Abstract

Jean-Luc Marion is a significant contemporary French philosopher and part of a movement in French phenomenology that Dominique Janicaud has characterized as constituting a "theological turn." My dissertation presents and critically examines Marion's philosophy. Marion writes on three distinct subjects. In each area, he has produced a series of significant works, that apparently are exclusively devoted to one of these three projects. First, Marion is involved in primarily historical and heavily exegetical work on Descartes. He reads Descartes very closely and puts forth arguments about Descartes' epistemology and metaphysics. Second, he has written several works in theology, which explore a kind of negative or mystical theology that dissipates the visual and conceptual idols of the past and present. Finally, Marion has recently authored a further trilogy on phenomenology, specifically on the question of donation or givenness, outlining so-called "saturated phenomena." ;Although these three projects may seem very disconnected, I show that they are actually extremely parallel. I argue that Marion's fundamental concern in his work on Descartes, on theology, and on phenomenology is an overcoming or destruction of metaphysics, in order to free or redefine on the one hand, the self or ego, and on the other hand, God. Furthermore, all three projects culminate in a discussion of love or charity. Although I assert that Marion is finally more interested in the theological implications of his project than the philosophical ones, I examine and evaluate the philosophical significance of his project. Marion claims that his work is worthwhile philosophically in four ways: it frees phenomenology and allows it to explore phenomena at the boundary of phenomenality, it articulates less idolatrous thought about God, it allows for a better account of the "self that comes after the subject," and it opens the way toward an account of inter-subjectivity in general and of love specifically. In the second part of my dissertation I thus critically evaluate these assertions by examining each of the four topics . I suggest that in all four respects Marion achieves much of what he seeks to accomplish, yet that at the same time leaves significant problems unresolved