In this paper I consider Ricœur’s negotiation of the boundary or relationship between philosophy and religion in light of the larger debate in contemporary French philosophy. I suggest that contrasting his way of dealing with the intersection of the two discourses to that of two other French thinkers (Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry) illuminates his stance more fully. I begin with a brief outline of Ricœur’s claims about the distinction or relation between the discourses, then reflect on (...) those of Marion and Henry, who although they do not relate them in the same way still together form a significant contrast to Ricœur’s perspective, and conclude with a fuller consideration of Ricœur’s methodology in light of this comparison. I suggest that it is in particular his hermeneutic commitments that lead him both to more rigorous distinctions between discourses and ironically to greater mediation. (shrink)

This chapter ventures into a deeper interpretation of the concept of cogito, ergo sum. The chapter begins with a presentation of the newly-reborn challenge and contact of Descartes' thoughts to contemporary philosophy. One such contact was Henry's use of “material phenomenology” to interpret Descartes' hermeneutic. The chapter emphasizes that this particular line gives access to an original and powerful understanding of the cogito, ergo sum, and not only that its phenomenological repetition pulls the Cartesian ego out of the aporias (...) for which the greatest interpreters—Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger—had opposed it, but above all that this line opens absolutely new perspectives on the whole of Descartes' work. In particular, the chapter argues that it would in this way seem possible to reestablish, in the “I think, therefore I am” which generosity finally effects, the unity long missing between the love of wisdom and the search for truth. (shrink)

Along with Husserl's Ideas and Heidegger's Being and Time, Being Given is one of the classic works of phenomenology in the twentieth century. Through readings of Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, and twentieth-century French phenomenology (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Henry), it ventures a bold and decisive reappraisal of phenomenology and its possibilities. Its author's most original work to date, the book pushes phenomenology to its limits in an attempt to redefine and recover the phenomenological ideal, which the author argues has (...) never been realized in any of the historical phenomenologies. Against Husserl's reduction to consciousness and Heidegger's reduction to Dasein, the author proposes a third reduction to givenness, wherein phenomena appear unconditionally and show themselves from themselves at their own initiative. Being Given is the clearest, most systematic response to questions that have occupied its author for the better part of two decades. The book articulates a powerful set of concepts that should provoke new research in philosophy, religion, and art, as well as at the intersection of these disciplines. Some of the significant issues it treats include the phenomenological definition of the phenomenon, the redefinition of the gift in terms not of economy but of givenness, the nature of saturated phenomena, and the question “Who comes after the subject?” Throughout his consideration of these issues, the author carefully notes their significance for the increasingly popular fields of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Being Given is therefore indispensable reading for anyone interested in the question of the relation between the phenomenological and the theological in Marion and emergent French phenomenology. (shrink)

In the third book in the trilogy that includes Reduction and Givenness and Being Given. Marion renews his argument for a phenomenology of givenness, with penetrating analyses of the phenomena of event, idol, flesh, and icon. Turning explicitly to hermeneutical dimensions of the debate, Marion masterfully draws together issues emerging from his close reading of Descartes and Pascal, Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas and Henry. Concluding with a revised version of his response to Derrida, In the Name: How to Avoid (...) Speaking of It, Marion powerfully re-articulates the theological possibilities of phenomenology. (shrink)

The possible and revelation -- The saturated phenomenon -- Metaphysics and phenomenology: a relief for theology -- "Christian philosophy": hermeneutic or heuristic? -- Sketch of a phenomenological concept of the gift -- What cannot be said: Apophasis and the discourse of love -- The banality of saturation -- Faith and reason.

Presque vingt ans après sa parution, Etant donné (Puf, 1997) a, au-delà des premiers débats, imposé la question du donné et de la donation. Etant donné. Reprise reprend et prolonge ces nouvelles interrogations. D'abord la question de la réduction : définit-elle vraiment le principe dernier de la phénoménologie? Si tel était le cas, la formule " autant de réduction, autant de donation " peut-elle se justifier (en discussion avec la critique de Michel Henry)? Ensuite, la reconnaissance du donné (...) comme instance première et dernière de la phénoménalité peut-elle encore faire droit à l'herméneutique (en discussion avec Hans-Georg Gadamer)? Dans ce cas, comment se déplie le pli de la donation avec la manifestation? Et encore, le monde peut-il se manifester comme l'un des phénomènes donnés, et même comme la totalité du donné? Ou ne faut-il pas lui reconnaître une donation par exception, celle de la possibilité de toute donation (sur la ligne de Jan Patocka)? Enfin, la reprise du phénomène à partir de la donation n'impose-t-elle pas de substituer décidément au modèle de l'objet, constitué à l'identique et pour lui, celui de l'événement, qui surgit à partir de soi seul, sans cause ni a priori (en faisant droit à Claude Romano)? (shrink)

