Interpreting Excess: Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomena, and Hermeneutics 9780823291823

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Interpreting Excess

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Series Board James Bernauer Drucilla Cornell Thomas R. Flynn Kevin Hart Richard Kearney Jean-Luc Marion Adriaan Peperzak Thomas Sheehan Hent de Vries Merold Westphal Michael Zimmerman

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John D. Caputo, series editor

P E R S PE C T I V E S I N C O N T I N E N TA L PHILOSO PHY

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S H A N E M AC K I N L AY

Interpreting Excess Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomena, and Hermeneutics

F O R D H A M U N IV E R SI T Y P RE SS New York

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Copyright 䉷 2010 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mackinlay, Shane. Interpreting excess : Jean-Luc Marion, saturated phenomena, and hermeneutics / Shane Mackinlay.—1st ed. p. cm.— (Perspectives in continental philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8232-3108-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Marion, Jean-Luc, 1946– 2. Phenomenology. I. Title. B2430.M284M33 2010 194—dc22 2009012149 Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 First edition

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Contents

List of Abbreviations Preface

ix xiii

Introduction

1

1

Marion’s Claims

15

2

The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

35

3

The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

57

4

Events

75

5

Dazzling Idols and Paintings

117

6

Flesh as Absolute

130

7

The Face as Irregardable Icon

159

8

Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

178

Conclusion: Revising the Phenomenology of Givenness

216

Notes

221

Selected Bibliography Index

263 279

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Abbreviations

AT BG

BT

CPR

CV

EP

Rene´ Descartes. Oeuvres de Descartes. 11 vols. Edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. Paris: Cerf, 1897–1913. Jean-Luc Marion. Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness. Translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Translation of E´tant donne´: Essai d’une phe´nome´nologie de la donation, 3rd ed. (2005; 1st ed., Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997). Martin Heidegger. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: HarperCollins, 1962. Translation of Sein und Zeit, 18th ed. (2001; 1st ed., Tu¨bingen: Max Niemeyer, 1927). Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Translation of Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edited by Jens Timmerman. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1998. Jean-Luc Marion. The Crossing of the Visible. Translated by James K. A. Smith. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Translation of La croise´e du visible. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996. Originally published as La croise´e du visible (Paris: E´ditions de la Diffe´rence, 1991). Jean-Luc Marion. The Erotic Phenomenon. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

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Translation of Le phe´nome`ne ´erotique: Six me´ditations. Paris: Grasset, 2003. EW Claude Romano. Event and World. Translated by Shane Mackinlay. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009. Translation of L’e´ve´nement et le monde. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998. GWB Jean-Luc Marion. God without Being: Hors-Texte. Translated by Thomas A. Carlson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Translation of Dieu sans l’eˆtre: Hors-texte, 2nd ed. (2002; 1st ed., Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982). Hua Edmund Husserl. Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950–. Ideas I Edmund Husserl. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Translated by F. Kersten. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. Translation of Ideen zu einer reinen Pha¨nomenologie und pha¨nomenolgischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einfu¨hrung in die reine Pha¨nomenologie. Edited by Walter Biemel. Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana), vol. III/1. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950. Ideas II Edmund Husserl. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Translated by Richard Rojcewicz and Andre´ Schuwer. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989. Translation of Ideen zu einer reinen Pha¨nomenologie und pha¨nomenolgischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Pha¨nomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Edited by Walter Biemel. Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana), vol. IV. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952. IE Jean-Luc Marion. In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena. Translated by Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002. Translation of De surcroıˆt: E´tudes sur les phe´nome`nes sature´s. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001. Il y a Claude Romano. Il y a. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2003. Incarn. Michel Henry. Incarnation: Une philosophie de la chair. Paris: Seuil, 2000. LI Edmund Husserl. Logical Investigations, 2 vols. Edited by Dermot Moran. Translated by J. N. Findlay. London: Routledge, 2001. Translation of Logische Untersuchungen, 2 vols. Edited by x

Abbreviations

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PR

RG

ST TRH

VI

VS

E. Holenstein (vol. 1) and Ursula Panzer (vol. 2). Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana), vols. XVIII and XIX. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975 (vol. 1), 1984 (vol. 2). Jean-Luc Marion. ‘‘The Possible and Revelation.’’ Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner. In The Visible and the Revealed, 1–17. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Translation of ‘‘Le possible et la re´ve´lation.’’ In Le visible et le re´ve´le´, 13–34. Paris: Cerf, 2005. First appeared in Eros and Eris: Contributions to a Hermeneutical Phenomenology: Liber Amicorum for Adriaan Peperzak, ed. Paul van Tongeren, Paul Sars, Chris Bremmer, and Koen Boey, 217–32. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1992. Jean-Luc Marion. Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology. Translated by Thomas A. Carlson. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1998. Translation of Re´duction et donation: Recherches sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phe´nome´nologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. Vol. 31, Faith. Edited by T. C. O’Brien. London: Blackfriars, 1974. Jean-Luc Marion. ‘‘ ‘They Recognized Him; and He Became Invisible to Them.’ ’’ Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Modern Theology 18 (2002): 145–52. Translation of ‘‘ ‘Ils le reconnurent et lui-meˆme leur devint invisible.’ ’’ In Demain l’e´glise, ed. Jean Duchesne and Jacques Ollier, 134–43. Paris: Flammarion, 2001. Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes. Edited by Claude Lefort. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1968. Translation of Le visible et l’invisible: Suivi de notes de travail. Edited by Claude Lefort. Paris: Gallimard, 1964. Rudolf Bernet. La vie du sujet. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994.

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Preface

I am very grateful to Bishop Peter Connors and the priests and people of the Ballarat Diocese, whose generosity and support made possible the doctoral studies during which the initial version of this work was written. I express my appreciation to Ignace Verhack, who was my doctoral supervisor; Cal Ledsham, who suggested many revisions and improvements; and Kevin Hart, who has encouraged me over many years, and whose comments have significantly enhanced the text. I also wish to thank the Melbourne College of Divinity, which supported the development of this text into its present form; and Alex Sidhu, who assisted with research and indexing. Where double quotation marks are used in this work, they always indicate direct quotation (even around a single word). Where an English translation of a text exists, the English page reference is given first, followed immediately by the original page reference. An asterisk following a page reference indicates that I have modified the translation, generally for the sake of accuracy or consistency. An initial version of parts of Chapter 2 appears as ‘‘Phenomenality in the Middle: Marion, Romano, and the Hermeneutics of the Event.’’ In Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion, edited by Ian Leask and Eoin Cassidy, 167–81. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005. An initial version of parts of Chapters 3 and 4 appears as ‘‘Exceeding Truth: Jean-Luc Marion’s Saturated Phenomena.’’ Pacifica 20 (2007): 40–51. xiii

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An initial version of parts of Chapter 4 appears as ‘‘De´passement exceptionnel ou banalite´ du paradigme: l’itine´raire des phe´nome`nes sature´s de Jean-Luc Marion.’’ Translated by Cathy Leblanc. Nunc 16 (September 2008): 81–93. An initial version of parts of Chapter 8 appears as ‘‘Eyes Wide Shut: A Response to Jean-Luc Marion’s Account of the Journey to Emmaus.’’ Modern Theology 20 (2004): 447–56. English translations of the Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible. National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, 1989.

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Interpreting Excess

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Introduction

Jean-Luc Marion first came to the attention of English-speaking readers with the appearance of God without Being in 1991, almost ten years after its French publication. In this work, Marion tries to develop a way of thinking about God that is not subject to the accusations of onto-theology leveled by Heidegger at metaphysical conceptions of God. It is not surprising, then, that it was read most closely by those with a theological interest. By the time that the English translation of God without Being appeared, though, Marion had moved on to explicitly phenomenological research, culminating in his theory of saturated phenomena, which first appeared in French in 1992 and in English in 1996. This theory has generated great interest since then although English-speaking attention has again been more from a theological than a philosophical perspective, perhaps because Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena came so soon after the English publication of God without Being, and perhaps because of Marion’s contentious proposition that ‘‘revelation’’ is the saturated phenomenon par excellence. A saturated phenomenon is one that cannot be wholly contained within concepts that can be grasped by our understanding. It gives so much in intuition that there is always an excess left over, which is beyond conceptualization. Thus, it is saturated with intuition. Marion’s elucidation of saturation as the limit-case and paradigm of phenomenality allows him to demonstrate that phenomena are given on their own terms and without any restriction, rather than being given within limits imposed 1

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upon them by a subject who somehow constitutes them. Although this idea of unrestrictedness has obvious consequences in the theological domain, it applies equally beyond this, opening the possibility that all phenomena might give themselves in a way that exceeds our capacity to grasp them and conceptualize them. It represents a significant innovation in approaching phenomena in general, and is a key element in what Marion calls his ‘‘phenomenology of givenness.’’ I believe that Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena opens new ways for phenomenology to understand phenomena, and should be welcomed. By beginning with complex and excessive phenomena as paradigms, rather than with simple phenomena that can be grasped in their entirety by the understanding, Marion greatly enriches phenomenology, allowing it to consider the full complexity and excess that are so much a part of what gives meaning to our human experience. Phenomena such as historical events, human relationships, and works of art are seen as the starting point rather than as curiosities or exceptions. This reorienting of phenomenology comes at a cost, though, and with some ambiguity. Marion insists uncompromisingly on beginning from the givenness of phenomena, instead of from the horizon or limits of a subject. When he states his phenomenological theory, this insistence often leads to the role of the subject being reduced to purely passive reception. However, a much more nuanced idea of reception is evident, although it is not explicitly articulated, in the extensive and detailed studies of particular saturated phenomena that he develops alongside his theoretical accounts. In this volume, I set out this more nuanced idea of reception explicitly and highlight the more active role it gives to the subject by contrast with Marion’s statements of his theory. The result will be to demonstrate that in each case, the saturated character of the phenomena described by Marion depends upon how they are interpreted by the one to whom they appear; that is, they are hermeneutic in a way that is not allowed for by Marion’s own theory. Although Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena first emerges more than two decades after his earliest publications, it addresses issues that concern him from the outset, and often draws on elements of preceding works by other scholars. So, before turning to saturated phenomena as such, it is useful to outline the development of Marion’s thought, setting it in relation to the thought of the major figures who he addresses (Rene´ Descartes, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger), and also pointing to the way he draws on the work of more contemporary thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Michel Henry. What follows here is necessarily only a brief sketch although parts of it will be expanded in later 2

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chapters of the book. For a fuller account of Marion’s work and of his relation to other thinkers, I recommend Robyn Horner’s excellent JeanLuc Marion: A Theo-logical Introduction. Descartes and His Successors Descartes is an enormously important figure in Western thought, towering over the beginnings of modernity, and casting his shadow beyond it into the postmodern, where he is the antihero whose thought is to be overcome and whose starting point is to be deconstructed. Marion began his career in the late 1970s with studies of Descartes’ work. Marion’s first three books are a commentary, analysis and annotated translation of Descartes’ 1628 work, Rules for the Direction of the Mind.1 He has subsequently published a further four books on Descartes: two monographs and two collections of essays.2 Unquestionably, Marion is a Descartes scholar of the highest standing. At the same time, Descartes recurs in Marion’s later phenomenological works as the embodiment of his prime target: the suggestion that phenomena are reduced to appearing within limits imposed by a sovereign subject. In Descartes’ search for a solid foundation for his knowledge, he finds that the only thing he can be certain of is the existence of his own thought—cogito ergo sum (‘‘I think therefore I exist,’’ at least in so far as I am a res cogitans; Descartes has no certitude of any aspect of our existence other than our capacity for thought). The existence of all other beings is then conceived in terms of how they are known by me. Marion argues that this move to regarding things as they are known (rather than as they are in themselves) redefines metaphysics so as to pass primacy from being to thought: ‘‘All beings are considered not first as they are, but as known or knowable.’’3 Consequently, all other beings are set in relation to thought, and thus reduced to its objects. Moreover, because their existence as objects for thought depends upon the ego’s prior existence, the ego becomes the foundation and ground for all other beings, the being par excellence: ‘‘The ego exists before and more certainly than all other beings because, and solely because, every being is only as objectum, therefore as cogitatum. Inversely, the ego exists par excellence and with priority, because, and solely because, all the other beings are only as objects of a cogitatio, are only as cogitata.’’4 In Descartes’ metaphysics, beings are reduced to objects of thought for an ego, which founds their existence. The ego is thus not only accorded sovereignty, but also credited with a metaphysical grounding role that is more commonly attributed to God. Introduction

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Marion believes that phenomena must be understood as giving themselves rather than appearing within limits imposed by a sovereign subject or Cartesian metaphysics. In his view, phenomena exceed any constraints placed on them externally. Failing to recognize this reduces them artificially to something they are not. In his phenomenological works of the 1990s, where Marion returns to considering this kind of reduction, he points to the way Descartes’ restriction of phenomena is carried on by Leibniz and Kant. Leibniz’ principle of sufficient reason insists that there must always be a sufficient reason for any real fact or true proposition. In Marion’s view, this amounts to making phenomena ‘‘conditional’’ and founded in something other than themselves, in that they appear on the basis of reason rather than appearing as they give themselves (BG 182–83/ 254–55). Marion then argues that Kant radicalizes Leibniz’ principle of sufficient reason by maintaining that not only must all knowledge be structured in terms of the knowing subject’s categories of the understanding, but the very possibility of things is determined by the formal conditions of experience for a subject (CPR A 218ff./B 265ff.). He concludes that, for Kant, ‘‘the possibility of the phenomenon results not from its own phenomenality, but from . . . the conditions of experience for and by the subject’’ (BG 181/253). From his earliest works, Marion rejects any such reduction of phenomena, and strives to establish the possibility of phenomena exceeding limitations imposed upon them by a subject or by metaphysics. In a series of texts, including The Idol and Distance (1977) and God without Being (1982), he points to the way that phenomena such as icons, gifts, the face, love, and God exceed any conceptual limit and give themselves from a distance that guarantees their radical independence of a knowing subject.5 In the context of his analysis of Descartes, Marion focuses on three phenomena to illustrate this, two of which he finds already in Descartes’ own thought, which thus contains the seeds of its own overcoming. According to Marion, Descartes’ thought cannot entirely contain his own conception of either the ego or God. The Cartesian ego is a substance, and its mode of being is therefore permanent presence.6 However, in considering the ego’s openness to dimensions of time other than the present, Descartes’ thought transgresses the bounds of permanent substantial presence; the ego thus opens the realm of freedom and possibility, beyond what can be known with certainty.7 Similarly, by using the idea of divine infinitude to argue for God’s existence in his third meditation, Descartes introduces a concept that breaks out of his own metaphysical structure. The infinite exceeds all horizons and all limits; it is ungraspable and incomprehensible by definition.8 4

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The third phenomenon that Marion points to as revealing an excess beyond Descartes’ thought is love, as affirmed by Blaise Pascal, who belongs to the generation following Descartes, and largely accepts his principles as a starting point while stridently opposing his rationalism.9 For Pascal, there lies another order beyond those of the body and mind considered by Descartes: the order of the heart. Love (or charity), and particularly love for God, subverts the Cartesian metaphysics of rationally comprehensible objects and lays it destitute by transcending it.10 Knowledge cannot reach God or deliver salvation, which comes from love alone.11 In the late 1980s, Marion began to develop a broader setting for his critique of Descartes, and for his claims about the excess of God and love. He turned to phenomenology, and especially to the philosophical legacy of its founder, Edmund Husserl. Reduction and Givenness (1989) is a detailed study and critique of Husserl and Heidegger, and, with Being Given (1997) and In Excess (2001), is part of what Marion describes as a phenomenological trilogy.12 In the context of his work before this, Marion’s phenomenological texts should be regarded as using the tools of Husserlian phenomenology to develop a general theoretical structure for his earlier claims. While many elements of his earlier works recur in these phenomenological texts, Marion’s concern is now much broader, and more ambitious: to argue for the excess of phenomena in general, rather than just the excess of exceptional phenomena such as God. Bringing an elegant symmetry to his publications, his most recent book returns to his earliest interests, applying the resources developed in his phenomenological trilogy to a meditative study of love in The Erotic Phenomenon (2003). Husserl and His Heretical Disciples Descartes’ thought is not only the subject of Marion’s early academic focus and the context in which his own ideas develop; Descartes’ quest for certitude also shapes the wider philosophical landscape well into the twentieth century, and provides the setting for phenomenology to emerge in the thought of Edmund Husserl. Descartes achieves his aim of finding a certain foundation for knowledge: the ego cogito. However, this success comes at the price of limiting the domain of certitude to the immanent sphere of consciousness, and raising the issue of how the immanent content of consciousness can give knowledge of external transcendent objects. One of the possible outcomes of a Cartesian approach is idealist positions in which the ideas of consciousness are regarded as either the whole of reality (e.g., Berkeley’s argument that minds and their perceptions are the only things that exist), or Introduction

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removed from the external world, which remains only indirectly known at best (as in Kant’s system, where knowledge is restricted to the phenomenon and never reaches the noumenon, the thing-in-itself ). Such an idealist view was adopted by psychologism, an influential strand in German philosophy of the nineteenth century, including Husserl’s early work, Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891). Psychologism restricts knowledge to the domain of psychological realities in the human mind, such that the object of knowledge is thought and thinking. The criticism leveled at Philosophy of Arithmetic led Husserl to develop a decisive refutation of psychologism in the prolegomena to his Logical Investigations (1900). He believed that the breakthrough he made there opened up a new way of resolving the Cartesian problem and a new foundation for philosophical knowledge.13 The key insight of Husserl’s breakthrough relies on the medieval notion of intentionality, as developed by his teacher, Franz Brentano: Every act of thought intends (or is directed toward) something that transcends it; consciousness is always consciousness-ofsomething. This means that thought can never be considered in abstraction from external reality; an intrinsic element of any act of consciousness is its object. Although I always experience a thing as it is for me rather than as it is in itself, what is given for us in consciousness is nothing other than the thing-in-itself. I might only ever see one side of a book at a time, but what I see in each act is nevertheless the book.14 There is an essential correlation between a thing-in-itself and its being given to a lived experience of consciousness, such that the thing-in-itself shows itself for me. This in-itself-as-it-shows-itself-for-me is called a phenomenon, and phenomenology is the study of phenomenality: the general structures of the appearing of phenomena in acts of consciousness. Thus, in contrast to idealism’s focus on thought and the contents of the mind, phenomenology goes ‘‘to the things themselves! [zu den Sachen selbst!]’’15 on the basis of how they are given in the lived experience of consciousness. Husserl describes this presence of things in consciousness as resulting from ‘‘constitution,’’ a letting-be-present in which there is an essential correlation between the act of perceiving, or ‘‘noesis,’’ and the object as perceived, or ‘‘noema.’’ The same object can be intended in a variety of ways (e.g., studying its characteristics, wishing that it was mine), and can also be given to consciousness in a variety of ways (e.g., as actually present, as imagined, as recalled). On their own, intentional acts are empty (as Kant famously observed about thoughts without content); they can be ‘filled’ only by the object giving itself in what Husserl, following Kant, calls ‘‘intuition.’’ Husserl insists that this givenness of an object in itself (‘in person,’ ‘bodily,’ in its own ‘flesh and blood’) is the foundation 6

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for knowledge, and enshrines it in phenomenology’s ‘‘principle of principles’’: ‘‘Every originarily giving intuition [Anschauung] is a source of knowledge by right; all that offers itself to us in originary ‘intuition’ [‘Intuition’] (in its bodily [leibhaften] actuality, so to speak), is to be taken simply as that as which it gives itself, but also only in the bounds in which it gives itself ’’ (italics in original).16 Husserl’s ambition to go ‘‘to the things themselves’’ is warmly endorsed by Marion, but he believes that this ambition is frustrated by the conditions and limits that Husserl continues to impose on phenomena. He argues that Husserl fails to breaks free of fundamental presuppositions that undermine his project, and that belong to a line of thought running back to Kant and Descartes. In Marion’s view, Husserl reduces phenomena to constituted objects, within limits dictated by and for a sovereign subject. Marion maintains that any sort of constitution by or for a subject imposes conditions on the appearing of phenomena and perpetuates the foundational function assigned to the ego by Descartes, thus preventing phenomenology from going ‘‘to the things themselves.’’ Marion often quotes Husserl’s ‘‘principle of principles,’’ which recognizes the givenness of phenomena as the basis for their appearing. While applauding the fundamental importance this principle attaches to givenness, Marion laments Husserl’s failure to make givenness absolute, instead limiting intuition to ‘‘the bounds within which it gives itself ’’ and thus reducing phenomena to objects (see Chap. 3). He argues that Husserl’s original project can only be accomplished by beginning from the givenness of phenomena, and freeing this givenness from any conditions that are external to it. Developing such a ‘‘phenomenology of givenness’’ is the principal aim of his phenomenological trilogy. Many philosophers before Marion have taken Husserl’s phenomenological method in directions beyond those he envisaged, and Marion’s own approach builds upon the insights of many other thinkers who followed Husserl. Paul Ricoeur memorably describes phenomenology as ‘‘both the sum of Husserl’s work and the heresies issuing from it.’’17 First among these heretics is Husserl’s student and one-time prote´ge´, Martin Heidegger, who recast phenomenology as ontology. In Heidegger’s view, for phenomenology to go back to the ‘‘things themselves,’’ means recovering being (Sein), which has been forgotten by Western philosophy in its preoccupation with beings (Seiende). He criticizes traditional metaphysics (typified by Descartes) for thinking of being in ontic terms, as substance that is present, thus covering over the ontological dimension of the appearing of beings—an appearing that is not itself present and does not itself appear.18 Introduction

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Marion draws on this critique to support his own analysis of the Western metaphysical tradition, but he believes that Heidegger too falls short. Marion’s concern with Heidegger, at least in Being and Time, is twofold. First, because he begins from Dasein, he remains in a Cartesian model where the subject sets the horizon for phenomena (see Chap. 2); second, being itself is a conceptual limit imposed upon phenomena, which are restricted to appearing as beings. Thus, Marion’s best known early work, God without Being, endeavors to think about God in a way that both exceeds metaphysical concepts and avoids a Heideggerian reduction to being, turning instead to think of God as love (GWB xx–xxi, xxiv). Marion’s critique of Husserl and Heidegger follows from those of other ‘heretical’ figures in phenomenology such as Jacques Derrida (who was one of Marion’s teachers), Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, and JeanLouis Chre´tien. A unifying theme running through these critiques is a concern for otherness (alterity) or transcendence. After Descartes identifies the ego cogito as the foundation for all knowledge, anything that transcends our own consciousness can be understood only in relation to that consciousness, which is its ground. Thus, what is other is no longer understood in terms of its otherness, but rather as more of the same. From Descartes onward, Western thought is haunted by this failure to conceive otherness as alterity, reducing it instead to the same. Derrida, for instance, points to the residue of otherness overlooked by Husserl’s account of constitution, arguing that consciousness’ constituting acts always rely upon something constituted that precedes them, and that they are therefore not an absolute constituting source.19 Derrida also recognizes a critical role for otherness in his theory of language and textuality. His central insight here is to affirm that we inhabit an inherently symbolic order; reality is always experienced as meaningful, within a system of meaning that is embodied in language and text: ‘‘There is nothing outside of the text [Il n’y a pas de hors-texte].’’20 Within this system, the meaning of individual signs is defined in relation to what is other than them, both syntactically and semantically. For example, a particular use of cat acquires meaning in its syntactic difference from words such as bat and hat, and in its semantic difference from other uses of cat (e.g., an animal, a spiteful woman, a jazz musician, the expression raining cats and dogs, etc.).21 Traces of these differences are always structurally present in each sign and can never be assigned a finite limit. Moreover, Derrida rejects the possibility of referring to an objective order outside this textual system as a transcendental signified, which would provide a ground for ending the play of difference and determining a fixed meaning.22 Such an order remains ‘‘impossible’’ for Derrida. Language is therefore infinitely 8

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open, and is structured by what he terms diffe´rance: its difference from what is other than it, and its endlessly deferred meaning. Through the 1990s, Marion and Derrida engaged in a series of exchanges about the nature of the impossibility of this transcendental order, particularly in reference to the possibility of an utterly free gift that is not compromised by being made part of an exchange or trade of some kind. These exchanges culminated in a 1997 debate at Villanova University.23 Derrida maintains that although we intend the impossible (a gift, love, justice, forgiveness, hospitality, God, etc.) on the basis of an undecidable trace, this intention can never be fulfilled because as a transcendental signified, the impossible is totally other and can never be present or given in any way.24 Marion agrees that the impossible can never be objectively present, but argues that it can nevertheless be given, although only as dazzling and overwhelming excess, and not in a way that can be comprehended and grasped by determinate concepts. In fact, Marion foreshadows this debate by his provocative subtitle to God without Being: HorsTexte, a work that sets out to defend the possibility of the impossible being given despite its being outside the text (hors-texte), beyond the reach of the symbolic and conceptual order. As such, God without Being constitutes an implicit rejoinder to Derrida’s assertion that ‘‘there is nothing outside the text [hors-texte].’’ In God without Being, Marion speaks of God in terms of distance rather than presence, exploring how God might be given in the gift of love without being reduced to concepts that belong to objectivity, or even to being—God really given, but with such overwhelming excess, distance and otherness that he can be named only under erasure: Goxd (GWB 46/72–73). Marion takes up this concern in other works as well, drawing on the resources of mystical theology, and particularly the figure of Dionysius the Areopagite. Marion’s consideration of God in terms of otherness and distance builds on themes developed before him by Emmanuel Levinas: in particular, Levinas’ concern for a radical otherness, which he often expresses in terms of infinity. Perhaps the best known element of Levinas’ philosophy is his view that both Husserl and Heidegger overlook otherness: Husserl by conceiving intersubjectivity on the basis of empathy, so that others become alter egos of myself, and Heidegger by making being absolute. Levinas’ thought begins from the primacy and irreducible infinity of otherness, particularly as it announces itself to me in the face of another. For Levinas, the subject is always preceded by the summons of the other, who constitutes me by calling me to ethical responsibility. Levinas’ insistence that a call has initiative and priority over any response (echoed in JeanLouis Chre´tien’s study of call and response25) is a model that Marion Introduction

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draws on in his own analysis of the way that our response is always made possible by a call that comes before it (see Chap. 1). Marion is also influenced by the way Levinas replaces the classic Husserlian sense of experience and intentionality with a kind of ‘‘counter-consciousness’’ or reversal of intentionality, which begins from the other instead of from me. This decentering of the subject recurs in Marion’s own discussion of an inversion in intentionality and an infinite otherness that cannot be conceptually grasped by understanding. Marion even adopts the face as one of his five figures of saturated phenomena (see Chap. 7). The influence on Marion of one final French philosopher is worth noting briefly at this point. Across many works, Michel Henry develops an alternative to the Husserlian idea of a subject who constitutes objects in a world. Henry begins instead from the idea of ‘‘life’’ and auto-affection as part of a passibility that precedes any constituting activity of a subject. These ideas are most directly taken up by Marion in his writing about flesh (see Chap. 6).26 Marion’s Phenomenological Project It is against this background of thinkers who explore excess and otherness that Marion undertakes his phenomenological project. In it, he takes his earlier, more theological concerns, and seeks to develop a broader phenomenological framework for understanding the excess of phenomena in general. As he maintains that beginning with the subject undermines both Husserl’s and Heidegger’s projects from the outset, Marion begins instead from the givenness of phenomena, and seeks to free this givenness from any conditions that are external to it. He calls his project a phenomenology of givenness, and elaborates it in his phenomenological trilogy: Reduction and Givenness (1989), Being Given (1997), and In Excess (2001). These works are my primary focus in this book, and are described by Marion as an ‘‘attempt to radically re-envisage the whole phenomenological project on the basis of the primacy in it of givenness’’ (IE xxi*/v). Assigning primacy to givenness in this way means seeing phenomena as given rather than as in any way constituted, and excluding any suggestion of phenomena appearing under conditions imposed on them by a subject. Marion argues that the appearing of a phenomenon is completely unconditioned: A phenomenon gives itself of itself (BG 138/196), and appears by imposing itself on a recipient (BG 201/282), who is a ‘‘constituted witness’’ (BG 216/302)—a ‘‘screen on which it [the phenomenon] crashes’’ (BG 265/365). 10

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Marion’s insistence on the primacy of givenness in phenomenality entails a radical rethinking both of the phenomenon itself, and of the subject to whom it appears. In place of phenomena appearing as objects (Husserl) or beings (Heidegger) within the limits of horizons imposed by a constituting subject, Marion envisages phenomena as appearing without conditions or limits, given by themselves alone. In such an understanding, the subject is no longer a sovereign ego that constitutes phenomena as objects; instead, the subject is the one on whom phenomena impose themselves. No longer understood as constituting origin, the subject receives itself in receiving the appearing of phenomena—the subject is now ‘‘the adonne´.’’27 This rethinking of phenomenality culminates in Marion’s introduction of a new category of ‘‘saturated’’ phenomena. He claims that these phenomena give so much intuition that they exceed any concepts or limiting horizons that a constituting subject might attempt to impose on them. Therefore, saturated phenomena are given simply as themselves, and are exemplary instances of the givenness of phenomena. Indeed, Marion proposes the saturated phenomenon as the ‘‘one and only [unique] paradigm’’ and ‘‘norm’’ for understanding phenomenality in general (BG 227/316). In Marion’s theory, there are five possible types of saturated phenomenon (four corresponding to the divisions of Kant’s table of categories, and one which encompasses all four, and is thus ‘‘saturated to the second degree’’). For each type, Marion presents a ‘‘figure’’ (event, painting, flesh, the face, and ‘‘revelation’’) that shows its typical characteristics. In most instances, these figures are subjects that he has already studied at length in other contexts. He asserts that Revelation is the only phenomenon that is saturated in each of the four possible ways, and that it is therefore the ‘‘paradox [i.e., saturated phenomenon] par excellence.’’ As the phenomenon representing ‘‘the maximum of saturated phenomenality,’’ Revelation also completes Marion’s endeavor ‘‘to liberate possibility in phenomenality’’ in general; Revelation is the ‘‘phenomenon that gives (itself ) according to a maximum of phenomenality’’ (BG 234–35326–27). This theory is not only significant for understanding the particular types of phenomena that Marion classifies as saturated: Because of the paradigmatic status he assigns to saturated phenomena (and to Revelation in particular), what he says about them also makes dramatically clear how phenomenality in general should be understood within his phenomenology of givenness. Marion’s accounts of saturated phenomena make plain the extent to which he rethinks both phenomena (as self-giving rather than constituted) and the subject to whom they appear (as an adonne´ that receives itself in its very receiving, rather than as a sovereign ego). Introduction

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Marion’s phenomenology of givenness is a bold attempt to give an account of phenomena in themselves, without any condition or limitation being imposed upon them. He places phenomena themselves firmly at the center of his theorizing, thus definitively dethroning the subject from any constituting role. Rather than understanding phenomena as objects or beings, he maintains they are simply given—in and of themselves. In dramatic contrast to Descartes, who begins from the ego, which then provides a ground for objects, Marion begins from phenomena, in whose appearing the subject receives itself as adonne´. The theory of saturated phenomena is at the heart of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, and represents an original and innovative contribution to phenomenology. It significantly enriches our appreciation of phenomenality by insisting on the possibility of phenomena appearing to us with an overwhelming excess that defies any attempt we might make to grasp them entirely and contain them in concepts. Moreover, because Marion presents saturation as the paradigm of phenomenality rather than as an unusual exception, saturated phenomena have consequences for our conception of all phenomena. Thus, we should expect that phenomena in general exceed the concepts we use to understand them, and should regard the phenomena that we do grasp comprehensively as unusual abstractions from the overwhelming complexity of our experience. Marion’s argument that phenomenology should be reoriented, focusing on the givenness of phenomena, is very persuasive, and in many respects, his phenomenology of givenness successfully achieves such a reorientation. However, some of Marion’s claims are overstated, and are not supported by his own accounts of saturated phenomena, which are supposed to serve as a paradigm. His strongest claims are dramatic and unambiguous, but only at the price of abandoning nuance and qualification.28 As a result, much of Marion’s reorientation of phenomenology is presented as a simple inversion, with the subject who previously actively constituted phenomena as objects now being constituted by them as a passive witness on whom they impose themselves. I believe that Marion’s sharp delineation between active and passive roles is unsatisfactory, and that a more complex account of phenomenality is required. In such an account, a phenomenon’s appearing to a subject would be understood in terms of active reception of what is given, rather than as passive receiving of the imposition of pure givens. I argue in the second part of this volume that Marion’s own descriptions of saturated phenomena reveal precisely this sort of complexity. In each case, these phenomena do not simply give themselves from themselves as Marion claims; rather, they are presented and understood in a hermeneutic space 12

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that is opened by a subject’s active reception. In other words, Marion’s accounts of saturated phenomena contain an unacknowledged and implicit hermeneutics that militates against his claim to have arrived at phenomena as ‘‘pure givens’’ (emphasis mine). The first part of this book sets out the scope of these issues. I specify the extent of Marion’s claims about phenomena appearing as ‘‘pure givens’’ and about the passivity of the adonne´ (Chap. 1), and then detail the hermeneutics of active reception that I claim is implicit in Marion’s accounts of saturated phenomena (Chap. 2). In the second part of the book, I begin by analyzing Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena, situating it in relation to the thought of Kant and Husserl (Chap. 3). I then examine in turn the five figures of saturated phenomena that Marion proposes, and demonstrate that each one has a hermeneutic dimension to its appearing, rather than being simply given of itself as Marion claims (Chaps. 4–8). Because the phenomena that Marion chooses as figures fascinated him long before he developed the theory of saturated phenomena, in some cases appearing in his earliest work, each of these five chapters presents a detailed study of the development of Marion’s thought about the phenomenon in question, before arguing that its structure is inherently hermeneutic. Because Marion declares saturated phenomena to be the norm, the paradigm and the exemplary accomplishment of pure givenness, beyond any limitations imposed by intention and concepts, the success of my argument would call into question the possibility of such a pure givenness. It would suggest that a hermeneutic space is a transcendental condition for the manifestation of all phenomena, whether they are reduced to objects, beings, or givens. This conclusion would in turn imply that all phenomenology is necessarily hermeneutic because of the hermeneutic character of phenomenality itself. So, I will be arguing in support of the critique that Marion (along with others) directs at the traces of the Cartesian ego apparent in thinkers right up to Heidegger. I will also defend Marion’s position that the richness, complexity, and overwhelming excess of saturated phenomena should be regarded as a paradigm for phenomena rather than an exception because I believe that phenomena such as art, historical events, and love typify the irreducible complexity that is so much a part of our human experience. However, I will also be arguing that careful analysis of these very phenomena demands a revision to Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. While recognizing that phenomena must be understood as given rather than simply constituted, I do not accept Marion’s position that this givenness Introduction

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is pure or absolute. Instead, I will argue that the active reception of givenness is a structural element of phenomena; an account of what a phenomenon is cannot be set out in terms of its givenness alone, but must also include the way it is interpreted by the one who receives it. Moreover, this active interpretation is most evident in the phenomena that Marion himself names as paradigms: saturated phenomena.

