Imagine if we were fully transparent. This value so promoted in political, academic, and ethical forums could lead to a bizarre outcome if humans resembled jellyfish, the most transparent creature on the planet. Our conventional modes of secrecy or deception would be ruined in formal and intimate environments. We would find it difficult to hold hands or engage in passionate kisses while at the same time casting an eye on our kidneys preparing to excrete bile or feeling each other’s intestines at work. Were we truly transparent, speculates Alphonso Lingis, “we could not imagine how we could move and act among the things spread out about us” (5).
Thus begins chapter 1, “Outside,” of Lingis’s seventeenth book, Irrevocable. The etymology of the title is clear-cut, “not to call back.” Yet the title resonates with different meanings or implications of keeping a promise, breaking one’s word, retrieving a moment in...