François Laruelle's system of non-standard philosophy and its univocal radical immanence is highly indebted to Henry's non-representationalism. Admittedly, in contrast to Laruelle's "heretical" Christology, Henry's theological-realist determination is astricted by the idealist paralogisms of a cogitativist Ego, which transpires most markedly in Henry's account of Faith-after all, Henry is a Jesuit phenomenologist following in the tradition of Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chretien. Nonetheless, Henry's work on immanence, deanthropocentrized and universalized as generic, takes us (...) much further than both Spinoza's speculative immanence, which is diluted by the necessitarian world of negative determination, and Deleuzian immanence, which is characterized by multiplicitous difference. In The Michel Henry Reader, editors Scott Davidson and Frédéric Seyler weave together a comprehensive anthology of essays that survey Henry's phenomenology of life, stitching together an oeuvre than spans Marxist political philosophy, phenomenology of language, subjectivity and aesthetics, and ethics qua religion. Rather than analyzing specific objects and phenomena, phenomenology is tasked with disclosing the structural manifestation and conditioned appearance of objects. Drawing primarily from Husserl and, consequently, Heidegger, Henry examines a kind of "pure phenomenology" that, contra intentionality and the inert world of visible objects, examines affectivity's "radical invisibility". Whereas Husserl and Heidegger's analyses emphasize the self-transcending nature of appearances, for Henry appearance is never independent or self-reliant but, instead, genitive and denotative. (shrink)

This essay examines how Michel Henry's and Jean‐Luc Marion's continuation of phenomenology's turn to the invisible relates to painting, aesthetics, and theology. First, it discusses Henry and Marion's redefinition of phenomenality. Second, it explores Henry's “Kandinskian” description of abstract painting as expressing “Life.” Third, it explicates Marion's “Rothkoian” rehabilitation of the idol and renewed zeal for the icon—both phenomena exemplify “givenness.” Fourth, it unpacks my thesis: Henry's phenomenology, theologically applied, exercises an inadequate Kantian apophasis, (...) characterized by a sublime sacrifice of the imagination; although Marion's work sometimes evidences a similar tendency, its prevailing momentum offers theology a fully catholic scope. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the philosophical approach to faith after deconstruction as manifested in the work of Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Luc Nancy. By taking the saturated phenomenon as its focus, the analysis seeks to demonstrate that whilst Marion’s thinking proves to be an innovative re-imagining of the possibilities of phenomenology, its problematic recourse to a supplementary hermeneutic means that saturation can never be adequately applied to faith without simultaneously compromising the excessive intuition upon which it relies. The (...) article then explores whether Nancy’s suggestion that saturation be re-framed as faith can offer a viable alternative approach. Whilst the post-phenomenological modality within which Nancy operates means it may be problematic to retain the term ‘saturation’ in the exact sense Marion gives it, it is argued that Nancy’s version of saturated faith allows us to approach the binary divide between philosophy and theology from a different direction, resulting in a vision of faith that cuts across theism and atheism, destabilising them from within. Although Nancy’s thought in this area certainly does nothing to respond to persistent questions surrounding the place of institutionalized religion within secular modernity, it nevertheless serves as a powerful tool for thinking the possibilities of faith in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