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Marion’s Claims

In Reduction and Givenness, Marion argues that both Husserl and Heidegger retain limits and conditions for phenomena by conceiving of them as constituted objects (Husserl) or in terms of being (Heidegger). According to Marion, these limits exclude or distort phenomena, especially those that are ‘‘not objectified’’ or ‘‘do not have to be’’ (RG 205*/305).1 Marion concludes Reduction and Givenness by proposing a reduction to givenness as a solution to these sorts of distortions and exclusions. He asserts that a reduction to givenness allows all phenomena to be given in themselves and as themselves because it has an ‘‘original absence of conditions and determinations’’ (RG 205*/305). However, Reduction and Givenness does not go beyond this simple assertion. Marion develops the theory of such a reduction to givenness in Being Given, which is his systematic elaboration of a phenomenology of givenness. In contrast to theories that understand phenomena as objects or in relation to being, a phenomenology of givenness understands phenomena as ‘‘purely and strictly given, without remainder, and owing all their phenomenality to givenness’’ (BG 39*/61). In this chapter, I set out the extent of Marion’s claims about phenomena understood as ‘‘purely and strictly given,’’ and about the recipient to whom they appear. Although Marion extends these claims to phenomena in general, he believes that they are particularly evident in the class of phenomena that he puts forward as a paradigm: saturated phenomena.2 Saturated phenomena (which Marion occasionally refers to as ‘‘paradoxes’’) are instances of 15

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‘‘a givenness that is in the end absolutely unconditioned . . . and absolutely irreducible’’ (BG 189*/264). However, Marion proposes this same givenness as the sole principle for phenomenality in general (e.g., BG 18/ 29, 20/33). Moreover, as I argue herein, he regards saturated phenomena as the norm rather than the exception, and even as the normal way in which all phenomena appear (see Chap. 4, ‘‘Excess, Saturation, and Reduction to Objectivity’’). Indeed, his texts imply that most (if not all) phenomena are offered as saturated even though they are not normally recognized as such, and are reduced to objects (or ‘‘objectified’’). Thus, in Marion’s theory, the characteristics of saturated phenomena are the essential characteristics of phenomena in general, and in fact, most phenomena should be understood as saturated. Therefore, in this chapter, I make no systematic distinction between claims that Marion makes in texts focused on saturated phenomena and claims that he makes when he is discussing phenomenality in general. Phenomena as Self-Giving Being Given opens with the announcement that it has ‘‘one sole theme’’: ‘‘What shows itself first gives itself ’’ (BG 5*/10). Marion then devotes the first of the five ‘‘books’’ in Being Given to givenness, arguing that the task of phenomenology is to remove all that prevents the appearance of things themselves, and that phenomena must therefore be allowed to show themselves (‘‘auto-mis en sce`ne’’), rather than being shown ‘‘in the way an ego makes an object evident’’ (BG 7–10/14–17, quotes from 10/17).3 The claim that phenomena give themselves is composed of two complementary subclaims, which I set out in turn in this section: Put negatively, a phenomenon does not depend on anything external to it for its appearance; put positively, what gives and shows a phenomenon is the phenomenon itself (which must, therefore, be thought of as having a ‘self ’ to perform these actions). Marion states the first of these subclaims in terms of ‘‘pure,’’ ‘‘absolute,’’ and ‘‘unconditioned’’ givenness, by which he means givenness alone, excluding any other principle: ‘‘The principle set up by givenness is precisely that nothing precedes the phenomenon . . . the phenomenon comes forward [advient] without any other principle than itself ’’ (BG 18*/29). He insists that phenomena appear as themselves only when they are reduced to ‘‘pure givens’’; that is, phenomena must be reduced to that as which they give themselves, without any modification by a constituting ego, or a Dasein that projects a world: ‘‘The pure given giving itself depends, once reduced, only on itself ’’ (BG 17/27). Such a reduction 16

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‘‘brackets all in this phenomenon that does not stem from pure phenomenality: [namely] objectness and beingness’’ (BG 52*/77). Thus, a phenomenon is understood as appearing purely (or absolutely) in itself, as it is given, without any possible distortion or conditioning by a subject, and without being reduced to the effect of a metaphysical cause. When a phenomenon is understood purely in itself, ‘‘nothing other than givenness determines it and, as a result, it appears only as given—without any nongiven residue. . . . [It is] a purely and strictly given phenomenon without remainder and owing all its phenomenality to givenness’’ (BG 39*/61). Marion concludes that his formulation of the phenomenological reduction goes ‘‘beyond objectness and beingness . . . [to] pure givenness’’ (BG 18/27); by excluding all that does not belong to givenness, it reduces phenomenality to ‘‘pure givenness,’’ and phenomena to ‘‘pure given[s] . . . [that] appear absolutely’’ (BG 52–53/78). Marion’s second subclaim is framed positively: Phenomena are themselves the origins of their own appearing. Thus, when Marion says that phenomena give themselves, he is not only referring to what phenomena give (they give themselves and show themselves, rather than being a representation of something else) but also to phenomena being the origins of this self-giving and self-showing. According to Marion, phenomenology must ‘‘leave it [the phenomenon]—finally—the initiative of appearing on the basis of itself [a` partir de soi],’’ and must ‘‘admit the phenomenality proper to the phenomenon—its right and its power to show itself on the basis of itself [a` partir de lui-meˆme]’’ (BG 19*/30–31).4 These descriptions of phenomena as taking the initiative to give themselves presume that some sort of agency or selfhood can be ascribed to phenomena—the phenomenon of the gift even ‘‘decides itself ’’ (BG 112/161). Marion explicitly refers to such a ‘self ’ on many occasions, though he never specifies exactly what this ‘self ’ is: The origin of givenness remains the ‘self ’ of the phenomenon, with no other principle or origin besides itself. ‘Self-givenness, Selbstgebung, donation de soi’ indicates that the phenomenon is given in person, but also and especially that it is given of itself and on the basis of itself. (BG 20*/33) Invoking Heidegger as an authority for his claim about the phenomenon as the origin of its own appearance, Marion quotes Heidegger’s famous definition of a phenomenon as ‘‘that which shows itself in itself [das Sich-an-ihm-selbst-zeigende].’’5 However, Marion’s claim that phenomena are the origin of their own appearance is not simply a repetition of Heidegger’s account of phenomena as self-showing. Although this section of Marion’s Claims

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Being and Time does refer to phenomenology as ‘‘let[ting] what shows itself be seen from itself, in the way in which it shows itself from itself [das was sich zeigt, so wie es sich von ihm selbst her zeigt, von ihm selbst her sehen lassen]’’ (emphasis mine) (BT §7, 58*/34; cf. 51/28), Heidegger’s overall emphasis is clearly on what is shown rather than on the origin of the showing. Thus, assessments of what is shown are the basis for Heidegger’s extended discussion of the distinctions between ‘‘phenomenon’’ (something that shows itself in itself and as itself ), ‘‘semblance [Schein]’’ (something that shows itself as what it is not), and ‘‘appearance [Erscheinung]’’ (something that does not show itself, but announces itself through some other thing that does show itself ) (BT §7, 51–52/28–29). Marion shares Heidegger’s concern that what is shown in a phenomenon be regarded as the thing itself rather than as a representation of something else.6 Marion’s main interest, though, is in the ‘self ’ of a phenomenon as what shows rather than as what is shown: ‘‘[I]t . . . constitutes itself, to the point of giving itself as a self [se donner comme un soi]’’ (BG 219/305). He recognizes that by positing a ‘self ’ for phenomena, he is going beyond Heidegger, but he insists that he remains consistent with Heidegger’s thought: ‘‘Let me suggest that the phenomenality of givenness lets us detect the ‘self ’ of the phenomenon, which Heidegger uses fully [a` fond] without thinking it’’ (BG 70*/102; cf. 364n65/305n1).7 The closest Marion comes to defining the phenomenon’s ‘self ’ is in describing it as ‘‘original’’ (IE 31/36), and as related to a phenomenon’s ‘‘interiority.’’8 However, his concern is not so much with the phenomenon’s self per se, but rather with using this concept to reinforce his claim that ‘‘in the appearing, the initiative belongs in principle to the phenomenon, not the look’’ (BG 159*/225). Ascribing a ‘self ’ to phenomena is a way of excluding claims about the role of subjectivity in phenomenality: How can a phenomenon claim to be deployed by itself and in itself [par lui-meˆme et en soi-meˆme] if a transcendental I constitutes it as an object, placed at one’s disposal for and by the thought that governs it exhaustively? . . . To admit, to the contrary, that a phenomenon shows itself, we would have to be able to recognise in it a self, such that it takes the initiative of its manifestation. (IE 30/35) Marion is adamant that notions of a subject’s selfhood should not lead to a phenomenon’s appearing being seen as the result of a perceiving subject’s action: ‘‘If the phenomenon really gives itself, it then obligatorily confiscates the function and the role of the self, and therefore can concede to the ego only a me of second rank, by derivation’’ (IE 45*/53–54; cf. 48/57). If a ‘self ’ is required for a phenomenon to appear, then Marion 18

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believes this self should be ascribed to the phenomenon, and not to the subject. By doing this, it is made clear that a phenomenon appears on the basis of itself alone, and is not produced by something else that acts as cause or constituting agent: ‘‘The self of the phenomenon . . . comes, does its thing, and leaves on its own [de lui-meˆme]; showing itself, it also shows the self that takes (or removes) the initiative of giving itself ’’ (BG 159–60/ 226). All Marion’s claims about phenomena are aimed at removing any condition or limit that might be imposed on phenomenality from beyond it. Thus, he maintains that phenomena are ‘‘pure givens,’’ with no other principle than their own givenness, and posits the ‘self ’ of a phenomenon as the origin of its self-giving and self-showing. These claims about a phenomenon giving itself entail a correlating set of claims about the subject as a recipient that has no initiating or constituting role. Such a subject is defined purely in terms of receptivity, and is named by Marion as ‘‘adonne´.’’ The Receiving Subject as Adonne´ Marion’s attempt to reassign primacy in phenomenality from the constituting subject to givenness requires a radical rethinking of the role of the subject. However, he does not simply exclude the subject. Even though Marion proposes a very different understanding of the subject’s role, he continues to situate this role at the center of phenomenality (BG 322/ 442). Indeed, he describes the subject as making a crucial contribution to the appearing of phenomena. Thus, the challenge Marion faces is to remove the subject from the purely active role of constitution without making it a purely passive recipient: The adonne´, in losing transcendental status and the spontaneity or the activity that this implies, does not amount, however, to passivity or to the empirical me. In fact, the adonne´ goes as much beyond passivity as activity, because in being liberated from its royal transcendental status, it annuls the very distinction between the transcendental I and the empirical me. After that, what third term could be invented between activity and passivity, transcendentality and empiricity? (IE 48/57) Marion is not the first to see the need for such a middle way between active and passive descriptions for the subject. In the introduction to Being and Time, Heidegger situates phenomenality in the context of the middle-voiced verb ‘‘φανεσθαι,’’ indicating that phenomenality cannot Marion’s Claims

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be understood either as the activity of a subject nor as a purely passive experience of that which happens to us (BT §7, 51/29). Reflecting on such mediating concepts, without re-entering onto-theology, is one of the major challenges that continue to face contemporary phenomenology.9 To a considerable extent, Marion justifies his rethinking of the subject by a critique of the conditions imposed on phenomena by both Husserl’s ego and Heidegger’s Dasein: ‘‘Metaphysical (in fact, Cartesian) egology is a paradigm that always haunts the I, even reduced, even phenomenological.’’10 Although it is relatively self-evident that Husserlian constitution entails conditions and limits for phenomena, this is not so apparent in the case of Dasein. I therefore begin this section by drawing on Marion’s critique of Dasein’s active role to argue that the subtle nuance of the middle voice eludes Heidegger (at least in Being and Time). I support Marion’s critique of Heidegger by outlining a similar critique made by Claude Romano, another French phenomenologist, whose ‘‘evential hermeneutics [herme´neutique ´eve´nementiale]’’ I will discuss further in Chapter 2.11 I then set out Marion’s refiguring of the subject as adonne´, and argue that Marion is also unsuccessful in finding a middle way between the active and passive voices—although in Marion’s case, his emphasis on the ‘self ’ of the phenomenon results in the passive voice dominating. The Subjectivity of Dasein’s Self-Projection Heidegger repeatedly describes Dasein as both (actively) projecting itself into its own possibility, and as (passively) finding itself in a disposedness into which it has been thrown.12 However, as Being and Time progresses, the tension between these two dimensions progressively collapses, and the more active dimension of projecting into possibility takes on an increasingly dominant position—perhaps unavoidably, after Heidegger’s initial decision to consider the question of being by studying the being of Dasein. Heidegger situates Dasein’s projective understanding in the referential totality of inner-worldly entities and Being-in-the-world, and increasingly describes the world in terms of its relation to this understanding: ‘‘The wherein of self-referential understanding, as that for which one lets entities be encountered in the way of Being of involvement, is the phenomenon of the world’’ (BT §18, 119*/86). This tendency to understand world in reference to Dasein reaches its most dramatic point when Heidegger asserts that ‘‘ontologically, ‘world’ is . . . a characteristic of Dasein itself ’’ (BT §14, 92/64), and that ‘‘the worldliness of the world . . . is an existential determination of Being-in-the-world, that is, of Dasein’’ (BT §18, 20

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121*/88). In such passages, world is presented more as a feature of Dasein’s own self-projection than as the referential totality in which that projection is thrown. In discussing truth, Heidegger goes so far as to propose that even being depends on Dasein: ‘‘ ‘There is’ being—not beings—only in so far as truth is. And truth is only in so far as and as long as Dasein is’’ (BT §44, 272*/230). In Reduction and Givenness, Marion makes an extensive critique of Heidegger’s thought, focussing especially on Being and Time and carefully considering the relation between Dasein and the Cartesian ego (RG chaps. 3–4). He concludes that although Dasein is in many respects a ‘‘destruction’’ of the ego, the ‘‘I think’’ of Descartes’ ego is paralleled by an implicit ‘‘I am’’ on the part of Dasein, so that Dasein is a ‘‘confirmation,’’ and even a ‘‘repetition’’ of the ego (RG 106/160). Marion repeats this assessment in Being Given: ‘‘The aporias of the ‘subject’ forever haunt Dasein. It could be that Dasein does not designate what succeeds the ‘subject’ so much as its last heir’’ (BG 261/360). Romano introduces his evential hermeneutics by making a critique of Heidegger’s existential analysis that is very similar to that made by Marion (EW §3). Romano’s principal concern with Heidegger’s existential analysis is that in insisting on everything that happens to Dasein being understood as one of its possibilities, Heidegger reduces phenomena to modes of Dasein’s being,13 thereby making Dasein a condition of possibility for events and failing to recognize the way in which events well up from themselves, happen to us and open a world for us.14 As Romano points out, Dasein is not only located at the center of its world, but becomes the place for the appearance of that world and of being itself: ‘‘It is not merely ‘there,’ alongside other beings, it is the fundamental There for the manifestation of Being, from which beings themselves become manifest and encounterable as such’’ (EW 11/21). Romano welcomes Heidegger’s insistence on existence as an event, a verb rather than a noun, but argues that because beings, truth, and even being itself only appear for Dasein’s projective understanding, there is no event other than Dasein’s existence: It is because Heidegger restores its verbal sense to Being, as opposed to its substantive sense as copula, because, in other words, he conceives Being as event, that he thereby reduces the multiplicity of events to one alone: existing, in a transitive sense. No other event happens to Dasein than that event which it is itself, in so far as it understands Being—in so far as it is itself understanding of Being, transcendence. The event of Being and the event of being are, for it, one and the same. (EW 134/183) Marion’s Claims

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In other words, all other events and beings are reduced to being the place for the single event of Dasein’s existing to take place. In Romano’s view, Heidegger thus accords a primacy to Dasein that conserves ‘‘the prerogatives conferred on the modern subject since Descartes . . . Dasein remains the measure of all phenomenality’’ (EW 18/30). Romano concludes that Dasein continues to be caught in the aporias of a metaphysical understanding of the ‘subject’ that Heidegger went to such pains to reject: Heidegger, who breaks radically with this type of analysis, nevertheless renews certain of its aporias: no alterity, no original difference with the self comes to trouble the ‘autonomy’ of Dasein; . . . Beingin-the-world does not have, properly speaking, to become itself in the trial suffered from the event, it is already entirely itself in the instant ‘held’ as supremely translucent, where it decides itself, and which seals its destiny forever. (Il y a 98) According to Romano, there is no Other who is radically other from Dasein, and therefore there is no possibility for Dasein to become genuinely other because everything that happens is a possibility of Dasein, which it always already is.15 Even death, which is the ‘‘possible impossibility of its [Dasein’s] existence’’ (BT 310/266), becomes one of Dasein’s possibilities—in fact, its ‘‘ownmost’’ possibility (BT 307/263): A modality of authentic existence, and the uttermost possibility of that existence, death is just as much as existence is, it is the very possibility of existing. Finitude that Dasein already carries in itself solely by the fact of existing, finitude that does not happen to existence from outside, but is as inseparable from it as shadow from light. Death without adversity, without mystery, where nothing of ourselves is actually broken, where nothing alien awaits us, since by existing we have already been existing it from the outset. (EW 18/30) At the same time as he reduces death to one of Dasein’s possibilities, Heidegger almost completely ignores birth, a crucial event for Romano because it is an impersonal event that comes before Dasein and so can never be reduced to one of its possibilities: ‘‘That Being itself is given to us, handed over to us, conferred on us by the event of birth . . . introduces a fundamental heteronomy into existence, thus breaching Dasein’s existential ‘Self-subsistence’ (BT §66, 381/332)’’ (EW 20/32). Heidegger’s failure to acknowledge this radical alterity leads Romano to speak of a ‘‘certain ‘idealism of understanding’ ’’ in Being and Time. In this ‘idealism,’ ‘‘a meaning can only come to Dasein from Dasein itself,’’ thus leaving Dasein closed in on itself and excluding any possibility of events 22

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genuinely happening to it (EW 138/189). In this respect, Dasein resembles a Leibnizian monad or the self-affection that is the ‘‘original essence of receptivity’’ for Michel Henry.16 From the I to the Adonne´ The critiques of Being and Time made by Marion and Romano highlight the traces of the autonomous subject of classical metaphysics that can be found in Dasein. Marion’s attempts to escape this legacy are reflected in the different descriptions that he uses for the subject as his work progresses. In Reduction and Givenness, where he argues that both Dasein and Husserl’s transcendental ego are successors to Descartes’ ego cogito, he proposes that the subject is better understood as ‘‘the interloque´17 (der Angesprochene)’’ (RG 200/300). Later, in Being Given, he describes the refigured subject first as ‘‘the witness’’ of the paradox (the saturated phenomenon) and then as ‘‘the receiver [attributaire],’’ before arriving at his final description of it as ‘‘the adonne´’’—the one who receives not only that which is given, but even receives itself in that act of receiving. In an attempt to highlight the difference between these various descriptions, Marion identifies the grammatical case to which each of them corresponds. Thus, he depicts Descartes and Husserl as describing a subject who acts in the nominative case, while Heidegger’s Dasein occurs in the genitive case and Levinas’ ‘‘me voici’’ responds in the accusative case (BG 269/371). As Marion develops his phenomenology of givenness, he ascribes a somewhat confusing variety of grammatical cases to his own redescriptions of the subject, moving from the accusative, locative and vocative cases in Reduction and Givenness, to the dative—or even ablative—case in Being Given. Marion himself makes no attempt to reconcile these descriptions, perhaps thereby indicating that he is making a series of evocative suggestions rather than proposing a systematic theory. I set out Marion’s various accounts of a refigured subject below, in the order that they appear in his texts. In Reduction and Givenness, Marion analyzes the phenomenologies developed by Husserl and Heidegger, and argues that both of them impose conditions upon phenomena by ascribing primacy to the subject. In his view, Husserl reduces ‘‘objects to the consciousness of an I,’’ while Heidegger reduces ‘‘beings to Dasein as the sole ontological being’’ (RG 197/ 296). Marion concludes that in performing these reductions, Husserl’s constituting ego and Heidegger’s Dasein are both successors of Descartes’ ego cogito. In contrast to these earlier reductions, Marion proposes a third reduction, which is no longer performed by a subject, but which is a ‘‘reduction to and of the call [appel]’’ (RG 197/296). In this third reduction, Marion’s Claims

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Marion sees the I as being ‘‘deprived of its right to the nominative’’ of the ‘‘transcendental I’’; he proposes that the subject is better understood as either ‘‘a constituted (me)’’ which is ‘‘claimed [revendique´], assigned and convoked in the accusative’’ (RG 199/298),18 or by a more locative understanding of Dasein: ‘‘It will be necessary to learn to read Dasein more as Da(sein) than as (da)Sein, as the there of Being more than as Being in its there’’ (RG 200/299). Whether accusative or locative, both of these formulations are attempts to describe the first person as being determined by the claim that is made on it. Drawing on Heidegger’s account of ‘‘the Anspruch des Seins [the claim of Being]’’ (RG 198–99/297–98), Marion characterizes such a refigured subject as ‘‘the interloque´ (der Angesprochene)’’ (RG 200/300). It is a ‘‘subject without subject(iv)ity’’ (RG 201/ 300), who recognizes that its origin always precedes it, and that before it has any consciousness of itself as an I, ‘‘it works, in the vocative’’ (RG 201/301), that belongs to one who is always already interloque´ (RG 202/ 302). In Being Given, Marion no longer designates the ‘non-subjective subject’ as the ‘interloque´,’19 and instead introduces a variety of new descriptions as the book progresses, culminating in his specifying this new ‘subject’ as ‘‘the adonne´.’’ Two of the more significant titles he uses before this final point are ‘‘witness’’ of the paradox (the saturated phenomenon) and ‘‘receiver [attributaire].’’ A witness is ‘‘a subjectivity stripped of the characteristics that gave it transcendental rank’’ (BG 217/302). Far from being one who produces truth by synthesizing or constituting, a witness is explicitly described as being ‘‘constituted’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 216–17/ 302). In the case of the paradox, the normal constitutive relation is ‘‘inverted’’ so that the witness receives meaning instead of giving it: ‘‘The I can no longer provide its meaning to lived experiences and intuition; rather, the latter give themselves and therefore give it their meaning’’ (BG 217/302). Instead of looking at (regardant) saturated phenomena, a witness is placed under their guard (‘‘sous la garde’’), and is deprived of ‘‘any dominant viewpoint on the intuition which submerges him’’ (BG 217*/ 303). The I thus ‘‘loses its anteriority as egoic pole,’’ as well as any claim to the nominative position, and becomes a ‘‘witness constituted despite itself by what it receives’’ (BG 217/303). Marion emphasizes this receptivity when he moves to describing a witness as having ‘‘a function of pure receiver [attributaire] of givenness’’ (BG 249/344). This receiver is a ‘‘more original dative’’ than the nominative of the subject, and ‘‘designates . . . the ‘unto whom/which [a` qu(o)i],’ ’’ which is less ‘‘neutral’’ than an ‘‘unto which [a` quoi]’’ but not as ‘‘psychological’’ as an ‘‘unto whom [a` qui]’’ (BG 249/344). Such a receiver can in 24

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no sense ‘‘claim to possess or produce phenomena’’; rather, it suffers a ‘‘radical dispossession’’ and must receive what is allocated to it in ‘‘a purely receiving [allocatif] relation’’ (BG 249/344). Marion is clear that if there is any sense in which a ‘self ’ is to be seen as having a priority in the giving of phenomena, it is the ‘self ’ of the phenomena themselves, and not that of the subject: The phenomenon . . . proves that it shows itself of itself, [and] therefore attests the phenomenological priority of its ‘self ’ over every possible receiver. The receiver therefore comes after the ‘subject’ . . . [in the sense] of proceeding from the phenomenon, without anticipating it or producing it. (BG 249*/344) Thus, rather than being in the tradition of an ‘‘I think,’’ the receiver is more of an ‘‘I am affected’’ (BG 251/347). Although this receiver might still be called a ‘subject,’ it is a subject ‘‘freed [se libe`re] from the subsistence of a substratum,’’ a subject ‘‘emancipated [affranchi] from all subjectivity’’ and ‘‘subjectness’’ (BG 261*/360–61). Marion’s refiguring of the subject—from I, to witness, to receiver— culminates in the last book of Being Given, which takes its title from his final designation for a subject who is freed from subjectivity: the adonne´. Marion believes that the absolute priority of givenness means that a ‘subject’ not only receives a phenomenon from the phenomenon’s own giving of itself, but also receives its own self (as subject without subjectivity) in this giving. A ‘subject’ thus not only receives that which is given (the donne´), but is itself the one who is given (the adonne´). The adonne´ is not a preconstituted receiver that precedes and conditions the giving of the phenomenon, but is rather itself constituted as receiver in the very receiving of the phenomenon itself: ‘‘The adonne´ . . . receive[s] himself by receiving the given unfolded by him according to givenness’’(emphasis mine) (BG 282/390; cf. IE 50/59). Marion believes that the nominative case can no longer be claimed for a figure such as this, for ‘‘I receive my self from the call that gives me to myself before giving me anything whatsoever’’ (BG 269/371). The adonne´ appears in the dative case, which Marion contrasts with the continuing concern he sees in Husserl, Heidegger and Levinas with, respectively, ‘‘the nominative case (intending the object),’’ ‘‘the genitive (of Being),’’ and ‘‘the accusative (accused by the Other).’’ Marion goes so far as to suggest that the adonne´’s dative may perhaps be indistinguishable from the ablative, ‘‘since the myself/me makes possible . . . the opening for the givennesses of all other particular givens’’ (BG 269/371). The adonne´ receives itself as a kind of ‘place’ ‘‘where what gives itself shows itself ’’ (BG 322/442). Marion’s Claims

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The Adonne´ Converts the Given into the Shown Marion is clear that his relegating the ‘subject’ to the dative case in no way eliminates the subject’s role. Indeed, he points out that attempts to destroy or suppress the subject result in a ‘‘performative contradiction’’ because only a subject could claim success in such an attempt (BG 322/ 441). Marion accepts that the subject must remain at the center of any phenomenological analysis, but he seeks to ‘‘reverse’’ and ‘‘overturn’’ our understanding of what it would mean to be at this center: It [the ‘subject’] is posited as a center: this will not be contested, but I will contest its mode of occupying and exercising the center to which it lays claim—with the title of a (thinking, constituting, resolute) ‘‘I.’’ I will contest that it occupies this center as an origin, an ego in the first person, in transcendental ‘‘mineness.’’ I will oppose to it that it does not hold this center but is instead held there as a recipient, placed where what gives itself shows itself, and that there it discovers itself given to and as a pole of givenness, where all the givens come forward incessantly. It is not a ‘‘subject’’ who is held at the center, but an adonne´, one whose function consists in receiving what is immeasurably given to it, and whose privilege is limited to the fact that it receives itself from what it receives. (emphasis mine) (BG 322*/441–42) As recipient of the given, the adonne´ remains ‘‘a pole of givenness,’’ even though no longer a ‘subject.’ The importance that Marion attaches to the role of this refigured ‘subject’ is most apparent in his discussion of the transformation that occurs when the given manifests itself as a phenomenon, which I outline below. Much of his analysis of this transformation is made by characterizing the giving of phenomena as a call, and by arguing that this call is first manifested as a phenomenon in the response of a recipient. From the outset, Marion admits that phenomenology is not exhausted by a study of the giving of phenomena, no matter how fundamental that givenness might be to it. To appear as a phenomenon, the given must be shown (BG 7–10/14–17). It is at this point that Marion locates the contribution of the adonne´: In being affected by that which is given, ‘‘the receiver [l’attributaire] . . . transforms givenness into manifestation, . . . In receiving what gives itself, he in turn gives it to show itself—he gives it form, its first form’’ (BG 264/364; cf. IE 49–50/59). Such an understanding of the act of receiving has consequences for the status of the receiver, which Marion had earlier characterized as an ambiguous ‘‘to whom/ 26

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which.’’ If the given is shown in the world only through the affect/effect that it produces in a receiver, this receiver cannot be understood impersonally. Although mere reception can be accomplished by the anonymous ‘‘to whom/which’’ of the receiver (l’attributaire), the personal ‘‘to whom’’ of the adonne´ is required if that which is received is to be shown through the personal affect of a receiver.20 Thus, the phenomenalizing of that which is given depends on its being received by a personal receiver. Marion describes such a receiver as ‘‘a filter or a prism, which makes the first visibility well up . . . manifesting what presents (gives) itself, but which must still be introduced into the presence of the world (show itself )’’ (BG 264–65*/364; cf. 304/419). Without such a ‘‘filter’’ or ‘‘prism,’’ the given would remain invisible—it would not be a phenomenon. Reception is therefore a showing of the given, which makes the given a phenomenon by ‘‘transform[ing] givenness into manifestation’’ (BG 264/364). Importantly, this transformation ‘‘accomplish[es] givenness’’ rather than replacing it; it ‘‘transmutes it [givenness] into manifestation’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 264*/364). Manifestation ‘‘unfold[s]’’ the ‘‘fold of givenness,’’ but does not remove it; the givenness which makes manifestation possible ‘‘stays there [in the gift] permanently’’ (BG 117/167).21 Givenness always remains an aspect of all phenomena, making possible their manifestation.22 Marion elaborates his understanding of the transformation of givenness into manifestation in terms of call and response. He maintains that a call becomes a phenomenon only in being received by a response; considered in itself, a call may well be given, but it is not yet a phenomenon. Although at first glance, a call to someone (in writing, speech, a gesture or a look) might seem to be a phenomenon, Marion sees a significant distinction between a call that is addressed to a person and the action in which that call is conveyed. When a call summons to a decision, it is directed to ‘‘the choice of a spirit, a soul, a life, in short, of what is by definition nonvisible’’ (BG 283–84/391). Here, the meaning of the call is not visible in the action which conveys it, and is not in itself phenomenal. To illustrate this relation between a call and its response, Marion discusses Caravaggio’s painting The Calling of St. Matthew,23 which depicts Jesus confronting Matthew while he is in the middle of collecting taxes. Marion believes that the painter’s challenge here is to show in the visible domain something that is a ‘‘double invisible’’: invisible, first, in that the call’s meaning is heard rather than seen; and, second, in that the life of Matthew which it summons for decision is neither visible nor audible (BG 284/391). Marion contends that Caravaggio shows the significance of the call in Matthew’s response, rather than in Jesus’ gesture. He points Marion’s Claims

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out that Jesus’ outstretched arm is in itself highly ambiguous, and may even be intended for a character who is outside the frame, such as the innkeeper. The gesture is shown as a call only in the response of Matthew, who, totally captivated by Jesus’ gaze, turns away completely from the taxes he is being paid, and echoes Jesus’ gesture by pointing at himself, as if to ask: ‘‘Me?’’ Others in the group also see Jesus’s gesture but remain indifferent to it, and so do not show it to us as a call. Marion concludes that the call only becomes visible because Matthew ‘‘received the call of his vocation by taking it upon himself. . . . [T]he call gives itself phenomenologically only by first showing itself in a response’’ (BG 285*/393). Marion traces this same dynamic of a response showing a call in three other situations: seduction, vocation, and paternity (BG 285ff./393ff., 300ff./414ff.). The case of paternity is a particularly good instance of Marion’s claim about the call’s invisibility because although a woman’s maternity is apparent with great immediacy in pregnancy and childbirth, a man’s paternity cannot be observed directly in the public sphere. Marion sees the distance and anonymity of the father reflected in the ancient practice of establishing paternity on the basis of a father’s recognition of a child before the law, rather than upon biological evidence, and sometimes despite a lack of biological connection (BG 300/414). This recognition is expressed by the father giving the child a name—sharing his own name with his child. At first sight, this may appear to be a case of the father calling the child, but Marion maintains that, in fact, the reverse is true: The father decides to be father because the child (and the context surrounding his birth) exerts over him a call to recognition in paternity. The child silently calls the father to call him with his name— with the name of the father, . . . The child thus exercises an anonymous call on the father. When the father recognises himself as father to the point of recognising the child as his own, to the point of giving him his name, he does nothing other than, by calling him in this way, offer a response [re´pons] to a call. (BG 301/415) The father’s act of naming is a response in which the child’s claim on the father is first shown as a phenomenon. Marion highlights the paradox that he sees in this sort of relation between call and response.24 Although a response must always come after the call to which it responds, it is only in a response that a call is first shown as call.25 On this basis, Marion describes the response as ‘‘phenomenologically first—the first manifestation of the call’’ (BG 289/397). However, he is careful to insist that ‘‘the call remains as such always unheard and invisible’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 287/396). It is ‘‘transcribed in 28

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visibility’’ by the response (BG 287/396), and so becomes a phenomenon ‘‘in and through what responds to it and thus puts it on stage’’ (BG 287/ 397). The call becomes visible but only through being accepted into a visibility that remains properly that of the response. Such a response, which ‘‘performs the call,’’ and in which ‘‘the adonne´ renders visible and audible what gives itself,’’ is named by Marion as a ‘‘responsal [re´pons]’’26 (BG 288/397). It is the affective reception of the given; it comes before any willed response, and remains independent of that response.27 (Thus, if a receiver chooses to ignore something that is given, this choice is still a responsal even though it may not be a response.) The responsal of the adonne´ ‘‘opens visibility and gives voice to the call’’ (BG 288*/397). As the one who receives the given and makes it visible, the adonne´ thus plays a crucial role. It is only through the responsal of the adonne´, the adonne´ being affected by what is given, that the given is manifested and rendered phenomenal. In this context, although the ‘subject’ is no longer the Kantian ‘constituter’ or ‘producer’ of truth, its role in the manifestation of truth is indispensable, which leads Marion to describe it as the ‘‘worker [ouvrier] of truth’’—the one through whose labor the truth is set forth (BG 217/302). Despite his prior affirmation that the adonne´ does not choose to respond to the given, Marion goes so far as to accept that whether a given is shown as a phenomenon depends on the adonne´’s ‘‘willing [vouloir]’’28 and decision.29 In fact, though the adonne´ receives itself from the givenness of phenomena and is therefore ‘‘originarily a posteriori, [it] finds itself in charge of receiving or denying the given . . . of opening or closing the entire flux of phenomenality’’; it is ‘‘even the a priori of givenness’’30 (BG 307*/422), and ‘‘the extent of phenomenalisation depends on the resistance of the adonne´ to the brutal shock of the given’’31 (IE 51/60–61), with the adonne´’s finitude resulting in a correlative finitude for phenomenality.32 Thus, that which is given to the adonne´ is not only given (donne´) but ‘‘abandoned [abandonne´]’’ (BG 319/438), and there is every possibility that it may not be manifested as a phenomenon (BG 310/426). It is evident that Marion attaches great significance to the role of the ‘subject,’ understood as adonne´. The adonne´’s responsal, which receives the given in being affected by it, is a fundamental element of phenomenality. It is only through this reception that the given becomes manifest and appears as a phenomenon. In discussing the event, Marion even describes the receiver’s contribution as a ‘‘hermeneutic labour,’’ providing a horizon in which the given becomes visible (BG 229/319). However, despite the positive tone of these affirmations of the contribution of the adonne´, it is important to be very clear about the qualifications and limits Marion places on this role. Marion’s Claims

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The Adonne´ as Passive Recipient One of the risks in Marion’s placing such emphasis on phenomena having a ‘self ’ is that far from overcoming or mediating the distinction between passivity and activity, the distinction is simply retained in an inverted form, with the phenomenon taking the active role previously ascribed to the subject.33 Thus, it is not surprising to read Marion’s suggestion that ‘‘the adonne´ . . . confirms it [the reduction to the given] in transferring the self from itself to the phenomenon’’ (IE 48/57). Marion repeatedly insists that phenomena are not constituted by a subject but rather ‘‘impose’’ themselves on a subject, who is in turn constituted as receiver by this imposition.34 In this context, he argues that in at least some sense, intentionality itself should be inverted and understood as belonging to phenomena rather than to consciousness: ‘‘Intentionality is inverted: I become the objective of the object’’ (BG 146/207). Such an inversion inevitably results in Marion presenting the adonne´ in passive terms, which are most explicit in his various references to ‘‘instantaneous’’ or ‘‘passive’’ synthesis. ‘‘Passive synthesis’’ is a term used by Husserl to distinguish between the synthesis of retention, impression, and protention as an object is given in an act of perception that unfolds in time (without active construction or interpretation), and the ‘‘active synthesis’’ that occurs when the ego is productive in acts such as counting, predicating, inferring, and recollecting, where a completed act of perception is represented at will.35 Marion’s use of the idea of passive synthesis differs from this, and is first introduced in a discussion of amazement—when ‘‘we are submerged by what shows itself, most likely to the point of fascination’’ (BG 200/282). Rather than referring to Husserl’s concept, he identifies passive synthesis as a contrast with Kant’s ‘‘successive synthesis,’’ which is performed by a subject on a temporal series of apperceptions of an object (CPR A 163/B 204), and is thus itself closely related to Husserl’s passive synthesis. In Marion’s use of the term, the characteristic feature of passive synthesis is that it is ‘‘instantaneous and irreducible to the sum of its possible parts.’’ Because the subject cannot know the object by foreseeing the sum of its parts, the object ‘‘frees itself from the objectness that we would impose on it, so that it might impose on us its own synthesis, accomplished by it before we could reconstitute it (a passive synthesis, therefore)’’ (BG 201*/282; cf. 217/ 302, 226/315). Here, Marion takes the active and passive roles in successive synthesis and simply inverts them, assigning activity to the phenomenon which performs the ‘synthesis,’ and passivity to the subject. This inversion of activity and passivity is even more apparent when Marion 30

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returns to passive synthesis a little later in his text: ‘‘The passivity of the ‘passive synthesis’ indicates not only that the I does not accomplish it actively and therefore suffers it passively, but above all that activity falls to the phenomenon and to it alone’’ (BG 226/315). The same passivity of the adonne´ is evident in two of the images chosen by Marion to illustrate the subject as receiver. First, shortly after affirming the subject’s role by describing the witness to the phenomenon as ‘‘the worker of truth’’ (BG 217/302), Marion specifies that the witness makes no more contribution than an indicator light on a control panel: In this witness, we should hear less the eloquent or heroic testator [sic]36 to an event that he reports, conveys, and defends—assuming again therefore a (re-)production of the phenomenon—and more the simple, luminous witness: he lights up as on a control panel at the very instant when and each time the information he should render phenomenal (in this case, the visible) arrives to him from a transistor by electric impulse without initiative or delay. Here the witness himself is not invested in the phenomenon, nor does he invest it with . . .; rather, he finds himself so invested, submerged, that he can only register it immediately. (The ellipsis is introduced by the translator to render a dash in the original; BG 217–18/303.) Scarcely any sense of activity is retained by this image. Rather than illustrating Marion’s description of the subject’s role as ‘‘witness’’ and ‘‘worker,’’ it is more a parody of those descriptions. Marion uses the language of ‘‘witness’’ and ‘‘worker,’’ but shifts its meaning in such a way that the concepts are barely recognizable. A similar shift happens when Marion introduces the image of a screen into his discussion of the receiver’s role in transforming givenness into manifestation. Marion describes this role as crucial: The given is only phenomenalized in affecting a receiver. However, the receiver’s role suddenly becomes extraordinarily passive when Marion illustrates it by comparing the filtering function of the receiver with a screen: The filter is deployed first as a screen. Before the not yet phenomenalised given gives itself, no filter awaits it. Only the impact of what gives itself brings about the arising, with one and the same shock, of the flash with which its first visibility bursts and the very screen on which it crashes. Thought arises from pre-phenomenal indistinctness, like a transparent screen is coloured by the impact of a ray of light heretofore uncoloured in the translucent ether that suddenly explodes on it.37 Marion’s Claims

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Immediately prior to this, Marion specifies that the adonne´ is a ‘‘to whom’’ rather than a ‘‘to which/whom’’ (BG 265/364), giving the impression that he is affirming some form of agency. Yet it is difficult to see how any sense of a ‘‘who’’ is required for the utterly passive and inanimate screen, which simply waits for the light to strike it. Earlier, I indicated that Marion also describes a positive role for the ‘subject’ in his account of the responsal (re´pons)—the affective reception of the given, which comes before any willed response (re´ponse). (See ‘‘The Adonne´ Converts the Given into the Shown.’’). But Marion concludes his description of this role by placing an important qualification on it. Despite the responsal being that which ‘‘opens visibility and gives voice to the call’’ (BG 288*/397), and despite his later account of the adonne´’s ‘‘decision to respond, and thus to receive’’ (BG 305*/420), Marion rejects any inference that the responsal needs to be an active engagement of the receiver: One could not decide to respond or even to refuse it; the response begins with the responsal and the responsal with the hearing. . . . The meanings invested by the responsal can be chosen, decided, arrive by accident, but the responsal is nothing like an optional act, an arbitrary choice, or a chance. (BG 288/398) All initiative is assigned to the call, with the responsal being an almost automatic reaction rather than an active response. Immediately after appearing to recover a sense of agency through the idea of responsal, Marion proposes birth as exemplifying this primitive dimension of response, precisely because the receiver is entirely constituted by what is received, and in no way precedes it. I am not a subject at my birth: ‘‘My birth . . . happens without and before me—without my having to know about it or say a word, without my knowing or foreseeing anything’’ (BG 289/399). Before my birth, and perhaps even before my conception, I am already spoken about by others—called before there is any sense in which there is an I to call.38 For Marion, my birth illustrates the responsal of the adonne´, who is defined in terms of receptivity— receiving oneself in receiving that which is given. But if my birth is to be a model for understanding my responsal, it is very difficult to see how a responsal can be understood as the act of an agent. Marion has again taken a concept that initially offered a mediation between activity and passivity, and then placed such limitations on it that it is doubtful whether any of the original sense remains.

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Conclusion The fundamental ambition of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness is inspired by Husserl’s maxim: ‘‘To the things themselves!’’ Marion is convinced that allowing phenomena to appear as themselves requires understanding phenomena as pure givens, and removing any rival principle or agent that might condition or limit their givenness in any way. In carrying this project through, he elaborates a number of intertwined themes: phenomena as self-giving and self-showing, imposing themselves on a recipient; a ‘self ’ of a phenomenon that initiates its appearing; an attack on the constituting role of the ego; and a confusing array of refigured subjects (with their associated grammatical cases), which lead finally to his concept of the adonne´, characterized in terms of reception. Marion certainly succeeds in displacing the subject from a dominant, constituting role (in the nominative case). He attempts to do this without envisaging the subject as purely passive, and so, like Heidegger, he searches for a middle way between the active and the passive voices. He interprets Dasein’s facticity in the middle voice (BG 147/207), and claims that the adonne´’s receptivity ‘‘mediates’’ or ‘‘goes beyond’’ passivity and activity (BG 264/364; IE 48/57). Indeed, some of his analyses evoke the middle of this mediated relationality very successfully.39 However, Marion is so concerned to avoid producing another heir to the Cartesian ego that the balance of his thought tends strongly toward depicting the adonne´ as passive. In both the instances where he proposes a receptivity that is between activity and passivity (BG 264/364; IE 48/57), Marion immediately elaborates that receptivity by describing the adonne´ as a ‘‘screen’’ on which the given ‘‘crashes’’ in order to manifest itself (BG 265/365; IE 50/ 59). In this image, there is no sense of activity in the reception, nor even of ‘‘mediation’’—the adonne´ seems to be simply passive.40 Marion’s concern to exclude any limits or conditions on phenomenality is reflected in his claims about the ‘‘pure,’’ ‘‘absolute,’’ and ‘‘unconditioned’’ givenness of phenomena. The uncompromising nature of these claims leads Marion to place far more emphasis on givenness as an active giving rather than as a middle-voiced happening.41 (This is unfortunate because such a middle-voiced concept would complement the middle voice of ‘appearing,’ which primarily refers neither to the ‘appearer’ nor to its appearance, but rather to that in which and by which the appearer comes to appearance.) These claims about pure and active givenness require as their correlate that Marion depict the adonne´ as passive. Thus, although he strongly affirms that only the adonne´ receives the given and allows it to be shown as

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a phenomenon, this role is restricted to passive reception. There is no question that the primacy Marion accords to givenness removes the vestiges of Cartesian or Kantian sovereignty from the subject. However, in many instances, this dethroning seems to be accomplished simply by enthroning a new sovereign rather than by overturning the dominion of sovereignty as such. I share the view of Marion (and others) that phenomenality needs to be understood in a way that mediates between the sharply delimited poles of active and passive. However, it is clear that Marion’s phenomenology of givenness is not successful in achieving this. I contend that such mediation can be affirmed only if phenomenality is understood as having a fundamental hermeneutic dimension, which I set out in the next chapter.

