps
was familiar. It was the unique rhythm of bipedal movement – walking. My expectation that it
was a human being was confirmed when I saw the figure. It was what appeared to be an adult
male with a certain physiognomy. At what point did I validate his existence?
I would suggest that when our glances met validation occurred. We did not touch, nor
did we exchange a word. Either of those events would have had the same effect, however.
Though all three means of validating the other often tend to occur together, one is enough. The
earliest of the equally basic modes of encounter – the gaze – is, in a way, the most powerful, but
validation is just as poignantly exemplified by the handshake two people exchange or by
greeting each other by name at a distance.
What of those "featherless bipeds" walking by on the sidewalk outside or sitting across the
room with their backs to me? I infer certain probable characteristics of what each of them is –
that they are alive, not corpses, male or female, children or adults – but that is all. I believe
something about what they are, but this has nothing to do with their existence. Validation of
their existence requires the concurrent validation of my existence by one of them. Natural things
and fabricated things, images and recollections of which I am consciousness, all confront me as
beings, but another human being does not confront me in that way (although socialization can
make encounter less likely).
The gaze, the human touch, and speech are missing in non-human beings. Another
human being is not only a thing, like a cat or a telephone. She is that, too, but first of all and
primarily, she exists.
In the example just given, the stranger's existence was more than his physical presence
as a human being, although without that he might as well have been a well-designed robot. My
existence means something only to another existing being. It lacks meaning, for example, for my
cat. All that matters to my cat is what I am, especially as his reliable feeder.
The human paradox of both being and existing is now clear. There stands a human being
and all that I infer he is, but all that is directly accessible to me is his existence. Conversely, his
own existence is inaccessible to him. He requires that from me and I provide it in acts of
existential validation. My access to his existence is crucial for him. Surprisingly, as we have seen, it
presents me with something missing, absent, not there; namely, all that the other is not.
Intimacy is the effort to somehow overcome the absence which an other's existence
opens up when I validate it. An other whom I try to bar from validating my existence becomes
invisible. I try to see past him, refusing to recognize his existence. I fix him as a specimen of what I
take him to be, or I try to see through him. This is the look of the professional, especially the
medical clinician who looks at me with the eyes of an anatomist. I am the "living corpse" he
treats, operates on, and manages as a case.
When confronted by another human being, if I want to refuse him the validation of his
existence, I ignore his gaze, avoid his touch, and listen only to the information his words
communicate. I look away, I chill as the other brushes against my hand, I ignore his voice (27).