A fenomenologia de Michel Henry e Jean-Luc Marion caracteriza-se por uma redefiniçāo da filosofia que nos introduz num universo de conceitos de interesse crescente para as ciências da saúde. A consignaçāo do ego ao corpo dotado de sentidos inverte a ordem lógica dos pnncípios da filosofia de Descartes - ciência; fundaçāo das ciências; metafísica; moral/moral; metafísica; fundaçāo da ciência; ciências - de tal modo que vemos substituídas, em Jean-Luc Marion, as Meditações Metafísicas pelas Meditaçōes Eróticas. É (...) neste processo que Michel Henry se torna, para Jean-Luc Marion, determinante: a declinaçāo do ego à fenomenologia do sentir abre-nos a um novo futuro fenomenològico. Nele a ética revela-se como a verdade da forma de vida daquele que vive num corpo dotado de sentidos. Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Manon's phenomenology has re-defined philosophy and has opened us to an universe of increasingly interest concepts of health sciences. The declination of the ego in a body endowed by senses has reversed the logical order of Descartes's philosophical principles - science, foundation of science, metaphysic, ethics/ethics, into metaphysic, foundation of science and sciences - in such a way that Jean-Luc Marion ended to replace the Metaphysics Meditations by the Erotic Meditations. It is why Michel Henry was so determinant to Jean-Luc Marion: the declination of the ego to the phenomenology of feelings is leading us to a new phenomenological future. In it, ethics reveals to be a real and true way of life of those who live in a body endowed by senses. (shrink)

This article is part II of a consideration of phenomenology of religion focusing in this part on the conversation in contemporary French phenomenology. It begins with a brief comment about Heidegger's phenomenology of religious life and then engages most heavily those thinkers who discuss the phenomenon of religion in the Francophone context: Jean Héring, Emmanuel Lévinas, Jean‐Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean‐Yves Lacoste, Jean‐Louis Chrétien, and Emmanuel Falque. The article concludes with a brief consideration of (...) the contemporary Anglophone conversation and the ways in which these French thinkers are appropriated in the current discussion about the phenomenality of religion. (shrink)

Der transzendentalen Subjektivität als sinngebender Instanz liegt in der Husserlschen Phänomenologie ein fundamentaler, der Reflexion nicht zugänglicher Bewusstseinsbereich zugrunde: die absolute Subjektivität.Das basale Defizit der epistemisch ausgerichteten Phänomenologie Husserls ist die Unmöglichkeit einer unmittelbaren Selbstreferenzialität in Bezug auf das eigene Selbst-Bewusstsein. Ausgehend von einem ersten Zugang zur Präreflexivität bei Sartre wird auf Grundlage eines radikalisierten phänomenologischen Designs Michel Henrys und Jean-Luc Marions die Struktur dieser basalen Bewusstseinssphäre systematisch entwickelt.

This book explores the threshold between phenomenology and lived religion in dialogue with three French luminaries: Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Yves Lacoste. Through close reading and critical analysis each chapter touches on how a liturgical and ritual setting or a spiritual vision of the body can shape and ultimately structure the experience of an individual's surrounding world. The volume advances debate about the scope and limits of the phenomenological analysis of religious themes and disturbs the (...) assumption that theology and phenomenology are incapable of constructive interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

More than fifteen years have now passed since the publication of Dominique Janicaud’s book Phenomenology “Wide Open” —the sequel to his controversial essay published in Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn.”1 There, as is widely known, Janicaud raised the question of whether the phenomenological enterprises of figures such as Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, and Jean-Luc Marion were marked by a “theological turn” and, if so, whether such a turn was phenomenologically warranted. At this point, a voluminous literature over (...) this debate exists, much of it defending the accused against those charges.2 Perhaps as an indirect result of that focus, there has been relatively little discussion of .. (shrink)

This paper highlights several problems in the contemporary phenomenological analysis of religious experience in Continental philosophy of religion, especially in its French iteration, as manifested in such thinkers as Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Emmanuel Falque, and others. After laying out the main issues, the paper proposes a fuller investigation of religious practices, such as liturgy or ritual, as a fruitful way to address some of the identified limitations. The final section of (...) the paper assesses what questions remain and how one might draw on existing resources in these thinkers to push a phenomenological analysis of religious practices further in ways that broaden phenomenology of religion beyond its current somewhat narrow strictures and commitments. (shrink)