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One of the recurring questions addressed to Marion concerns the role of hermeneutics in his phenomenology of givenness. Most recently, Richard Kearney has joined philosophers such as Jean Greisch and Jean Grondin in arguing ‘‘that appearing—no matter how iconic or saturated it may be—always already involves an interpretation of some kind,’’ and that Marion’s insistence on phenomena as pure givens excludes this.1 When confronted by questions such as Kearney’s, Marion consistently responds by protesting that his ‘‘interpretation of the phenomenon . . . as given, not only does not forbid hermeneutics but demands it’’ (IE 33n/39n). In support of this defence, he cites his recognition of an ‘‘endless hermeneutics,’’ especially in his accounts of the other person’s face as icon, and of events.2 However, Marion’s protestations are somewhat disingenuous because his ‘‘endless hermeneutics’’ is quite distinct from the more Heideggerian sense of hermeneutics that Kearney’s question implies. Marion’s ‘‘endless hermeneutics’’ refers to epistemic acts that interpret the meaning of a phenomenon after it has already appeared: The actual appearing of the phenomenon is fully accomplished independent of any such interpretations of its meaning. This epistemic sense of hermeneutics has a long lineage, and is a straightforward extension of the textual interpretation that was pioneered by Schleiermacher and Dilthey. In Marion’s case, interpretation is considered in the domains of the historical event (BG 211/295–96, 229/319; IE 33/39, 36/43) and the face of another

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person (IE 123–24/148–49, 126/152). His comments about the openendedness of such a series of interpretations are similarly uncontroversial, at least since Gadamer’s study of the historicity of understanding led to his declaration that all consciousness is historically effected (‘‘wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein’’).3 However, this epistemic sense of hermeneutics used by Marion is only one strand of twentieth-century hermeneutics. In Being and Time, Heidegger contends that the historical sciences’ epistemic sense of hermeneutics is secondary, and is derived from the ‘‘primary sense’’ of hermeneutics as the ‘‘interpretation of Dasein’s Being’’ (BT §7, 62/38). This position is exactly parallel to his analysis of understanding, in which he describes ‘‘ ‘understanding’ in the sense of one possible kind of cognition among others . . . as an existential derivative of that primary understanding’’ that is ‘‘a basic mode of Dasein’s Being’’ (BT §31, 182/143). In Heidegger’s approach, hermeneutics in the sense of epistemic acts of interpretation is derived from a more fundamental ontological (or existential) sense, in which hermeneutics is a structural dimension of Dasein’s being. In this more fundamental sense of hermeneutics, human existence is constituted by understanding. Therefore, rather than hermeneutics being restricted to the interpretations of existence that arise when it is subsequently recounted, human existence is itself considered to be hermeneutic in the very structure of its happening. Consequently, phenomena are not only interpreted after they have appeared, but are always already interpreted in their very appearing. Marion’s ‘‘endless hermeneutics’’ is hermeneutic only in the derivative, epistemic sense of interpretation subsequent to an already accomplished appearing, and makes no concession to the ontological sense of hermeneutics which Heidegger proposes as primary. In responding to Greisch and Grondin, Marion correctly comments: ‘‘The debate does not concern the necessity of a hermeneutic, out of the question at least since Heidegger and Gadamer, but its phenomenological legitimacies’’ (IE 33n/39n).4 However, he does not actually discuss this key issue, which determines the place that hermeneutics is assigned in phenomenology. In short: Can hermeneutics be excluded from the actual appearing of a phenomenon, as Marion suggests, and limited to epistemic acts of interpretation about the meaning of something that imposes itself as already accomplished in itself ? Alternatively, as I am arguing: Is not all phenomenology necessarily hermeneutic because interpretation is part of the very structure of the appearing of phenomena? In this chapter, I outline the ontological sense of hermeneutics developed by Heidegger in Being and Time, and argue in favor of retaining 36

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some of its key characteristics. I then discuss the phenomenology developed by Romano, who shares Marion’s concerns about Heidegger, but who draws upon Heidegger’s work to develop what he calls an ‘‘evential hermeneutics [herme´neutique ´eve´nementiale].’’ I show that Romano’s account of phenomenality is profoundly ontological, and approaches a middle voice much more closely than either Heidegger’s or Marion’s. Finally, I contrast Marion’s phenomenology of givenness with Romano’s evential hermeneutics, and highlight the consequences of Marion’s decision to restrict hermeneutics to a purely epistemic interpretation—and thereby to exclude it from the actual appearing of phenomena. Ontological Hermeneutics Heidegger regards hermeneutics as essential to phenomenology because in its ‘‘primary sense,’’ hermeneutics is concerned with Dasein’s existence as Being-in-the-world (BT §7, 62/38). Heidegger’s concept of Being-in-theworld represents a response to an issue framed by Husserl in terms of the relationship between the immanence of consciousness and the transcendence of phenomena. In this section, I sketch this fundamental phenomenological issue before summarizing the hermeneutics of Being and Time. Immanence and Transcendence One of Husserl’s original insights was the correlation between the immanence of consciousness and the transcendence of the objects of experience. This correlation represents Husserl’s solution to the problem highlighted by Descartes of the possibility of a relation between immanent contents of consciousness and transcendent objects of knowledge. Marion is suspicious of Husserl’s use of intentionality and constitution to relate immanence to transcendence because he believes that Husserl’s understanding of constitution leaves open the possibility of subjective distortion, rather than leading ‘‘to the things themselves.’’ Marion believes that ‘‘metaphysical (in fact, Cartesian) egology is a paradigm that always haunts the I, even reduced, even phenomenological’’ (BG 187/ 262). He therefore rejects Husserl’s solution to the Cartesian problem, and instead proposes the givenness of phenomena as the fundamental principle of phenomenology.5 In an article entitled ‘‘The Question of Givenness in Jean-Luc Marion,’’ Marie-Andre´e Ricard assesses Marion’s phenomenology of givenness in the context of Husserl’s correlation between immanence and transcendence. In Ricard’s view, Marion’s solution ‘‘transfers all the The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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weight of the subject-object relation onto the object itself ’’ and ‘‘restricts the relation to the other to narrowly epistemological limits.’’6 This transfer can be seen in Marion’s repeated insistence on the ‘‘self ’’ of the phenomenon as the initiator of its own self-giving and self-manifesting, as I showed in the previous chapter (see Chap. 1, ‘‘Phenomena as Self-Giving’’). Ricard believes that Marion’s desire ‘‘to preserve the purity of the phenomenon’’ and the ‘‘pure given’’ leads him ‘‘to enclose intentional consciousness in itself.’’7 Such a concern for pure access to phenomena confines Marion to what Ricard describes as ‘‘an ultra-realist position’’ that ‘‘constrains him [Marion] to refuse all mediation, even to deny consciousness itself.’’8 Although a more nuanced version of Ricard’s criticisms might be fairer to Marion, it is clear that the limits which Marion places on intentionality radically undermine Husserl’s understanding of the relation between immanence and transcendence, and leave Marion with the Cartesian problem unresolved. In this respect, Ricard’s criticisms highlight what is at stake in considering the hermeneutic dimension of phenomenality. A condition of possibility for any act of cognition or consciousness (including the epistemic type of hermeneutic interpretations admitted by Marion) is that there be some relation between consciousness and whatever is given to it as phenomena. Because this relation shapes the way we interpret the meaning of both consciousness and phenomena, it can properly be referred to as hermeneutic—and, if it is hermeneutic, it is hermeneutic in a fundamental sense. The Hermeneutics of Being and Time A useful starting point for appreciating Heidegger’s hermeneutics in Being and Time is his analysis of the ‘‘as-structure’’ of understanding and interpretation (BT §§32–33). Heidegger argues that, in our circumspect consideration (‘‘Umsicht’’) of ready-to-hand entities, even a simple designation includes an understanding of what an entity is for (‘‘das Wozu’’), and is thus an interpretation of ‘‘that as which what is in question is to be taken’’ (BT §32, 189*/149). For example, seeing something as a door incorporates a series of understandings about buildings, and our movement in and out of them. However, this ‘‘apophantic ‘as’ of the assertion’’ is derived from a ‘‘primordial [urspru¨ngliche] . . . existential-hermeneutic ‘as’ ’’ (BT §33, 201*/158). An assertion that interprets an entity by describing it as something does not add signification to the entity, but rather discloses that entity as already embedded in a network of relations and significations: ‘‘What is encountered within-the-world, as such, always 38

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already has an involvement which is disclosed in world-understanding, an involvement which gets laid out [herausgelegt] by the interpretation [Auslegung]’’ (BT §32, 190*/150). Heidegger refers to this network of relations in which inner-worldly entities are encountered simply as ‘‘world,’’ and it constitutes one of the key aspects of his existential analytic. As the world’s ontological structure, worldliness (‘‘Weltlichkeit’’) is the ‘‘referential totality’’ (BT §17, 114/82) or ‘‘totality of involvements’’ (BT §18, 116/84) that is disclosed by the ‘‘totality of equipment’’ (BT §17, 113/ 82), and within which particular entities are understood as being useful ‘‘in-order-to’’ realize some end (BT §17, 113/82): that is, as aimed at a ‘‘towards which’’ or ‘‘for the sake of which’’ (BT §18, 116/84). In Heidegger’s well-known example, encountering an entity as a hammer is possible only in the context of its involvement with hammering, fastening, protection against bad weather, and taking shelter (BT §18, 116/84). At least initially, in their being-ready-to-hand, entities are never encountered in isolation, but rather as part of a whole world, in which they have significance for us, and in which we are ourselves fundamentally implicated. The significance of entities is an expression of this totality of relations, which always includes their relation to Dasein as Being-in-the-world (BT §18, 120/87). One of the crucial insights that underpins Heidegger’s thought is that we always find ourselves already enmeshed in this relationality, to such an extent that it defines our very existence. We are essentially in a world (BT §2, 33/13); Dasein is the entity ‘‘that is always as Being-in-the-world’’ (BT §12, 79*/53). As evidence of this essential In-sein of Dasein, Heidegger points to ‘‘disposedness9 [Befindlichkeit].’’ He argues that we find ourselves always to be in a mood, and that because a mood manifests ‘‘ ‘how one is,’ being in a mood brings Being to its ‘there’ ’’ (BT §29, 173*/134): the ‘‘there’’ in which we are as Dasein is the world. It is from Being-in-the-world that mood arises. Importantly, Heidegger insists that this arising ‘‘comes neither from ‘outside’ nor from ‘inside’ ’’ (BT §29, 176/136). Disposedness discloses ‘‘Being-in-the-world as a whole . . . It is a basic existential mode of the equiprimordial disclosedness of world, Dasein-with and existence’’ (BT §29, 176*/137). This text highlights the closeness of the interrelation Heidegger sees between Dasein and world. When he introduces the term Being-in-the-world, his very first comment is that he intends the compound structure of the expression to indicate that ‘‘it stands for a unitary phenomenon . . . [which] must be seen as a whole’’ (BT §12, 78/53). The disposedness of Being-in-the-world ‘‘existentially constitutes Dasein’s openness to the world’’ (BT §29, 176*/137).10 It is only on the basis of The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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this encompassing relation of mutual openness that any acts of interpretation or cognition can occur. Or, in Heidegger’s own terms: ‘‘Knowing is a mode of Being of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and is founded ontically upon this [ontological] state of Being’’ (BT §13, 88/61). Appreciating the ontological structure of Being-in-the-world gives an ‘‘insight into Dasein’s existential spatiality’’ (BT §12, 83/56), the only spatiality within which entities can be genuinely encountered and touched, even in the derivative mode of being present-at-hand (BT §12, 81/55). From the outset of his analysis of worldliness, Heidegger is adamant that Dasein never has some independent existence, from which it can choose to put itself into ‘‘concernful dealings’’ with the world; rather, ‘‘everyday Dasein always already is in this way’’ (BT §15, 96/67). At one point, he describes this ‘‘always already’’ as indicating an ‘‘a priori perfect’’ tense which characterizes Dasein’s way of being (BT §18, 117/85). In a note added in his own copy of Being and Time, Heidegger warns that this expression should not be interpreted as indicating ‘‘an ontic past, but rather what is always earlier, . . . it could also be called ontological or transcendental perfect.’’11 In less technical language, he refers to this ontological structure of belonging as a ‘‘familiarity with the world,’’ which is the ground for Dasein’s concernful dealings with the world (BT §16, 107/ 76), and is ‘‘primordial’’ and ‘‘constitutive’’ for Dasein (BT §18, 119/ 86). The priority of this familiar relatedness is emphasized in Heidegger’s description of Dasein as always being in ‘‘submission to the world, out of which things that matter to us can be encountered’’ (BT §29, 177*/137–38). Heidegger’s most general term for the ‘‘always already’’ of this familiarity and submission to the world is ‘‘thrownness.’’ Thrown ‘‘into its there’’ as Being-in-the-world, Dasein finds itself ‘‘always already brought before itself . . . delivered over to its Being’’ (BT §29, 174/135). However, the thrownness of disposedness is only one dimension of Dasein’s ‘‘existential structures, . . . [E]quiprimordially with it, understanding constitutes this Being’’ (BT §31, 182*/142). As noted earlier, Heidegger is using ‘‘understanding’’ here in the ontological-existential sense of ‘‘a basic mode of Dasein’s Being,’’ and not in the sense of a type of cognition, which he regards as deriving from the more fundamental sense (BT §31, 182/143). Existential understanding is concerned with disclosing the totality of involvements and references of the entities that Dasein encounters as Being-in-the-world. However, this referential totality of ready-to-hand entities is shaped by an ‘‘in order to’’ and ‘‘for the sake of,’’ which necessarily involve Dasein as well, in particular Dasein’s ‘‘capacity-to-be [Seinko¨nnen]’’ (BT §18, 118–19*/86). This is clear in Heidegger’s example of the hammer, where fastening and sheltering have meaning only in relation 40

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to Dasein and its possibilities. At the heart of understanding lies Dasein’s way of being as possibility: ‘‘The way of Being of Dasein as capacity-to-be lies existentially in understanding. Dasein is . . . primarily Being-possible. Dasein is always what it can be and how it is its possibility’’ (BT §31, 183*/143). But because Dasein’s possibilities are always in the relational totality of a world, rather than being indeterminately open, ‘‘Dasein is Being-possible delivered over to itself, through and through thrown possibility’’ (BT §31, 183*/144). Heidegger calls the existential structure of understanding ‘‘projection,’’ which is related to both Dasein and world: ‘‘It projects Dasein’s Being upon its ‘for-the-sake-of-which’ and just as primordially upon significance as the worldliness of its respective world’’ (BT §31, 185*/145). But, as is suggested by the close connection between the German terms for throw (werfen) and project (entwerfen), Heidegger warns that ‘‘projecting has nothing to do with holding oneself to a thought-out plan, according to which Dasein arranges its Being’’ (BT §31, 185*/145). Projection should not be confused with autonomous and deliberate acts of self-determination. On the contrary: As thrown, Dasein is thrown into the way of Being of projecting. . . . [A]s Dasein it has always already projected itself and is, so long as it is, projecting. Dasein always already understands itself and always is yet to understand itself, so long as it is, from out of possibilities. . . . On the basis of the way of Being that is constituted by the existential of projection, Dasein is constantly ‘more’ than it actually is, . . . [W]hat, in its capacity-to-be, it is not yet, it is existentially.’’ (BT §31, 185–86*/145) Thus, any way of Being in which we find ourselves, be it as simple as sheltering or longing, is a projection in that it actualizes one of the possibilities into which we are thrown as Being-in-the-world. Phenomenality in the Middle Heidegger’s insight into the hermeneutic structure of Dasein’s being is one of the most significant philosophical developments in the twentieth century. However, as I argued in the previous chapter, the parallels between Dasein and the Cartesian ego prevent Heidegger from attaining the middle voice to which he aspires (see Chap. 1, ‘‘The Subjectivity of Dasein’s Self-Projection’’). I believe that Romano’s ‘‘evential hermeneutics’’ comes much closer to a middle-voiced description of the subject’s encounter with phenomena while retaining the ontological focus of Heidegger’s hermeneutics. In this section, I outline Romano’s evential The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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hermeneutics, and make clear its relation to Heidegger’s concept of Dasein as self-projecting Being-in-the-world. I then contrast Romano’s theory with Marion’s account of events. Romano’s Evential Hermeneutics Romano retains much of the structure of Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein: Like Heidegger, he too describes the human being as self-projecting, selfunderstanding, and self-determining in a world, acting, making decisions, and exercising freedom. However, his crucial shift is to begin from events rather than from Dasein, and to describe our existential projection in relation to them. He sees events as providing the fundamental phenomenological structure of our encounter with phenomena, and of both the world and the ‘subject’ which are opened in it. Thus, instead of an ontological hermeneutics, Romano offers what he calls an ‘‘evential hermeneutics,’’ in which we are understood in terms of openness to events, advening to ourselves in their advent; and therefore, one is not Dasein, but an ‘‘advenant.’’12 Romano describes this advenant as having a ‘‘passibility . . . [that] precedes the distinction between active and passive’’ (EW 72/99). This passibility could equally be described as a ‘middle voice’ applied to the subject’s encounter with phenomena although Romano himself does not describe his project in exactly these terms. He succeeds in doing justice to Marion’s concern for the genuine transcendence and otherness of phenomena, which give themselves as themselves. His account of the event is very similar to Marion’s in many respects, which makes the subtle differences between them particularly illuminating.13 At first sight, Romano’s claims are more modest than Marion’s; but in other respects, his thought is more dramatic and penetrating, especially in relation to possibility and temporality. Romano’s central insight is to distinguish between two types of event. Events, understood in the ordinary ‘‘evental [e´ve´nementiel]’’ sense, happen as an actualizing or factualizing of a possibility that is already present in the world, and are described by Romano as ‘‘innerworldly facts.’’ Essentially different from these are ‘‘events in a properly evential [e´ve´nemential] sense,’’ whose happening is a radical arriving (advenir), which upends the preexisting possibilities and thus reconfigures the world. There are clear parallels in this distinction to that made by Marion between events that are ordinary phenomena, and events that are saturated phenomena. However, Romano’s distinction also has parallels to Heidegger’s ontological difference.14 Innerworldly facts are very much ontic actualities, while 42

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evential events not only reveal the fundamental significance of the happening of events but are also the origin of the structures within which innerworldly facts can themselves arise. Romano singles out four key phenomenological differences between innerworldly facts and evential events: Innerworldly facts are impersonal, happen within a world, are subject to causal explanation, and are inscribed in a datable present. By contrast, evential events are addressed to particular entities, reconfigure the world, cannot be explained by causes, and occur with a ‘‘structural delay’’ that opens a future. I discuss these four features in turn here, as well as Romano’s notion of the advenant. First, innerworldly facts do not have a determinate ontic substrate that they modify in their happening, and to which they can be assigned. Thus, a bolt of lightning is a fundamentally impersonal event that does not affect any entity in particular. However, a phenomenon can only appear by affecting some entity, and so Romano describes the fact of the lightning as being assignable to ‘‘an open plurality of beings: the sky, the lake, the countryside, the walker and his dog, etc.’’ (EW 25/37). An evential event, on the other hand, is always ‘‘addressed’’ to a particular entity, such that ‘‘the one to whom it happens [a` qui il advient] is himself implicated in what happens to him [ce qui lui arrive]’’ (EW 30/44). Examples of this sort of implication include experiences of bereavement or making significant decisions; in events of this kind, ‘‘I am myself in play in the possibilities which it [the event] assigns to me’’ (EW 30/44). Second, innerworldly facts always appear within the horizon of a preexisting world. Romano understands this ‘world’ in a very Heideggerian sense, as ‘‘the totality of these preexisting possibilities, from which all that happens happens, and is open, consequently, to explanation’’ (EW 33/ 47–48). In Romano’s thought, the world is a hermeneutic network of possibilities within which human subjects interpret meaning, understand themselves, and project their own possibilities in action: ‘‘World’’ refers to the horizon of meaning for all understanding, the totality of possibilities articulated among themselves from which an interpretation is possible, the totality of interpretative possibilities that prescribe a horizon in advance for understanding, from which alone it can be put into action and brought about. It is itself a hermeneutic structure, and thus refers to the totality of possibilities from which a meaning can come to light as such. . . . [W]e find among these possibilities not only those prior possibilities from which all that happens happens (i.e., causes), but also those possibilities that depend solely on an advenant’s projections, and for the sake of which certain events occur: acts. (EW 35/51) The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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Evential events differ from innerworldly facts in that they do not happen within the already-established horizon of a preexisting world, but rather reconfigure the world by upending (bouleversant) its possibilities, and thus appear on their own horizon. Far from being innerworldy, these events are ‘‘world-establishing for the advenant’’ (EW 39/56). When an evential event happens to me, my world is reshaped; none of my possibilities or projects remain unaffected: ‘‘This event has reconfigured my intrinsic possibilities articulated among themselves—my world—it has opened a new world in and by its bursting forth [surgissement]’’ (EW 39/55). In fact, ‘‘an event is this metamorphosis of the world in which the very meaning of the world is in play’’ (EW 69/95). Importantly, while the world opened by an event is genuinely new, this new world results from a reconfiguration of the existing world, rather than from a radically new creation. Third, because an innerworldly fact is an actualization of a preexisting possibility in an already-established horizon, it is foreseeable within this horizon, and subject to causal explanation (EW 45/64). The price of this comprehensibility is that innerworldly facts, along with their welling up, are subordinated to ‘‘a universe of prior possibilities’’ (EW 37/54). Evential events, on the other hand, are subject to no such subordination. Because they do not appear within any preexisting horizon, they are not explicable as the effects of causes within such a horizon. Romano therefore characterizes their welling up as ‘‘an-archic’’—a ‘‘pure beginning from nothing’’ (EW 41/58). However, this does not mean that events simply appear out of nothing. Romano is clear that the fact of an event’s happening is always explicable by causes which give it an ‘‘anchor point in a history’’; but, he insists, ‘‘its causes do not explain it, or rather, if they ‘explain’ it, what they give a reason for is only ever the fact, and not the event in its evential sense’’ (EW 41/58). To illustrate this, he discusses the event of the first encounter between two people, the beginning of a relationship. As a fact, its actualization is entirely explicable, in terms of how the two people came to cross paths, and even in terms of personality characteristics that might dispose them toward friendship. However, as the event in which a new relationship opens up in my life, an encounter ‘‘radically transcend[s] its own actualisation, reconfiguring my possibilities articulated in a world, and introducing into my adventure a radically new meaning that shakes it, upends it from top to bottom, and thus modifies all my previous projections’’ (EW 42/59). From this perspective, an event is radically inexplicable, as Michel de Montaigne finds when he tries to account for his friendship with E´tienne La Boe´tie: ‘‘If you press me to say why I loved him, I feel that it can only be expressed by replying: ‘Because it was him: because it was me.’ ’’15 Indeed, far from being explained 44

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as the effect of a cause, an event is its own origin, in the radical sense evident in the German ‘Ur-sprung’ (EW 43/61), the sense of ‘‘pure bursting forth from and in itself, unforeseeable in its radical novelty, and retrospectively establishing a rupture with the entire past’’ (EW 42/60). This bursting forth establishes a new horizon of meaning, with a different range of possibilities on which I can project myself. The event ‘‘retransfigures my world to the point of introducing into it an excess of meaning that is inaccessible to any explanation’’ (EW 43/61), thus ‘‘obliging an advenant to understand both himself and his world differently’’ (EW 43/ 62). Because this shift in understanding takes place within the new horizon that an event opens, it only becomes possible after an event has already happened. Consequently, there is a ‘‘structural ‘delay’ ’’ associated with an evential event, such that ‘‘it is accessible only starting from its own posterity’’ (EW 46/64), thereby opening me to the past. The fourth phenomenological difference between facts and events arises from this structural delay, and concerns temporality. An innerworldly fact is a ‘‘fait accompli’’16 that ‘‘is brought about in a datable present, a definitive present in which everything is accomplished’’ (EW 46/ 64). It is simply a fact, with no unactualized potential, and is therefore located at a specific time. Events, on the other hand, are not datable for Romano: ‘‘They are not so much inscribed in time, as they are what opens time, or temporalizes it’’ (EW 46/65). An evential event is never encountered in the present of its happening, but only retrospectively, from the future that it opens. It is not given as a present actuality, but precisely as ‘‘the movement of this futurition,’’ by which it opens a new horizon of possibilities, and ‘‘thus . . . introduces a fissure between the past and the future, from which time itself wells up in the diachrony of its radically burst open and non-synchronisable times’’ (EW 46/65). Like Marion (and Heidegger), Romano gives the ‘subject’ a new name—‘‘the advenant’’—reflecting his understanding of how subjectivity arises and is reshaped in the happening of the event. Romano retains basic elements from Dasein in his concept of subjectivity, in that he understands selfhood as the ‘‘capacity to appropriate eventual possibilities articulated in a world that surface from an event, and to understand oneself from them’’ (EW 87/118). However, in a crucial departure from Heidegger, there is no sense in which Romano’s ‘subject’ is itself the origin of its possibilities; rather, its possibilities are opened to it in the opening of a world that is the happening of an evential event. In fact, the subject is itself the happening in which its possibilities are opened to it, and in which it arrives at itself. For Romano, the subject is the one who advenes The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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to herself/himself in the happening (advenant) of an event in which s/he is implicated: Advenant is the term for describing the event that is constantly underway of my own advent to myself from the events that happen to me [m’adviennent] and that, by addressing themselves to me, give me a destiny: adventure without return. . . . [T]he very opening to events in general. (EW 51/72) This perpetual coming to (a-venture) myself of the advenant precludes any possibility of claiming sovereignty, either over myself or over the world of possibilities in which I project myself. Romano insists that I always come to myself from an origin other than myself, and that this is true from the very beginning of my existence. This insistence is reflected in the central place he gives to birth in his analysis: It is the event ‘‘that opens an advenant’s world for the first time’’ and that, ‘‘before any of his projections and before any understanding . . . makes possible all his possibilities and the world’’ (EW 70/96). As such, it is the ‘‘first event,’’ both in that it happens first (‘‘en fait . . . le premier ´eve´nement’’), and in that it is the ‘‘original and inaugural event . . . the Ur-ereignis’’ for all other events (‘‘e´ve´nement premier en droit’’) (EW 70/96). Although my birth happens to a ‘‘to whom [a` qui],’’ strictly speaking, I am not present until after I am born. I am never the origin of that which I am, and which I am from my very beginning (i.e., originally): ‘‘To be born is to be a self originally, but not originarily; it is to be free originally, but not originarily; it is to understand the meaning of one’s adventure originally, but not originarily; it is to make possible the possible (by projecting it) originally, but not originarily, etc.’’ (EW 70/96). On this basis, Romano points to a structural delay in the origin of the advenant herself/himself, reflecting the structural delay of the evential event: ‘‘This original disparity [de´calage] between originary and original . . . introduces a deferral in the origin itself, such that the origin never declares itself until after the fact, non-originally, according to a constitutive delay and a non-empirical a posteriori that nevertheless belongs to its character as origin’’ (EW 70/96). Birth thus establishes a structural delay at my very origin; according to this delay, I can only ever project myself into future possibilities that have been opened by an event that itself always lies in the past. Romano’s account of this delay allows him to describe the advenant as being born into a dynamic which makes it essentially temporal, while precluding any suggestion that the advenant is itself the origin of this dynamic. Romano’s insistence that the advenant is not the origin of itself, nor of the world in which it projects its possibilities, leads him to distinguish 46

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three types of possibility, two of which can be described in Heideggerian terms. As well as the ontic or ‘‘factual possibility’’ of what is simply not yet actual (EW 81/112–13), and the ontological or ‘‘projectual possibility’’ proper to the advenant’s way of being as self-projection in the possibilities of an already-existing world (EW 84/115), Romano introduces an ‘‘eventual possibility [possibilite´ eventuel]’’ that is the ‘‘possibility of the [projectual and factual] possible’’ (EW 85/117). Eventual possibility is the opening of a world, with its horizon of projectual possibilities, in the happening of an evential event. As such, eventual possibility is that which makes these projectual possibilities possible, and in which a future is opened that is not limited to an ultimately sterile playing out of the ‘‘dead possibilities’’ of my present: Without such an eventual possibility every projection would be in vain, for it would have no hold on the future in its absolute difference from my present: a projection clutching at dead possibilities, dead even before they had been possible, since they would be incapable of taking hold of the future [avenir], and thereby making me happen [advenir] to myself by calling me to more than what I know of my capability. (EW 87/119) Because it exceeds both my actual possibilities and my projectual possibilities, this eventual possibility opened by the event ‘‘is strictly impossible.’’ But this very impossibility is the excess by which eventual possibility reconfigures my world, and opens me to a possibility for myself that I have not myself projected, and which is therefore genuinely other than what I already am (EW 89/121–22). Marion in Light of Romano Both Marion and Romano take as their starting point a critique of Heidegger’s understanding of Dasein as self-projecting Being-in-the-world, especially with respect to the Cartesian tendencies that survive in some of Heidegger’s analyses (and which I pointed out in Chap. 1, ‘‘The Subjectivity of Dasein’s Self-Projection’’). For both Marion and Romano, Heidegger does not do justice to the appearing of phenomena in their own rights, but rather reduces them to projections of the subject. This leads both thinkers to place a strong emphasis on the appearance of phenomena as themselves, imposing themselves within their own horizons, rather than on preexisting horizons established by a subject. For Marion, this selfappearing is described in terms of saturated phenomena, while for The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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Romano, it is in terms of the happening of evential events. Indeed, much of Romano’s description of evential events closely parallels Marion’s description of events that are saturated phenomena.17 However, despite their many similarities, the concepts of evential events and ‘saturated events’ do not entirely coincide. As a preliminary observation, it is useful to note that the two concepts extend over different domains. As I argue in Chapter 4, Marion applies his concept of saturation more broadly as his work progresses, with the result that it becomes more a characteristic of events per se than a category of a particular kind of event. By contrast, Romano’s concept of an evential event is very clearly delimited from the ordinary events of innerworldly facts. Romano maintains this distinction by proposing only an infrequent occurrence for evential events, and also by admitting that even evential events (with the exception of birth and death) have a factual dimension as well, in the fact of their actually happening (EW 88/120). More significantly, though, Romano is far more cautious than Marion in attributing selfhood to events. Although both thinkers ascribe the initiative of its happening to the event itself, and speak of its occurring ‘‘on the basis of itself,’’ only Marion directly refers to ‘‘the self of the phenomenon’’ (e.g., BG 159/226, IE 34–38/40–45). In contrast, Romano takes great pains to distance himself from any suggestion of the event having selfhood as such by situating it firmly in the context of its happening to a human subject: ‘‘Events, in the evential sense, are precisely nothing other than this reconfiguration of my possibilities, in which I am given the capacity to understand myself differently’’ (EW 54/75). The ‘‘new world’’ that is installed by this reconfiguration remains ‘‘my world’’ (e.g., EW 43/ 61). For Romano, the new horizon of possibility opened by the event is always a horizon for the understanding and projection of the advenant to whom the event happens (EW 43–44/60–62). The event brings an excess of meaning and of possibility into my world, but these are clearly meaning for me and possibilities for me (EW 43–44/61).18 Marion’s concern to exclude any suggestion of a constituting subject prevents him from admitting any great significance for the one to whom a phenomenon appears. He describes the appearing of a phenomenon as its ‘‘imposing’’ itself upon a receiver (BG 138/196), whose receiving shows the phenomenon simply as it gives itself (like an image on a screen [BG 265/365] or the illumination of an indicator lamp [BG 217/303]), and who even receives himself in this receiving—and is therefore the adonne´ (BG 282/390). Not only does the subject have no constituting role, but the phenomenon is received as an already-completed package—a ‘‘fait accompli’’ (BG §15). The adonne´’s reception of this already-accomplished 48

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fact has no significance for the phenomenon other than allowing it to be shown. This implies that in Marion’s account, nothing about the adonne´ affects phenomena other than this capacity to transform givenness into manifestation, and that therefore a phenomenon can appear indifferently to any adonne´ whatsoever while remaining essentially the same phenomenon. For Marion, there is no sense of an encounter between an adonne´ and that which is given, but simply a transmission of an already-determinate package. At first glance, Romano’s argument gives a similar impression, especially when he describes an event as opening ‘‘a new world’’ (EW 38/55). However, he is clear that this world is ‘‘new’’ only in that ‘‘strictly speaking it is no longer the same world’’ (EW 38/55). More often, he describes the event as that which ‘‘upends’’ (EW 31/45) and ‘‘reconfigur[es] my possibilities articulated in a world’’ (EW 42/59), and leads to a ‘‘metamorphosis of the world and its meaning’’ (EW 68/93), a ‘‘mutation of meaning’’ (EW 69/95), or even a ‘‘transition from one meaning [evental] of ‘world’ to the other [evential]’’ (EW 68/94). Each of these descriptions makes clear that although the event brings something genuinely new for the advenant, it is not a creation ex nihilo that is received on a blank screen, and to which the particular advenant is irrelevant. Rather, the event happens in the context of an already-existing totality of possibilities for meaning and projection, and its happening is the upending and reconfiguring of this very totality. The result of such an upending or reconfiguring depends fundamentally upon the particularities of what is upended and reconfigured. In Romano’s account, the world opened by the event is genuinely new, but it is not a radical and complete break with what goes before it. The one exception to this for Romano is, of course, the event of birth. It is here that his divergence from Heidegger is most dramatically evident.19 Heidegger introduces a form of conditionedness for Dasein in describing it as ‘‘thrown’’ but without suggesting that this thrownness is any sort of origin. In Romano, on the other hand, it is already clear that although events open my possibilities and my world, I am the origin of neither of these. However, the event of birth reveals the advenant’s origin, and the origin of the world, as being radically external, in that it is the only event in which, strictly speaking, there is not yet an I. Preceding ‘me,’ it is both ‘‘impersonal’’ and ‘‘inappropriable’’ by me; it ‘‘radically transcends my thrownness, and therefore also my own potentiality-forBeing’’ (EW 73/101). All that an advenant originally is comes from an origin that s/he herself/himself is not: ‘‘Before any of his projections and before any understanding, this event makes possible all his possibilities The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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and the world’’ (EW 70/96). Although Romano’s world retains many Heideggerian features, in that it is the horizon of possible projection and meaning for the advenant, unlike Heidegger, Romano systematically excludes any suggestion that the world is itself a projection of the advenant. One who advenes to himself in being born can never be the origin of himself, nor of his possibilities, nor of his world. Romano thus concludes (implicitly contrasting himself with Heidegger): ‘‘What could appear as a condition (Being-in-the-world) is here conditioned in turn’’ (EW 72/99). Marion discusses birth in very similar terms to Romano, describing it as the event which ‘‘is accomplished without me and even, strictly speaking, before me’’ (IE 42/49), and which ‘‘happens only in so far as it has given me a future’’ (IE 42*/50). However, for Marion, birth is simply about me, understood in a very narrow sense: ‘‘[It] determines me, defines my ego, even produces it’’ (IE 42/50). For Romano, from its very beginning, the I who is born can only be understood in terms of an interrelatedness with my world, which is itself first opened for me in the event of my birth (EW 70/97–98). This mutual interrelation between the advenant and the world in which he advenes to himself, which is almost completely absent in Marion, is critical for Romano: ‘‘The world opens only for an advenant, who advenes to himself only through and from the world, takes place only where an event wells up, is the ‘place’ for the taking-place of the world as such’’ (EW 69/95). This fundamental interrelatedness of advenant, world, and event is central to Romano’s thought, and means that each of these concepts can be understood only in terms of the others. The advenant is the one who is always advening in the events which open her/his world; the world opened by events is the totality of possibility for the advenant; and events themselves are the reconfiguring of the advenant’s world. On the basis of this interrelatedness, Romano succeeds in understanding the advenant as actively implicated in the way an event happens, without placing her/him in a constituting role, and while still ascribing the initiative for events’ happening to events themselves. The lack of such an interrelatedness in Marion’s thought leaves him with the essentially adversarial structure of a subject over against an object. To remove the constituting role from the subject, he inverts this structure by ascribing a quasi selfhood to phenomena, and relegating the adonne´ to be the passive recipient of whatever already-accomplished object might happen to crash into him. For Romano, although an event ‘‘brings its own horizon of intelligibility with it, obliging an advenant to understand both himself and his world differently’’ (EW 43/62), this new understanding remains understanding, and this new world remains the world of the advenant, and both of these 50

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are essential to the happening of the event. In fact, an event’s happening is precisely the transformation in an advenant’s self-understanding and selfprojection in a world. Even though his world is opened for him by the happening of an event, the advenant still ‘‘shapes himself [se de´termine lui-meˆme] in the course of his adventure’’ (EW 66/91) and still ‘‘has to understand himself ’’ (EW 68/94). Romano is clear that the world transformed by the event remains a profoundly human world, in which people have freedom and capacity to act. In fact, decision making is itself a phenomenon which Romano returns to a number of times, opening up the complexity in which a significant decision about my life is both my act of self-determination and simultaneously evential. As well as being my act as a self-determining subject, such a decision is evential in that it appears to me as a decision only once it has already been made (EW 47/67–68), and in that by ‘‘reconfiguring my intrinsic possibilities (my world), . . . [it] also opens to me ipso facto a possibility that I did not project’’ (EW 89/ 121; cf. 90/122). Romano’s description of the advenant is far closer to our experience of ourselves than is Marion’s description of the adonne´ or, indeed, Heidegger’s description of Dasein. Part of Romano’s success lies in his attentiveness to the subtle interplay of activity and passivity, capacity and impotence, which we find in ourselves, and which leads us to insist on ourselves as genuinely free and self-determining at the same time that we admit the fundamental ways in which this freedom is qualified. Romano describes this ambivalence as a ‘‘passibility’’ that arises from the origin of our self-projecting adventure lying outside ourselves (in birth), and therefore coming before any activity or passivity. It is a ‘‘being exposed beyond measure to events, in a way that cannot be expressed in terms of passivity, but precedes the distinction between active and passive’’ (EW 72/99). As such, it is a sort of ‘‘ ‘pre-subjective’ opening’’ because ‘‘a passivity that would be mine . . . is given only in the after-shock and counter-blow of the event’’ (Il y a, 101n1). The crucial difference between Marion and Romano at this point is that Marion claims the adonne´ ‘‘mediates’’ (BG 264/364) or ‘‘goes beyond’’ (IE 48/57) activity and passivity, while Romano proposes a ‘‘passibility’’ which ‘‘precedes’’ our normal experience of activity and passivity. As well as collapsing into unmediated passivity (as I argued in the previous chapter; see Chap. 1, ‘‘The Adonne´ as Passive Recipient’’), Marion’s claimed mediation is based solely upon a consideration of the act of reception. In Romano, on the other hand, his account of birth provides a mediating origin for the tension that we experience between activity and passivity, between capacity and impotence. Moreover, this mediation is not restricted to the radical origin that is my birth, The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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but rather is part of the ongoing structure of my adventure, in which my possibilities for acting in the world are reconfigured by the events which happen to me. Romano’s account of the advenant’s adventure is a thoroughly human story, built around my striving to realize possibilities by means of action, decision, projection, and understanding in my world. One of the features of his account that assures this humanness is the central place he assigns to meaning. From the outset, he designates the horizon of the world as ‘‘a hermeneutic structure’’—a horizon of possible meanings that can be understood and interpreted, thus providing a basis for meaning-filled projection and action (EW 35/51). For Romano, an original characteristic of the advenant, opened in birth, is the endeavor ‘‘to understand the meaning of one’s adventure’’ (EW 70/96). Indeed, an advenant advenes to herself/himself only in such an act of understanding: ‘‘The advenant is the one who . . . has the possibility of understanding himself in his selfhood starting from the possibilities articulated in a world that the event has pushed forth, and, consequently, to advene himself precisely as the one to whom what happens happens’’ (EW 52/73). Consequently, the advenant’s adventure in a world is itself fundamentally hermeneutic, which is reflected in Romano’s choice of ‘‘evential hermeneutics’’ as the title for his ‘‘interpretation of the advenant’’ (EW 21/34). Romano’s account of the advenant is fundamentally (or even ontologically) hermeneutic. Unlike Marion, Romano does not regard hermeneutics as restricted to subsequent interpretations of what has already happened. Rather, the very happening of the event reveals a fundamental and hermeneutic interrelatedness of event, world, and the one who comes to herself/himself in that happening. Moreover, Romano is faithful to this very Heideggerian sense of hermeneutics, while consistently avoiding Heidegger’s tendency (in Being and Time) to establish Dasein as a self-originating self-projection. The other Heideggerian element that Romano retains is the centrality of temporality. This happens in two aspects of his analysis. First, the structural delay in an evential event opens a gap between the future and the past, ‘‘from which time itself wells up, gaping beyond measure’’ (EW 48/68). Because events have always already happened when I encounter them (and encounter myself in them), my experience of them is necessarily delayed, and is therefore an opening to the past: ‘‘The very meaning of an event is given only in terms of an essential a posteriori—a ‘transcendental’ a posteriori, one could even say’’ (EW 49/69). Second, the event’s happening is in itself an opening of the future. An event does not happen as a present actuality, but as ‘‘the movement of . . . futurition’’ that is the making possible of new possibilities: ‘‘It opens an entirely new future’’ 52

