TO FORGIVE

The Unforgivable and the

Imprescriptible
Mark Joseph Calano, PhD
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Ateneo de Manila University

LECTURE OUTLINE

Pardon and Merci

Gift
Forgiveness

PARDON AND MERCI

The present essay is
framed within two words,
pardon and merci, with
which it begins and ends.

PAR
Par le mot par commence donc ce
texte
(With the word with this text
begins)
Dont la premire ligne dit la verite
(Of which the first line speaks the
truth.)
--Ponge

He begins with pardon: but

with the word itself or the
act?
Is he using this word or
mentioning it?

BOTH
For what is any lecture,
speech, or discourse if not
a continual exercise in
asking forgiveness, in
making ones apologies?

Do we not always begin,

implicitly and in a structural
matter, with Excuse me, may
I please have a moment of
your time, forgive me for
presuming to have something
to say, and do we not always
end with (49-50)

So how different are these

two words, pardon and
merci?

For Derrida, language

itself is structured around
a promise, an archipromise to which our
every word is a response.

Every time we open our mouth we are

implicated in the promise to deliver
the truth, even as we are caught up in
an unavoidable and structural
(destined) perjury, a failure to keep
our word of honor, for the thing itself
always slips away, and for this we ask
forgiveness.

GIFT
Forgiveness, like the gift
(par/don, for/give), begins
by (par) the impossible, is
driven by the same logic,
or rather aporetic.

It has the same poison/gift

like structure: as soon as
it is present, this present
can start to turn to poison
(pharmakon).

We can use forgiveness as a

strategy, hold it over the other
whom we have forgiven, secretly
congratulate ourselves on our
forgiving nature, and so forth.

Like the gift, it depends upon the

aporetics of the impossible,
which is why this lecture on
forgiveness is more a lecture on
thinking the possible and the
impossible otherwise than
metaphysics and logic.

For the more possible forgiveness is,

the more reasonable, sensible, and
equitable it is, the more it slides into
the rule of an economy, a calculation,
a way of squaring accounts and of
producing symmetry, equilibrium, and
reciprocity (45-46).

Like the gift, forgiveness

must resists becoming a
system of exchange.

In classical philosophy and

theology, forgiveness is inscribed
precisely within an economic
order according to which it can
be given only under certain
conditions.

If the offender admits that he is

wrong and asks to be forgiven,
expresses sorrow, means to make
amends as far as possible , and
promises to avoid repeating his
offense in the future, then he is
forgiven.

The offender meets the

conditions, pays off the
debt, and thus is owed
forgiveness.
Anything else would be
unfair.

Derrida does not say this is a bad

deal; he does not denounce it or
say that reconciliation is no
different or no better than
vengeance or endless retribution.

It is a worthy and noble

calculation, the symmetrical
balance of reconciliation
remains a worldly inscription
or correlate of forgiveness,
which is asymmetrical.

Reconciliation and redemption are the

way forgiveness enters the world; they
belong to an economy that ought not
to be confused with forgiveness,
rather the way the law may not be
confused with justice.

FORGIVENESS
For forgiveness in itself, if there is such a
thing, is a gift, not a deal, good or bad, which
means that to give or grant pardon to the
other, is to do so unconditionally, apart from
any economic considerations, even if the other
does not ask forgiveness, does not repent or
plan to make amends or promise to sin no
more.

There is forgiveness when

there is no hint of a deal, no
sign from the other side that
they intend to keep peace, no
sign of equilibrium.

There is forgiveness even and

especially if the other has done
something unforgivable, which
would represent an extreme
disturbance of economy,
equilibrium, and reciprocity.

There is forgiveness just when

forgiveness is impossible, when
it makes no sense to grant or
expect forgiveness, just when
forgiveness is not only not owed to
the offender but when it is
unimaginable.

There is forgiveness not when the

offender has done is forgivable,
proportionate, measurable,
venial (30), but just when
forgiveness is faced with the
unforgivable.

The unforgivable is the

only possible correlate of
forgiveness and the only
way for forgiveness to be
a gift, which means to be
itself.

Forgiveness begins by the im-possible,

where this im- is not a simple
negation but an intensification, driving
forgiveness to the most extreme
possibility, impelling forgiveness to the
possibility of the impossible.

CONCLUSION
Indeed, Derrida suggests at the end of the
lecture that if there is any limit to the analogy
between gift and forgiveness, it may lie in this,
that this impossible forgiveness is not simply
an application of the aporetic logic of the gift,
but that it actually precedes it, that
forgiveness is prior to the gift, more urgent,
more necessary, and also its first and final
truth (48).