The kind of phenomenology that can be useful to theology will be a hermeneutical phenomenology, one that takes us beyond the Cartesian/Husserlian ideal of presuppositionless intuition. It will also be a phenomenology of inverse intentionality, one in which the constituting subject is constituted by the look and the voice of another. In light of these suggestions, the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion is defended against three critiques, namely that it compromises the boundary between phenomenology and theology, that the theology it (...) serves is a bad one to boot, and that it has an inadequate account of the subject. At the heart of this defense is Marion's clear distinction between phenomenology as a description of possible experience, and theology as the claim that a certain kind of experience, namely revelation or epiphany, is not merely actual but veridical. Phenomenology says, If revelation occurs it will be in the form of a saturated phenomenon. Theology says, for example, the burning bush was an epiphany, or Jesus Christ is a revelation. The attentive reader should have no trouble distinguishing Marion's phenomenological analyses, which should be persuasive to believer and unbeliever alike, from his theological claims. Marion's account of the subject falls under the heading of inverse intentionality, and there are hints that vision is aufgehoben in the voice. The seer is first of all the one seen, but above all the one addressed, called forth into response-able being. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to the emerging field of continental philosophy of religion by treating the thought of its most important representatives, including its appropriations by several thinkers in the United States. Part I provides context by examining religious aspects of the thought of Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. Christina Gschwandtner contends that, although the work of these thinkers is not apologetic in nature, it prepares the ground for the more religiously motivated work of more recent thinkers (...) by giving religious language and ideas some legitimacy in philosophical discussions. Part II devotes a chapter to each of the contemporary French thinkers who articulate a phenomenology of religious experience: Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and Emmanuel Falque. In it, the author argues that their respective philosophies can be read as an apologetics of sorts--namely, as arguments for the coherence of thought about God and the viability of religious experience--though each thinker does so in a different fashion and to a different degree. Part III considers the three major thinkers who have popularized and extended this phenomenology in the U.S. context: John D. Caputo, Merold Westphal, and Richard Kearney. The book thus both provides an introduction to important contemporary thinkers, many of whom have not yet received much treatment in English, and also argues that their philosophies can be read as providing an argument for Christian faith. (shrink)

This article, published originally in French just after the 1989 release of Jean-Luc Marion’s book Reduction and Givenness, consists of a sustained critical study of the manner in which Marion advances from the basic principles of phenomenology. Henry outlines briefly three principles, “so much appearance, so much being,” “the principle of principles” of Ideas I, “to the things themselves!” before entering into a lengthy dialogue with Marion’s proposal of a fourth principle: “so much reduction, so much givenness.” (...) class='Hi'>Henry submits each principle to critique, highlighting that they contain confusing premises. Henry is appreciative of Marion’s capacity to root the appearing of phenomena in givenness, but he ultimately finds problematic the gap between the call and response that is a fundamental structure of Marion’s fourth principle. Henry, in contrast, develops his own theme of pure givenness, expressed in the form of subjectivity he calls auto-affection, in the final pages of the article. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to the emerging field of Continental philosophy of religion by treating the philosophical thought of its most important representatives, including its appropriations by several thinkers in the US. Part I provides a context to the field by looking at the religious aspects of the thought of Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Jacques Derrida. It contends that although the work of these thinkers is not apologetic in nature, it prepares the ground for the more religiously motivated (...) work of more recent thinkers by giving religious language and ideas some legitimacy in philosophical discussions. Part II devotes a chapter to each of the contemporary French thinkers who articulate a phenomenology of religious experience: Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-Yves Lacoste and Emmanuel Falque. This part argues that their respective philosophies can be read as an apologetics of sort, namely as making arguments for the coherence of thought about God and the viability of religious experience, though each does so in a different fashion and to a different degree. Part III considers the three major thinkers who have popularized and extended this phenomenology in the US context: Merold Westphal, John D. Caputo, and Richard Kearney. The book thus both provides an introduction to important contemporary thinkers many of whom have not yet received much treatment in English and also argues that their philosophies can be read as providing an argument for Christian faith. (shrink)

The kind of phenomenology that can be useful to theology will be a hermeneutical phenomenology, one that takes us beyond the Cartesian/Husserlian ideal of presuppositionless intuition. It will also be a phenomenology of inverse intentionality, one in which the constituting subject is constituted by the look and the voice of another. In light of these suggestions, the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion is defended against three critiques, namely that it compromises the boundary between phenomenology and theology, that the theology it (...) serves is a bad one to boot, and that it has an inadequate account of the subject. At the heart of this defense is Marion's clear distinction between phenomenology as a description of possible experience, and theology as the claim that a certain kind of experience, namely revelation or epiphany, is not merely actual but veridical. Phenomenology says, If revelation occurs it will be in the form of a saturated phenomenon. Theology says, for example, the burning bush was an epiphany, or Jesus Christ is a revelation. The attentive reader should have no trouble distinguishing Marion's phenomenological analyses, which should be persuasive to believer and unbeliever alike, from his theological claims. Marion's account of the subject falls under the heading of inverse intentionality, and there are hints that vision is aufgehoben in the voice. The seer is first of all the one seen, but above all the one addressed, called forth into response-able being. (shrink)