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that is genuinely other than the actualities of the past and the present (EW 46/65). Romano’s reflections on temporality, which are carried further again in L’e´ve´nement et le temps, highlight two significant weaknesses in Marion’s analysis of events. First, apart from his discussion of birth (IE 41–44/ 49–52), and a brief section on historicity toward the end of Being Given (BG 302–4/417–18), Marion pays very little attention to temporality as such. Although he describes events as overflowing the temporal horizons of a single instant (BG 170/239, 228/318), and even describes the past, present and future dimensions of an event such as the Salle des Actes (IE 32–33/37ff.), there is very little sense in which the actual happening of events is temporalized. Marion’s main contention is that events have multiple temporal horizons that cannot be present simultaneously. However, his argument demonstrates only the nonsimultaneity of the various horizons. The temporality of the horizons themselves remains essentially that of the present—the past and the future of this moment are portrayed as the presents of other moments. Such a view of the temporal horizons of events does not succeed in opening the past and the future as past and future, nor does it consider the temporal dynamic between past, present and future. Marion’s analysis shows little evidence of being informed by Heidegger’s decisive exposition of Dasein and temporality, including the complex and distinctive characters of the past, the present and the future (BT div. 2). In fact, in Marion’s description of phenomena as faits accomplis (BG §15), there is a very strong sense that a phenomenon is closed off and completed when it imposes itself upon an adonne´ in its present appearing, and no sense of opening to a future. Second, Marion allows very little scope for possibility to open a future that contains real novelty. By contrast, Romano has a very rich concept of possibility, in which ‘‘eventual possibility’’ opens a genuinely new horizon of possibility and makes possible that which was previously impossible (see Chap. 2, ‘‘Romano’s Evential Hermeneutics’’). Romano maintains that each evential event is the origin of a horizon of projectual possibilities that offers an advenant a future that is radically other than what came before it. At one point in his analysis, Marion goes some way toward this position but stops considerably short of it. He concludes that because an event is unforeseeable, the factual actuality of its happening cannot be explained in terms of preexisting causes, and it is therefore ‘‘impossible’’ from a ‘‘metaphysical point of view’’ (BG 172–73/243). When an event does happen, he believes that it ‘‘begins a new series, in which it reorganises the old phenomena . . . by the right that events have to open horizons’’ (BG 172/242). However, the series Marion has in mind seems The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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to be an ordinary causal series of foreseeable effects, in which case the event only begins a new actuality, and not a new possibility as such. In this respect, Marion’s account of events suggests that they are far more like endings than beginnings, which is consistent with the impression that he gives in the rest of his account. Although he admits that events call for an infinite ‘‘hermeneutic’’ of subsequent interpretations, he regards their happening as such as completely accomplished and closed in on itself— literally a fait accompli.20 Marion’s discussion of possibility is limited to the factual possibility of an event occurring as an accomplished actuality (a fait accompli), and to the logical possibility of the occurrence of saturated phenomena.21 As I pointed out earlier (Chap. 2, ‘‘The Hermeneutics of Being and Time’’), Heideggerian possibility is primarily concerned with Dasein’s mode of being as an open projecting which he calls ‘‘Beingpossible [Mo¨glichsein],’’ and which he explicitly and ‘‘sharply’’ distinguishes from ‘‘empty logical possibility’’ (BT 183/143). Romano’s account of a rich projectual possibility opening out from events seems far closer to the sort of possibility Heidegger has in mind. Romano’s evential hermeneutics offers a valuable contrast to Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. Both are convinced of the need to rethink the relation between subject and object in order for phenomena to be able to appear as themselves. However, Romano’s appreciation of the hermeneutic dimension of phenomenality makes him much more successful than Marion in finding a middle voice for this rethinking. Moreover, because Romano’s account is clearly hermeneutic in an ontological sense, it highlights the extent to which Marion restricts hermeneutics to purely epistemic interpretation—thereby excluding it from phenomenality itself. The Implicit Hermeneutics of Marion’s Descriptions There are clear differences between the theoretical accounts of phenomenality proposed by Marion and Romano. However, there is not such a dramatic contrast between their descriptions of actual phenomena. The similarity in these descriptions is consistent with my claim that Marion’s phenomenological descriptions contain an unacknowledged and implicit (ontological) hermeneutics, and that this hermeneutics militates against his theoretical account of phenomena as ‘‘pure givens.’’ There are at least five respects in which Marion’s descriptions of actual phenomena imply an interpretive dimension to the appearing of phenomena, rather than just epistemic interpretation after phenomena have already appeared. In each instance, he describes some degree of active reception of what is given, in contrast to his theoretical account of the 54

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imposition of pure givens on a passive recipient. Such an interpretive dimension of phenomenality is hermeneutic in an ontological sense, although Marion himself only identifies two of these instances as having any association with hermeneutics. First, in book 2 of Being Given, when Marion proposes the lived experiences (‘‘ve´cus’’) of ‘‘givability’’ and ‘‘acceptability’’ as the way a gift gives itself to consciousness, he points out that an entity or action only appears as a gift when it is ‘‘recognized’’ as a (potential) gift by its giver (donateur) or givee (donataire). Describing this recognition as a ‘‘strict and particular phenomenological look: that which, faced with the fact, sees it as a gift’’ (BG 112*/160), Marion concedes that such recognition of the gift as gift ‘‘is, if one wants, a matter of hermeneutics,’’ provided that this hermeneutics is not understood as giving a meaning, but rather as receiving a meaning which is ‘‘coming from the gift’’ (BG 112/160–61). Second, early in book 3 of Being Given, Marion describes the contingency with which a phenomenon befalls me. In this text, Marion uses very physical language to indicate the way in which a phenomenon only appears to me by happening to me: The phenomenon appears to the degree to which first it goes, pushes, and extends as far as me (it becomes contiguous with me; it enters into contact with me) so as to then affect me (act on me, modify me). No phenomenon can appear without coming upon me [m’advenir], arriving to me, affecting me as an event that modifies my field (of vision, of knowledge, of life, it matters little here). It takes place, picks a date, takes its time to take form (anamorphosis); there is no neutral phenomenon, always already there, inoffensive and submissive. It makes a difference solely by its coming up. To see it, it must first be endured, borne, suffered. (BG 125/177) This language is reminiscent of Heidegger’s descriptions of Dasein’s encounter (‘‘Begegnis’’) with entities in the world (e.g., BT §15, 95/66; §32). Grondin describes these passages of Being Given as ‘‘the most hermeneutic (and the most Heideggerian)’’ of the book.22 In Grondin’s view, Marion’s account here implies an inextricable interrelatedness between me and the world. There is no world ‘out there’ that then presents itself to me, any more than I exist separately from my implication in the world: I am in the world only in the mode of being implicated [intrication]. . . . [T]he world is never given to me in the sense of a pure givenness, for I am always given over [adonne´] to this givenness, ‘‘there’’ where being appears, as Heidegger said in a more ontological terminology.23 The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality

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In short, Grondin believes that in this passage Marion is describing ‘‘the co-belonging of that which happens and that which happens to me.’’24 Third, Marion draws attention to the importance of the transformation that occurs when the given is received by the adonne´, and thereby manifested as a phenomenon. He describes this transformation (which I discussed in the previous chapter; see Chap. 1, ‘‘The Adonne´ Converts the Given into the Shown’’) as being like ‘‘a filter or prism, which . . . defines a function: manifesting what presents (gives) itself, but which must still be introduced into the presence of the world (show itself )’’ (BG 264–65/ 364; cf. IE 49–50/59). His mention of ‘‘world’’ here evokes a series of Heideggerian resonances about interpretation, understanding and phenomenality. Moreover, a transformation which presents something by filtering it and passing it through a prism can readily be described as an interpretation.25 Fourth, Marion identifies a ‘‘hermeneutic circle’’ in phenomenality, in that the given can only appear as a phenomenon on the screen of an adonne´ who is herself/himself received from that which s/he is given. Thus, he concludes: ‘‘Givenness traces, perhaps in sand, but ineffaceably, the most rigorous hermeneutic circle. We do not have to enter into it because we are always already taken up in it, but we should not try to leave it because its very denial leads back into it’’ (BG 308*/423). Finally, in his accounts of the various figures of saturated phenomena, Marion considers particular ways in which the adonne´ transforms the given into a phenomenon.26 In Chapters 4–8, I analyze Marion’s account of these transformations in detail, and argue that they constitute an acknowledgement that the very appearing of these paradigmatic phenomena is dependent on interpretation. Hermeneutics is not restricted to purely epistemic interpretations of phenomena whose appearing is already accomplished, but is rather a fundamental part of the structure of phenomenality itself.

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The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

Marion’s claims about givenness and the self of the phenomenon culminate in his new category of ‘‘saturated’’ phenomena. According to Marion, some phenomena give more intuition than is needed to fill a subject’s intention. Such phenomena are ‘‘saturated’’ with intention, and exceed any concepts or limiting horizons that a constituting subject could impose upon them. Marion describes five possible types of saturated phenomenon (four corresponding to the divisions of Kant’s table of categories; and one that encompasses all four, and is thus ‘‘saturated to the second degree’’), and then presents a ‘‘figure’’ as an example of each type (events, paintings, flesh, the face, and ‘‘revelation’’). Marion develops his concept of saturated phenomena across three main texts. He first proposed the theory of saturated phenomena in an essay entitled ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon’’ (1992).1 A revised version of this essay forms part of Being Given (1997), in which he gives his most complete account of the theory of saturated phenomena. Finally, in a collection entitled In Excess (2001), Marion presents a series of studies, each of which is an extended account of one of the five figures of saturated phenomena that he proposes in Being Given. At first glance, Marion’s texts give the impression that saturated phenomena are an exceptional class of phenomena, and limited to a region at the margins of phenomenality. Indeed, in Marion’s early texts, saturated phenomena are introduced as a way of making space in philosophy for specifically religious phenomena.2 Even in his later texts where Marion 57

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omits this religious context, the examples of saturated phenomena that he chooses are somewhat obscure, and might be regarded as no more than interesting curiosities. This impression of the exceptional status of saturated phenomena is further strengthened by Marion’s description of saturated phenomena as part of his project to extend phenomenality ‘‘as far as possible’’—an ambition that he justifies by an injunction: ‘‘In phenomenology, even the least possibility obliges’’ (BG 199/279–80).3 However, further consideration calls this initial impression into question. Although Marion does recognize that saturated phenomena are unusual, he sharply criticizes the ‘‘metaphysical’’ view that regards them as ‘‘an exceptional (indeed eccentric) case of phenomenality’’ (BG 226/ 316).4 Far from accepting that the unusual is perforce exceptional, Marion argues that in fact ordinary, everyday phenomena should be regarded as the exception because they are the ones in which phenomenality is distorted. In his view, phenomena mostly appear as objects, constituted by a transcendental ego, and therefore reduced to something other than themselves—‘‘put at one’s disposal for and by thought, that governs them exhaustively’’ (IE 30*/35). When a phenomenon is manifested in this way, its ‘‘self ’’ is hidden, and ‘‘the movement by which the phenomenon gives itself ’’ remains inaccessible (IE 31/36). Thus, in most instances, the movement of self-giving that gives rise to phenomenality is obscured. In the case of a saturated phenomenon, its excess of intuition prevents it from being limited by a subject or a horizon.5 Such a phenomenon, which is ‘‘unconditioned (by its horizon) and irreducible (to an I),’’ is given simply as itself, and is therefore ‘‘a phenomenon par excellence’’ (BG 189/265)—a privileged instance of the givenness of phenomena. Marion concludes that saturated phenomena give a crucial insight into phenomenality in general because they disclose ‘‘the movement by which the phenomenon gives itself ’’ (IE 31/36). This capacity to disclose givenness leads Marion to propose saturated phenomena as the paradigm for understanding all phenomena: My entire project, by contrast [to metaphysics], aims to think the common-law phenomenon, and through it the poor phenomenon, on the basis of the paradigm of the saturated phenomenon, of which the former two offer only weakened variants, and from which they derive by progressive diminishment. For the saturated phenomenon does not give itself apart from the norm, by way of exception to the definition of phenomenality. . . . What metaphysics rules out as an exception (the saturated paradox), phenomenology here takes for its norm—every phenomenon shows itself in the measure (or the lack 58

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of measure) to which it gives itself. To be sure, not all phenomena involve saturated phenomena, but all saturated phenomena accomplish the one and only paradigm of phenomenality. Better, they alone allow it to be illustrated. . . . The saturated phenomenon in the end establishes the truth of all phenomenality because it marks, more than any other phenomenon, the givenness from which it comes. (BG 227*/316f ) It is this claim about their normative status that makes Marion’s discussions of saturated phenomena significant for his whole phenomenology of givenness. Saturated phenomena make clear the essential characteristics of phenomenality in general, which is—for the most part—obscured by the distortions that constituting subjects impose on phenomena.6 Marion develops his account of saturated phenomena by carefully applying the theories of intuition developed by Kant and Husserl in a way that extends the domain of their original contexts. In this chapter, I first set out Marion’s general theory of saturated phenomena, and situate it in relation to his critique of the thought of Kant, Leibniz, and Husserl. I then examine a number of respects in which Marion’s theory is problematic, particularly with respect to his interpretation of Husserl. Saturation and the Limits of Possibility Marion introduces his theory of saturated phenomena in the fourth book of Being Given by analyzing the constraints imposed on phenomenality by the metaphysics of Kant and Leibniz, and by the phenomenology of Husserl. He uses this critical study to distinguish his own theory from theirs, and to clarify his concept of saturation. However, he is not always fair in his criticisms of these thinkers, and some of his interpretations of their theories are quite problematic. Consequently, his own thought is not as radical a break from theirs as he claims. Kant’s Postulate of Possibility Possibility-Impossibility is the first of Kant’s categories of modality, and is schematized as a synthetic principle in his first postulate of empirical thinking: ‘‘Whatever accords with the formal conditions of experience (in keeping with intuition and concepts) is possible’’ (CPR A 218/B 265*). As Kant makes clear in his elucidation, this postulate should be understood restrictively: ‘‘The postulate of the possibility of things . . . requires that their concept agree with the formal conditions of an experience in general’’ (CPR A 220/B 267). In considering this postulate, Marion focuses on the The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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way in which ‘‘the possibility of the phenomenon results not from its own phenomenality, but from . . . the conditions of experience for and by the subject’’ (BG 181/253). He concludes that this postulate implies that the possibility and impossibility of phenomena are determined by ‘‘the finitude of the power of knowledge and its requirements’’ (BG 181/254). Marion believes that this is an artificial constraint on the range of possibilities of phenomenality, and that the possibilities of phenomenality should be determined by phenomena themselves, rather than by the subject. Marion is correct in portraying the Kantian ego as active and constituting. He is also correct in seeing the kind of possibility described in Kant’s postulate as being dependent upon the subject. His rejection of the way in which Kant determines possibility indicates the reassigning of prerogative that Marion seeks to accomplish by means of saturated phenomena. He replaces the sovereign ego (which constitutes the objects of experience and determines the conditions of their appearance) with a much more passive recipient. Rather than phenomena being produced or grasped by a subject, Marion accords the power of phenomenality to phenomena themselves, whose givenness is a self-giving. Saturated phenomena interest him because they ‘‘attest indisputably to the thrust, the pressure and, so to speak, the impact of what gives itself ’’ (IE 31/36). The Principle of Sufficient Reason Marion traces Kant’s restriction of the possibilities for phenomenality back to Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason: ‘‘No fact can be real or actual, and no proposition true, without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise, although most often these reasons just cannot be known by us.’’7 After only five lines of comment, Marion concludes that this principle equates to ‘‘the power of knowledge putting into operation the sufficiency of the reason, which, whatever it might be, precedes what it renders possible’’ (BG 182*/254). Here, Marion has shifted Leibniz’s principle in a direction quite foreign to Leibniz’s thought, moving from particular reasons or causes to the faculty of reason (the ‘‘power of knowledge’’).8 Presumably, Marion would attempt to justify this move by pointing to the faculty of reason as that which ascribes a sufficient reason to something. However, for Leibniz, the power of knowledge is very much secondary; he insists that ‘‘most often these reasons just cannot be known by us.’’ Far from being dependent upon the finite power of knowledge, the intelligibility and rationality of reality is dependent upon a perfect and necessary substance ‘‘that we call God.’’9 Marion’s next reference to ‘‘reason’’ could be interpreted as a return to considering particular reasons or causes. He asserts that because all 60

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existents are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, they ‘‘appear, and do indeed deserve the title ‘phenomena,’ but they owe it [the title] to another ‘reason,’ different from their appearing itself, which reason alone is sufficient to qualify this appearance as a phenomenon’’ (BG 182*/255). However, this noncontroversial interpretation is not possible shortly after, when he baldly asserts: ‘‘Reason [la raison] can ground phenomena’’ (BG 182/255).10 Here, and in the remainder of his discussion of Leibniz, Marion seems to be referring to reason as an ordering principle for reality— reason per se. Although focusing on such a metaphysical ordering principle comes closer to Leibniz’s thought than does installing the power of knowledge as the cause of sufficient reasons, Leibniz is careful to avoid describing this ordering principle as ‘‘reason.’’11 Thus, even though Marion concedes that Kant ‘‘radicalises’’ the conditions established by Leibniz (BG 183/257),12 it is difficult to see how Leibniz’ text can support Marion’s reading, in which a phenomenon ‘‘receives its [sufficient] reason from reason [per se] [Le phe´nome`ne atteste son manque de raison lorsque et parce qu’il rec¸oit sa raison de la raison]’’ (BG 182–83/255). Having redirected Leibniz’ principle to a concept of reason per se, Marion can then present Leibnizian phenomena as reduced to ‘‘conditional phenomena, appearing under condition—under the condition of that which does not appear [i.e., reason]’’ (BG 183*/255). Phenomenality itself is conditioned by the reason that provides a sufficient reason to phenomena. On the basis of this assessment, Marion concludes by reproaching Leibniz for dispossessing phenomena of their phenomenality, and giving that phenomenality instead to reason (BG 182–83/255). Despite the tenuous character of his interpretation, Marion’s fundamental point about Leibniz stands: The principle of sufficient reason places phenomenality under the condition of being founded in something other than phenomena themselves. Further, Marion is right to insist that Kant radicalizes this conditionality by attributing it to the conditions of possibility of experience, which are themselves submitted to the ‘‘conditions of the original synthetic unity of apperception’’ (CPR B 136), and thus to the finite subject of experience. Kant’s phenomena can indeed be described as ‘‘alienated,’’ as they appear under the conditions of a phenomenality ‘‘imposed’’ by consciousness, to which they are given, and in which they are associated with each other (BG 183–84/257). Phenomenality Conditioned by the Principle of Principles Marion views Husserl’s ‘‘principle of principles’’ as a major advance on the shortcomings of Kant’s alienated phenomena because Husserl’s The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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principle clearly ascribes priority to the phenomenon as that which determines its own appearing: Every originarily giving intuition [Anschauung] is a source of knowledge by right; all that offers itself to us in originary ‘‘intuition’’ [‘‘Intuition’’] (in its bodily [leibhaften] actuality, so to speak), is to be taken simply as that as which it gives itself, but also only in the bounds in which it gives itself.13 Marion welcomes the fact that Husserl describes intuition as itself being originary rather than having its origin in something other than itself; clearly, Husserl is not concerned with a foundation that would give rise to the appearance of phenomena. However, Marion is not entirely satisfied because the unconditionality in Husserl’s principle is not absolute. In Marion’s view, Husserl’s principle of principles limits phenomenality in two fundamental respects: Phenomena are offered ‘‘to us,’’ and they are offered within bounds. Drawing on other sections of Ideas I, Marion highlights the limitations imposed by these conditions. The first limitation considered by Marion is that of the ‘‘bounds’’ within which intuition gives itself. While Husserl does not specify what he means by ‘‘bounds’’ at this point, Marion quite reasonably proposes that ‘‘bounds’’ should be understood in the context of Husserl’s discussion of the horizon on which phenomena are inscribed (BG 185ff./ 259ff.). What Husserl calls a ‘‘horizon of inauthentic ‘co-givenness’ ’’ is most evident in the adumbrative presentation of sensible objects. Here, along with any given intuition, a ‘‘more or less vague indeterminateness’’ of other possible adumbrations is co-given; these are the other possible aspects of the object (e.g., the rear sides of a cube that is currently being viewed from the front).14 Together, these adumbrations form a series, in which each adumbration can be presented at a particular point in time, even though the whole series can never be presented simultaneously. Because each of these possible adumbrations can actually be given in intuition, the undetermined horizon of possible givens has, as a matter of principle, a ‘‘determinable indeterminateness [Prinzipiell bleibt immer ein Horizont bestimmbarer Unbestimmtheit].’’15 Marion concludes from this in-principle determinability that, for Husserl, the ‘‘un-seen’’ is anticipated and reduced to the rank of a pre-seen, a merely belated visible, without fundamentally irreducible novelty, in short a pre-visible. . . . [It is] inscribed in the already seen . . . without the possibility of opening the phenomenal unforeseen, beyond the intentional pole of an object foreseen and expected. (BG 186–87/261)16 62

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In Marion’s view, Husserl limits phenomenality to that which is anticipated, by seeing the flux of intuition as always directed toward fulfilling the intentional aim of constituting an object. Marion believes that assimilating givenness to this process of fulfilling intention amounts to placing a condition on it. Husserl thereby overlooks the possibility of ‘‘freeing givenness from the prior limit of a horizon of phenomenality’’ (BG 187/ 262). The second way in which Marion judges that Husserl’s principle of principles conditions phenomenality is already implied in the preceding connection between horizon and intention: Intuition is always offered ‘‘to us.’’ This reference can seem trivial here, but is consistent with Husserl’s far more explicit treatment of the role of the ego later in Ideas I: ‘‘Each lived experience of Now has a horizon of lived experiences, which in turn also have the originary form of ‘Now,’ and which as such make up an originary horizon of the pure ego.’’17 In light of these later descriptions, Marion believes that Husserl’s ‘‘to us’’ must be taken at its word: This turn of phrase has nothing trivial or redundant about it. First of all because it betrays a classic ambiguity of transcendental phenomenology: the givenness of the phenomenon on its own basis to an I can always veer toward a constitution of the phenomenon by and on the basis of the I. Metaphysical (in fact, Cartesian) egology is a paradigm that always haunts the I, even reduced, even phenomenological. (BG 187/262) Marion is convinced that in this respect, Husserl makes little advance beyond Kant, with ‘‘forms and concepts’’ still being fixed a priori by the ‘‘transcendental posture’’ of the ego, and thus ‘‘determining phenomenality in advance according to conditions of experience’’ (BG 188/263). In Marion’s view, because the phenomenological reduction requires that all such a priori conditions be suspended, ‘‘the I must renounce every pretension to the synthesis of objects or the judgement of phenomenality’’ (BG 188*/263). Against this backdrop of conditioned phenomenality, Marion sets himself the task of conceiving of a phenomenality that is ‘‘absolutely unconditioned.’’ Thus, he proposes as a hypothesis that there are phenomena that overflow the horizon rather than being inscribed on it, and which lead the I back to itself rather than being constituted by it and reduced to it.18 Before he describes the characteristics of such phenomena, Marion endeavors to establish their possibility by considering the degrees of adequation which phenomena can possess in Husserl’s system. The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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Degrees of Adequation Husserl introduces the idea of adequation in his sixth Logical Investigation (LI) to indicate the degree to which an intuitive act offers fulfillment (Erfu¨llung) to an act of signification. When the intended object directly presents itself in perceptual intuition, no part of the act of signification remains empty; that is, every element of the intended signification has a corresponding intuition. This is the ‘‘ideal limit’’ of adequation between intuitional content and significative intention, and is ‘‘the goal of absolute knowledge’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §16, 2:227/2:598). It is an experience of self-evidence in which ‘‘the objectivity meant is in the strict sense given in intuition, and given just as it is thought and named’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §37, 2:261*/2:648). Marion traces Husserl’s language of adequation back to Kant’s theory of cognition (BG 192–93/270–71). For Kant, intuition and concepts ‘‘constitute the elements of all our cognition.’’ They are produced by the faculties of sensibility and understanding, respectively, which are the ‘‘fundamental sources’’ of cognition (CPR A 50/B 74). Sensibility ‘‘gives’’ objects to us in intuition, and the understanding ‘‘thinks’’ these objects by means of a concept. Therefore, ‘‘only from their unification can cognition arise’’ (CPR A 51/B 75–76). Husserl’s theory of phenomenality certainly has parallels to Kant in that knowledge of a phenomenon depends both on intuition, which gives an object, and on the intellectual act of signification, by which that object’s meaning is understood. However, consistent with his interest in the act of knowledge, as opposed to Kant’s interest in the conditions of knowledge, Husserl develops his account in much greater detail than Kant. He also introduces the term ‘‘adequation’’ to describe the relation between the two sources of cognition.19 Marion believes that a concern with adequation is apparent throughout Husserl’s text, as a particular form of the correlation between the phenomenon as ‘‘subjective appearance’’ (the subject’s lived experience of an appearance) and the phenomenon as ‘‘objective appearing’’ (that which itself appears) (BG 190*/266). Thus, Marion summarizes, there is adequation when intention is equivalent to intuition, or, in other terms, when signification is equivalent to fulfillment, or noesis is equivalent to noema. This is the ideal limit in which objective truth is accomplished subjectively by the self-evident experience of adequation (BG 190/266). Marion makes two criticisms of Husserl’s theory of adequation. First, he asserts that Husserl restricts adequation to being an ideal ‘‘that is never realised, or at least only rarely,’’ with the consequence that ‘‘truth would 64

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also be made scarce, or become inaccessible’’ (BG 191*/267). This limit on adequation is imposed by the finite nature of sensible intuition, which Husserl adopts as an exemplar, and which can never give the whole object in one single intuition. It is not possible for all the aspects of a physical object to be presented simultaneously. Therefore, a complete perception of an object can be built up only by synthesizing a series of apperceptions. But ‘‘the all-sided representation is not achieved in such a synthetic manifold in the single flash which the ideal of adequation requires, as a pure self-presentation without added analogising or symbolisation: it is achieved piecemeal and always blurred by such additions’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §16, 2:228/2:599). Husserl describes the complex intuition of this situation as complete but impure because at each moment, some aspects of the object are not actually given in intuition (LI, Investigation 6, §29, 2:246ff./2:627ff.). As Marion correctly points out, according to Husserl’s theory, the only objects that can be given in a complete, pure intuition are formal or categorial objects, where intuition is categorial rather than sensible. It is therefore only these nonsensible objects that can be given adequately. Because of the lack of sensible intuition in these cases, Marion dubs them ‘‘poor phenomena,’’ by contrast with the ‘‘full phenomena [phe´nome`nes ple´niers],’’20 which are ‘‘the appearance of the ‘things themselves’ fully given by intuition’’ (BG 192*/269). Marion’s second criticism is that Husserl ascribes a ‘‘strange modesty’’ to evidence, never claiming anything more for it than the ‘‘mere equality’’ of adequation.21 Marion regards this modesty as the consequence of the finitude, which he believes is transferred to intuition by the finitude implicit in Husserl’s notion of experience as always conditioned by the ego and a horizon (BG 196–97/276). Thus, the end result of Husserl’s placing conditions on experience and phenomenality is that he overlooks one of the possibilities for the relation between intuition and signification: For Husserl, intuition can fall short of signification, or in rare cases, be adequate to it. Why, asks Marion, is it not also possible that intuition might exceed signification, giving ‘‘more, indeed immeasurably more, than the intention would ever have aimed at or foreseen?’’ (BG 197/277). Instead of being characterized as poor or lacking in intuition, such phenomena would be characterized as saturated with intuition. In Marion’s view, considering the possibility of such saturated phenomena is inevitable if Kant’s account of intuition is taken to its logical conclusion. As Marion points out, Kant repeatedly makes it clear that it is intuition alone that gives objects to thought (BG 193/271). This is the basis for Kant’s famous dictum: ‘‘Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind’’ (CPR A 51/B 75). Marion argues The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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that because only intuition can give something to be seen, thought without intuition is ‘‘incapable of seeing anything at all.’’ On the other hand, intuition without concepts continues to give, even though it is blind. Marion judges that ‘‘blindness counts more here than vacuity’’ (BG 193/ 270). Thus, he concludes: ‘‘In the kingdom of the phenomenon, the concept is not king, but rather the intuition, which alone has the privilege of giving’’ (BG 193/271). Although Kant does not explicitly accord any priority to intuition,22 Marion points to Kant’s analysis of aesthetic ideas—and the sublime in particular—as an example of the results when intuition’s preeminence is taken seriously. Although an aesthetic idea cannot become a cognition, this is not because intuition leaves a concept empty but rather ‘‘because it [the aesthetic idea] is an intuition (of the imagination) for which a concept can never be found adequate.’’23 Marion emphasizes Kant’s description of such an idea as an ‘‘inexponible representation of the imagination’’—one that cannot be expounded by being brought to concepts.24 For Marion, the understanding’s incapacity to grasp such an idea is a result of the idea’s ‘‘superabundance’’ of intuition, which ‘‘submerges’’ concepts so as to saturate them and ‘‘overexpose’’ them. The resulting phenomenon is thus not recognizable as a ‘‘definite object’’—it is ‘‘invisible,’’ not because of a lack of illumination, but because of ‘‘an excess of light’’ (BG 198/279). This is Marion’s saturated phenomenon, not constrained by the norms of objectivity and definability, and therefore able to open givenness ‘‘in all its scope’’ (BG 199/279). Marion elaborates the possible kinds of saturated phenomena according to the four divisions in Kant’s table of categories, but never gives an explanation for choosing this particular framework.25 It is a somewhat surprising choice, especially given that in many respects, Kant’s aesthetic idea offers a more obvious parallel to saturated phenomena—as Marion himself appears to recognize when he cites Kant’s analysis of the sublime as an example of a saturated phenomenon (BG 219–20/306–7). Indeed, as Marion’s account of the various types of saturated phenomenon proceeds, some types seem to be quite removed from the group of categories to which they are supposed to correspond.26 Marion’s choice of Kant’s table of categories does have the limited virtue of echoing comments that he makes in the preceding section of Being Given about Kant’s four-fold account of ways in which nothing can be defined (BG 195–96/274–75). In this passage, he criticizes Kant for being so preoccupied by the deficit in intuition as to reiterate its poverty by describing four ways in which it gives rise to nothingness. It is not at all clear that this is a fair account of Kant’s text, but it does provide a neatly 66

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corresponding foil to Marion’s account of the four ways in which the excess of intuition can saturate a phenomenon.27 Saturation and Husserlian Phenomenology Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena is framed in terms of Husserlian concepts (intention, intuition, and adequation), and begins from a critique of the way in which Husserl himself used these concepts. In this section, I examine three respects in which Marion’s interpretations of Husserl are problematic: first, Marion’s presentation of intention and intuition as simply in opposition to each other; second, his suggestion that Husserl regards intuition as essentially impoverished; and finally, his proposal that the ‘‘ideal limit’’ of adequation can be exceeded. Intention, Intuition, and Subjectivity As was evident in the previous section, Marion presents Husserlian adequation in quite Kantian terms, where (blind) intuition is given to the subject to fill up (empty) intentional concepts. However, a simple opposition between intuition and intention is a misleading presentation of Husserl’s theory, in which intuition and intention are related to each other in a far more complex way. At first sight, intuition and intention can appear to be in straightforward opposition for Husserl. However, Husserl also describes nonoppositional relations between intuition and intention, as in the case of perception, which he presents as an intentional act of intuition. According to Husserl, in perception we undergo a certain sequence of lived experiences of the class of sensations, sensuously unified in their particular series, and informed by a certain act-character of ‘interpretation’ (Auffassung), which endows them with an objective sense. This act-character makes an object, i.e. this inkpot, appear to us in a perceptual way. (LI, Investigation 6, §6, 2:201*/2:559) The intuitive character of these acts is no barrier to Husserl describing them as acts, and he clearly means this in the strict sense of ‘‘intentional lived experiences’’ (LI, Investigation 5, §13, 2:101*/1:391). Indeed, he makes a number of references to ‘‘acts of intuition,’’ and even to ‘‘the intentional essence of the act of intuition’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §8, 2:206–7/ 2:566–67). Further, most of Husserl’s discussion of fulfillment is in terms of the relation between intuitive and signitive (or significative) intentions, The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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contents and acts. He is explicit that both intuitive and signitive acts are ‘‘objectifying acts’’—acts which refer to or present an object through an intentional lived experience.28 In this context, one cannot simply oppose intuition and intention, as Marion does repeatedly.29 He sets up this opposition so that it implies a straightforward correlation to the traditional opposition of subject and object. Thus, his accounts suggest that intuition is the way that an object is given to a subject, and intention is the way that a subject constitutes an object.30 According to this correlation, if intuition has priority in saturated phenomena, then an inversion of the subject-object relation would be demanded, with the sovereign constituting ego being succeeded by a witness who is the addressee (interloque´) rather than the initiator (BG 217–18/302–3). To establish the possibility of these phenomena would thus directly support Marion’s commitment to precisely such a ‘‘subversion’’ of the ‘‘absolute subjectivity’’ of the transcendental or constituting ego (RG 200–1/300). In this renunciation of subjectivity, ‘‘the addressee discovers itself as . . . a subject without subject(iv)ity,’’ a subject in which the nominative of the ego who commands is replaced by the vocative of the one who is commanded, ‘‘Listen!’’ (RG 201*/300–1; cf. 192–202/ 289–302). However, if intuition cannot simply be opposed to the intentionality of the subject, then the enhanced priority that saturated phenomena demands for intuition will not in itself achieve the inversion that Marion advocates. The difficulty of entirely excluding intentionality from intuition is an indication of a misleading emphasis that runs throughout Marion’s analysis of saturated phenomena. As I argued in the previous chapter, the richness and validity of saturated phenomena are not secured by dethroning absolute subjectivity, only to replace it with an objectivity or givenness that is equally absolute. In the chapters that follow, my analysis of the saturated phenomena proposed by Marion will at each point demand a continuing role for the subject. Although this will certainly not be the transcendental, constituting ego, neither will it be the entirely passive addressee proposed by Marion. One of the recurring criticisms of Marion’s theory insists that phenomenology can never escape the need for some such subjective role. This objection is summed by Marle`ne Zarader, who argues that for something ‘‘to retain the status of a phenomenon, it must be situated within experience,’’ and that the concept of experience is itself unthinkable without a subject.31 She concludes: ‘‘Subjectivity may well be redefined, but it remains the living nerve of every phenomenological project.’’32 Marion implicitly acknowledges this necessity in designating the adonne´ as the 68

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‘‘operator’’ of the reduction to givenness (IE 46/55).33 However, the resulting circularity is inescapably vicious: The adonne´ is given to itself in the very reduction of which it is the operator.34 This circularity leads Zarader to conclude that although the adonne´ as filter or witness satisfies the subjective role necessary for experience, this comes only at the price of compromising Marion’s endeavor ‘‘to assign everything to the unconditioned givenness of the phenomenon . . . [that] shows itself of itself.’’35 Marion’s recent dismissal of Zarader’s criticism does not address this central point. Instead, he reproaches her for failing to appreciate that in his refiguring of subjectivity and experience, ‘‘[T]here is not an over-simplified choice between ‘activity’ and ‘passivity,’ with no other option.’’36 Why, he asks, could not the subject’s ‘‘activity of the understanding’’ and ‘‘spontaneity of representation (or intentionality)’’ be replaced by the adonne´’s ‘‘more originary receptivity’’ and ‘‘more radical, and perhaps in another mode more powerful, passivity?’’37 But the possibility of refiguring the subject as adonne´ is not what Zarader is contesting. What Marion neglects to address is how the adonne´’s receptivity and resistance, which transform the given into the shown, are compatible with his claims for the pure and absolute character of givenness. ‘‘Intuition as Penury’’ There is no disputing Marion’s assertion that Husserl assigns priority to signification over intuition (e.g., Husserl’s description of the dynamic process of fulfillment clearly begins with signitive intention [LI, Investigation 6, §8, 206ff./2:566ff.]). However, Marion is unjustified in criticizing Husserl for depicting intuition as ‘‘essentially deficient, poor, needful, indigent—πενα’’ (BG 191/268; cf. ‘‘Intuition as Penury,’’ the title of BG §20).38 In Husserl’s account, it is intention which should be characterized as penurious, rather than intuition. Husserl makes it clear that ‘‘signitive intentions are in themselves ‘empty’, and . . . ‘are in need of fullness’,’’ which they can only get from ‘‘the intuitive . . . [which is] the giver of fullness’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §21, 2:233/2:607). It is not intuition which Husserl sees as inadequate, but intention: ‘‘That which the intention . . . presents only in a more or less inauthentic or unfitting manner, the fulfillment . . . sets directly before us,’’ and therefore ‘‘the fulfilling act has a superiority which the mere intention lacks’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §16, 2:226–27*/2:597). Moreover, Husserl’s description of ‘‘inclusion’’ or ‘‘subsumption [Einordnung]’’ indicates that he recognizes at least one respect in which intention falls short of the richness offered to it by intuition (contrary to The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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Marion’s assertion that he fails to consider the possibility of such an excess). Subsumption arises because ‘‘an intention can be fulfilled in an act which contains more than its fulfillment needs’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §12, 2:214/2:578). Husserl gives the instance of seeing a red-tiled roof, which gives far more in intuition than is signified by an intention of red. Elements corresponding to intentions such as tiled and roof are still given as part of the total intuition, even though they are not intended. Thus, the intention red is ‘‘fulfilled with complete coincidence in the intuited red, but the total intuition of the red-tiled roof . . . still enters into a peculiar sort of synthetic unity with the meaning-intention Red,’’ which he calls ‘‘subsumption’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §12, 2:214/2:579). In this situation, intuition is not only adequate to intention, but could even be described as saturating.39 Marion is not only concerned about the so-called penury of intuition, but also about exactly what is admitted as belonging to intuition. Here, his comments on the place of the sensible in intuition are puzzling. He criticizes Kant for restricting intuition to the finitude of sensibility,40 and thus prohibiting the appearance of any object that needs an ‘‘indefinite intuitive fulfillment’’ or a ‘‘non-sensible (intellectual) intuition’’ (BG 193/ 272). Yet he is far from approving when Husserl widens intuition by introducing the idea of categorial perception alongside sensible perception (LI, Investigation 6, §37, 2:262/2:649). Marion accuses Husserl of establishing the ‘‘poor phenomena’’ of logic and mathematics as the ‘‘paradigm for phenomenality as a whole’’ (BG 192/269; cf. 194–95/273). Husserl’s account of intuition is far more complex than Marion suggests. Although Husserl does describe simple cases of purely sensorial intuition and purely categorial intuition, and give instances of these, he then uses these simple cases to build up an account of ‘‘complex thoughtobjects’’ or ‘‘states of affairs,’’ in which both forms of intuition operate together (LI, Investigation 6, chap. 6). Acts that intend these complex objects, such as ‘‘I see that the paper has been written on,’’ are much more representative of ordinary experience than are the simple perceptions which found them, such as ‘‘this paper’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §40, 2:271/ 2:658). Acts that intend complex objects depend upon objects being given in sensible perception but include ‘‘connective, relational or otherwise formative acts’’ that are nonsensorial (LI, Investigation 6, §40, 2:273/2:660). Thus, while both a whole object, A, and a part of that object, ␣, may be given in ‘‘straightforward’’ sensible perceptions, the perception that ‘‘␣ is in A’’ goes beyond these sensible perceptions, and has as its object the relation of part and whole between ␣ and A. Such a relationship is categorial rather than sensory. The same is true for external relations, such as 70

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‘‘to the right of,’’ ‘‘larger than,’’ and ‘‘in contact with’’ as well as of relations of aggregation (A and B) and disjunction (A or B), and of being itself (A is). In each case, sensible perceptions ‘‘found’’ categorial perceptions, which are ‘‘synthetic acts built upon our sensibility’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §48, 2:286ff./2:681ff.). It is clear that Husserl’s interest in categorial intuition reflects a much broader concern than the ‘‘poor phenomena’’ of mathematics and logic. Far from establishing his paradigm of phenomenality in ‘‘phenomena that do not appear, or barely appear,’’ as Marion suggests (BG 195*/274), Husserl repeatedly gives examples taken from daily life. Marion is certainly correct to say that the finitude of sensibility makes adequation an unattainable ideal for Husserl in the case of sensible phenomena (BG 192/ 269). However, it is not at all evident how ascribing a possible excess to sensory intuition will enhance the ‘‘right to appear’’ of the complex phenomena with which Marion is concerned (BG 195/274), especially if this is to be at the cost of categorial intuition, for which he seems to have little regard. In fact, his analyses of the various saturated phenomena depend upon precisely the sort of ‘‘connective, relational or otherwise formative acts’’ that Husserl describes in terms of categorial perception (LI, Investigation 6, §40, 2:273/2:660). Can Intuition Be More Than Adequate? Marion argues that saturated phenomena are a straightforward extrapolation of the Husserlian scale that leads from a lack of adequation to the ideal of perfect adequation. According to Marion’s account, Husserl’s claim of ‘‘only an ‘adequation,’ a mere equality’’ for his ideal shows a ‘‘strange modesty’’ (BG 190/266). However, Marion’s reading of Husserl is not as self-evident as it appears. Husserl’s account of adequation does not open the possibility of saturated phenomena in the obvious way Marion suggests. The absolute nature of the limit that adequation represents in Husserl’s system results from a lack of neither imagination nor boldness. Rather, it is a necessary consequence of the way in which Husserl understands intuition and intention from the outset. No matter how excessive Husserlian intuition might become, it cannot be more than adequate. It is possible to clarify Marion’s concept of saturation, and defend Husserl from Marion’s critique, by carefully considering the idealist connotations of Husserl’s discussion of adequation. In Marion’s account of Husserlian adequation, it is indeed strange that Husserl is content with mere equality, and doesn’t consider the possibility The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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of intuition exceeding intention. However, because of the way that Husserl conceives of the object of adequation, such a notion is a priori impossible. Even when he uses the classical description of truth as ‘‘adaequatio rei et intellectus,’’ he is clear that the res in question is not some notion of the object as such, but rather the object ‘‘just as it is intended’’ (emphasis mine) (LI, Investigation 6, §37, 2:260–61*/2:647). Adequation is about the fulfillment of an intention; it ‘‘is realised when the meant objectivity is . . . given just as that which is thought and named’’ by an intention (emphasis mine) (LI, Investigation 6, §37, 2:261*/2:648). This statement becomes clearer in the context of Husserl’s earlier definition of a fitting or well-accorded (angemessen) intuitive presentation of an object as one which has ‘‘an intuitive substance of such fullness, that to each constituent of the object, as it is meant in this presentation, a representing constituent of the intuitive content corresponds’’ (emphasis mine) (LI, Investigation 6, §29, 2:247/2:627). Throughout this section, Husserl is concerned with the intentional objects of acts. Such objects are specified by the acts that intend (meinen or abzielen) them rather than by external reality. ‘‘With respect to phenomenology,’’ whether an intentional object exists or not makes no difference: ‘‘That which is given to consciousness is essentially the same, whether the presented object exists or is fictitious, or is perhaps completely absurd’’ (LI, Investigation 5, §11, 2:99*/1:387). Now, the substance of an act which presents an intentional object to consciousness can be divided into intuitive and signitive components, corresponding respectively to those determinations of the object that come to appearance in intuition, and to those which are truly meant by the act, but which remain pure meaning-intentions, without themselves coming to appearance (LI, Investigation 6, §23, 2:236/2:610). The fullness of the presentation, and its capacity to fulfill the intention of the act, depends upon the degree to which the object is presented intuitively rather than merely signitively. However, no presentation can do more than fulfill the intention, because the intuitive content of the act can never correspond to more than 100 percent of the determinations of the intentional object of the act. Although some existing object may have other determinations that are not intended by this act and that may be given in intuition, this excess is not relevant to the intentional object of this act. In a presentation in which all the determinations of the object have a corresponding intuition, ‘‘all is fullness: no part, no side, no determination of its object fails to be intuitively presented, none is merely indirectly and subsidiarily meant . . . whatever is meant is also intuitively presented’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §23, 2:236/2:612). This is so evidently an absolute limit that Husserl is able to represent it as a symbolic equation: ‘‘i Ⳮ s ⳱ 1,’’ where ‘‘i’’ 72

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is the intuitively presented moments of the intentional object, ‘‘s’’ is the signitively presented moments, and ‘‘1’’ represents the sum total of the object’s determinations (LI, Investigation 6, §23, 2:236/2:611). Although the relative proportions of i and s can vary infinitely, they can never add up to more than 1 because the object as it is intended can never have more determinations than it actually has. Thus, if a cube is the intentional object of an act, it must have exactly six determinate faces. Some of these may be actually present in intuition (e.g., if a cube is visible), and the remaining faces are merely signitively intended (e.g., the rear face, which is still intended, even though it is not visible). However, it is not possible for a presentation that has a cube as its intentional object to have more than six faces in its contents. In terms of adequation, the same absolute limit applies. Intuition is adequate to intention when the whole intention is intuitionally fulfilled, and none remains purely signitive, and therefore empty.41 Adequation is concerned with the relation between the intuitively fulfilled part of the intention of an act and the whole intention of that act, and is therefore not a limit which Husserl has imposed arbitrarily. The saturation that Marion describes is concerned with a quite different relation—that between the possible intuitions in which an actually existing object might be given and the way that it is intended. Thus, Husserl’s description of adequation as the ‘‘ideal limit . . . of absolute knowledge’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §16, 2:227/2:598) can be defended from Marion’s critique. However, such a defense also highlights the idealist undercurrents that run through Husserl’s thought. Both of the terms that are related in a more or less adequate way are immanent contents of consciousness—two different dimensions of intentional acts of the ego.42 Marion’s concept of saturation presents a stark contrast to Husserl’s idealism, as the intuition he describes is clearly dependent upon something external to consciousness. That which is given to consciousness in Marion’s intuition is not subject to the constraints of Husserl’s intentional object. Thus, while saturated phenomena may not exceed Husserl’s scale of adequation, they may perform the far more valuable role of reorienting Husserl’s idea of phenomenality closer toward realism. Conclusion Marion introduces his concept of saturated phenomena as part of a critique of the way in which the horizon and the I have been imposed as conditions on phenomena. He proposes the idea of phenomena that are The Theory of Saturated Phenomena

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saturated in intuition, and therefore impose themselves in an unconditioned way, exceeding Husserlian adequation between intuition and intention. However, Marion’s argument depends upon taking key Husserlian terms (‘‘intention,’’ ‘‘intuition,’’ ‘‘signification,’’ ‘‘adequation’’) and interpreting them in the context of Kant’s understanding of the relation between intuition and concepts. The problematic nature of this interpretation prevents Marion from successfully establishing the concept of saturated phenomena in terms of an excess of Husserlian intuition over intention. Nevertheless, the phenomena Marion describes as saturated certainly exceed simple conceptions of phenomena, and offer a paradigm that dramatically reorients any phenomenology based upon understanding phenomena as objects. Studying these saturated phenomena can provide valuable insights into the complex interrelationship between a subject and the world. It is precisely this interrelatedness that gives rise to the appearing of phenomena. In particular, I will argue in the remaining chapters that Marion’s saturated phenomena demonstrate that phenomenality must be understood to have a fundamentally hermeneutic dimension.

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4

Events

In Kant’s table of categories, the categories of quantity form the first division. Correspondingly, saturation according to quantity is the first type of saturation studied by Marion. The phenomena that he proposes as paradigm-forming for this type of saturation are events. However, Marion’s discussion of events is not limited to their saturation. I begin this chapter by outlining his analysis of events in Being Given and In Excess, as well as the significance that he ascribes to events as disclosing features of phenomenality in general. I then consider the main characteristics of eventness, by means of which Marion attempts to demonstrate that events are outside the domain of metaphysics, focusing particularly on his account of events as self-causing, and independent of any constituting subject. In the following section, I summarize the main examples given by Marion, which he uses to support his claim that events exceed any attempt to understand them as objects that can be measured and/or foreseen. I argue that his position is best interpreted by regarding all events as saturated, and even by regarding saturation to be the normal way in which most phenomena appear. However, the fact that we see most phenomena as objects, rather than as saturated, reintroduces a role for the subject that is contrary to Marion’s view, and thereby gives rise to difficulties in his theory that I believe are unresolvable. These difficulties point to the hermeneutic dimension of events’ appearing, a dimension that is largely ignored by Marion. In the final section, I reconsider four of the events described by Marion, and highlight their hermeneutic features, which I believe are essential to their very structure. 75

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The Phenomenon of Events and the Eventness of Phenomena Marion proposes events as examples of one particular type of saturated phenomenon. Additionally, he uses events to describe a general characteristic of all phenomena—their ‘‘evental [e´ve´nementiel] character’’ (IE 34*/ 40) or ‘‘eventness [e´ve´nementialite´]’’ (BG 162/229)1. In this section, I set out these two different ways in which Marion uses events, as well as a number of confusions to which his double usage gives rise. Marion’s analysis of phenomenality has a complex structure in which events play a crucial role at a number of points. The part of this structure that directly affects the event is shown schematically in Figure 1, and comprises four stages that progress from left to right. (A) In book 2 of Being Given, Marion distinguishes four characteristics of the givenness of the gift: ‘‘the giver’’ (BG §9), ‘‘the givee’’ (BG §10), ‘‘giveability’’ (BG §11.2), and ‘‘receivability’’ (BG §11.3). (B) Then, in book 3, he develops what he regards as a ‘‘broader and more basic’’ definition of phenomena, in which a phenomenon is understood ‘‘no longer as object or being, but as given’’ (BG 3/8). Marion sets out this ‘‘given’’ character by elaborating five different ‘‘determinations’’ of phenomena: ‘‘the anamorphosis’’ (BG §13), ‘‘the unpredictable landing [arrivage]’’ (BG §14), ‘‘the fait accompli’’ (BG §15), ‘‘the incident’’ (BG §16), and ‘‘the event’’ (BG §17). At the end of book 3 (§18.1), he outlines the correspondence between these five determinations of the given phenomenon and the four characteristics of the gift from book 2. Because the event happens without any cause but itself (see Chap. 4, ‘‘Phenomenological Fact vs. Metaphysical Effect’’), it corresponds to the giver of the gift (BG 174/245). Also, at the end of book 3, Marion distinguishes the event from the other four determinations of the given phenomenon, characterizing it as ‘‘the ultimate determination of the given phenomenon’’ (BG 177/249). (C) In book 4 of Being Given, Marion develops the theory of saturated phenomena, and elaborates four types of saturation based on the four divisions in Kant’s table of categories: quantity (BG §21.1), quality (BG §21.2), relation (BG §21.3), and modality (BG §22.1). He then establishes a correspondence so that each of these four types of saturation is related to one of the four initial determinations of the given phenomenon from book 3 (excluding the ‘‘ultimate determination’’ of the event). Within this scheme, the ‘‘unforeseeability . . . [and] nonrepeatability’’ of a phenomenon saturated according to quantity ‘‘consecrate the factuality of the fait accompli’’ (BG 227/317).2 (D) In section 23 of book 4, he then proposes examples of each type of saturation: historical events (saturated according to quantity), idols or 76

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Event (eventness): “ultimate determination” (BG §§17–18)

(B) Determinations of the given phenomenon (BG §§17–18) Fait accompli (BG §15) Arrivage (BG §14) Incident (BG §16) Anamporphosis (BG §13) Quantity (BG §21.1) Quality (BG §21.2) Relation (BG §21.3) Modality (BG §22.1)

(C) Types of saturation (BG book 4)

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the senses in which Marion uses ‘event’ in Being Given and In Excess

Giver (BG §9)

Givee (BG §10)

Receivability (BG §11.3)

(A) Characteristics of the givenness of the gift (BG book 2) Giveability (BG §11.2)

“Evental character . . . of all phenomena” (IE 34/40)

(D) Examples of saturated phenomena (BG book 4, §23; IE chaps. 2–5) Event (BG §23.3; IE chap. 2) Idol, Painting (BG §23.4; IE chap. 3) Flesh (BG §23.5; IE chap. 4) Icon, Face (BG §23.6; IE chap. 5)

paintings (saturated according to quality), flesh (saturated according to relation), and icons or the face (saturated according to modality). In Excess elaborates on the basic structure of saturation established in Being Given. In its subtitle, Marion announces In Excess as ‘‘studies of saturated phenomena,’’ and each of Chapters 2–5 is dedicated to a study of one of the examples of saturated phenomena proposed in book 4 of Being Given. However, in his study of the event in Chapter 2 of In Excess (‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’), Marion also points beyond the event as such to ‘‘the essentially and originally evental character of the phenomenon, and indeed of all phenomena (including the most banal)’’ (IE 34*/40; cf. 52/62). When the above structure is laid out (as in Figure 1), a number of confusions become evident, which reduces the extent to which Marion’s aspiration for precision is realized in the networks of correspondence he proposes (BG 173/244). First, there is no type of saturated phenomenon that corresponds to the giver of the gift; and, conversely, two different types of saturated phenomenon correspond to the receivability of the gift. Second, events correspond both to the giver of the gift and to its giveability: As the fifth determination of the given phenomenon, the event corresponds directly to the giver of the gift; but the event is also the saturated phenomenon which corresponds to the fait accompli, and so to the giveability of the gift. Third, ‘‘eventness’’ is both one of the five determinations of the given phenomenon, and also the ‘‘ultimate determination’’ (BG 177/249) that ‘‘brings together all those [characteristics] previously recognised in the given phenomenon’’ (BG 162*/229). Oddly, despite this priority accorded to eventness, Marion assigns no corresponding priority to the giver among the four characteristics of the givenness of the gift. Fourth, at the same time that events are the general and ‘‘ultimate’’ determinations of the given phenomenon (in all four of its initial determinations), historical events are the saturated form of one of those four initial determinations of the given phenomenon (the fait accompli). In my view, there are no elements in Marion’s analysis that can clarify the first of these confusions—the lack of exact correspondence between the four characteristics of the gift and the four types of saturation. I conclude that it is not possible to make his analysis of the characteristics of the gift correspond precisely to the four types of saturation. However, although this reduces the symmetry of Marion’s scheme, it does not greatly affect the broader substance of his analysis.3 The remaining three confusions, which concern events, can be greatly reduced by clarifying the different senses in which Marion uses event. There are two different senses in which Marion uses the idea of event in 78

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the above structure. Most straightforwardly, he uses event in a narrow sense, to refer to those phenomena we would normally recognize as events. This is clearest when he proposes historical events as examples of one type of saturation (according to quantity) in Being Given (BG §23.3). He defines an event as historical when it occurs on a grand scale: ‘‘The figure of the historical phenomenon, or the event carried to its apex [excellence] . . . [occurs] when the arising event is not limited to an instant, a place or an empirical individual.’’ One such event is the Battle of Waterloo, which ‘‘nobody ever saw,’’ because it exceeds the perspective of any single individual (BG 228/318). This narrow sense of event also predominates in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ where Marion begins by discussing events as the paradigm of phenomena that are saturated according to quantity (IE chap. 2). However, in this study of In Excess, Marion’s concern is not restricted to the ‘‘historical events’’ that he designates as saturated phenomena in Being Given. On the contrary, although he begins by discussing large-scale events—which he refers to as ‘‘collective phenomena (‘historical’)’’ (IE 36/43)—Marion expands his consideration to include ‘‘certain private or intersubjective phenomena,’’ such as friendship (IE 37/ 43) and the radically intimate phenomena of birth and death. Nevertheless, this extension of the discussion beyond the historical events of Being Given still clearly uses the narrow sense of event as a particular type of phenomenon. In addition to his straightforward, narrow use of event, Marion also uses it in a broad sense, to describe a characteristic of phenomena in general—their ‘‘eventness.’’ He does this first in book 3 of Being Given, when he identifies the event as one of the five determinations of the given phenomenon (BG §17). Here (as with the other four determinations of book 3), eventness is used to describe a characteristic of the way in which all phenomena well up to appearance. However, the use of event here is significantly broader than that of the other four determinations of book 3 because of the priority that Marion assigns to it: Eventness is the ‘‘ultimate determination’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 177/249), which ‘‘brings together all those [characteristics] previously recognised in the given phenomenon’’ (BG 162*/229). Marion uses this same broad sense of event in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon.’’ While the predominant usage of event here is narrow (referring to particular events), Marion justifies the expansion of his discussion from strictly historical events to collective and private events on the basis of what he calls ‘‘the essentially and originally evental character of the phenomenon, and indeed of all phenomena (including the most Events

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banal)’’ (IE 34*/40). In introducing this idea of an ‘‘evental character’’ of all phenomena, Marion uses the broader sense of event (referring to phenomenality in general) to justify the shift in the type of event (understood narrowly) that he is considering. Midway through ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ the broad sense of event is again assigned priority over other characteristics of phenomena, just as is the case in Being Given. Marion describes the event of the friendship between Montaigne and La Boe´tie in terms of anamorphosis, arrivage, fait accompli, and incident—‘‘the canonical determinations of the phenomenon as event’’ (IE 37/43–44). A footnote at this point of the text refers to the exposition of these determinations in book 3 of Being Given, where they are four of the five determinations of phenomena, with the fifth in the series being the event (IE 37n6/43n). Thus, the event’s status as the ‘‘ultimate determination of the given phenomenon’’ (BG 177/249) is reasserted, albeit implicitly, by describing the other four determinations as aspects of an event. Marion leaves no doubt of this priority when he concludes his discussion of Montaigne’s friendship by declaring that ‘‘eventness . . . rules all phenomena’’ (IE 38*/45). So, three different uses of the two senses of event are evident in the structure laid out in Figure 1. First, Marion uses event in a narrow sense, where it refers to one type of phenomenon. Second, he uses event in a broad sense, where it refers to eventness as a characteristic of all phenomena. Third, he distinguishes this eventness from other characteristics of phenomena by assigning it priority over them. This range of uses entails a corresponding variation in the relation of events to phenomenality. In its narrow sense, event is an instance of phenomenality. In its broad sense, event (referring to eventness) is a characteristic of phenomenality. When this eventness is assigned priority over other characteristics, event is normative for phenomenality. The priority which Marion assigns to eventness would justify regarding all the determinations of the given phenomenon that he discusses in book 3 of Being Given as features of events as saturated phenomena. However, for the sake of clarity, I will restrict my considerations in this chapter to those determinations that Marion explicitly connects with the event: namely, the fait accompli (§15) and the event (§17). I will consider the other determinations of the given phenomenon (arrivage, incident, anamorphosis) when I discuss the saturated phenomena to which they correspond (respectively: idol/painting, flesh, icon/face). Nevertheless, I will be concerned not only with events in the narrow sense, but also with what events reveal about phenomenality in general. 80

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The Event Happens Events fascinate Marion because rather than persisting in presence like objects, they happen. They well up in appearing, and impose themselves as faits accomplis. He carefully distinguishes them from effects, which can be reduced to the predictable products of known causes. In doing this, he argues for the phenomenological priority of an effect (which appears) over its cause (whose presence he relegates to metaphysics). Marion uses the happening of events to support his insistence that phenomenology must attribute the initiative in appearing to phenomena, and not to any causes that might explain them metaphysically, nor to any consciousness for which they appear. Therefore, he describes phenomena as events in a way which makes them independent of any constituting subject, and removes them from the metaphysical domain. He believes that events demonstrate the initiative proper to phenomena by revealing the ‘‘self ’’ of the phenomenon: Phenomena are neither caused by some other reality nor constituted by a subject. Rather, the phenomenon itself imposes itself (s’impose soimeˆme). To support this position, Marion argues that a phenomenon should not be regarded as having the factuality of a ‘‘brute fact,’’ but should rather be ascribed a ‘‘facticity.’’ This facticity both derives from Dasein’s own facticity and in turn reshapes that facticity, so that as a perceiver, I am myself accomplished and made (fait) by the fait accompli of the event. Phenomenological Fact vs. Metaphysical Effect By describing phenomena as events, Marion highlights that their appearing happens. Rather than being planned, produced or predicted, ‘‘the phenomenon always appears by welling up (it arrives to me, happens to me, and imposes itself on me)’’ (BG 138*/196). The appearing of a phenomenon is ‘‘the accomplishment of that which gives itself. . . . [and] always demands . . . finally coming to the fact of welling up, and welling up in fact’’ (BG 140*/198–99). Marion makes a sharp distinction between this ‘‘facticity’’ of events, and the ‘‘actuality [effectivite´]’’ of effects. He argues that an inquiry into the causes of an effect relies on metaphysical presuppositions which are inadmissible in phenomenology. Therefore, to remove phenomena from the metaphysical domain, they should not be considered as effects but simply as ‘‘faits accomplis.’’ Marion’s key argument here is that it is only possible to ask about what caused a phenomenon after it has already happened. So, even though a cause might have a metaphysical priority over its effect, the fact of a phenomenon’s appearing has a phenomenological priority over whatever may Events

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have produced it: ‘‘The fact, precisely in so far as it wells up in fact, annuls the legitimacy of asking it about its cause. . . . [I]f the inquiry into its cause or causes ever becomes possible, this will only happen after the fact, by relying on the fact that it already arrived in fact’’ (BG 140*/199). On this basis, Marion inverts the normal relationship between cause and effect so as to ‘‘construe the cause as effect of the effect—of the effect understood in terms of the event’’ (BG 165/232). He argues that, considered phenomenologically, ‘‘the event precedes its cause (or causes),’’ because ‘‘all knowledge begins by the event of the effect’’ (BG 165/233). Moreover, considered ontically, the factual presence of events means that ‘‘the effect alone imposes itself with certainty,’’ while causes remain ‘‘suppositions,’’ which ‘‘serve the purely epistemological [sic] function of subsequently producing the evidence for the effects’’ (BG 165–66/233).4 Marion also argues that the event of the effect has priority in (phenomenal) ‘‘reality’’ over any possible cause.5 Contesting the principle laid down in Descartes’ third meditation, Marion insists: ‘‘The effect contains at least as much, if not sometimes more, being or reality than the cause’’ (BG 163/230). First, it often happens that a cause is replaced by the effect it produces, so that when the effect actually exists, and its cause is being sought, that cause no longer exists. Second, even if a cause is not replaced by its effect, the effect still has more reality as a phenomenon because the effect is an event, while the cause is not: As something that comes to appearance, ‘‘the effect is radically given, in the causal relation, as a phenomenon that begins, wells up, shows itself, while the cause at best persists in its appearing’’ (BG 164*/231). Marion concludes from this that the event of an effect has a ‘‘decisive phenomenological superiority’’ (BG 164/232) over its cause: ‘‘The effect, as event, belongs to phenomenality,’’ because it alone happens as the appearing of a phenomenon, ‘‘but the cause, as persistence in presence, [belongs] to ontology (metaphysics)’’ (BG 165/232). Giving the effect (as event) priority over its cause contradicts the principle of causality, as Marion is aware, and he reinforces this contradiction by comparing the event of the given phenomenon to God, who is the classic exception to the principle of causality. Just as God is ‘‘uncausable . . . (removed by excess from the causal relation),’’ so the given phenomenon is ‘‘without cause (unavailable to the causal relation)’’ (BG 160/227). As an event, the phenomenon is a ‘‘quasi (non-) cause (causa sui), . . . [which] benefit[s] from the same and extraordinary privilege of not having to respond to the question that enjoins all other beings to offer a reason for their existence and their appearance’’ (BG 160–61/227). Marion believes that determining ‘‘the given phenomenon as event without cause or 82

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reason’’ requires ‘‘putting into question the principle of causality—and . . . giving it back its legitimate, limited role’’ (BG 161*/227). He argues that the universality of the principle of causality is a metaphysical presupposition that is merely asserted by philosophers such as Sua´rez, Pascal, Kant, and Descartes. It does not result from ‘‘empirical observation,’’ and therefore has the status of a ‘‘transcendental principle’’ or ‘‘edict of reason’’ (BG 161–62/227–28). In Marion’s view, the status of such a transcendental principle is that ‘‘the experimental, or rather phenomenological, confirmation of its requirements is still to come’’ (BG 162/229). While he admits that ‘‘objects—on first analysis at least—submit to it without reserve or remainder,’’ he argues that just as God escapes from it, so too do phenomena. In fact, he is convinced that phenomena only become intelligible as phenomena ‘‘as they slip from the sway of cause and the status of effect’’ (BG 162/229). Describing phenomena as events is part of Marion’s strategy to remove them from the metaphysical domain in which the principle of causality is valid. In the nonmetaphysical domain of events, Marion believes that the concept of possibility needs to be redefined. He describes its ‘‘ordinary sense’’ as something whose essence can be thought without contradiction; that is, something that is a foreseeable effect of the present circumstances. Marion regards such an effect as already ‘‘thoroughly calculated and studied,’’ and merely lacking existence: ‘‘[It is] an existence already absolutely conceived but simply awaiting actualisation’’ (BG 172/242–43). For Marion, this sense of possibility does not do justice to events. Instead of allowing an event to appear as itself, it requires that the event is already completely intelligible before it appears. An event’s essence is thus already defined by the causes of which it is the predictable effect. In Marion’s judgement, very little happens in the actualizing of such a possibility because it implies a ‘‘metaphysical definition of existence as a mere complement of essence’’ (BG 172/243). In contrast to this understanding, Marion proposes a phenomenological sense of possibility for events, in which an event appears as a fait accompli, freed from the constraints in which its essence is defined and imposed by external causes. In his description of the phenomenon of events, their appearing simply happens, unpredictably and without cause. Therefore, from a ‘‘metaphysical point of view,’’ such an event is impossible ‘‘(in the concept, according to essence),’’ because it ‘‘always gives more than the look has foreseen’’ (BG 172–73*/243–44). But from an event’s ‘‘own point of view, . . . [T]his impossibility designates the very possibility of phenomenality’’ (BG 173*/ 243–44). Events

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Facticity and Factuality On the basis of his discussion of what is made (fait) in the fait accompli of the phenomenon, Marion explores the relationship between factuality and Heidegger’s concept of ‘‘facticity [Faktizita¨t],’’ bringing the two concepts far closer to each other. First, he extends the reference of facticity, which Heidegger reserves for Dasein alone, by applying it in a derived sense to the faits accomplis of phenomena. Second, he elaborates the facticity of Dasein in a way that shows how it is itself affected by the fait accompli of the phenomenon, to the point where he declares that the fait accompli ‘‘belong[s] to the way of Being’’ of Dasein (BG 147*/208). In this elaboration, ‘‘my facticity designates me as a fact and something to do [un fait et un faire]’’ (BG 146*/207). I am made the perceiver—the one for whom and in whom the given is shown as a phenomenon. I am ‘‘the target . . . a retained patient, onto whom the fact comes crashing so as to be visibly accomplished’’ (BG 146*/207). Facticity is about my being made as a fact: ‘‘Facticity comes back to me only in so far as it exposes me to the fait accompli of the phenomenon—I do not make it [the phenomenon] by the fact of me, ahead of the fait accompli; I let (myself ) be made, I let it make me’’ (BG 146*/207). Marion introduces his discussion of the facticity of phenomena by outlining texts of Husserl, Schelling, and Kant, which focus on three facts: the world (Husserl), Revelation (Schelling) and the moral law (Kant). He analyzes these texts in terms of their implications for ‘‘facticity’’ although the texts themselves speak only of the ‘‘fact [Tat or Faktum].’’6 This is followed by a careful and accurate summary of Heidegger’s concept of facticity (Faktizita¨t) as an existential, which as such is necessarily proper to Dasein, and must be carefully distinguished from ‘‘the factuality of the factum brutum of something present-at-hand’’ (BG 144/203, quoting BT §29, 174/135). As Marion recognizes, the distinction between facticity and factuality functions for Heidegger as ‘‘a foreshadowing of the ontological difference’’ (BG 144/204), and cannot simply be put aside. However, despite Heidegger’s adamant separation of facticity from factuality, Marion successfully demonstrates that these two modes of being can only be understood in terms of their interrelationship. He does this by considering Dasein’s Being-in-the-world, which Heidegger describes in terms of thrownness and facticity: ‘‘It belongs to Being-in-the-world . . . that it is delivered over to itself—that it is always already thrown into a world. . . . existing is always factical. Existentiality is essentially determined by facticity.’’7 Marion summarizes Heidegger’s concept of Beingin-the-world as implying that ‘‘Dasein . . . opens itself ontologically, so as 84

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to make a (whole) world directed to other beings that, only thus, can be encountered there’’ (BG 145*/205). This opening of Dasein to make a world means that facticity is not a mode of being that is turned in on itself. Rather, ‘‘the facticity proper to Dasein is first exposed as such in running up against phenomena that are not of its mode of being’’ (BG 145*/205).8 Thus, Marion can point to an interdependency between the facticity of Dasein and the factuality of beings. On the one hand, beings only well up to be encountered in their faits accomplis in a world that is opened up through the facticity of Dasein: ‘‘The ordinary phenomenon accomplishes its fact through and in the shadow of Dasein’s facticity’’ (BG 145/205). But, at the same time, the facticity of Dasein is only exposed in encountering the factuality of beings that well up—and, at the moment of encounter, it finds itself ‘‘always already thrown into a world’’ (BT §41, 236*/ 192). Rather than experiencing itself as bringing about an encounter with other beings through opening itself to a world, Dasein finds itself always already thrown open to a world in which an encounter with the welling up of other beings happens. Dasein’s facticity is itself a fait accompli, such that Marion can speak of ‘‘the unique delay of facticity, where the fact is always already done [fait], the cards already dealt [le coup de´ja` parti]’’ (BG 145*/206). He illustrates this ‘‘always already thrown’’ delay of facticity by considering an accident. When an accident happens to me, I do not see it in the way that a spectator ‘‘objectively envisages it.’’ In fact, ‘‘I never saw anything’’ (BG 146/206). Rather, I encounter an accident only by experiencing myself as its target; and, even ‘‘when I ‘see’ it coming, in fact it has already happened, since I already can no longer remove myself from it . . . ; from the outset, it is already done, I’m done and done for [d’emble´e, c’est de´ja` fait, j’y suis fait, je suis fait]’’ as its target (BG 145–46*/206). Here, my facticity as the one who opens into a world is only accomplished in the factuality of that world ‘‘crashing in to accomplish itself visibly’’ on me. Marion maintains that this is true of Dasein’s facticity in general, such that rather than making myself factical by opening into a world, ‘‘facticity comes back to me only in so far as it exposes me to the fait accompli of the phenomenon— . . . I let (myself ) be made, I let it [the phenomenon] make me’’ (BG 146*/207). Marion believes that this interrelationship between facticity and factuality indicates a ‘‘middle voice’’ for Dasein’s facticity, so that the focus is on Dasein’s being made (fait) as Being-in-the-world, rather than on the agency involved in bringing this about: ‘‘This sort of middle voice [is one] where I am neither the author nor the spectator of the phenomenon, but Events

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where my running-up against it, exposed without flight, leaves it able to say its fact to me and to appear in its fait accompli’’ (BG 147*/207). He concludes that because such a middle-voiced facticity is so deeply enmeshed with the welling up of phenomena as faits accomplis, it should not be restricted to Dasein alone: ‘‘In running-up against, facticity makes phenomena encountered, and therefore it also determines, in a rough gradation, all phenomena’’ (BG 147*/208). He then proceeds to sketch the derived sense in which he takes Heidegger’s concept of Dasein’s facticity and extends it beyond Heidegger’s account, so as also to include the other two modes of being that Heidegger ascribes to beings: readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) and presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit). Because usable beings (Zuhandene) are by definition ready-to-hand for Dasein, Marion readily acknowledges that ‘‘they are put to work on the basis of Dasein’s facticity’’ (BG 147*/208). However, he insists that, ‘‘far from my facticity . . . determining the factuality of equipment, it is equipment that imposes on me one or several of its finalities . . . in such a way that it thereby exercises its fait accompli over me’’ (BG 147/208). The factuality of a usable being restricts the ends that can be achieved with it, even when it is misused. For instance, a brittle object cannot be used to drive in a nail. Marion concludes that this limitation in the ways a tool can be used is a characteristic of its phenomenality: ‘‘The tool appears as that which gives itself by, at the same time, fixing possibilities; it determines them as so many open (or closed) possibilities in fact for me’’ (BG 147*/208). Thus, because it determines Dasein’s possibilities, a tool cannot be considered as having ‘‘a brute factuality.’’ Rather, the tool should be understood as being a fait accompli that is necessarily in relation to facticity. It is a kind of phenomenon that ‘‘gives itself according to its fait accompli only by determining facticity’’ (BG 147*/209). After demonstrating that this determination of Dasein’s facticity also occurs when I do not know how to use a tool, when equipment breaks down (cf. BT §16, 102–3/73), and when beings such as rocks—that are not designed as equipment—are used to perform a function, Marion draws a general conclusion: ‘‘The fait accompli of the usable being therefore falls under my facticity’’ (BG 148/209). In considering present-at-hand beings (Vorhandene), which subsist as the ‘‘permanent and, in principle, unchangeable objects’’ of the ‘‘theoretical attitude’’ (BG 148/209), Marion argues that their phenomenality is temporalized in such a way that they too must be regarded as events, happening as faits accomplis. First, in the case of physical beings, he points out that, although some may be so enduring that they appear ‘‘almost sempiternal,’’ each one ‘‘end[s] by passing away, exactly as [it] begin[s] by 86

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welling up; each makes itself and unmakes itself; it therefore accomplishes itself as a fact’’ (BG 148*/210). This is true, even in the case of ‘‘the world, considered as the totality of subsistent beings’’ (E´tant donne´, 210*).9 Second, he takes the case of ‘‘beings that subsist without material support (idealities of mathematics, of logic or of essences),’’ and that perhaps must therefore be regarded as nontemporal (BG 148*/210). He admits that these idealities in themselves may well remain eternally, and so be excluded from the temporal domain of facts. However, when they appear to a consciousness—first in being discovered, and then each time they are learnt or rediscovered—they are ‘‘accomplished in fact,’’ and ‘‘inscribed in a time and place’’ (BG 149/210). Moreover, they are not experienced as something I construct or make; rather, they ‘‘impose themselves . . . as facts which accomplish themselves for, before, and without me’’ (BG 149/210). I do not accomplish an ideality as a fact; instead, it ‘‘appears to me in the mode of the fact accomplished on me,’’ and in so doing it ‘‘opens new possibilities for me (impossible without it)’’ (BG 149*/ 210). Marion therefore concludes that even present-at-hand beings cannot be ascribed the brute factuality of inert and unchanging objects, but rather must be understood as faits accomplis, imposing themselves on the facticity of Dasein. Marion believes that his discussion of the fait accompli demonstrates the way in which ‘‘the phenomenality of each being’’ imposes itself on me—independent of me, and independent of any other cause. The fait accompli happens to me, in the world opened by me, and is the moment in which I discover my facticity as thrown open in that world. The fait accompli of the phenomenon is no ‘‘brute fact,’’ but is rather the event ‘‘before which we again find ourselves as always ‘already in’ it—preceded, determined, ‘facts’ ’’ (BG 150*/212). Dasein’s facticity is shaped by and bound up with the fait accompli of the phenomenon, which ‘‘opens the possible by giving it’’ (BG 150/212). Excessive Events and Saturated Events Marion regards the happening of all events as exceeding our attempts to measure, explain, and foresee them. He also regards at least some events as having the particular form of excess that he identifies as ‘‘saturation.’’ However, the way that Marion describes saturation gives rise to a tension: How can such exceptional phenomena at the same time be paradigms for all phenomena? He recognizes this issue in a recent essay, arguing that saturated phenomena should be regarded as the unremarkable and even Events

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‘‘banal’’ paradigm for understanding all phenomena, despite their relatively rare occurrence.10 In this section, I trace the relation between these two types of excess in Marion’s works, and indicate some difficulties that are caused by his accounts. First, I outline the examples of events which Marion discusses in Being Given as instances of excess and saturation: In book 3 of Being Given, Marion describes various events in terms of their excessive features; then, in book 4, he introduces the idea of saturation to indicate an exemplary and exceptional form of excess in phenomenality, and proposes events as the paradigm of one of the four types of saturation (viz., saturation according to quantity). By the end of book 4, there are indications that Marion may regard saturation as less exceptional than it initially seems to be; indeed, it may even be the normal way in which phenomena appear. However, phenomena generally appear to us as objects rather than as saturated. This means either that saturated phenomena are not as common as Marion suggests, or that their appearing as saturated is dependent upon their being recognized by us, in which case their appearing is not the selfinitiated imposing asserted by Marion. Second, I move from Being Given to In Excess, which Marion presents as detailed studies of the types of saturated phenomena briefly outlined in Being Given. In chapter 2 of In Excess (‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’), Marion focuses on the excess of events beyond the limits of any particular instant. He argues that phenomena in general should be understood as events that happen temporally rather than as objects that have presence. He is concerned to show that each of the phenomena he considers exceeds any horizon by which it might be grasped as the foreseeable and measurable aggregate of a quantifiable series of parts. Finally, I return to the tension between excess and saturation in Marion’s texts. ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ strongly reinforces the impression given by Being Given that saturation is the normal way for phenomena to appear. Additionally, this study explains the relative infrequency with which saturated phenomena actually appear to us by giving an account of the process in which we reduce them to objects. Although this explanation resolves one of the difficulties of Being Given, it raises other more fundamental difficulties involving the role of the perceiver. If a phenomenon can appear as saturated only when we refrain from reducing it to an object, then the way a phenomenon is received is essential to its very appearing, and Marion restores what could even be described as a form of constitution by the subject. Moreover, in advocating a change to a behavior that he judges to be misguided, he is no longer simply proposing a more accurate phenomenological description of the 88

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appearing of phenomena, but rather a modification to the way we engage with them. The Events of Being Given Excessive events (book 3). Already in book 3 of Being Given—before introducing the theory of saturated phenomena in book 4—Marion makes it clear that no event can be regarded as an ‘ordinary’ phenomenon. In book 3, he characterizes events as excessive and unrepeatable, and as having a radical possibility that places them beyond the predictability of cause and effect (BG 170ff./240ff.). Each event is an ‘‘absolutely unique’’ happening (BG 170/240) that accomplishes itself as a fact that has no (phenomenological) cause. It is ‘‘irrevocable’’ because its welling up has happened and ‘‘definitively’’ imposed itself (BG 141/200), and ‘‘unrepeatable’’ because of the facticity which locates it at a specific time and place (BG 170–71/240–41). By contrast with objects of mass production, each event is utterly individual and unforeseeable: Its appearing cannot be produced by reproducing a set of circumstances which preceded a similar event (BG 172–73/242–44). On the basis of these features, Marion describes each event as having an ‘‘excessiveness [exce´dent],’’ in that it goes beyond any of its precedents and possible causes, and thus ‘‘adds to the visibility and phenomenality of the world’’ (BG 171/242). He insists on ‘‘the strangeness of what most often seems banal’’—the most commonplace and ‘‘worldly phenomena’’ are events that give themselves and show themselves in ways that always exceed both what has gone before, and what can be grasped (BG 171–72/242). Each event reveals and augments the ‘‘undefined, nonconstitutable, saturating phenomenality’’ that we encounter (paradoxically) in ‘‘the finitude of the world’’ (BG 172*/242). The excessiveness of events is particularly evident for Marion in their relation to causality. He claims that, considered phenomenologically, events not only precede their causes (see Chap. 4, ‘‘Phenomenological Fact vs. Metaphysical Effect’’), but they ‘‘do not have an adequate cause and cannot have one’’ (BG 167/235). Marion supports this claim by considering World War I, which he describes as being ‘‘without cause or reason besides its self as finally declared’’ (BG 168*/237–38). According to Marion, the difficulty in deciding what caused World War I is not a lack of explanations, but precisely the ‘‘overabundance of available causes’’ (BG 168/236). Explanations for the war abound, and within the horizon of the explanations themselves, each of them is sufficient to account for it. However, we cannot establish that one particular account gives the Events