In this interview, Jean-Luc Marion recalls the intellectual world of Paris in 1970s, reflecting on how his engagement with the ubiquitous “death of God” question led to the sketches of God without Being first presented at this 1979 Colloquium, and discusses the criticism it provoked not only from Heideggerians but also from Thomists. He discusses the reception history of phenomenology in France the reasons for the particular power it gained among thinkers of his generation. Finally, he recounts how his (...) work has led from the 1979 Colloquium through the “Theological Turn” and up to his forthcoming D’ ailleurs, la révélation, which he briefly previews here. Marion closes with words on originality, criticism, and the particular challenges of the contemporary world that await philosophical thinking today. (shrink)

The question of the given is central to philosophy; phenomenology uses the method of reduction to find the given. This lecture asks whether there is anything that resists reduction, whether there is something irreducible. The author concludes that the phenomenology of givenness addresses the gap between what gives itself and what shows itself, so that the self of the phenomenon emerges only by the exercise of a properly phenomenological hermeneutics.

Jean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings is the first anthology of this major contemporary philosopher's writings. It spans his entire career as a historian of philosophy, as a theologian, and as a theoretician of "saturated phenomena." The editor's long general Introduction situates Marion in the history of modern philosophy, especially phenomenology, and shorter introductions preface each section of the anthology. The entire volume will enable professors to teach Marion by assigning a single book, and the editor's introductions will make it (...) possible for students to learn enough about phenomenology to read Marion without having to take preliminary courses in Husserl and Heidegger. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to French phenomenology in the post-1945 period. While many of phenomenology's greatest thinkers--Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty--wrote before this period, Steven DeLay introduces and assesses the creative and important turn phenomenology took after these figures. He presents a clear and rigorous introduction to the work of relatively unfamiliar and underexplored philosophers, including Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Jean-Luc Marion and others. After an introduction setting out the crucial Husserlian and (...) Heideggerian background to French phenomenology, DeLay explores Emmanuel Levinas's ethics as first philosophy, Henry's material phenomenology, Marion's phenomenology of givenness, Lacoste's phenomenology of liturgical man, Chrétien's phenomenology of the call, Claude Romano's evential hermeneutics, and Emmanuel Falque's phenomenology of the borderlands. Starting with the reception of Husserl and Heidegger in France, DeLay explains how this phenomenological thought challenges boundaries between philosophy and theology. Taking stock of its promise in light of the legacy it has transformed, DeLay concludes with a summary of the field's relevance to theology and analytic philosophy, and indicates what the future holds for phenomenology. Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction is an excellent resource for all students and scholars of phenomenology and continental philosophy, and will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as theology, literature, and French studies. (shrink)

Analyse ce qui, dans la Révélation, suggère ou dépasse une phénoménologie du révélé.

In this article, the author unveils the play between visibility and invisibility as it is captured in a phenomenology of the gift. The first part of the essay explores the tension between the fact of being given and the forgetting of its characters as a gift: its donor and the circumstances of it being given. In the process of becoming autonomous, free of its provenance, the gift loses its character of being given and becomes no more than a simple thing (...) in someone’s possession. Subsequently, the essay draws on the figure of Christ as gift of God, illustrating this interpretation with particular reference to several illuminating passages from the Gospel of John. The central image is the phenomenon of gift as given in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Finally, this image is used to define the task of a hermeneutical approach to the gift. (shrink)

A phenomenological reflection on central aspects of Christian revelation: the practice of faith, the obligation and role of the baptized Christian, the gift of the sacraments, the future of Catholicism, the role of the Christian intellectual, examined always in light of their inherent rationality and relationship to philosophical reason.