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cause of the war, nor can we ‘‘understand it [the war] through a combination of causes’’ (BG 168/237).11 Most importantly, the explanatory accounts of the war do not belong to a series of perspectives that can be synthesized. Not only do the accounts continue to multiply in a limitless cascade, but the perspectives we already see overlap, compete with, and undermine each other to such an extent that they cannot be brought together even provisionally into a single consistent account. Marion concludes that this overabundance of conflicting causes is the consequence of the unbridgeable gap between them and that which they are seeking to explain. The causes that we assign to an event ‘‘themselves all result from a welling-up with which they are incommensurable’’ (BG 168*/237)—the happening of the event, which exceeds any causal explanation and thus ‘‘goes beyond measure and the understanding’’ (BG 167*/236). Marion maintains that the excess which he ascribes to World War I is not a consequence of its grand scale, but rather of its eventness as such. In support of this assertion, he makes a similar analysis of ‘‘an event that is individual, and focussed to the point of excess’’ (BG 169*/238)— Proust’s oft-cited account of tasting a piece of a madeleine soaked in tea, from Remembrance of Things Past. Marion points to three excessive aspects of this event that are indicated in Proust’s narrative. First, the event is not produced by any prior cause or intention that could explain it: It simply happens, ‘‘with no suggestion of its cause.’’12 Second, the event imposes itself upon the narrator on its own terms: ‘‘A shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary happening going its own way inside me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, . . . filling me with a precious essence.’’13 Rather than being constituted as an object, ‘‘the event . . . attests its nonconstitutability by constituting me, myself, its effect’’ (BG 170/239). Third, the event is not limited to the instant at which the madeleine is actually being eaten. Rather, it draws on ‘‘the narrator’s entire past’’ (BG 170/239) and thereby ‘‘provokes, immensely beyond, the welling-up of a world, the world’’ (BG 170*/240). Marion is clear that although the event of tasting the madeleine is profoundly individual, this still does not allow it to be understood as happening on a single horizon. It overflows the horizon of a particular instant, and even overflows the horizon of a particular individual. He goes so far as to assert that the series of horizons for the event of tasting the madeleine is not exhausted even by all the past moments of the narrator’s life, but must also include the horizons of ‘‘the total world of history’’ in which both it and World War I happen contemporaneously (BG 170/240). 90

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Marion’s description of the madeleine’s overflow as provoking ‘‘the welling-up of a world’’ (BG 170*/240) is reminiscent of Heidegger’s understanding of the facticity of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, which Marion discusses only two chapters prior to this (BG 143ff./203ff.). Ascribing the opening of a world to an event in this way is a significant modification of Heidegger’s account, in which the world is increasingly presented as a feature of Dasein’s own self-projection.14 Saturation according to quantity (book 4). In book 4 of Being Given, Marion introduces the concept of saturated phenomena, and analyzes their saturation in terms of the four divisions of Kant’s table of categories. In this analysis, he nominates the event as the paradigm of the phenomenon that is saturated according to quantity. He introduces saturation according to quantity by discussing Kant’s axioms of intuition, according to which ‘‘all intuitions are extensive magnitudes’’ (CPR B 202).15 Kant sets out this quantitative character of intuitions by describing the ‘‘successive synthesis (from part to part)’’ (CPR A 163/B 204) that he believes to be ‘‘the essential form of all intuition, . . . that which at the same time makes possible the apprehension of the appearance, thus every outer experience, consequently also all cognition of its objects’’ (CPR A 165/B 206). Kant’s key point in these axioms is that just as I imagine a line by beginning at a point, and then adding parts that successively extend it, so in general I build up an intuition of a whole by successively adding together its parts: ‘‘The representation of the parts makes possible the representation of the whole (and therefore necessarily precedes the latter)’’ (CPR A 162/B 203). A consequence Kant draws from this principle is that entities never appear as a whole; rather, they are always ‘‘already intuited as aggregates (multitudes of antecedently given parts)’’ (CPR A 163/B 204). Marion concludes that Kant’s axioms of intuition imply that a phenomenon ‘‘would always be foreseeable . . . on the basis of another besides itself—more precisely, on the basis of the supposedly finite number of its parts and the supposedly finite magnitude of each among them’’ (BG 200/280–81). In effect, phenomena are reduced to being the sums of their parts. By contrast with such a quantifiable and foreseeable series of parts, Marion insists that saturated phenomena are ‘‘invisable’’; that is, they cannot be aimed at (vise´) by an intending consciousness that synthesizes a manifold of adumbrations by foreseeing the totality of which the series is part: ‘‘The saturated phenomenon passes beyond all summation of its parts—which often cannot be enumerated anyway’’ (BG 200/281). Therefore, saturated phenomena exceed Kant’s categories of quantity and Events

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his principle of measure: They are ‘‘incommensurable, unmeasurable (immense), beyond measure’’ (BG 200*/281). Marion believes that a saturated phenomenon can never be grasped by a successive synthesis of its parts; instead, it must simply be ‘‘seen in person’’—in the way it imposes itself, rather than on the basis of another. Thus, instead of a Kantian successive synthesis, saturated phenomena demand what Marion calls an ‘‘instantaneous synthesis, whose representation precedes and surpasses that of the possible [e´ventuels] components, instead of resulting from it according to foresight’’ (BG 200*/281). In an instantaneous synthesis, a phenomenon imposes its appearing as itself, exceeding any predicted effect of a set of causes by which it could be explained and known. Far from being a means of grasping phenomena, such a ‘‘synthesis takes place without complete knowledge of the object, therefore without our synthesis’’ (BG 201/ 282). In fact, it is a ‘‘passive synthesis . . . preced[ing] our apprehension’’; the phenomenon ‘‘frees itself from the objectness that we would impose on it, so that it might impose on us its own synthesis, accomplished by it before we could reconstitute it’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 201*/282).16 Marion proposes amazement and cubist paintings as two ‘‘privileged examples’’ of this type of saturation (BG 200ff./281ff.), and argues that they testify to the two ways in which phenomena can be unquantifiable in terms of their parts. Amazement is an experience of one single part absorbing consciousness in a way that prevents any further perception, while cubist paintings show the impossibility of ever reaching the end of a series of perspectives. In his Passions of the Soul, Descartes defines amazement as happening when my initial perception of something ‘‘makes them [all the spirits of the brain] so wholly occupied with the preservation of this impression that none of them pass thence . . . making it possible for only the side of the object originally presented to be perceived, and hence impossible for a more detailed knowledge of the object to be acquired.’’17 My perception is totally absorbing, but cannot itself be absorbed as knowledge. Discussing Descartes’ description, Marion considers this single apperception as a moment in which successive synthesis is ‘‘suspended from the onset of its initial term’’ (BG 201*/282). In its place, another synthesis is accomplished, one which is ‘‘instantaneous and irreducible to the sum of its possible parts’’ (BG 201/282). This synthesis is not constituted by me, but accomplished on me. It stuns me, coming ‘out of the blue,’ with no forewarning. It cannot be anticipated because ‘‘it comes before our view of it, it comes ahead of time, before us’’ (BG 201*/282). It exceeds any phenomena which precede it, and which are neither ‘‘able to announce it nor to explain it’’ (BG 201/282). 92

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For Marion, cubist paintings also represent an insight into saturation according to quantity, in a different way from amazement. Where amazement is an experience of the inexhaustibility and excess of one particular apperception, cubist paintings illustrate the excess of a phenomenon ‘‘in person’’ over any collection of its parts. Marion describes cubist paintings as being ‘‘built around the observation that in fact and on principle the phenomena to be seen go beyond the foreseen sum of their parts’’ (BG 201*/282). These paintings show a conviction that even the simplest objects ‘‘always give much more to see, and by far, than we think’’ (BG 201*/282). By ‘‘unfold[ing] appearing in a never finished [jamais fini] number of faces, which . . . continually proliferate and accumulate,’’18 cubist paintings radically exceed the six faces of Husserl’s cube (BG 201*/ 282). Things that we tend to see in a simplified way as tools or objects are opened to be seen in a new and infinite series of perspectives—both real and imagined. Of course, no individual painting can ever succeed in capturing the whole series of infinitely unfolding possibilities. In fact, Marion believes that the cubist painter ‘‘happily exhausts himself in the endless race toward the impossible and ever elusive summation of the bursting out of the visible’’ (BG 202*/283). Marion compares the visible as seen by a cubist painter to a wave, bursting into ‘‘an exploding fireworks of water drops’’ as it wells up to appearing (BG 202/283). It is a phenomenon that can never be captured by ‘‘adding up a finite number of finite parts, thereby annulling all possibility of foreseeing the phenomenon before it gives itself in person’’ (BG 202/284). Later in this same book of Being Given, Marion proposes historical events as phenomena that attest in an exemplary way to saturation according to quantity. A historical event is ‘‘the event carried to its apex’’—an event on a grand scale: When the welling-up event is not limited to an instant, a place, or an empirical individual, but overflows these singularities and becomes epoch-making in time . . . , covers a physical space such that no look encompasses it with one sweep . . . , and encompasses a population such that none of those who belong to it can take an absolute or even privileged point of view on it, then it becomes a historical event. (BG 228*/318) Marion regards such a historical event as being saturated according to quantity because it overflows any horizon which would allow an individual to grasp it as a single whole for a ‘‘ ‘here and now’ . . . [and thus] describe it exhaustively and constitute it as an object’’ (BG 228/318). He Events

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describes the historical event as overflowing horizons both in its happening, and in its being recounted. First, in the happening of history, an event such as the Battle of Waterloo is too vast for any participant or observer to see all of it. Thus, strictly speaking, ‘‘nobody ever saw the Battle of Waterloo’’ (BG 228/318).19 Because the battle exceeds the grasp of any one individual, its happening exceeds any series of decisions that might be proposed as its causes: ‘‘[It] comes to pass and passes away on its own, without anybody, strictly speaking, making it or deciding it . . . [T]he battle makes itself of itself ’’ (BG 228–29*/318). Second, in the recounting of history, no single horizon ever suffices to tell the story of a historical event. On the contrary, a historical account emerges only as an event is repeatedly recounted, from an unending series of perspectives—each with its own horizon. Thus, in its recounting as well as in its happening, Marion maintains that ‘‘the plurality of horizons practically forbids [interdit] constituting the historical event into one object’’ (BG 229/319).20 In place of an attempt to constitute a historical event as an object, Marion believes that ‘‘a hermeneutic without an end in time’’ is imposed upon us (BG 229/319). Here, the proliferation of histories—and the multiple literary genres in which those histories are told—testifies to the boundless series of horizons which a historical event unfolds. Like the multiple perspectives in a cubist painting, the incompleteness of the accounts of a historical event points to the infinite nature of the series to which those accounts belong. The series can never be quantified, nor can the phenomenon ever be grasped. Tensions between excess and saturation. Toward the end of book 4 of Being Given, Marion introduces what he calls a ‘‘topology [topique]’’ of phenomena,21 in which he proposes ‘‘three original figures of phenomenality’’ (BG 222*/310): phenomena that are poor in intuition, commonlaw phenomena, and saturated phenomena.22 The ‘‘guiding thread’’ according to which this topology is arranged is ‘‘the degree of intuition’’ in a phenomenon (BG 228/317). Phenomena, such as logical axioms, that are poor in intuition, ‘‘claim only a formal intuition in mathematics or a categorial intuition in logic,’’ or may even be ‘‘absolutely deprived of intuition’’ (BG 222/310). Common-law phenomena are those where the signification of an intentional act receives a degree of intuitive fulfilment, up to a maximum where intuition is adequate to intention, filling it completely (BG 222/311). These phenomena are ‘‘accomplished according to objectivity,’’ and are typified by ‘‘the objects of physics and the natural sciences’’ and by the objects of technological production (BG 222–23/ 311–12). The ‘‘fundamental characteristic’’ of saturated phenomena is 94

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their excess of intuition, beyond that which is needed for adequation: ‘‘Intuition sets forth a surplus that the concept cannot organise, therefore that the intention cannot foresee’’ (BG 225/314). The three classes in Marion’s topology are quite clear. However, it is far less clear how the phenomena that he discusses earlier in Being Given are to be related to them. This is a particular issue for the many phenomena in book 3 (such as World War I and tasting the madeleine) that Marion describes as having an excess of some kind, or being beyond measure, or not being able to be grasped and explained in a system of cause and effect. These phenomena have at least some degree of sensorial intuition, and are therefore not poor in intuition. Also, they are manifestly different from objects of the physical sciences and technological production, and so do not seem to be common-law phenomena. Consequently, if they are neither poor in intuition nor common-law phenomena, then they must be saturated phenomena. This conclusion is consistent with most of Marion’s descriptions, and is therefore very appealing. However, it also creates difficulties for Marion in that the relative infrequency with which we actually encounter saturated phenomena suggests that they may not impose themselves upon us with the force that Marion ascribes to them. I turn first to the appealing aspects of the conclusion, before discussing the difficulties that it creates. On the one hand, the conclusion is appealing because including the excessive phenomena of book 3 in the class of saturated phenomena accounts for the many parallels between Marion’s descriptions in these two books of Being Given. Thus, in book 3, events are described as having an ‘‘excessiveness [exce´dent]’’ which reveals and augments an ‘‘undefined, nonconstitutable, saturating phenomenality’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 172*/ 242). Just as saturated phenomena are ‘‘incommensurable, unmeasurable (immense), beyond measure’’ (BG 200*/281), so the events of book 3 happen in a way that exceeds any causal explanation and thus ‘‘goes beyond measure and the understanding’’ (BG 167*/236). This parallel is particularly striking in Marion’s discussion of the overabundance of causal accounts for battles, which he proposes both as an instance of the excess of events in book 3 (World War I: BG 167–68/ 236–37), and as the paradigm of phenomena saturated according to quantity in book 4 (the Battle of Waterloo: BG 228–29/318–19). Most importantly, in book 3, Marion highlights the impossibility of combining the ‘‘overabundance’’ of causes proposed for World War I into a single account, and the way in which this prevents the war being seen as the effect of a causal sequence (BG 168/236–37). This situation seems to be exactly the kind Marion has in mind in book 4 when he discusses the way Events

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in which phenomena saturated according to quantity lead to the collapse of Kantian successive synthesis (BG 200/280–81). Because the explanatory accounts of World War I belong to different horizons, they make up a series of perspectives that cannot be synthesized into a unity that is measurable and graspable for consciousness. Thus, at least in this instance, the excess of the phenomenon seems to be exactly describable in terms of saturation. Moreover, Marion gives a number of indications that saturated phenomena are not rare and unusual exceptions to the phenomena of ordinary experience, such as those he discusses in book 3. First, already at the end of book 3, he insists on ‘‘the strangeness of what most often seems banal’’; the most commonplace and ‘‘worldly phenomena’’ are events which give themselves and show themselves in ways that always exceed both what has gone before, and what can be grasped (BG 171–72/242). Second, one of the characteristics of amazement and cubist paintings— both of which are proposed by Marion as instances that demonstrate experiences of saturation according to quantity (BG 200ff./281ff.)—is that both are indifferent to their objects. Amazement is a possible way of experiencing any phenomenon; it is a description of that phenomenon imposing itself as saturated, but is not restricted to any particular set of phenomena. This is even clearer in cubist paintings, which represent an insight into saturated phenomenality (according to quantity), and show that any object can be seen as excessive. As Marion points out, cubist painters choose ‘‘objects that are supposedly the most simple,’’ and show that these very objects ‘‘always give much more to see, and by far, than we think’’ (BG 201*/282). Third, Marion repeatedly talks without qualification about ‘‘the event’’ as a phenomenon saturated according to quantity, rather than singling out a particular group of events (e.g., some events, historical events, etc.) as saturated. Fourth, introducing a discussion of specific saturated phenomena at the end of book 4 in Being Given, Marion himself notes that he was describing saturated phenomena in Being Given before he introduced the concept explicitly: We should not be surprised, then, that we have already seen these privileged phenomena well up in the previous analyses. As early as the determinations of the given phenomenon in general [book 3], and still more with the sketch of the saturated phenomenon, they were no doubt already at issue. (BG 228*/317) Finally, on a number of instances, Marion rejects any suggestion that saturated phenomena might be exceptional or infrequent: He insists that, on 96

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the contrary, it is common-law phenomena and phenomena poor in intuition that are ‘‘in the margin’’ and make up ‘‘only a fringe of phenomenality’’ (BG 206/288; 207/290). On the other hand, however, we seem actually to encounter saturated phenomena relatively rarely. Most of the time, we are able to treat everyday phenomena as objects—phenomena that can be measured, explained, and grasped by the understanding. Amazement is far from being the normal way in which we experience the world; although there are many phenomena whose excess may sometimes amaze us, there are relatively few that are necessarily experienced as excessive. Yet this experience of phenomena as occasionally excessive is not entirely consistent with Marion’s description of saturated phenomena. Much of his language about saturated phenomena emphasizes the way that saturated phenomena take the initiative of their appearing and impose themselves upon us as saturated, without our being able to constitute them as objects. Thus, saturated phenomena are ‘‘unconditioned’’ by a horizon and ‘‘irreducible’’ to ‘‘the status of finite objectivity’’ (BG 197/276); each one appears ‘‘without our synthesis . . . freed from the objectness that we would impose on it so that it might impose on us its own synthesis’’ (BG 201/282); it ‘‘refuses to let itself be regarded as an object,’’ it ‘‘annuls all effort at constitution,’’ and it ‘‘must be determined as a nonobjective or, more exactly, nonobjectifiable phenomenon’’ (BG 213/298–99). We should expect that it would be impossible not to notice the excess of phenomena that impose themselves on us so emphatically. If that is the case, then saturated phenomena must necessarily be experienced as excessive, and the occasionally excessive phenomena that we generally treat as objects must be something other than saturated. These differences in the way Marion describes saturation give rise to an unresolvable tension between the incidence of saturated phenomena and the force with which they impose themselves. Ordinary phenomena such as those of book 3, which sometimes appear with an excess, can be understood in two possible ways, both of which require significant modifications to Marion’s position. Either: Such occasionally excessive phenomena are not saturated; their excess is an imperfect reflection of the paradigm of excess found in saturated phenomena. Or: These ordinary phenomena are saturated despite the fact that they only occasionally appear as saturated; they are themselves instances of the paradigm (though mostly covered over), rather than imperfect reflections of it. If the first understanding is adopted, in which occasionally excessive phenomena are not saturated, Marion’s topology needs to be revised to provide for such a nonsaturated excess of intuition. This revision could Events

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be done either by redefining common-law phenomena, or by introducing some new category between common-law phenomena and saturated phenomena. In this case, saturated phenomena would be far more rare than Marion suggests, but they would always forcefully impose themselves as saturated. If the second understanding is adopted, in which occasionally excessive phenomena are saturated, an account is required of how saturated phenomena could sometimes appear as unsaturated phenomena. In this case, saturated phenomena would in fact occur very frequently, but they would only occasionally succeed in imposing themselves as saturated. These two alternatives represent a dilemma for Marion: Either saturation is relatively rare, and Marion needs a new category of ‘excessive’ phenomena; or saturated phenomena do not impose their appearing in a way that cannot be ignored by a perceiver. Marion’s treatment of excess and saturation in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ reinforces this dilemma. I will therefore outline this study before I return to a further consideration of the tension itself. At that point (see ‘‘Are excessive events saturated?’’ in this chapter), I will argue that the second of the above options is more faithful to the central concerns of Marion’s texts: That is, most phenomena that we encounter offer an excess of intuition, and should be regarded as saturated; nevertheless, they generally appear to us as (unsaturated) objects because their saturation is not recognized. This notion of the ‘‘misapprehension’’ of phenomena is far clearer in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ but is already mentioned in Being Given: When this type of phenomenon [saturated according to relation] wells up, it is most often treated like a common-law phenomenon, even a poor phenomenon, therefore one that is included by force in a phenomenological situation that by definition it refuses, and it is finally misapprehended. . . . The saturated phenomenon safeguards its absoluteness . . . when it is recognised as such, without confusing it with other phenomena. (emphasis mine) (BG 211*/295–96) This account of our failure to recognize saturated phenomena will also make a further tension apparent: between phenomenology as description of the way phenomena actually appear to us, and phenomenology as prescription of the way in which we should endeavor to encounter phenomena. Events and Objects in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ From the outset, the subtitle of In Excess announces that it will present Studies of Saturated Phenomena. Marion expands on this in the foreword, 98

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where he presents In Excess as ‘‘systematically taking up again the description’’ of the types of saturated phenomena, which remains ‘‘very approximative’’ in Being Given (IE xxii*/vi). Although In Excess is a collection of occasional lectures, presented to different audiences over several years, Marion recounts having shaped the lectures according to ‘‘a clear and simple plan,’’ by which chapters 2–5 ‘‘take up again with more precision each of the four types of saturated phenomena’’ (IE xxii*/vi–vii).23 In this context, chapter 2 of In Excess, entitled ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ which deals with events, makes surprisingly little reference to saturated phenomena. Nevertheless, the theory of saturated phenomena clearly lies behind its description of the excess in events, as will be evident shortly.24 Marion sets up an opposition between events and objects in this chapter, where objects are constituted by a transcendental ego (IE 30/35), and (mis)understood as being permanently present through time, while events are beyond our measure, and impose themselves on us in a way that makes their happening irreducible to permanent presence. He argues that in our normal ‘‘technical usage,’’ we generally misunderstand and distort phenomena by ‘‘reducing’’ them to objects (IE 35/42). Instead of seeing phenomena as the events that they are, we see only ‘‘an object, placed at one’s disposal for and by the thought that governs it exhaustively’’ (IE 30/35). In support of his claim about the eventness of phenomena, which we generally fail to see, Marion discusses the way in which a number of events ‘‘show themselves, instead of letting themselves be shown simply as objects’’ (IE 31*/36). He begins by discussing the immeasurability of a large-scale event, and concludes with the two radically intimate events of birth and death. Birth is particularly significant for his argument because it can never be reduced to an object; my birth must precede me, and so can never be present in the way an object is present. Birth thereby shows the nonobjectifiable character of events, and is the only event Marion explicitly names as a saturated phenomenon in this chapter of In Excess. ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ was first presented as a public lecture—in the Salle des Actes of the Institut Catholique de Paris on January 29, 1999—and Marion proposes the room in which the lecture takes place as itself being an event that exceeds any attempt at measurement. He admits that, like any other room, the Salle des Actes is usually regarded as an object, and quantified according to the measure of its various parts: ‘‘Its walls define its volume, whereas other non-spatial parameters . . . define its budgetary weight and its pedagogical utility’’ (IE 35/ 41). From this perspective, the Salle is nothing more than the aggregate Events

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of its parts, brought together in a Kantian successive synthesis: ‘‘Kant indicates that in order to become an object, every phenomenon must possess a quantity, an extensive size. According to this size, the totality of the phenomenon is equal to and results from the sum of its parts’’ (IE 35/ 41). For such a summation to be possible, the understanding must be able to bring together the whole series of a phenomenon’s parts, which must therefore be inscribed in the single horizon of a particular conceptual space. Marion argues that this single horizon means that we restrict a phenomenon to what can be known ‘‘in advance’’: ‘‘What appears will always be inscribed in the sum of what its parameters allow always already to be foreseen. The hall is foreseen before even being seen—enclosed in its quantity, assigned to its parts, fixed, so to speak, by its measures, which precede it’’ (IE 35*/41). In Marion’s view, such a ‘‘reduction of the room to its foreseeable quantity makes of it an object’’ and does not give an account of it as a phenomenon (IE 35/41). Marion insists that the Salle des Actes can only be understood properly if it is considered as an essentially temporal happening—an event— complete with past, present, and future. First, according to the past, we find the Salle ‘‘always already there, available for our entry and our use’’ (IE 32/37). It is independent of us, and also ‘‘prior to us . . . coming from an inscrutable past’’ (IE 32*/37). Its history ‘‘exceed[s] memory,’’ such that ‘‘it imposes itself on me in appearing to me; I enter it less than it happens to me of itself, encompassing me and imposing itself on me’’ (IE 32/38). Then, according to the present, Marion describes the Salle in theatrical terms, as the crowd that has gathered for a particular purpose, and the occasion on which words are spoken, and heard, understood or spoiled. As such an event it is ‘‘absolutely unique . . . unrepeatable and, for a large part, unforeseeable’’ (IE 32–33/38). Although the lecture is prepared for and planned, no one knows, as it actually unfolds, ‘‘if this will be a success or a failure’’ (IE 33/38). Finally, according to the future, Marion believes that no account of the Salle could ever describe all that happens in the event’s continuing history because an exhaustive description would need to include the background of each participant, his or her state of mind at each point of the evening, as well as ‘‘the consequences in the individual and collective evolution of all the participants, including the principal orator’’ (IE 33/39). To give a full account of the event of the lecture, ‘‘a hermeneutic would have to be deployed without end and in an indefinite network’’ (IE 33/39). Marion believes that the phenomenon of the Salle, as he describes it, exceeds any possible synthesis of quantifiable parts: as ‘‘an absolutely unique, unrepeatable and, to a large extent, unforeseeable event . . . [the 100

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Salle] escapes all constitution: . . . it shows itself from itself, on the basis of itself ’’ (IE 32–33*/38). The Salle cannot be foreseen, anticipated, or constituted; it is not a measurable object that is limited to a Kantian quantity. The Salle’s appearing ‘‘does not proceed [provient] from our initiative’’ (IE 34/40)—with which we would bring together component parts into a series that we could synthesize into a totality. On the contrary, the Salle imposes itself on us in its appearing: ‘‘It, on the initiative of its self, puts us on stage by giving itself to us’’ (IE 34*/40). Thus, in its unforeseeability, unrepeatability and self-initiated appearing, the Salle has many of the characteristics of a phenomenon that is saturated according to quantity (as these characteristics are enumerated in Being Given). In particular, the multiple horizons of the Salle, which prevent it from being seen as a totality, closely match the multiple horizons of the Battle of Waterloo—a feature that Marion cites as indicating saturation according to quantity in Being Given (BG 228–29/318–19). This correspondence between the Salle and saturated phenomena is especially striking when he describes the Salle’s eventness as being an excess over the objectivity that is measurable and foreseeable according to Kantian quantity (IE 34–35/40–41). Such an excess over quantity, and resistance to being constituted by Kantian successive synthesis, is precisely how Marion defines saturation according to quantity in Being Given (BG 200/280– 81). Nevertheless, he only implicitly suggests that the Salle is a saturated phenomenon, in a footnote that refers to its significance for assessing the phenomenological legitimacy of hermeneutics in relation to saturated phenomena (IE 33n/39n). According to Marion, the Salle des Actes is an example of the way in which ‘‘the essentially and originally evental character of the phenomenon . . . [is] dulled, attenuated, and disappear[s], to the point that it appears to us as no more than an object’’ (IE 34*/40). He believes that ‘‘in the order of normal technical usage’’ we ‘‘reduce’’ phenomena such as the Salle ‘‘to the rank of second order, common-law phenomena’’ (IE 35*/ 42). This means that rather than seeing it as it is, in its ‘‘full appearing [apparaıˆtre ple´nier]’’ as a ‘‘full phenomenon [phe´nome`ne ple´nier],’’25 we limit ourselves to a foreseeing in which a phenomenon ‘‘appear[s] to us transparently, in the neutral light of objectivity’’ (IE 35–36/42). Such a phenomenon is ‘‘foreseen and not seen’’; it is an object, which ‘‘appears as the shadow of the event that we deny in it’’ (IE 36*/42). Marion then suggests other phenomena that demonstrate this same excess of events, in that they cannot be reduced to the measurability, explicability, and foreseeability of objects. He begins with large-scale events similar to the battles described in Being Given: ‘‘collective phenomena Events

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(‘historical’: political revolution, war, natural disaster, sporting or cultural performances, and so on)’’ (IE 36/43). Three excessive features of these events are crucial for Marion here: They have an ‘‘unrepeatability,’’ ‘‘they cannot be assigned [se voir assigner] a unique cause or an exhaustive explanation,’’ and ‘‘they cannot be foreseen [se pre´voir]’’ (IE 36*/43). As his analysis progresses, it becomes clear that, just as in the case of tasting the madeleine, Marion does not regard the excess of an event to be a consequence of its scale, but rather of its eventness as such. He demonstrates this by briefly describing the way in which a smaller-scale, ‘‘intersubjective phenomenon’’ (the friendship between Montaigne and La Boe´tie) also ‘‘imposes itself,’’ without us being able ‘‘to assign it any cause or reason’’ (IE 37–38*/43ff.). Next, Marion moves on to focus on the temporality of events. An event’s temporality is significant for him as a contrast to that of a Kantian object, whose happening is confined to individual points in time, and whose temporality is reduced to ‘‘permanence in presence’’ (IE 38/45). The temporality of eventness (emphasized in his description of the Salle des Actes as an event) extends beyond the instant of the present to include the horizons of past and future as well. The multiplicity of temporal horizons in eventness thus ‘‘undoes and overdetermines the object,’’ which is limited to the single horizon of one instant (IE 38/45). The temporality of events exceeds any Kantian ‘‘synthesis of phenomena as objects’’ (IE 38/45). Again here, Marion is using the same language he uses in Being Given to describe phenomena that are saturated according to quantity although without explicitly introducing this term. He argues that the temporality evident in the happening of events has consequences for our understanding of phenomena in general: Temporality . . . allows phenomenality to be understood in the mode of event, against all objectivity, which, at its best, becomes in it a residual case, provisionally permanent, illusorily subsistent. . . . The object—again, simple illusion of an a-temporal event. (IE 38*/45) To support this claim about the excessive temporality that is intrinsic to phenomena, Marion seeks to identify ‘‘phenomena [that are] eidetically temporalised as events’’ (IE 39*/46)26 —that is, phenomena whose eventness cannot be distorted by being reduced to objects. He focuses on two such phenomena, which are always concealed beyond the horizons of the objective world we constitute around ourselves: death and birth. Marion argues that death is intrinsically temporal (and therefore evental), because it only ever appears ‘‘by passing away’’ (IE 39*/46). In 102

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the case of another’s death, while we might be aware that death is approaching and subsequently realize that it has happened, the actual instant of death is not itself directly visible. Death appears only as the utterly temporal passage between two states (IE 39/47). In the case of my own death, I can never actually experience it as an actuality in the present, because ‘‘as soon as it happens, I am no longer there to see it’’ (IE 39*/ 46). Thus, although it is so close that ‘‘one misfired heartbeat is all that separates me from it,’’ I can only ever experience my own death as a possibility which definitively exceeds my horizon (IE 40*/48).27 Marion concludes that although there is no doubt of death’s essential temporality, its inaccessibility makes it an event that never actually appears to us ‘‘as a phenomenon showing itself ’’ (IE 40/48). This conclusion immediately raises the question of the sense in which something that doesn’t show itself can still be regarded as a phenomenon. Marion offers no clarification of this enigma, and proceeds instead to consider birth. As is the case with my death, I am not able to see my own birth: ‘‘It is accomplished without me and even, strictly speaking, before me’’ (IE 41–42/49). Yet, despite the fact that my birth ‘‘remains necessarily unshowable’’ (IE 42/50), Marion argues that it should be considered as a phenomenon, on the basis of describing it (rather tenuously) in terms of intention and intuition: I consider it [my birth] rightfully as a phenomenon, since I do not stop aiming at it intentionally (wanting to know who and from where I am, undertaking research into my identity, and so on) and filling this aim with quasi-intuitions (secondary memories, direct and indirect witnessings, and so on). (IE 42/49) He believes that my birth is a phenomenon that ‘‘affects me more radically than any other, since it alone determines me, defines my ego, even produces it’’ (IE 42*/50). However, unlike other phenomena, it has the peculiar quality of showing itself to me by opening a future, rather than by showing itself as a presence.28 Because it is never present as such, the temporality of my birth cannot be distorted or overlooked by regarding it as an object that has presence. Thus, Marion concludes that my birth, which has for me always already happened, and which opens my future, inescapably appears as temporal and evental.29 Marion argues that because my birth imposes its temporality and eventness on me, it can never be regarded simply as objective presence. Although it is never actually present to me itself, I cannot avoid my birth appearing to me in the excess of possibility that it opens in my life—an excess of possibility that is always beyond any measure of consciousness: Events

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It renders possible an indefinite, indescribable, and unforeseeable series of original impressions to come . . . it opens the way for innumerable temporal intuitions, for which I will seek endlessly, but always too late, significations, concepts and noeses that are inevitably missing. . . . The excess of intuition over intention explodes irremediably from the moment of my birth. (IE 43–44*/52) It is not clear on what basis Marion classifies these possible impressions that are yet to come as intuition, which therefore belong to the domain of phenomenology, rather than hermeneutics or ontology. It is difficult to understand in what sense a phenomenon can actually appear if the intuition that it gives is only possible, rather than actual. Nevertheless, Marion is correct to observe that the excess opened by birth can never be covered over and disguised as an object. Consistent with his assessment that this excess is one of intuition over intention, he goes on to describe birth as ‘‘a saturated phenomenon in its own right [de plein droit]’’ (IE 43*/51).30 There is no moment at which ‘‘I can ever adequately explain, understand or constitute’’ what will happen to me as a result of my birth (IE 44*/52). But the impossibility here has nothing to do with lack. On the contrary, this impossibility is the consequence of the excess proper to my birth as an event: ‘‘To be sure, the origin remains originally inaccessible to me; nevertheless this is not by lack, but because the first phenomenon already saturates all intention with intuitions’’ (IE 44*/52). Excess, Saturation, and Reduction to Objectivity In my view, this description of events in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ resolves the issue of the relation between excessive events and saturated events, but raises another more fundamental difficulty. In this study, Marion generally describes events in terms of the excess and immeasurability of their eventness rather than in terms of saturation. Nevertheless, he describes this excess in a way that corresponds very closely to the definition of saturated phenomena in Being Given. Thus, the question arises again of whether excessive events should be regarded as saturated. I argue here that the parallels between the two accounts are so close that this question can be resolved with confidence: The events of ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ should indeed be regarded as saturated, as should the excessive phenomena of book 3 of Being Given. However, as I noted previously in this chapter (‘‘Tensions between excess and saturation’’), one of the difficulties with this conclusion is that it requires an account of how saturated phenomena could appear as unsaturated phenomena. Such an account is in fact provided by one of 104

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Marion’s main concerns in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ where he insists repeatedly on the distortion and reduction that happens when we see events as objects instead of appreciating their excess as events. After outlining Marion’s account of this reduction, I will turn to the difficulties that it raises. Because of the role Marion gives to the perceiving subject in forcing a saturated phenomenon to appear as an unsaturated phenomenon—or in refraining from such a reduction— saturated phenomena must once more be regarded as dependent upon the subject. This undermines Marion’s own ambition to invert the constitutive relations of Kantian subjectivity, making the recipient’s interpretation part of the very structure of phenomenality, and perhaps even reinstating a form of constitution. Are excessive events saturated? The role of Kantian constitution is the key connection between Marion’s accounts of events in Being Given and in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon.’’ In Being Given, Marion distinguishes four types of saturation, according to the four divisions in Kant’s table of categories. The first of these is saturation according to quantity, in which a phenomenon exceeds any successive synthesis that attempts to constitute it as a totality that is the measurable sum of a series of parts (BG 199–200/280–81; cf. ‘‘Saturation according to quantity [book 4]’’ in this chapter). As a consequence of this excess, a phenomenon saturated according to quantity is ‘‘unforeseeable . . . incommensurable, unmeasurable (immense), beyond measure’’ (BG 199–200*/280–81). For example, Marion begins ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ by describing the way in which we generally see the Salle des Actes as an object, rather than an event. He accounts for this reduction in terms of Kant’s categories of the understanding, which ‘‘impose on phenomena the quadruple seal of object-ness’’ (IE 34/41). In particular, he points to Kant’s categories of quantity, according to which ‘‘the totality of the phenomenon is equal to and results from the sum of its parts’’ (IE 35/41). When the Salle is seen as an object, it is reduced to a finite, measurable and foreseeable quantity. Conversely, seeing the hall as an immeasurable and unforeseeable event means recognizing that it exceeds precisely these Kantian categories of quantity. As Marion describes the Salle’s excess in exactly the same way he describes phenomena that are saturated according to quantity, it is difficult to conceive how its excess according to quantity could be anything other than saturation according to quantity. Indeed, if there were some other characteristic that constituted an essential difference between excess according to quantity and saturation according to quantity, it would dramatically modify the very definition of saturation (‘‘an excess of intuition, Events

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therefore of givenness, over intention, the concept, and the intended’’ [emphasis mine] [BG 199*/279]). For example, if saturated phenomena were defined as those phenomena that always appear as saturated (and never appear as objects), then the defining characteristic of a saturated phenomenon would be its irreducibility rather than its saturation as such. The excessive characteristics (unforeseeability, immeasurability, and temporality) that Marion identifies in discussing the eventness of the Salle recur throughout his descriptions of events in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon.’’ The study concludes by repeating the topology of phenomena from Being Given (BG 221ff./309ff.): The same phenomenality covers all givens, from the poorest (formalism, mathematics), to those of common-law (physical sciences, technical objects), to saturated phenomena (event, idol, flesh, icon), up to the possibility of phenomena combining the four types of saturation (phenomena of Revelation). (IE 53*/63) This repetition is significant for two reasons. First, it indicates that the account of saturated phenomena in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ does not modify the fundamental theory of saturated phenomena already established in Being Given. In other words, this study should not be read as introducing a new type of phenomenon that is excessive but not saturated. Second, in the version of the topology that concludes ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ Marion indicates where various phenomena should be placed. He himself clearly regards events as saturated phenomena, despite the fact that he has not generally described them in these terms up until this point of the chapter. I conclude that in Marion’s understanding, events in general should be regarded as saturated; that is, saturation is a characteristic of eventness. Furthermore, because of the priority Marion accords to eventness as that which ‘‘rules all phenomena’’ (IE 38*/45), this conclusion has implications for phenomena in general. If all phenomena have an ‘‘essentially and originally evental character’’ (IE 35*/40), and saturation is a characteristic of eventness, then saturation pertains to phenomena in general, and not just to events. In Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, saturation should be regarded as the normal way in which all phenomena are given. Rather than saturation being regarded as a rare exception to ‘ordinary’ phenomenality, ‘‘poor’’ and ‘‘common-law’’ phenomena should be seen as the exception to saturated phenomena. Marion confirms this conclusion in a recent essay, entitled ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ where he argues that ‘‘the majority of phenomena, if not all can undergo saturation by the excess of intuition over the concept or signification in them.’’31 106

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Similarly, at the end of ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ Marion describes his approach as ‘‘reopen[ing] the field of phenomenality, to include objects as a simple, particular case of (poor and commonlaw) phenomena and to surround them with the immense region of saturated phenomena’’ (IE 52*/62). Therefore, the fact that most phenomena only exhibit saturated characteristics to a limited extent (if at all) should not be regarded as indicating that they appear with a lesser degree of phenomenality than do saturated phenomena. Rather, the typical absence of saturation should be regarded as a consequence of everyday phenomena being distorted by the way we approach them, which might include ‘‘a second-order resistance . . . to the point of recoil, denial, refusal.’’32 These everyday phenomena are not deficient reflections of an exceptional paradigm, but covered-over originals. Correlatively, the norm represented by saturated phenomena should not be regarded as an ideal which is for the most part only imperfectly approached, but rather as being actually realized in most everyday phenomena. Reducing events to objects. I noted earlier (see the section in this chapter, ‘‘Tensions between excess and saturation’’) that one of the difficulties in this interpretation of Marion’s understanding of the saturation of events (and of phenomenality in general) is that it requires an account of how phenomena that are in reality saturated could nevertheless appear as unsaturated. Marion’s concern with the reduction of events to objects in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ provides precisely such an account (and is reinforced by his recent comments in ‘‘The Banality of Saturation’’). Marion begins the chapter by demonstrating the reduction involved in our considering the event of the Salle des Actes as an object, and claims that his demonstration ‘‘makes us consider as an event that which, at first sight, evidently passes for an object’’ (IE 34/40). For Marion, when we see phenomena such as the Salle as objects, ‘‘we reduce them to the rank of second order, common-law phenomena, without according them full, autonomous and disinterested appearing’’ (IE 35*/42). Thus, ‘‘the object appears as the shadow of the event that we deny in it’’ (IE 36*/42). When we regard phenomena as objects, as we generally do, we limit their appearing to the figures that we have foreseen for them, and miss seeing them as the ‘‘full phenomen[a] [phe´nome`ne ple´nier]’’ they are (IE 36/42).33 Marion asks how it is possible ‘‘to miss the phenomenality in it [the event] by cutting it back to objectivity’’ (IE 34*/41). His answer to this Events

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question is twofold. First, he proposes that for the most part, we use Kantian constitution to approach phenomena, and thus make them appear as quantifiable objects (IE 34–35/41–42). According to Marion, this is our general strategy with ‘‘all technical objects’’—we find it far more efficient to treat phenomena as the objects we have foreseen, rather than as the events which they are: ‘‘We manage to use them even better for having foreseen them without being preoccupied with seeing them’’ (IE 35*/42). Most of the time, we do not attend to what offers itself to us; it is far more straightforward when phenomena ‘‘appear to us transparently . . . without holding up the look or filling it up’’ (IE 35–36*/42). Drawing on Heidegger’s well-known analysis of the way in which we only notice tools when we have problems with them (BT §16, 102–5/73–75),34 Marion points out that ‘‘we scarcely begin to have to see them [technical objects] until we can no longer or not yet foresee them, that is to say, when we can no longer (breakdown) or not yet use them (apprenticeship)’’ (IE 35*/42). Second, the phenomena of ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ are far less resistant to being reduced than are the phenomena of Being Given. While the events of ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ still clearly take the initiative of their own appearing, Marion places far less emphasis on the force with which they do this than he does in Being Given. He no longer insists that a saturated phenomenon is ‘‘irreducible’’ and ‘‘nonobjectifiable,’’ that it ‘‘imposes’’ its saturation on us, and ‘‘refuses to let itself be regarded as an object’’ (BG 197/276, 213/299, 201/282, 213/298). Such language is almost completely absent from ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon.’’ The exception to this is birth, which Marion describes as ‘‘a saturated phenomenon in its own right [de plein droit]’’ (IE 43*/51). Because it shows itself without ever being present, it can never be misunderstood by being reduced to an object. What distinguishes birth is not its excess, but that it is the only event in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ whose characteristics include the ‘‘irreducibility’’ and ‘‘nonobjectifiability’’ emphasized by Marion in Being Given. In ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ birth is the only event that must appear as saturated, if it is to appear at all. Reduction and constitution. Marion’s account of the reduction by which we see events as objects goes some way toward resolving the difficulty of how saturated phenomena can appear as unsaturated phenomena. However, it only achieves this by raising a further—and more fundamental— difficulty: If saturated phenomena are only able to appear as saturated 108

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when we refrain from reducing them to objects, does our allowing them to appear as saturated compromise their initiative and independence in showing themselves, and perhaps even result in a form of constitution? This difficulty is evident first of all in a significant shift in Marion’s assessment of Kant. Between Being Given and In Excess, Marion moves from presenting Kant as mistaken in his theoretical understanding of phenomena, to presenting him as the source of a misguided practice in the way we allow phenomena to appear to us. This is a move from discussing alternative theoretical descriptions of phenomenality, to discussing alternative practices in actually engaging with the phenomena that appear to us. In Being Given, the tone of Marion’s analysis of Kant suggests that he believes Kant to be mistaken in his theoretical understanding. In Marion’s view, Kant’s account of constitution is a deficient description of phenomena because at least some phenomena (i.e., saturated phenomena) appear in a way that exceeds Kant’s categories of the understanding. To regard these saturated phenomena as objects that are constituted is a misunderstanding. Marion judges Kant’s theory of the appearing of phenomena to be mistaken, and proposes a more accurate description of the way in which phenomena appear—the theory of saturated phenomena. In ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ however, it is no longer simply a question of alternative descriptions and theories. Marion no longer presents Kant’s account of constitution as one possible (and inaccurate) theoretical description of our encounter with reality, but rather as one possible way for us to enter into that encounter. We can choose whether we engage in Kantian constitution, or disengage from it, thereby allowing more phenomena to appear as saturated—‘‘going back from the object to the event,’’ following Marion’s example ‘‘in describing a common phenomenon—this ‘Salle’ . . . as a triple event’’ according to the three dimensions of its temporality (IE 36/42–43). Thus, Kantian constitution is no longer one way of theoretically describing the appearing of phenomena, but rather one (restrictive) way of actually engaging with that appearing. Kantian constitution is no longer a mistaken understanding of phenomena, but rather a misguided practice that limits their very appearing. Marion’s shift to arguing against a Kantian practice (rather than against a theoretical description) may well place his analysis outside the strictly descriptive practices that are generally accepted in phenomenology.35 In any case, his argument entails presumptions of considerable significance for his theory of saturated phenomena. Taken to its extreme, the view of Kantian constitution in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ understands the appearance of saturated phenomena as dependent on the Events

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perceiver: We are given saturating intuition, but in general, we reduce this so that it is shown only to a limited degree, and the phenomena that appear are therefore mostly poor or common-law phenomena; on the rare occasions when saturated phenomena do appear, this is either because we encounter a phenomenon that can only appear as saturated (e.g., birth), or because we refrain from restricting the saturating intuition we are given. This extreme version highlights the problems of viewing Kant as the source of a misguided practice. First, if saturation is generally restricted to intuition, then most phenomena are only potentially saturated, rather than actually saturated (or even actually excessive). However, to have the status of a phenomenon requires actual appearance, and not just potential appearance. Therefore, most phenomena are not saturated. If saturated phenomena are so rare, this would undermine Marion’s belief that phenomenology can ‘‘reopen the field of phenomenality . . . to surround them [objects] with the immense region of saturated phenomena’’ (emphasis mine) (IE 52/62). Second, and more seriously for Marion, if the way in which saturated phenomena appear depends on our refraining from Kantian constitution, then the initiative of their appearing belongs to us, and not to them. In fact, in ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ he admits that most phenomena (including everyday objects) can appear either as unsaturated or as saturated, with ‘‘the possibility of a doubled interpretation’’ that depends on me as the recipient: ‘‘When the description demands it, I have the possibility of passing from one interpretation to the other, from a poor or common phenomenality to a saturated phenomenality.’’36 This undermines one of Marion’s most insistent claims, according to which saturated phenomena should be assigned priority in their appearing, and we should understand ourselves as receivers who are constituted as adonne´ by their giving themselves to us. Far from inverting the constituting relationship in the way that Marion sets out to do, if saturated phenomena remain dependent on a perceiver refraining from constituting them as objects, then that perceiver still determines the conditions of the phenomenon’s appearing. Consequently, the subject retains the priority s/he is accorded by Kant, and perhaps should even still be regarded as a constituting ego. An alternative interpretation of the reduction Marion describes could go some way toward recovering the independence of phenomena from the perceiver. In this interpretation, the Kantian constitution which Marion critiques happens only after a saturated phenomenon has already appeared—the reduction to objectivity is applied to the actually appearing

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saturated phenomenon, rather than to the potentially appearing saturating intuition. The issue here is about the accurate recognition of phenomena, instead of the restriction of their appearing. Saturated phenomena appear as the saturated phenomena which they are, but their appearing can be misunderstood (except for phenomena like birth), with the result that we fail to recognize their saturation, and mistakenly describe them as unsaturated objects. At first sight, such an interpretation seems to return the discussion to the level of description, in which Kant is accused of an inaccurate description of the phenomena that actually appear, and an alternative description is proposed that properly recognizes them as saturated phenomena. However, the problems recur in this interpretation, and arise from the idea of a phenomenon appearing as itself but being seen as something else. Given that a phenomenon is an appearance, if it is seen as something else, in what sense could it still appear as itself ? The particular difficulty in this alternative interpretation can be illustrated by considering a person who is color-blind. If a car appears red to one observer but green to another observer who is color-blind, this does not mean that a red appearance appears as green to the color-blind observer. While the car may indeed be red (in a nonphenomenal sense), there is no sense in which it appears as red to the color-blind observer. For the first observer, the (red) car appears red, while for the color-blind observer the same car appears green. There is no intermediate stage (of red appearing) added into the phenomenon’s appearing (as green) for the color-blind observer; the car simply appears green for him, just as it appears red for the first observer. In the same way, if Marion’s critique of Kant is interpreted as an accusation of ‘saturation-blindness,’ then what appears to the Kantian observer is simply an object rather than a saturated phenomenon that is appearing as an object due to inaccurate recognition. Because phenomena must appear (by definition), a saturated phenomenon cannot appear as an (unsaturated) object and still be a saturated phenomenon. In this case, the saturated phenomenon would not actually appear at all, and would only be a potentially saturated phenomenon, just as above, with its appearing dependent upon the perceiver.37 Thus, regardless of how his critique of Kant is interpreted, if there is any possibility of saturated phenomena not being recognized as saturated, then Marion is moving beyond pure description to advocate a modification in the way we behave. In so doing, he undermines the priority he wishes to ascribe to the phenomenon in its self-showing, and makes its appearance rely on the interpreting (and perhaps constituting) activity of a subject.

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Excess, Reduction, and Hermeneutics Two aspects of the preceding discussions have direct implications for the hermeneutics of saturated phenomena. First: To what extent does any difference between excessive events and saturated events affect hermeneutic considerations? I have argued that Marion’s broader concerns are better served by an interpretation in which most phenomena that we encounter offer an excess of intuition, and should be regarded as saturated, despite their generally appearing to us as (unsaturated) objects because their saturation is not recognized. However, even if this interpretation of Marion’s thought is not accepted, excessive phenomena differ from saturated phenomena only in respect to the force with which they resist being reduced to objects. But a hermeneutic study of saturated phenomena is concerned with the way in which an excess of intuition over intention appears, and not with the frequency with which it succeeds in doing so. Thus, the hermeneutics of a phenomenon which appears with an excess of intuition over intention, but need not do so, is the same as the hermeneutics of a phenomenon which always appears as excessive. Whether an excess is unreduced on a particular occasion or irreducible in general does not affect its character as excessive. From this point on, I will therefore be more concerned with what the excessive appearing of events discloses about phenomenality, and especially about its hermeneutic dimension, rather than with whether particular events satisfy a strict definition of saturation. Second, the unresolvable difficulties that arise from Marion’s account of the reduction of events to objects are indicative of the imbalance that results from his attempt to exclude any hermeneutic dimension from phenomenality. The uncompromising nature of his claim—that the appearing of phenomena must be accounted for simply as the self-showing of that which gives itself—ultimately exposes its own weakness. Contra Marion, the way in which a phenomenon appears depends at least in part on the way in which it is received by the one to whom it appears. It is precisely at this point, where interpretative receiving is embedded in the very appearing of phenomena, that the hermeneutics of phenomenality becomes apparent. An Evential Hermeneutics for Marion’s Events? In the forgoing review of Marion’s analysis of the event, I indicated two occasions on which Marion specifies a role for hermeneutics in relation to events. Both of these refer to the interpretation of historical events. First, in Being Given, he argues that one of the factors preventing a historical event from being constituted as an object is the multiplicity of 112

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possible horizons within which that event can be recounted. Because this series of accounts cannot be brought together as a whole by successive synthesis, Marion believes we must renounce attempts to definitively interpret a particular historical event, and accept that ‘‘a hermeneutic without an end in time’’ is imposed on us (BG 229/319; see the section in this chapter, ‘‘Tensions between excess and saturation’’). Second, in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon,’’ referring to the future dimension of the Salle des Actes, Marion emphasizes the factors that make an exhaustive description of the event impossible. In place of attempting such an exhaustive description, he proposes that the event demands ‘‘a hermeneutic . . . without end and in an indefinite network’’ (IE 33/39; see the section in this chapter, ‘‘Events and Objects in ‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’ ’’). In Chapter 2, I argued that despite these references to an ‘‘endless hermeneutics,’’ Marion’s account of saturated phenomena overlooks a fundamental hermeneutic dimension of the structure of phenomenality. I highlighted this fundamental or ontological sense of hermeneutics by summarizing the hermeneutics of Being and Time, and then contrasting Marion’s understanding with the alternative offered by Romano’s evential hermeneutics. To illustrate the hermeneutic dimension that is missing from Marion’s account of events, I conclude this chapter by returning to four of the events described by Marion, and drawing attention to the hermeneutic features of their structures: birth, friendship, tasting the madeleine, and the Salle des Actes. The point at which Marion and Romano come closest is in their accounts of birth, as I noted previously (Chap. 2, ‘‘Marion in Light of Romano’’). The one crucial difference here is the attention given by Romano to the world of possible meaning and projection that is opened by birth. In Marion’s account, the I who is born is a self-contained ‘‘ego’’ (IE 42/50) ‘‘that receives itself from what it receives’’ (IE 43*/51) and for whom birth opens ‘‘innumerable temporal intuitions’’ (IE 43/52). However, Marion makes no acknowledgement that my being born is the opening of a world in which I play myself out as an event of projecting toward meaning-filled possibilities. In the absence of this fundamental and constitutive interrelatedness between me and my world, the adonne´ remains separated from the world by a gulf that it is unable to bridge—it remains the passive and isolated recipient of the intuitions that are imposed upon it. Another event discussed by both Marion and Romano is the friendship between Montaigne and La Boe´tie. Both Marion and Romano highlight the absence of an explanatory cause for the friendship, and its consequent Events

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unforeseeability. However, Marion speaks of the event as something purely external to Montaigne, which retains its own ‘‘inaccessible meaning,’’ which ‘‘gives nothing other than itself,’’ and which ‘‘is reduced to its fait accompli’’ (IE 37/44). Romano, on the other hand, only ever describes the event’s happening in terms of its effect on Montaigne. The event of a friendship is nothing other than its ‘‘reconfiguring my possibilities,’’ upending my world, and ‘‘modify[ing] all my previous projections’’ by ‘‘introducing into my adventure a radically new meaning’’ (EW 42/ 59). Unlike Marion, Romano leaves no possibility of ascribing any sort of selfhood to an event. For Romano, the event has no meaning of its own, and no self to give in a fait accompli. On the contrary, an event has meaning for Romano only in the way it affects the meaning of my adventure in a world. Thus, although Montaigne’s friendship cannot be reduced to a deliberate action performed by him as a subject, neither can it be understood apart from his projecting himself in a (reconfigured) world of possibility. This accords very closely with how friendship is experienced. Although a friendship always exceeds me, and can never be claimed as a product of my deliberate action, unless it is my friendship, and is realized as one of my possibilities in my world, it is nothing at all. Montaigne’s friendship with La Boe´tie is nothing other than the new possibilities it opens for Montaigne and La Boe´tie to find meaning and to project themselves. Both Marion and Romano also use examples from Proust to illustrate their accounts. One of those considered by Marion, but not by Romano, is that of tasting a piece of a madeleine soaked in tea. In Marion’s account, which I discussed earlier in this chapter (‘‘Excessive events [book 3]’’), Marion claims that the event imposes itself on the narrator, who is thereby constituted as its effect (BG 170/239). Marion highlights the power of the event to ‘‘provoke, immensely beyond, the welling-up of a world, the world,’’ by which he refers to the narrator’s past that he recalls, as well as the wider context of that past (BG 170*/240). There are two features of Proust’s account that are overlooked by Marion, and that reveal the event to be fundamentally hermeneutic. First, the world-provoking power of the event is not confined to its evocation of the past. The event also provokes a world in that it upends the narrator’s possibilities for the future. His world is reconfigured so that it now includes the possible projection of recalling his past at Combray differently, and understanding himself differently as he continues to move into his future. These acts of understanding are inescapably hermeneutic. Second, the event of tasting a madeleine has no meaning in itself; it has meaning only in so far as it is related to the meaning of the narrator’s life for him. It imposes itself upon 114

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the narrator in the way Marion describes only because of the hermeneutic structure of the narrator’s existence, which is lived out in a world that is full of meaning for him. In this case, the particular meaning which gives the event its power comes from the significance that the narrator’s world in Combray has for him. This is clearly implied by Proust, shortly after the passages quoted by Marion, when the narrator concludes that the truth which made him tremble in tasting the madeleine is not itself in the madeleine, but rather in him: ‘‘It is plain that the truth I am seeking lies not in the cup but in myself. The drink has awoken it there, but does not know it, and can only repeat indefinitely, with a progressive diminution of strength, the same message.’’38 Although an event has the power to unforeseeably upend my world, it has only that power because of the hermeneutic structure in which that world already has meaning and possibility for me. Another event that can be presented in very similar terms is the event of the Salle des Actes, which Marion considers at length in ‘‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’’ (see the section in this chapter, ‘‘Events and Objects in ‘The Event or the Happening Phenomenon’ ’’), focusing on the excess of the Salle, which prevents it from being constituted as an object for my consciousness. However, each of the excessive elements that he considers arises from, and is proper to, the possibilities of a person’s existence. The Salle as such is only a shorthand title for all of those meaning-filled possibilities which take place in it. Thus, the significance of the Salle’s history ‘‘encompass[ing] me and impos[ing] itself on me’’ (IE 32*/ 38) arises only because of the meaning-filled ways in which others have been in the room, and in particular because of the relatedness which the current students and faculty of the Institute experience with their forebears. The Salle’s history imposes itself because it is part of the meaningfilled context which shapes the possibilities of those who use it today. Similarly, although Marion is right to regard the plurality of participants in the lecture as preventing the unfolding of its happening being predicted or grasped, the richness of this excess can be understood only in terms of the meaning-filled possibilities of the participants themselves: the multiplicity of possible ways in which the participants might understand the lecture, and themselves in it, and the possibilities opened thereby for them to project themselves over the course of the evening, and beyond. He observes correctly that the participants cannot know what possibilities the evening will open to them as individuals, and that it is even less conceivable for all these possibilities to be grasped in their entirety. However, the richness of these possibilities depends on their being part of the hermeneutic structure of human understanding and projecting. The event of the Events

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Salle is saturated only by the excess of meaning and possibilities opened in it for those who are part of its happening. Marion has a rich appreciation of the complexity of events, and fruitfully uses the excessiveness of their evental characters to yield insight into the appearing of phenomena in general. However, his concern to distance his analysis from the structures of Cartesian and Kantian subjectivity leads him to place disproportionate emphasis on the ‘‘self ’’ of the phenomenon, which he describes as imposing itself on the essentially passive adonne´ who receives it. Comparing Marion and Romano highlights this tendency in Marion’s thought, and opens possibilities for using Romano’s evential hermeneutics to develop a more balanced account of the way in which we encounter the eventness of phenomena.

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5

Dazzling Idols and Paintings

The second division in Kant’s table of categories is quality, or intensive magnitude. Marion describes phenomena which are saturated according to quality as dazzling (e´blouissant). The intensity of the intuition given by them exceeds our capacity to see and prevents us from perceiving them as objects. He discusses these phenomena exclusively in terms of visual perception, and proposes the idol as the paradigm of a phenomenon saturated according to quality, describing the way in which paintings can function as idols. I begin this chapter by outlining Marion’s various descriptions of paintings and idols, and then argue that there is a hermeneutic understanding of the appearing of these phenomena implicit in these accounts. Saturation According to Quality Marion discusses Kant’s categories of quality in terms of the ‘‘anticipations of perception’’ that rule their application to objects. In these anticipations of perception, Kant argues that every appearance of the real has an ‘‘intensive magnitude; that is, a degree’’ (CPR A 166/B 207). Before an object with extensive magnitude is formed by a synthesis of manifold perceptions, every sensation must itself have a magnitude, which indicates its ‘‘degree of influence on sense’’ (CPR B 208). Unlike extensive magnitude (corresponding to quantity), which is an aggregate resulting from the synthesis of a manifold, intensive magnitude ‘‘is only apprehended as a 117

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unity’’; it is a single quantum, which cannot be regarded as a sum of parts (CPR A 168/B 210*). Therefore, it cannot be measured by counting, but only by comparing it to an absence of sensation (where the intensive magnitude is zero). Kant explains that this comparison gives intensive magnitude a kind of multiplicity, despite its lack of countability, in that between any particular sensation and the degree zero, there is always ‘‘a continuous nexus of many possible intermediate sensations’’ (CPR A 168/B 210). Thus, a particular shade of red has a degree of intensity in terms of the multiplicity of possible lighter shades between it and the point at which there is no sensation of red whatsoever. Marion takes Kant’s principle that all intuition has a ‘‘degree of influence on sense,’’ and proposes that there is a point at which our senses can no longer bear the intensity of the intuition that they receive. This is an experience of ‘‘bedazzlement’’ (BG 203/285).1 He points out that while such an intense phenomenon is often described as ‘‘blinding,’’ strictly speaking we are not blinded because there is still perception. We are blinded only in that we are prevented from seeing a determinate object. Thus, a phenomenon that is saturated according to quality is still visible although beyond the capacity of our seeing: It concerns a visible that our look [regard] cannot sustain. This visible is undergone as unbearable to look at [au regard],2 because it fills the look without measure, after the fashion of the idol. The look no longer retains any reserve of free vision; the visible invades all its intended angles; it accomplishes adaequatio—it fills. But the filling goes by itself beyond itself; it goes to the brink, too far. (BG 203–4*/285) For Marion, this is an experience of the ‘‘glory of the visible’’ (BG 204/ 285), and comparable to the experience Plato ascribes to prisoners in a cave who are forced to look at the light, rather than at the shadows.3 Idols and Paintings Marion uses idols and paintings to illustrate saturation according to quality in Being Given and In Excess. He also discusses both idols and paintings at length in earlier works, particularly The Idol and Distance, God without Being, and The Crossing of the Visible.4 I begin this section by elaborating the way in which Marion sees idols as saturated according to quality. I then discuss the connection that he makes between idols and paintings, and argue that appearing as an idol is only one of a variety of possibilities 118

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he describes for a painting. Finally, I examine his account of how saturation according to quality empowers all paintings to summon us to repeated viewings, and thus impose their own appearing on us, rather than being at our disposal as objects we have constituted. The Saturation of Idols Marion proposes the idol as the paradigm of a phenomenon that is saturated according to quality, and defines the idol as the ‘‘first visible’’: ‘‘The idol is determined as the first indisputably visible term because its splendour stops intentionality for the first time; and this first visible fills it, stops it, and even blocks it, to the point of returning it towards itself, after the fashion of an invisible obstacle—or mirror’’ (BG 229*/320). He first introduces this theory of the particular (in)visibility of idols in The Idol and Distance (1977), and elaborates it in a consistent way across a number of his works, through Being Given (1998) and In Excess (2002).5 His account of idols begins by describing our looking as a desire that is generally not satisfied by what it finds in the visible. Therefore, the look continues roving around, looking beyond what it sees, until it eventually finds something that can fill it. Only then does it stop, captivated and fascinated by a visible that fills it, exhausts it, and thus retains it. This captivating and fascinating visible is in fact the ‘‘first visible’’ because for the first time, we look at it, rather than beyond it. However, paradoxically, this first visible is not actually visible itself. Because its characteristics are determined by the looking intention that it fills, the first visible is a reflection of that intention. It is a mirror, invisible in itself, but showing the image of the look that it satisfies. Thus, it is an idol—dazzling to the sight, but made in our own image.6 Paintings as Idols Marion describes the way in which paintings can function as idols in three different texts: The Crossing of the Visible, Being Given, and In Excess. Before considering these accounts, I need to clarify two issues. First, although the relevant essay of The Crossing of the Visible has strong parallels to Marion’s description of idols, it does not actually use this term. Second, in Being Given and In Excess, it is not clear whether Marion regards all paintings as idols or whether he is using idols to describe one possible way in which paintings can function. The first essay of The Crossing of the Visible is entitled ‘‘The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible.’’ It is a reflection on perspective as one of Dazzling Idols and Paintings

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the ways in which the visible and the invisible interact with each other in paintings, which are a type of intersection or crossing point (croise´e). After describing this interaction as a play between a painting as lived experience (Erlebnis) and the final spectacle (or intentional object) that is visible in it, Marion sets out two ways of suspending this play. He identifies a painting in which the second of these suspensions operates (removing the Erlebnis) as approaching the functioning of an icon (CV 20/41, cf. 17–22/ 36–45). The first suspension (removing the intentional object) saturates perception with the visible, and matches his description of an idol (CV 14–17/31–35). Thus, there are strong grounds for reading this account of the first way in which painting suspends perspective as related to his theory of idols even though he does not explicitly identify it as such in this work. In both Being Given and In Excess, Marion makes the connection between paintings and idols very explicit. Many of his comments in these texts even suggest that he regards all paintings as idols. For instance, ‘‘The privileged occurrence of the idol is obviously the painting’’ (BG 229/ 320), and ‘‘The painting reduces what gives itself to what shows itself— under the regime of the idol’’ (IE 68/82). However, in at least two respects, this position would not be consistent with a number of his other texts. First, he is clear that an object does not become an idol because of any intrinsic characteristic but because of the way it is looked at. Thus, depending upon the way a viewer looks at it, the same object can at one time appear as an idol, and at another time as an icon, and at another time as something else again.7 Marion sees an idol as a particular ‘‘mode of apprehension’’ or ‘‘reception,’’ which is consequently determined by the way it is looked at, rather than by any intrinsic properties (GWB 9/ 18). This implies that a single object can also appear in different ways to different viewers at the same time. Second, many of his analyses of paintings are incompatible with understanding all paintings as always being idols. He describes a range of ways in which different types of paintings can appear to a viewer, and at one point explicitly indicates a painting that is not saturated, and therefore not an idol.8 Many of these ways in which paintings appear are quite different from idols.9 Even when he is discussing paintings as phenomena that are saturated according to quality, Marion elaborates both the specific mode in which paintings function as idols, and a more general characteristic in which paintings summon us to view them not only once, but again and again. Therefore, the most that can be claimed on the basis of Marion’s texts is that some paintings sometimes function as idols. 120

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Paintings in The Crossing of the Visible. In ‘‘The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible,’’ Marion describes perspective as the equivalent in a painting to Husserl’s intentional aim. Just as the invisible intention moves from immediate lived experiences (Erlebnisse) of consciousness to ‘see’ an intentional object that is not immediately visible, so the invisible perspective moves the look from an immediate perception of the two-dimensional space of a painting to a final spectacle that is ‘seen’ in three dimensions, but which remains ‘‘marked for all that by a definitive unreality’’ (CV 13*/29). In terms of this equivalence, Marion sees a painting as playing ‘‘between the two extremes of intentionality: the lived experiences, perceived, experienced and real, on the one hand; the intentional object, aimed at, invisibly seen, and ideal, on the other’’ (CV 13*/30). He then sets out two ways in which this play can be suspended in painting: by removing the final object, or by removing the Erlebnis. He gives several examples of the removal of the final object: Monet’s many paintings of the London houses of parliament in fog, of Rouen Cathedral, and of water lilies; and Pollock’s ‘‘all over’’ or ‘‘action paintings.’’ Marion believes that both Monet and Pollock show the ‘‘disappearance of the objective, when the lived experience becomes the direct end of the painting and the sole visible’’ (CV 14*/31; cf. 34/63–64). In the case of Monet’s paintings of the houses of parliament and Rouen Cathedral, the buildings as such disappear for the viewer, to be replaced respectively by fog and light, which are normally parts of the means by which we see, rather than emphasized in our vision themselves: ‘‘The lived experience of consciousness exclusively invests the totality of the visible’’ (CV 15*/33). In the case of Monet’s water lilies and Pollock’s action paintings, the painting envelops the look; in the Muse´e de l’Orangerie, the viewer is literally surrounded by Monet’s water lily paintings, while Pollock created his action paintings by walking across large canvases extended on the floor. The water lilies suspend the look in the action of looking, just as action paintings suspend the look in the very action of painting.10 Both Monet and Pollock remove any objective beyond this immediate look; they ‘‘inundate the eye, to the point of saturating all perception’’ (CV 15–16/34). In each of these examples, the look is prevented from seeing anything beyond the painting; it is reflected back on itself so that we see only the acts of making something visible, rather than the visible as such. This suspension of the look that is reflected back on itself, and thus sees nothing, is precisely the experience that Marion describes when he discusses the visibility of an idol. Marion refers to these essays again in Being Given when he is describing the way a painting makes visible (BG 337n90/73n1; referring to ‘‘What Dazzling Idols and Paintings

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Gives,’’ CV 24ff./51ff.). However, there is a significant shift in his view. In The Crossing of the Visible, he is very clear that when a painting, such as one by Monet or Pollock, saturates perception by removing the final object and being directed only to the Erlebnis, the phenomenal initiative belongs to the look rather than to the painting: ‘‘It [the painting] does not impose itself to be seen, since it is the look which imposes on it to appear as it appears, merely a representative of the desire to see or to make itself seen’’ (CV 34*/63). By contrast, in Being Given this relationship is inverted, with the painting imposing itself on the viewer (BG 47/71, 230/ 320). Given the parallels between Marion’s descriptions of paintings in these two texts, this shift in the conclusions he draws calls into question the self-evidence and/or the universal validity that he claims for his later conclusion. Paintings in Being Given. In Being Given, Marion proposes paintings as examples of phenomena that can dazzle because they are saturated according to quality (BG 205/287). Later in Being Given, he names this sort of dazzling, which fills intentionality with more intuition than it can bear, as being characteristic of an idol (BG 229/319–20). He illustrates bedazzlement by discussing some of Turner’s paintings, which do not depict objects illuminated by light but rather show the actual dazzling of the sun, which ‘‘can in no way be designated as a thing, and which of itself forbids showing not only anything else, but also itself ’’ (BG 205*/287). Thus, Marion describes The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire as showing the sun’s ‘‘dazzling fulguration (lux): an unbearable circle diffusing a fiery whiteness, where nothing can any longer be distinguished or put on stage’’ (BG 205*/287). He regards some of Turner’s Venice paintings as producing a similar effect, in that buildings cannot be distinguished as such, but are ‘‘swallowed in a vague dark stain, glazed under the deluge of light, like a small remainder of scattered ashes’’ (BG 205*/288). As with the examples from Monet and Pollock above, the paintings no longer make objects visible, but instead depict the very making-visible itself. In the opening book of Being Given, some 200 pages before he introduces the idea of saturation, Marion includes a lengthy discussion of how paintings are concerned with this making-visible (BG §4, ‘‘The Reduction to the Given’’).11 Here, he proposes paintings as instances of phenomena that appear ‘‘only as given,’’ determined by ‘‘nothing other than givenness’’ (BG 39/61). Marion insists that although a painting may depict objects, and although it can be treated as an object or a being (e.g., by an art dealer or historian), a painting is first of all a given—it appears ‘‘reduced to its ultimate phenomenality in so far as it gives its effect’’ to a 122

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viewer (BG 52/76). Thus, seeing a painting as a painting is not a question of perceiving colors and shapes, nor of observing the representation of an object, but rather of being affected by it: ‘‘The effect makes the soul vibrate with vibrations that evidently do not represent any object or being, and which cannot themselves be described or represented in the mode of beings and objects’’ (BG 50–51*/75). Following Kandinsky, Marion describes a mundane painting of a country scene at sunset, where ‘‘the effect of serenity’’ that he feels when he looks at it ‘‘defines the ultimate visibility of this painting’’; its luminous colors of ochre and gold do not serve to depict an object, nor even to depict colors and forms: This luminosity itself does not strike me as a fact of color; rather, this fact makes me undergo a passion: that, in Kandinsky’s terms, of ochre tinged with gold—the passion undergone by the soul affected by the profound serenity of the world saved and protected by the last blood of the setting sun. . . . ochre serenity. (BG 51/76) Marion uses this description of a painting’s effect to argue that as well as an ‘‘ontic visibility,’’ in which something is seen, paintings have a ‘‘survisibility, ontically indescribable’’ (BG 47*/71). This ‘‘sur-visibility’’ is ‘‘by definition invisible’’ because it is not about seeing something, but rather about a phenomenon welling up by affecting us and giving itself to us, and in this welling up ‘‘render[ing] visible’’ (BG 52*/77). What is seen first of all in a painting, then, is not so much a phenomenon as the appearing of a phenomenon: ‘‘appearing as such in its welling up, the event of the visible happening’’ (BG 49*/73). Marion’s argument at this point of Being Given does not present the effect of paintings as an exception to ordinary phenomena. On the contrary, he sees a painting as a ‘‘paradigm’’ for ‘‘all ordinary phenomenality’’ (BG 40/61–62). To various degrees, ‘‘every other phenomenon’’ can also be ‘‘reduced to its ultimate phenomenality in so far as it gives its effect’’ (BG 51–52/76). The particularity of paintings is not that their ‘‘ultimate visibility’’ is reduced to the effect they give to a viewer, but that they only appear as paintings when they are so reduced (BG 39/61). Although a painting ‘‘lends itself spontaneously to such a reduction to the given’’ because it can only be seen as a painting when it is not seen as an object or a being (BG 52/77), no phenomenon can ‘‘appear absolutely’’ without being similarly ‘‘reduced to a pure given’’ (BG 53/78). Proposing that the visibility and phenomenality of phenomena are constituted by their effect is quite a radical phenomenological position. It is highly reminiscent of Henry’s theory of self-affection, in which perceiving the manifestation of a phenomenon means being aware of one’s own Dazzling Idols and Paintings

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psychosomatic affect: ‘‘Receptivity . . . itself constitutes the pure content which it receives.’’12 In theories such as these, which describe Erlebnis primarily as an experience of one’s own affect, the idea of transcendence becomes problematic, or is at least redefined. Experience of my own sensations and passions is essentially an experience of immanence, and not an experience of a transcendent object. Ironically, Marion’s account of reducing objectivity to givenness (and phenomena to givens) thus undermines the phenomenal transcendence and independence that he is so concerned to defend. It is difficult to see how experiencing my own affect can be an experience of the ‘‘self ’’ of a phenomenon ‘‘imposing’’ itself upon me. If all that is given is an effect, which is by definition immanent, then the phenomenon’s self as such is precisely not given. At this point of Being Given, reduction to givenness comes very close to reduction to immanence. However, in another respect, Marion’s account here of phenomenality as effect supports his broader concern of showing that a phenomenon is neither conditioned nor constituted by a subject. One of the consequences of Marion’s theory of the idol as invisible mirror is that the idol becomes a function of the look. An object becomes an idol only if it is looked at in a particular way and filled by the look, which it reflects to the viewer. Thus, what the viewer sees first of all in an idol is, in fact, his or her own look: It is ‘‘merely a representative of the desire to see or to make itself seen’’ (CV 34*/63). This reflective character is the defining feature of idols from Marion’s earliest analysis through to his most recent.13 In this section of Being Given, however, Marion does not describe the viewer in terms of actively looking, but rather in the more passive (or perhaps even middle-voiced) terms of seeing. The effect is given to the viewer by the phenomenon, and its ‘‘sur-visibility’’ is about the welling up into the visible that the viewer sees. Although this effect is not a matter of seeing a thing in the normal ontic sense of visibility, neither is it a matter of the look as the constituting origin of phenomenality being returned to itself. Clearly, this is not a matter of looking, but rather of seeing: ‘‘There is nothing to see except the seeing itself in its pure and simple welling-up’’ (BG 45*/67). In Excess: ‘‘The Idol or the Radiance of the Painting.’’ The text in which Marion brings his accounts of paintings and idols closest together is the third chapter of In Excess (‘‘The Idol or the Radiance of the Painting’’), which studies phenomena that are saturated according to quality. The first three sections of this study describe paintings in terms that very closely match his account of idols. Arguing against Plato’s judgement that 124

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images are a pale imitation of reality, Marion insists that a painter can make a semblance carry more weight than the original, so that it fascinates our look, which stops its roving, lost in admiration (IE 58–59/70–71). This captivation and assigning of the look brings about an idol so that sight no longer looks beyond each spectacle for that which follows but is filled by the ‘‘first visible’’ and held there (IE 60/72–73). Our look is saturated, and thus discovers whatever measure of the visible it can support; its own characteristics are reflected to it by the ‘‘invisible mirror’’ of the idol (IE 61/73). Marion believes that a painting can fill our look in this way because it eliminates the unseen, which normally lies behind what is actually seen: a painting ‘frames’ the visible. According to Husserl, when we perceive an object, the view presented to us always includes other views that are not actually visible. Thus, when we see the front face of a cube, part of perceiving it as the front face is an awareness that there is also a rear face, which is unseen at the moment, but which could be visible. Husserl designates these unseen views, which are given ‘alongside’ the presented view, as ‘‘appresentations’’ (emphasis mine).14 Marion contrasts the multiple appresentations in any view of an actual object with the excessive visibility of objects depicted in paintings. In a painting, an object gives itself entirely in a single presentation—we know that the depicted object does not have a visible rear face that could be seen by looking at the reverse side of the canvas. Our visible possibilities are limited by the painting’s frame, which excludes any appresentations by making it clear that there is nothing unseen. On this basis, Marion describes paintings as reducing objects to pure visibility: It [the painting] pulls apart [de´fait] the object in order to reduce it to the visible within it, to the pure visible that is without remainder. . . . This reduced visible, presented in the pure state without any remainder of appresentation, reaches such an intensity that it often saturates the capacity of my look, even exceeds it. (IE 63–64/ 76–77) Because there is no unseen in the painting, the phenomenon is reduced to a ‘‘pure visibility,’’ in which everything that is given is also shown (IE 68/81). Marion concludes that paintings radically accomplish the phenomenological reduction, containing the visible in a frame, so that what gives itself is reduced to what shows itself (IE 68/82). Re-seeing a Painting The second way in which Marion describes paintings as being saturated according to quality is in their summoning us to view them repeatedly. Dazzling Idols and Paintings

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Although Marion does not clearly distinguish this characteristic from the dazzling effect of idols, the two are quite different. Aside from any other consideration, Marion identifies only some paintings as functioning like idols, while he describes the summons to repeated viewings as characteristic of all paintings. Marion’s key argument here is that paintings add to the visible. Unlike objects, which appear as part of the already visible, paintings create something new to be seen. Painters do not reproduce nature by imitating it, but rather produce something new that is not already part of the visible world (CV 25–29/50–56; IE 68–70/82–84). Moreover, once I have seen an object and gathered information about its properties, I have no need to see it again. With paintings, however, I return again and again, because no single viewing is able to receive all that a painting has to offer (BG 48/72, 230/320–21; IE 70–72/84–87). The intuition given by a painting saturates the horizon of any particular viewpoint that I might bring to it—on one occasion, my look is filled by ‘‘the radiance of a colour or chromatic harmony,’’ while on another occasion, a different look is filled by ‘‘the appearing of a line or the power of a form’’ (IE 71/85). Each time I view a painting, I bring a different look, and thus allow it to appear on ‘‘a different horizon’’ (BG 230/320; IE 71/ 85). Moreover, I am only one viewer among many others. On the basis of this succession of appearances—to me, and to a series of other viewers—each of which fills a horizon, Marion argues that a painting can never appear in the way that an object appears. Although a painting has no invisible appresentations, the succession of viewers, who each bring a succession of looks, means that a painting is never seen exhaustively: It [the painting] opens an arena of space and time to all the contemplations that it gives rise to. It exposes itself as the potential sum of all that which all have seen, see, and will see here. The life of the painting is deployed as the regulative idea of the looks that it attracts to itself, as a given definitively visible and never actually seen. (IE 72*/86) Here, the saturation of paintings is not dependent upon the intensity with which they appear, but on the way they exceed any particular horizon. In this respect, paintings have many parallels to Marion’s description of phenomena that are saturated according to quantity. Like phenomena saturated according to quantity, paintings too appear on multiple horizons, and therefore can never be grasped from any single one of them.15

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Summoned by the Painting Marion argues that because paintings have an excess of visibility, and therefore give something new to be seen with every viewing, we can never regard them as being at our disposal. On the contrary, he believes that paintings ‘‘impose’’ themselves upon us, summoning us to look at them: ‘‘We visit it because its intrinsic visibility summons us imperatively’’ (CV 30*/57; cf. BG 230/320). He insists that a painting does not appear as an object that is constituted by our act of intention. Rather, it offers to our look ‘‘the phenomenon par excellence—that which shows itself on the basis of itself . . . [I]t shows itself, from itself and for itself ’’ (CV 43*/77). A painting is ‘‘unavailable, un-manageable, non-(re)producible, unmasterable’’ (CV 42*/76). Hence, he calls it a ‘‘counter-object,’’ in that it ‘‘delivers the look from a restrained focus on an object,’’ and undoes the very horizon of objectivity (CV 42*/76). Rather than exhibiting a painting to the look, an exhibition ‘‘exhibit[s] the look to the painting, which imposes its appearing all the more radically as it presents nothing objectifiable, describable, or even beinglike’’ (BG 48*/71). Just as in the case of an event, Marion maintains that a painting does not appear in response to ‘‘the imperial initiative of the look of consciousness’’ (BG 49*/73), but rather ‘‘imposes’’ itself on the basis of its own ‘‘self ’’ (BG 230/320; cf. 49–50/74; CV 43/77). The Hermeneutics of Idols and Paintings Marion insists that, as saturated phenomena, idols and paintings impose themselves on their own bases, rather than being constituted by a viewer.16 Consistent with this insistence, he makes no reference to hermeneutics or interpretation in relation to idols or paintings. Nevertheless, at least four elements in his analysis of idols and paintings indicate the crucial role played by the receiver’s interpretation. In fact, in the case of idols, the receiver’s interpretation determines whether something appears as an idol, as well as then determining whether its phenomenality is saturated. First, idols are not a particular ‘‘class of beings,’’ but rather the idol is a ‘‘manner of being for beings’’ (GWB 8/16) that depends on the particular ‘‘mode of apprehension’’ or ‘‘reception’’ on the part of the viewer (GWB 9/18). Depending on the way a viewer looks at it, the same object can at one time appear as an idol, at another time as an icon, and at yet another time as something else again. Moreover, a single object can simultaneously appear to one viewer as an idol and to another viewer as an icon.