English summary: This volume contains essays on some of the foremost thinkers on phenomenology, the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. French description: Dans le triptyque, ouvert par Reduction et donation. Recherches sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phenomenologie, assure dans Etant donne. Essai d'une phenomenologie de la donation et complete avec De Surcroit. Etudes sur les phenomenes satures, nous avons procede assez globalement pour qu'on nous permette ici de rassembler apres-coup certains des travaux (...) qui l'ont prepare et qui ont pris une importance renforcee lorsqu'il se fut agi de prolonger la phenomenalite de la donation par la description du phenomene erotique (Le phenomene erotique) ou de l'appliquer hermeneutiquement a une oeuvre theologique (Au lieu de soi. L'approche de saint Augustin). Ainsi reconnaitra-t-on ici des recherches historiques sur le depassement de l'horizon de l'objectite du phenomene impose par la notion, necessaire mais d'abord incomprise, de donation, ou Husserl et Heidegger ont repris et enfin aborde de front ce qui, pour tous les neo-kantiens, restait une pierre d'achoppement. Puis on trouvera deux moments d'une discussion avec Emmanuel Levinas, commencee des L'idole et la distance et les Prolegomenes a la charite mais restee en suspens, sur la legitimite de recourir a l'amour comme a un concept. Deux autres debats furent aussi essentiels, tant Henry et Derrida ont conduit plus avant dans la comprehension des questions de l'invisibilite phenomenale et de l'impossibilite comme une ouverture. Enfin les trois dernieres etudes, en discussion serree avec tous, fixent l'acces au soi par autrui, l'emergence du tiers comme second autrui accomplissant l'evasion hors de soi, et a la fin l'irreductible par excellence, celui que toute reduction atteste negativement. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to French phenomenology in the post 1945 period. Whilst many of phenomenology's greatest thinkers - Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty - wrote before this period, Steven DeLay introduces and assesses the creative and important turn phenomenology took after these figures. He presents a clear and rigorous introduction to the work of relatively unfamiliar and underexplored philosophers, including Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Jean-Luc Marion and others. -/- After an introduction (...) setting out the crucial Husserlian and Heideggerian background to French phenomenology, DeLay explores Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy, Henry’s material phenomenology, Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgical man, Chrétien’s phenomenology of the call, Claude Romano’s evential hermeneutics, and Emmanuel Falque’s phenomenology of the borderlands. Starting with the reception of Husserl and Heidegger in France, DeLay explains how this phenomenological thought challenges boundaries between philosophy and theology. Taking stock of its promise in light of the legacy it has transformed, DeLay concludes with a summary of the field’s relevance to theology and analytic philosophy, and indicates what the future holds for phenomenology. -/- Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction is an excellent resource for all students and scholars of phenomenology and continental philosophy, and will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as theology, literature and French studies. (shrink)

It is now almost 20 years since Janicaud’s critique of the ‘theological turn in French phenomenology’ (Janicaud 1991, 2000), with its emphasis on phenomenology and theology as two and never one. Yet since that time there been an explosion of phenomenologies which are, if not overtly, implicitly religious and phenomenology. Thus, we have phenomenologies of prayer, or love, or hope, and the possibilities of further phenomenologies. The challenge of these emerging phenomenologies is that there seems to be no noematic correlate (...) to a noesis in intentionality. To the fore in the reconsideration of this phenomenological challenge is Jean-Luc Marion (although there are others such as Levinas, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Michel Henry): all aspects of lived experience appear now to belong to the proper scope of phenomenology. Marion considers the relation in Husserl between intentions and intuitions which fulfil these intentions, and suggests a reversal. In Marion, although intentionality is not rejected, the phenomenological flow which the reduction brings to light is from the object as such as it gives itself in intuition, and then from intuition to intention. For Marion, phenomena are saturated—they give too much. Religion becomes a test-case for all phenomenology. This bearing, drawing mainly on The Visible and the Revealed, offers some of the key things in Marion’s phenomenology. (shrink)

In Polish philosophical aesthetics Karol Tarnowski’s considerations about art reflect transformations that occurred in phenomenology – particularly French – in the second half of the 20th century. Religious thinking combined with the scholastic tradition and the classical doctrine of transcendentals turn out to be similar in many aspects, but still not identical with Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of donation and Michel Henry’s nonintentional phenomenology of invisible life. The aesthetic views of Karol Tarnowski, an outstanding philosopher of religion and (...) pianist himself, can be found in scattered texts whose main subject matter is not always art. This is why the article aims at a synthetic presentation of this particular reflection in the context of current debates around phenomenology. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology reveals two attitudes regarding the classification of phenomena. On the one hand, they are classified by type. On the other, the “banality of saturation” reduces these types topossibleinterpretations, in which case saturation isn’t a qualitative rupture anymore, but a possible hermeneutic attitude to any phenomenon. Hence, there is, in Marion’s phenomenology, a tension between a metaphysical attitude that maintains categorial discontinuities, and a hermeneutic temptation driven by the recovery of quantitative continuities between all phenomena. Yet, Marion (...) does not push this quantitative temptation to its limits; he steps back in front of a specifically saturated phenomenon: the icon. (shrink)

To address the theological turn in phenomenology, this paper sets out critical arguments opposing the theist phenomenology of Michel Henry and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of the event. Henry’s phenomenology has been overlooked in recent commentaries compared with, for example, Jean-Luc Marion’s work. It will be shown here that Henry’s philosophy presents a detailed novel turn in phenomenology structured according to critical moves against positions developed from Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. This demonstration is done through a (...) strong contrast with Deleuze and a short engagement with Quentin Meillassoux. The paper presents an argument against the theological turn on the grounds that it misunderstands the form of affectivity when compared to Deleuze’s work on affect and event. It will be argued that Henry’s search for a free-standing affect deduced as a condition for any appearance underplays the way any affect is included in many causal and transcendentally determined series such that any notion of the pure affect independent of other processes is a fiction. The loss of this pure affect entails the questioning of the theological turn in Henry. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion is one of the leading Catholic thinkers of our time: a formidable authority on Descartes and a major scholar in the philosophy of religion. This book presents a concise, accessible, and engaging introduction to the theology of Jean-Luc Marion. Described as one of the leading thinkers of his generation, Marion's take on the postmodern is richly enhanced by his expertise in patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy. In this first introduction to Marion's thought, Robyn (...) Horner provides the essential background to Marion's work, as well as analysing the most significant themes for contemporary theology. This book serves as an ideal starting point for students of theology and philosophy, as well as for those seeking to further their knowledge of cutting-edge thinking in contemporary theology. (shrink)

Este trabajo estudia los desarrollos de M. Henry y J.-L. Marion a propósito de los principios de la fenomenología, su número y su función. Para ello revisa los argumentos que llevan a replantear su vinculación y sostienen la propuesta de estos autores de elevar su número. Finalmente, analiza la máxima “a las cosas mismas”, como quintaesencia fenomenológica, a los efectos de relevar las claves que ofrece para el planteamiento de una fenomenología de lo inaparente y su consecuente ampliación del (...) entorno de fenómenos aludidos. (shrink)

Aesthetics is a central topic in the works of Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry. While Henry focuses on abstract art (especially Kandinsky), Marion’s writings range over the history of art, including analyses of Courbet, Rothko, and Klee. This article examines their strikingly similar aesthetic theories and shows how they are grounded in a phenomenological claim about the relation between invisible and visible, hence about phenomenality itself. The artist becomes a paradigm for phenomenological receptivity in both thinkers, (...) and art is assigned a quasi-salvific function. This raises several important questions about their theories of art. (shrink)

This is a book review of Jean-Luc Marion's Givenness and Revelation.

Since his 1977 The Idol and Distance, Jean-Luc Marion has almost continually drawn upon the work of the 5th-6th century Christian mystic Pseudo-Denys the Areopagite, not only within his explicitly theological considerations, but throughout his Cartesian and phenomenological work as well. The present essay maps out the influence of Denys upon Marion’s thinking, organizing Marion’s career into a three-part periodization, each of which corresponds to a distinct portion of the Dionysian corpus—in Marion’s work of the seventies the Celestial Hierarchy (...) and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy are foregrounded, in the eighties this emphasis is shifted to the The Divine Names, and in the nineties The Mystical Theology takes center stage. Insofar as these emphases directly correlate to the unique tasks that Marion has set himself in each of these various periods, Dionysius is revealed as a hermeneutical key, unlocking and clarifying crucial aspects of Marion’s theologically-inflected phenomenology. (shrink)

Introduction -- Marion's claims -- The hermeneutic structure of phenomenality -- The theory of saturated phenomena -- Events -- Dazzling idols and paintings -- Flesh as absolute -- The face as irregardable icon -- Revelation : the phenomenon of God's appearing -- Conclusion: Revising the phenomenology of givenness.

The work of French philosopher and theologian Jean-Luc Marion has been recognized as among the most suggestive and productive in the philosophy of religion today. In Reading Marion, Christina M. Gschwandtner provides the first comprehensive introduction to Marion's large and conceptually dense corpus. Gschwandtner gives particular attention to Marion's early work on Descartes and follows thematic threads through to his most recent publications on charity and eroticism. She explores in detail three prominent topics in Marion's thought: the desire to (...) overcome metaphysics, his reflections on the divine, and his reconsideration of the relation of the self to the other in love. Gschwandtner reveals Marion's thought as a unified whole and provides context for his theological and phenomenological writings. Readers at all levels will find insight into the work of one of the world's most provocative thinkers. (shrink)

This essay responds to the Nancean account of presentation, evoked in the opening citation, in order to trace out in Nancy's enquiries a disruption of Husserlian presentation, and a re-thinking of materiality on the edge of classical phenomenology. It stages a non-encounter between the writings of Jean-Luc Nancy and of Jacques Derrida in relation to a third term, the Lacanian conception of the ‘real’. Thereby it can be shown how these writings touch on each other, in response to phenomenology (...) and to psychoanalytical theory, but do not engage. All the same, the claim to be made is that the writings of Nancy and Derrida converge in forming a third option, alongside the secularised phenomenologies of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty and the Christian phenomenologies of Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry, by marking up the event of Lacan's reformulation of Freud's psychoanalytical theorising. (shrink)

The phenomenological project of Jean-Luc Marion’s Being Given (namely, to free phenomenological possibility to the unconditional self-giving of all phenomena) should be distinguished from the theological project of his God without Being (to think God unconditionally and absolutely). In freeing phenomenological possibility to the self-giving of all phenomena (on the model of the saturated phenomenon), and in proposing a new figure of the subject who receives phenomena (the gifted), Marion’s phenomenology provides the conceptual means for a philosophy of religion (...) that admits the phenomenonality of unconditional revelation. And yet, thereremain striking parallels between the unconditional, self-giving phenomenon as it is described in the phenomenology of Being Given and the unconditional, self-giving God of the theological God without Being. This essay concludes by offering a framework for interpreting these parallels without claiming that the saturated phenomenon transforms phenomenology into theology and without claiming that phenomenological givenness limits revelation to its philosophical possibility. (shrink)

Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Marion's "La donation en son herméneutique," originally published (in French) as chapter II of Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016).

Jean-Luc Marion proposes what he calls the “phenomenology of givenness” (phénoménologie de la donation) as the true “first philosophy.” In this paper I consider his critique of previous first philosophies and his argument for the phenomenology of givenness as their replacement. I note several problems with the phenomenology of givenness and conclude that it does not seem ready yet to assume the title of “first philosophy.”.

In this article, I will investigate Jean-Luc Marion’s influential critique of metaphysical and natural theological approaches to the divine which he regards as “idolatrous”, and his own proposal of an “iconic” account of God’s revelation which he calls the “third way”. Marion’s idol-icon distinction, I maintain, developed in his early work “God without Being”, is the guiding thread of Marion’s philosophical project, and the key for an adequate understanding of his own account. While Marion’s account is compelling and has (...) provided new perspectives and insights to the contemporary discussion in philosophy of religion, its uncompromising excessiveness and the outright rejection of all hermeneutics leaves it deeply problematic and makes it hard to see how to follow his “third way”. (shrink)

This paper offers, first, an analysis and critique of John Henry Newman’s theorizing of real assent, in comparison with Jean-Luc Marion’s own phenomenological investigation of Revelation and Religious Experience. In conversation with the results of these analyses, I offer a critique of a certain hermeneutical criticism of Marion’s oeuvre. This, as I attempt to show, dovetails with certain strong criticisms towards Newman’s own interpretation of religious experience, insofar as it highlights the demand for some discussion or theorization of (...) a standpoint beyond hermeneutic circularity. (shrink)

This paper offers, first, an analysis and critique of John Henry Newman’s theorizing of real assent, in comparison with Jean-Luc Marion’s own phenomenological investigation of Revelation and Religious Experience. In conversation with the results of these analyses, I offer a critique of a certain hermeneutical criticism of Marion’s oeuvre. This, as I attempt to show, dovetails with certain strong criticisms towards Newman’s own interpretation of religious experience, insofar as it highlights the demand for some discussion or theorization of (...) a standpoint beyond hermeneutic circularity. (shrink)