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Therefore, the very existence of an idol as such is determined by the way in which a receiver interprets it. Second, when an object is interpreted as an idol by a viewer, what makes it an idol and determines its particular characteristics is the look of the viewer. Far from imposing itself on a passive viewer, it functions as an ‘‘invisible mirror’’ (emphasis mine), reflecting the viewer’s own look back to her/him. Because there must already be a look if it is then to be reflected, the look ‘‘precedes the idol.’’ 17 Moreover, an idol does not actually appear as itself, but takes on the precise dimensions of the desiring look that it reflects.18 Therefore, as Marion admits, idols depend entirely on the look of a viewer: ‘‘The look alone makes the idol, as the ultimate function of what can be looked at’’ (GWB 10*/19; cf. 26–27/40–41). Third, in discussing paintings, Marion himself indicates that the invisible offered by a painting can only appear if it is received by one who has the aptitude to see it: ‘‘The painting continues to be seen in a fitting way as long as a look exposes itself to it as to an event that wells up anew—it continues to be seen as long as one tolerates that it happen as an event’’ (BG 48*/72). In contrast, when a painting is approached with some other look—a look that aims to ‘‘list, classify, maintain, value, conserve, etc.’’—it does not itself appear, for ‘‘one simply substitutes for it the ontic support to which it is not reducible’’ (BG 48/72).19 Earlier, in The Crossing of the Visible, he makes a similar point by describing the viewing of a painting as a ‘‘test’’ of the viewer’s ‘‘aptitude to see’’: But it finally returns to our eye to receive this invisible, even if the painting never ceases to give it. . . . The painting imposes its reception as a test on the viewer, who discovers the limits of his aptitude to see. But the painting also imposes on itself the test of subjecting itself to the dubious reception of a possibly inept look. . . . To see is to receive, since to appear is to give (oneself ) to be seen. (CV 43– 44*/79–80) Although Marion gives no indication of what particular aptitudes might be needed to see a painting, his introduction of receptive aptitude makes a painting’s appearing depend on its viewer’s capacity to see. How a painting is seen (or not seen) determines the possibilities for how it shows itself. Because a painting is always seen as something, the painting’s showing itself therefore depends on how it is interpreted. The viewer’s interpretive reception of a painting is one of the conditions that affect its appearing as a phenomenon. Fourth, one of the characteristics of paintings that leads Marion to describe them as saturated is the demand they make on us to view them 128

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repeatedly. He believes that a painting gives more intuition than can appear on the horizon of any particular viewpoint that I bring to it. Therefore, I am summoned to return to the painting again, with the horizon of a new viewpoint, and to see it anew. However, on each new viewing, what I see is determined by the look I bring: The chronicle of my visits to the same museum each year or each month sketches less my own psychic history than the temporal deployment of the visibility of the paintings that on each occasion I put in a new light. My own look, always different on each visit, therefore brought afresh and differing from visit to visit, makes the painting differ from itself, in order to advance its deployment—and to show that it will never be a closed object, exhaustively seen. (IE 71*/85–86) The view I bring to a painting not only affects the way I see it, but also makes the painting be what it is, and thus differ from what it was. My interpretive viewings are part of the painting’s ‘‘temporal deployment.’’ They are part of the history of the painting’s appearing—its history as a phenomenon. Marion’s account of idols and paintings as saturated phenomena has an implicit hermeneutic dimension, which he does not address, and which limits his claims that these phenomena impose themselves on a viewer from themselves. The appearing of idols and paintings depends not only on what they give, but also on the way they are seen, and in at least some instances, their appearing is literally a reflection of the way in which a viewer looks at them.

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6

Flesh as Absolute

The third division in Kant’s table of categories is relation. According to Kant, there are three possible types of relation between phenomena: inherence (between substance and accident), causality (between cause and effect), and community (between several substances). Marion adds to Kant’s possible types of relation by claiming that a phenomenon can appear without having any relation to other phenomena. He argues that a phenomenon can be saturated with intuition in such a way that it fills the whole horizon, and thus prevents any other phenomena from appearing. Such a phenomenon is saturated according to relation. Because it appears without relation to other phenomena, Marion calls it an ‘‘absolute’’ phenomenon. He proposes flesh as the paradigm of an absolute phenomenon, arguing that because my flesh affects me immediately, there is no distance between my flesh and me, and so my flesh imposes itself on me directly and overwhelmingly. This immediacy of flesh is an immanence that precedes any attempt to open a space for transcending myself by intentionally aiming at an object. Thus, he concludes, flesh appears without relation to other phenomena—it is absolute according to relation. In this chapter, I first set out Marion’s understanding of saturation according to relation, and argue that the shortcomings in his critique of Kant prevent him from demonstrating the theoretical possibility of absolute phenomena. I then examine Marion’s various writings on flesh, asking not only how flesh illustrates absolute phenomena, but also whether it can provide a demonstration of their possibility. Marion shares Henry’s 130

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view that all affection is strictly immanent auto-affection, and argues that because flesh appears in such auto-affection, it appears without relation to other phenomena. However, in Marion’s most recent writing on flesh, it is sometimes described in terms of auto-affection and sometimes as given to me by another. I therefore conclude that Marion’s own texts are not clear about whether flesh should be regarded as an absolute phenomenon. In the third section, I survey other phenomenological accounts of flesh, so as to show a range of ways in which the relation between auto-affection and hetero-affection might be understood. I begin by outlining Husserl’s key distinction between flesh and body (Leib and Ko¨rper), and MerleauPonty’s insistence on understanding the sentience of our flesh in the context of the ‘‘flesh of the world.’’ I then set out Henry’s view of flesh as strict auto-affection and highlight the metaphysical implications of this view. Finally, I discuss two other recent phenomenological accounts of flesh (from Bernet and Romano), both of which emphasize that being immediately affected in my flesh is inseparable from the relatedness between my body and the world. In my view, the immediacy of affection does not prevent flesh from being in relation; immanent auto-affection is at the same time transcendent hetero-affection. I therefore argue against flesh being understood as a strictly absolute phenomenon, and propose that even the immediacy and immanence of one’s own flesh must be understood in the fundamental hermeneutic relation of being in a world. Saturation According to Relation In Kant’s analogies of experience, he turns from the constitution of appearances (in terms of the extensive and intensive magnitudes of quantity and quality, respectively) to the regulation of the relations between them (CPR A 177ff./B 218ff.). He argues that the mere juxtaposition of appearances beside each other is not sufficient for knowledge. For our perceptions to yield empirical knowledge of objects (i.e., experience), we must synthesize the manifold of appearances into a connected unity. Because this unity of apperception occurs in a single consciousness, it must be organized according to that consciousness’s form of inner intuition, the ‘framework’ in which our mental states are arranged with respect to each other, namely time. Thus, according to Kant, appearances are synthesized into a unity in terms of their relations to one another in time. Earlier in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant schematizes the pure concepts of relation by giving them a temporal determination, thereby deriving three temporal modes for appearances: persistence, succession, and Flesh as Absolute

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simultaneity (CPR A 144/B 183). In turn, these temporal modes lead to the three a priori synthetic principles of the analogies of experience: substance, causality, and community.1 According to Kant, these principles are a priori conditions of experience. As a priori conditions, they are not themselves given in perception; rather, they are imposed a priori and necessarily by the understanding in order to render our perception intelligible. They determine the possible ways in which we relate perceptions to each other in time, allowing us to synthesize the manifold of appearances into an intelligible unity of experience. Marion claims that Kant’s analogies of experience have three key presuppositions, and argues that criticizing these presuppositions opens the possibility of describing phenomena that are saturated according to relation. The first presupposition that he identifies is Kant’s insistence on the unity of experience. On Marion’s reading, this insistence is simply an assertion by Kant that phenomena can only impose themselves on perception as substances, accidents, causes, effects, or part of a commercium. Marion suggests that there is no reason to exclude the possibility of phenomena that ‘‘happen without being inscribed, at least at first, in the relational framework that gives experience its unity’’ (BG 207*/290). Such phenomena would not be assigned to a substratum, a cause, or a commercium, but would have the characteristics of events: ‘‘unforeseeable . . . , not exhaustively comprehensible . . . , not reproducible’’ (BG 207/290). He believes that, if such absolute phenomena occur, they should be regarded as the core of phenomenality: ‘‘[Kant’s] analogies of experience would concern only a fringe of phenomenality—phenomena of the type of objects constituted by the sciences, poor in intuition, foreseeable, exhaustively knowable, reproducible’’ (BG 207*/290). Second, Marion assesses the presupposition underlying Kant’s assertion of the validity of his analogies. As Marion points out, Kant himself admits that his analogies do not have a constitutive role, but only a regulative one. This limitation means that in the case of causality, for example, Kant asserts that a particular phenomenon must have a cause, but cannot use his analogy to determine what that cause is. For Marion, such a limitation invalidates Kant’s claims for the necessary and a priori character of his analogies. Marion believes that such regulative principles ‘‘do not really constitute their objects, but state the subjective needs of the understanding’’ (BG 208/292). Therefore, he insists, they cannot impose conditions on phenomena. Moreover, it is not possible for a saturated phenomenon to be assigned a position relative to other phenomena because it is by definition out of proportion with the ordinary phenomena of Kant’s analogies: ‘‘It would set itself free of them as from every other a priori determination of experience that might claim to impose itself on it’’ (BG 209*/ 132

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292). Instead, Marion asserts, saturated phenomena are ‘‘absolute: disconnected from all analogy with any object of experience whatsoever’’ (BG 209/292). Third, Marion argues that when Kant asserts that ‘‘all appearances are in time’’ (CPR A 182/B 224), this depends upon presupposing time as a horizon on which all phenomena must appear.2 Marion contests this presupposition by arguing that saturated phenomena cannot be restricted to any one particular horizon. He proposes three ways in which phenomena can fill and spill over a horizon (or set of horizons): First, a phenomenon can fill a particular horizon in a way that causes bedazzlement.3 Second, after adequately filling its concept, a phenomenon can overflow its horizon, requiring additional horizons for its appearance. Third, in a ‘‘rare but inevitable’’ combination of the first two instances, a phenomenon can add together the bedazzlements of multiple horizons, such that ‘‘no combination of horizons could successfully tolerate the absoluteness of the phenomenon’’ (BG 211/295). Before considering the example Marion proposes of phenomena saturated according to relation, three problems should be noted in his critique of Kant’s analogies of experience. First, while he is undoubtedly correct in accusing Kant of presupposing that phenomena must respect the unity of experience in their appearing, his argument against this presupposition reduces the unity of experience to knowledge. He asserts that it may be possible for phenomena to appear without our being able to assign them a substratum, a cause, or a commercium, and argues that not all appearances are necessarily at the disposal of a subject who foresees them, knows them, and reproduces them. On its own, this is not an argument against the unity of experience but only an argument that some experience is not foreseen and exhaustively known by a subject. Marion’s argument supports a modest claim that Kant’s principles of substance, causality, and community are not exhaustive, and that additional principles should be included in an analysis of experience. However, it does not address Kant’s fundamental presupposition, which is that our perception is of a single reality with a fundamental wholeness, rather than of multiple and disconnected realities. Although it may be reasonable to propose forms of relation beyond those nominated by Kant, it is much more problematic to argue, as Marion does, that some phenomena are excluded from any relation whatsoever. Second, Marion consistently overstates Kant’s arguments, which are very disciplined in the modesty of their claims. From the outset, Kant insists that the analogies of experience are merely regulative. Rather than Flesh as Absolute

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making claims about how phenomena are actually constituted, these analogies are restricted to elaborating the structures of consciousness in which phenomena appear. Kant does not place conditions on what appears, but only on how it is seen by a consciousness. Thus, he would agree with Marion that the regulative principles of his analogies ‘‘do not really constitute their objects, but state the subjective needs of the understanding’’ (BG 208/292).4 Kant’s insistence on the unity of experience is quite reasonable in the context of a discussion on the way a single consciousness perceives and understands that which appears to it in perception. This overstatement of Kant’s argument is particularly evident at two points of Marion’s analysis, where he equates causality with the possibility of being foreseen. First, he describes a phenomenon to which we cannot assign a cause as an ‘‘unforeseeable’’ event (BG 207/290). Second, he highlights the limits of Kant’s use of analogy by applying it to cause and effect, and suggesting that Kant finds himself in a ‘‘predicament’’ if analogy can only determine that C has an effect D, ‘‘without our being able to identify what D is or will be, and without our being able to construct it . . . or constitute it’’ (BG 208/291). Kant himself describes the principle of causality as being the means by which we distinguish between a succession of appearances that indicates an objective ‘‘occurrence’’ and a purely subjective succession where nothing happens in the object. To illustrate this, he contrasts the objective succession of a boat’s appearances as it moves down a river with the subjective succession of a house’s appearances when it is looked at from different sides (CPR A 191–93/B 236– 38). We use the principle of causality to recognize that the appearances of the boat have a determinate order although the appearances of the house are arbitrary and could just as easily have happened in reverse. Kant concludes that when we identify an occurrence (or objective succession), we presuppose that it follows something which is its cause.5 However, this conclusion in no way suggests that occurrences are foreseen and constructed by a subject on the basis of observation of causes. Rather, after something has already occurred, we can determine that it has a cause that precedes it, and attempt to identify that cause. This retrospective and indeterminate identification of causes is strikingly similar to Marion’s own description of events as ‘‘faits accomplis,’’ in which he emphasizes the phenomenological primacy of effects over causes.6 Similarly, Kant’s comments on the indeterminacy in the identification of a cause are very consistent with Marion’s argument that the factual presence of the event means that ‘‘the effect alone imposes itself with certainty,’’ while causes remain ‘‘suppositions,’’ which ‘‘serve the purely epistemological [sic] function of subsequently producing the evidence for the effects’’ (BG 165–66/ 134

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233).7 Contrary to Marion’s suggestions, Kant’s discussion of the principle of causality is not concerned with foreseeability; in fact, in several respects, it parallels Marion’s own analysis of cause and effect. The third problem with Marion’s critique of Kant’s analogies of experience lies in the final presupposition that Marion identifies; namely, that Kant establishes time as a horizon on which all phenomena must appear. Marion’s analysis of this presupposition moves immediately, and without supporting argumentation, from time as the horizon for phenomena to the idea of a ‘‘horizon in general’’ (BG 209/292). Then, in discussing three different ways in which phenomena can exceed their horizons, he refers to the horizon only in relation to Husserlian concepts and signification: ‘‘The phenomenon receives an intuition that exceeds the frame set by the concept and signification that aim at and foresee it. . . . Intuition, by dint of pressure, attains the common limits of the concept and horizon’’ (BG 209/293). At this point, Marion is no longer discussing the role Kant assigns to time as the form of inner intuition, in which appearances are organized with respect to each other; instead, he is repeating his own theories about the adequation and saturation of Husserlian concepts. Furthermore, the final way in which Marion claims that a phenomenon can exceed its horizon(s) makes no sense in either Kantian or Husserlian terms. He simply asserts that the first two instances of saturated horizons can be combined in a phenomenon that adds together the bedazzlements of multiple horizons, such that ‘‘no combination of horizons could successfully tolerate the absoluteness of the phenomenon’’ (BG 211/295). However, his second instance of saturated horizons already allows ‘‘an infinite plurality of horizons,’’ and he gives no indication of why such an ‘‘infinite plurality’’ would not be sufficient even for the ‘‘essentially and absolutely saturated phenomenon’’ that he postulates (BG 211/295).8 Marion presents his critique of Kant’s analogies of experience as establishing the possibility of absolute, unconditioned phenomena— phenomena that are saturated according to relation. Believing that he has established the theoretical possibility of such phenomena, he then illustrates his concept of absolute phenomena by describing the phenomenon of flesh, which he proposes as the paradigm of a phenomenon that is saturated according to relation. One expects this sort of development in a philosophical argument—progressing from the demonstration of a theoretical possibility to an illustrative example. However, the weaknesses in Marion’s critique of Kant that I have identified above disqualify his discussion up to this point from demonstrating the possibility of absolute phenomena. At best, his critique of Kant serves as a clarification of what Flesh as Absolute

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Marion understands by the concept of absolute phenomena. In the absence of a demonstration of the theoretical possibility of such phenomena, much greater demands are placed on Marion’s account of flesh. Before it can serve as an illustration of absolute phenomena, this account must first demonstrate their very possibility. Thus, the question Marion needs to address in his account of flesh is not just the one he actually puts forward—namely: Does flesh meet the criteria to be regarded as absolute?— but also the more difficult outstanding question: Is there any such thing as an absolute phenomenon? Marion’s Account of Flesh Marion proposes flesh as the paradigm of a phenomenon that is saturated according to relation. In Being Given, he gives a brief account of flesh and claims to demonstrate its absolute character by identifying two key features: the immediacy with which it affects me, and its mineness. In the fourth chapter of In Excess, he gives a more extended account of flesh, emphasizing that it is as flesh that I am originally given to myself. His recent book The Erotic Phenomenon (2003) is especially interesting because his account of flesh shifts from his earlier positions. He begins to move away from speaking about flesh as self-givenness, and introduces the idea of flesh being given to me by another. I believe that these recent shifts in Marion’s understanding reflect the fundamental difficulties arising from a concept of strict auto-affection that excludes any relation to the world. Flesh in Being Given In Being Given, Marion presents two fundamental and uncontentious insights about flesh: My affections are always both immediate and mine. However, on the basis of these insights, he makes claims about flesh that are remarkably far-reaching, and anything but uncontentious. The first feature of flesh identified by Marion is the immediacy with which it affects me. In fact, being affected by my flesh is not really a case of being affected by some other, but rather of auto-affection. When I am affected by pain, pleasure, and other sensations, I first of all sense myself as in pain or myself as in pleasure. My flesh is immanent to me, and I am affected by it without any transcendence or ecstasis beyond myself being needed or even possible. Marion argues that without such a space for intentionality, there can be no gap between intention and an object. Therefore, my flesh cannot appear in relation to any other object; it is absolute, saturating my horizon on its own.9 136

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Marion himself admits that this account of flesh’s immediacy ‘‘provokes and demands solipsism’’ (BG 232/323). Solipsism excludes any sense in which my affection might be understood as affection of or from another, and insists that auto-affection be understood as auto-affection in a very strict sense. However, admitting flesh’s immediacy does not necessarily result in solipsism. As I will show (Chap. 6, ‘‘Auto-affection in the World’’), respected phenomenologists continue to endorse Husserl’s view that the immediacy of affection is completely compatible with its referring to another. It is quite consistent to maintain that affection has both subjective and objective dimensions: As my affection, immediately experienced in my flesh, it is completely immanent; at the same time, as affection of another, it is an experience of that which transcends me. There is no a priori reason why the subjective and objective genitive should have to coincide: Affection is my experience of another. The second characteristic of flesh identified by Marion is its mineness. No one else can ever experience my pleasure or suffering. Nor can I ever be in doubt that my pleasure or suffering is in fact mine. According to Marion, the unsubstitutable mineness of auto-affection in my flesh is the basic experience of myself as an individual: ‘‘It even belongs to my flesh, and to it alone, to individualise me by letting the immanent succession of my affections, or rather of the affections that make me irreducibly identical to myself alone, be inscribed in it’’ (BG 232*/323). The immediacy of flesh’s auto-affection makes it my first and fundamental experience of myself as myself. Thus, he concludes, my flesh not only appears by giving itself, but ‘‘in this first ‘self,’ it gives me to myself ’’ (BG 232/323). Here, he moves from observing that affection is always mine to installing my flesh as the first ‘self,’ which gives me to myself, and which alone individualizes me. These claims imply that my flesh is a foundation and source for myself, and even that it is the basis on which I am constituted. However, Marion neither specifies precisely what he means by ‘‘first ‘self ’ ’’ and that which individualizes, nor does he justify these claims on the basis of his analysis of mineness. In Excess: ‘‘Flesh or the Givenness of the Self ’’ A more extended account of flesh is found in the fourth chapter of In Excess, entitled ‘‘Flesh or the Givenness of the Self.’’ In this study, Marion examines flesh on the basis of a fundamental conviction that it is as flesh that I am originally given to myself. He begins from Descartes’ assertion of the cogitatio as the indubitable evidence for the existence of the ego,10 and argues that Descartes should conclude that I am a sentient thing (res Flesh as Absolute

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sentiens), rather than a thinking thing (res cogitans). According to Marion, Descartes fails to recognize the crucial distinction between extended, sensible bodies in the world and my sentient body (IE 83–84/101). Marion concludes that because the ego thinks only in so far as it senses (itself ), its existence as sentient is anterior to its existence as thinking.11 Consistent with this, he suggests that Descartes’ list of the attributes of the res cogitans—‘‘doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, not willing, also imagining and sensing, of course’’12—should be reversed, with sensing being placed first: ‘‘The ego is given [se donne] as flesh’’ (IE 87*/105). Marion then elaborates the difference between sensible bodies and my sentient body in terms of Husserl’s distinction between body and flesh (Ko¨rper and Leib). According to Husserl, my flesh is the means by which I perceive the world.13 My flesh is so close to me that the ego can never distance itself from its flesh, and no subject can be conceived without flesh of some kind.14 Therefore, my flesh is itself that thing which is ‘‘originally given’’ to me ‘‘and has for me the character of a self-givenness.’’15 On this basis, Marion argues that the ego only takes flesh by being taken in flesh and as flesh.16 On the basis of this fundamental connection between me and my flesh, along with the fact that no one else can ever experience my flesh, Marion contends that it is not my physical body or my thoughts which individuate me, but rather my flesh. Therefore, my mineness is not something I assert, but rather something that happens to me in my being taken in flesh: ‘‘I do not give myself my flesh, it is it that gives me to myself. In receiving my flesh, I receive myself—I am thus given over to it’’ (IE 98*/119). Marion concludes this study of flesh by using the mineness of my flesh to argue that it is a phenomenon that is saturated according to relation. He maintains that if my flesh is so close to me that I receive myself in its being given to me, then its phenomenality cannot be understood in terms of the usual distinctions between appearance and that which appears, noesis and noema, and so on, because in this case, the perceiver coincides with the perceived. Therefore, flesh refers only to itself, as auto-affection, in ‘‘an absoluteness without a look, without consideration, without equal’’ (IE 100*/121). Giving me to myself, my flesh is the first phenomenon in the world, and that by which the rest of the world is in turn rendered phenomenal for me. Flesh in The Erotic Phenomenon Marion’s most recent writings on flesh appear in The Erotic Phenomenon. In this book, he develops a view of flesh that differs in several respects 138

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from that of Being Given and In Excess although he does not himself identify these shifts in his view, perhaps because of his decision not to include references of any sort in The Erotic Phenomenon (EP 8/20). The first discussion of flesh in The Erotic Phenomenon comes at the end of the first meditation of the book, and is quite consistent with Marion’s previous accounts of flesh. He distinguishes flesh from ‘‘extended bodies of the physical world’’ on the basis of its auto-affection, in which it senses and touches only by sensing itself: ‘‘It [flesh] only touches bodies in sensing itself touch them, as much as, or indeed more than it senses them. . . . In flesh, the interior (what senses) is no longer distinguished from the exterior (what is sensed); they merge in a unique sensation—sensing oneself sensing’’ (EP 38*/65). I feel my flesh with an immediacy that excludes the normal distance of representation. In taking flesh, I am ‘‘solidifying myself, so to speak, in and as myself ’’; I arrive at a place which is my ‘‘here,’’ and it is thus that flesh ‘‘assigns me my selfhood’’ (EP 38–39*/ 66). In the fourth meditation of The Erotic Phenomenon, Marion reflects on my flesh in the context of another’s flesh, rather than in the context of physical bodies in the world. He reflects here on the way in which I receive myself from another, which confuses his earlier account of receiving myself from my flesh’s auto-affection. However, Marion gives no indication that he sees a conflict between these two accounts. Indeed, he moves back and forth between them as the meditation proceeds. In the first section of the meditation, Marion focuses on the relation I have with someone who loves me, without mentioning flesh. He describes this relation, where I am summoned by another, and am aware of my desire for the one I lack, as revealing a fundamental ‘‘passivity’’ in myself. I am not, first of all, an ego who can envisage others as objects for my intention, but rather ‘‘a primeval ‘Here I am!’ ’’ (EP 106/170). He concludes that I receive myself from the ‘‘impact’’ of one who loves me, and describes this in a way which is strikingly similar to the way he previously described my receiving myself from the auto-affection of my flesh: This passivity in fact sums up all the impact that the other exerts upon me, the lover; an impact from which I receive not only what the other gives me, but also myself, who receives it. As lover, I allow myself to be struck by the seal of that which comes upon me, to the point that, in receiving it as the mark of the other, I also receive myself. I do not individualize myself by self-affirmation or [self]-reflection, but by proxy—by the care that the other takes with me in affecting me and allowing me to be born of this very affect.’’ (emphasis mine) (EP 110/175) Flesh as Absolute

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Marion then asserts that this passivity of being loved is not ‘‘the absence or inverse of activity,’’ and that it ‘‘clearly arises from the phenomenon of flesh’’ (EP 112*/178). This leads him to restate his earlier conclusions about flesh as that from which I receive myself: ‘‘Only the flesh, or rather my flesh . . . assigns me to myself and delivers me as such in my radically received individuality’’ (EP 112/178). In elaborating on the peculiar nature of this passivity, he again emphasizes that only my auto-affection as flesh makes it possible for worldly bodies to affect me; bodies act on me only because I open myself to them in taking flesh: ‘‘As flesh, I take on body in the world; . . . I do not insert myself among the army of things, I expose myself, since I face them; I do not become so much a thing of the world as I allow the things of the world the right to affect me and to reduce me to my passivity’’ (EP 112–13/179). Things, which are themselves inert and insentient, ‘‘in so far as they are bodies, as a matter of principle cannot affect me, . . . for the simple and radical reason that they do not sense themselves or experience anything as being their action’’ (EP 113*/179). Their activity can only be felt by a body of a different order from themselves—that is, by a body that is flesh. Therefore, he concludes, the passivity of my flesh is the source of their activity: ‘‘Things do not act on me, as their very action results first of all from my passivity, which originally renders it possible. My passivity provokes their activity, not the inverse’’ (EP 113*/180). But the affection which results from this passivity is fundamentally auto-affection: I would feel nothing other (than myself ) if I could not first feel myself, feel the effect of myself, with an undertow more original than the wave that seems to result, but which, in fact, announces the undertow and, at once, allows itself to be caught up into it: autoaffection alone makes possible hetero-affection. (EP 114*/180–81) In other words, auto-affection is the basis for my being affected by the world, and my passivity with respect to worldly bodies arises from the hidden activity of my auto-affection as flesh: ‘‘Thus does my passivity lay itself out, to the rhythm of an activity that is more secret and original than all the movements and impetuses of inert bodies’’ (EP 114/181). At this point, it appears that Marion has returned to his earlier insistence on my auto-affection as the way in which I receive both the world and myself. However, he then turns to reflect on the difference between being affected by worldly bodies and being affected by the flesh of another, and eventually comes to a quite different conclusion: ‘‘The other gives to me myself for the first time, because she takes the initiative to 140

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give me my own flesh for the first time’’ (EP 118/188). The crucial difference that Marion sees between touching a worldly body and touching the flesh of another is that whereas worldly bodies are closed in themselves, and affect me by resisting my touch, another flesh affects me by welcoming my touch and opening itself for me (EP 117–18/186). Thus, because worldly bodies are closed to me, they confine my flesh to the horizon of worldly things, and limit it according to their own ‘‘essential finitude’’ (EP 118/187). Only another flesh can open itself to me and remove these limits: ‘‘I am freed and can become myself only in touching another flesh, as one arrives in port, because only another flesh can make room for me, welcome me, not send me away, not resist me—give way to my flesh and reveal it to me by providing room for it’’ (EP 118*/187). Marion makes no mention of auto-affection here, but instead speaks of a ‘‘double passivity’’ in which each flesh is augmented in being received by the non-resistance of the other’s passivity.17 I become fully flesh, not by sensing myself, but rather by sensing that I am sensed in the flesh of another (EP 117/185). It is evident that the roles of auto-affection and hetero-affection in giving me to myself are confused in The Erotic Phenomenon. In the first meditation, Marion proposes that I receive myself from my flesh; then, early in the fourth meditation, he proposes that I receive myself from another’s love, and later in the same meditation proposes that I receive myself from another’s flesh. This confusion undermines the clarity with which he proposes the absoluteness of flesh in Being Given and In Excess. Where his accounts in these earlier works exclude any sort of transcendence or ecstasis from flesh’s auto-affection, in The Erotic Phenomenon there is not only a role for another, but this other is at times presented as necessary for flesh’s very auto-affection. Thus, at the end of The Erotic Phenomenon, it is not clear whether Marion still maintains the claims of auto-affection and absoluteness that he makes about flesh in Being Given and In Excess. At the least, these descriptions can no longer be interpreted in the strict sense that Marion proposes in the earlier works. With regard to flesh as such, this move away from a strict interpretation of auto-affection and absoluteness is welcome. However, any revision of Marion’s claims about flesh also has consequences for his claims about absolute phenomena in general. I argued earlier that because Marion fails to demonstrate convincingly the theoretical possibility of absolute phenomena, this task must be accomplished by his example of absolute phenomena—namely, flesh. Therefore, if Marion no longer claims that flesh is a strictly absolute phenomenon, and that its affection Flesh as Absolute

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is strictly auto-affection, then he renders the possibility of absolute phenomena in general even more questionable. Aside from these textual issues of determining shifts in Marion’s own view of flesh, I need to consider more philosophical questions about flesh: In what sense is flesh’s affection auto-affection? Further: Is this the strict auto-affection that would make flesh an absolute phenomenon? In order to address these questions, I now turn to a critical survey of four different ways in which flesh has been understood in phenomenology. How Absolute Is Flesh? Husserl’s account of flesh is foundational for all later phenomenological accounts. Hence, an examination of possible ways in which affection in flesh might be understood must begin with Husserl’s key distinction between body and flesh (Ko¨rper and Leib). Husserl regards corporality as an experience of both immanence and transcendence, and therefore presents affection as both auto-affection and hetero-affection: Affection is my affection in my flesh, but it is affection of the world. After sketching Husserl’s position, I will outline Merleau-Ponty’s description of flesh, in which Merleau-Ponty places the interlacing of my affection and the world at the center of his thought, in his concept of ‘‘the flesh of the world.’’ I then summarize Henry’s critique of Merleau-Ponty, and outline Henry’s own account of flesh, in which affection is strictly auto-affection. I argue that Henry’s views make explicit some implications of auto-affection that Marion would not be willing to adopt. Finally, I sketch two other recent phenomenological accounts of flesh (from Bernet and Romano), each of which understands the immediacy of flesh’s affection as being always in the context of an underlying relatedness to the world. I argue that accounts of this sort demonstrate that flesh’s auto-affection cannot be understood as an absolute phenomenon, and that flesh’s simultaneous immanence and transcendence is better accounted for in the context of a prior hermeneutic relation of openness to the world. Husserl: Body and Flesh Husserl introduces his study of the constitution of corporality (Leiblichkeit) in Ideas II by an analysis of the way in which touch sensations are localized in our bodies. Like other physical bodies, our bodies can be perceived by the senses. However, unlike other bodies, our bodies are themselves also able to sense. When my hand touches something, I sense not only the object to which the sensation refers, but also my hand as that 142

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which is sensing. The tactual features of the object (its hardness or softness, warmth or coldness, etc.) are sensed in and belong to my hand. Thus, if I touch something that is hot, I feel its heat in my hand. These touch sensations are not simply additional properties of my body as a physical thing; rather, they are properties of my body as flesh: ‘‘If I speak of the physical thing, ‘left hand,’ then I am abstracting from these sensations. . . . If I do include them, then it is not that the physical thing is now richer, but instead it becomes flesh, it senses.’’18 On this basis, Husserl speaks of flesh being ‘‘originally constituted in a double way’’: First, like other objects, it is a physical thing, with real sensible properties; second, ‘‘I sense ‘on’ it and ‘in’ it . . . warmth . . . coldness . . . touch . . . motion.’’19 Crucially, these sensations are always double. They both belong to the flesh, in which they are sensed, and at the same time refer to the physical features of the external object that is sensed. While I can abstract from one or the other of a sensation’s aspects, this is simply a matter of directing my attention to the object I am sensing or to myself as sensing it.20 The sentience which belongs to my flesh does not occur in isolation, but as part of my body, which is a physical thing in relation to other physical things: And thus, my flesh’s entering into physical relations (by striking, pressing, pushing, etc.) with other material things provides in general not only the experience of physical occurrences, related to flesh and to things, but also the experience of specifically fleshy occurrences of the type we call sensings. . . . The localised sensations are not properties of flesh as a physical thing, but on the other hand, they are properties of the thing, flesh, and indeed they are effect-properties.21 Husserl gives touch preeminence among the senses because of the way that touch sensations are localized in the physical body. He argues that each touch sensation in my flesh is clearly identified as belonging to a particular part of my physical body, and that it is this localization of flesh’s sensations in the body that phenomenologically constitutes flesh as a body. I sense my hand (and, indeed, particular parts of my hand) as touching what it touches, and therefore correlate my hand as sensible object with my hand as sentient flesh. Although the other senses are also associated with particular parts of the body (sight with the eye, hearing with the ear, etc.), their sensings are not ‘‘in’’ a part of the body with the immediacy that touch sensations are. I do not sense my eyes as seeing, or my ears as hearing. Instead, by a mediated deduction, I infer that my eyes see and my ears hear from the effects of covering them over. Thus, Husserl Flesh as Absolute

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concludes, sight and hearing are only ‘‘indirectly’’ attributed to the body, and then ‘‘by means of the properly localised sensations.’’22 Merleau-Ponty: Flesh of the World Merleau-Ponty focuses on flesh more than any other philosopher who has followed Husserl in the phenomenological tradition. Merleau-Ponty’s concept of ‘‘the flesh of the world’’ plays a pivotal role in his unfinished work, The Visible and the Invisible, and is an important point of reference for the way in which subsequent philosophers understand flesh. Henry and Marion both include a strong critique of Merleau-Ponty in their own accounts of flesh.23 Merleau-Ponty’s central concern is to develop a ‘‘revision of our ontology’’ (VI 22–23/41). In his view, traditional philosophical positions are premised on a fundamental ontological unity that they overlook. He argues that the immediate knowledge of empirical realism, the reflexivity of transcendental idealism, and the eidetic reduction of Husserlian phenomenology are all based on what he calls ‘‘perceptive faith.’’ Thus, sophisticated reflections on topics such as subject and object, and immanence and transcendence, are elaborated on the basis of ‘‘our natal bond with the world’’ (VI 32/54). In the opening sentence of The Visible and the Invisible, he insists that the world is fundamentally accessible to us: ‘‘We see the things themselves, the world is what we see’’ (VI 3/17). The remainder of the book is largely an attempt to set out this fundamental ‘‘openness to the world’’ (VI 35*/57) by means of concepts that express an original intertwining of reality: chiasm, flesh of the world, and wild (or savage) being. We need to understand Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of flesh in the context of this core assertion about our openness to the world. Beginning by observing that we are always already encompassed by the visible (and by the sensible in general), Merleau-Ponty asks how it is that we come to have sensible experience at all, before any reflection on the status of that experience or on what it signifies. He believes that visibility is the result of an illumination that itself remains invisible, and which is the interlacing (entrelacs) or chiasm that connects us to the visible, thereby holding us as part of a world (VI 130/172). He argues that understanding ourselves as ‘‘having an absolute power to survey the world from above’’ is an illusion (VI 16/33). We are not outside the world, at a distance from things, able to make objective and detached observations on them. We do not begin as ‘‘empty’’ subjects, who then gather data about self-enclosed things. Rather, our vision always already participates in the visible, both enveloping things and coming from them: 144

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What there is then are not things first identical with themselves, which would then offer themselves to the seer, nor is there a seer who is first empty and who, afterward, would open himself to them—but something to which we could not be closer than by palpating it with our look, things we could not dream of seeing ‘‘all naked’’ because the look itself envelops them, clothes them with its own flesh. (VI 131/173) For Merleau-Ponty, our vision is made possible by our participation in the visible world, which offers itself to be seen. Vision is not so much the faculty of a perceiving subject, but rather something that ‘‘happens among, or is caught in, the midst of things.’’24 We find ourselves in a world that is visible and tangible, and, rather than being outsiders who look in and feel around, we are ourselves part of this world. For we not only see and touch, but are ourselves visible and tangible. Our seeing and touching is embedded in and interlaced with that which is seen and touched (VI 133–34/175–77). Our flesh, which sees and touches, is but one leaf of ‘‘fleshy being,’’ in which ‘‘several leaves’’ are interleaved, and in which all visibility and tangibility is possible (VI 136*/179). Our flesh is part of the ‘‘flesh of the visible’’ (VI 136/179), or the ‘‘flesh of things’’ (VI 133/175), or even the ‘‘flesh of the world’’ (VI 248/302, 255/309). Merleau-Ponty’s well-known account of the reversibility between touching-touched and seeing-seen is developed in the framework of these concepts about the fundamental interlacing of the world. For him, touching and seeing are not so much ways in which a subject acts on the world, as ways in which a subject’s participation in the world is made evident (VI 137/181). Seeing and being seen are two aspects of the one fundamental event, which is the making visible of the world: There is vision, touching, when a certain visible, a certain tangible, turns back on the whole of the visible, the whole of the tangible, of which it is a part, or when suddenly it finds itself surrounded by them, or when between it and them, and through their commerce, is formed a Visibility, a Tangible in itself, which belong properly neither to the body qua fact nor to the world qua fact—as upon two facing mirrors, two indefinite series of enclosed images arise, which belong really to neither of the two surfaces, since each is only the replica of the other, and which therefore form a couple, a couple more real than either of them. (VI 139*/183) In this sense, he speaks of the ‘‘fundamental narcissism of all vision,’’ in which ‘‘the seeing and the seen reciprocate one another, and we no longer Flesh as Absolute

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know which sees and which is seen’’ (VI 139*/183).25 When my flesh appears to me in my touching, it is never isolated, but always part of a larger reality with which it is interconnected. My sentience is one moment of a larger circle, in which all the visible is rolled up together; my flesh is part of a fundamental ‘‘intercorporality,’’ in which every part of the world ‘‘encroaches’’ on every other part.26 He insists that my sentience as flesh, and of myself as flesh, can only be understood as part of this ‘‘one sole circular course’’ that links together the sentient body and sensible bodies (VI 138/182). His comments about the way in which things inspire artists apply equally to sentience in general: ‘‘We speak of ‘inspiration,’ and the word should be taken literally. There really is inspiration and expiration of Being, respiration in Being, action and passion so little distinguishable that one no longer knows which sees and which is seen, which paints and which is painted.’’27 Considered in isolation from Merleau-Ponty’s system of thought, concepts such as ‘‘respiration in Being’’ and ‘‘flesh of the world’’ sound exaggerated. In the same way, his descriptions of a reversibility between my touching and that which is touched, or my seeing and that which is seen, sound nonsensical. Plainly, inanimate objects do not have flesh in the way that we have flesh, and do not see or touch in the way that we see and touch. In this respect, Henry and Marion are correct in pointing to the apparent meaninglessness of parts of Merleau-Ponty’s thought. However, once situated in the wider context of his thought as a whole, the concept of ‘‘the flesh of the world’’ takes on a very real meaning. Merleau-Ponty himself is quite clear that the flesh of the world should not be understood as being identical with human flesh: ‘‘The flesh of the world is not self-sensing [se sentir] as is my flesh—It is sensible and not sentient’’ (VI 250/304). Despite the extravagance of some of his language, he explicitly rejects any sort of ‘‘hylozoism’’ in which all reality would be considered in anthropological terms (VI 250/304, 136/179). Expressions such as ‘‘flesh of the world’’ are attempts to articulate an ‘‘antecedent unity me-world’’ (VI 261/315), a fundamental ‘‘indivisibility between this sensible Being that I am, and all the rest which is sensed [se sent] in me’’ (VI 255*/309). In his study of Merleau-Ponty’s ontology, Martin Dillon emphasizes this ontological focus of Merleau-Ponty’s thought, and argues that Merleau-Ponty describes a ‘‘fundamental asymmetry’’ and noncoincidence between reversibles such as touching and touched.28 At one point, Merleau-Ponty explicitly rejects any suggestion of total reversibility: ‘‘To begin with, we spoke summarily of a reversibility of the seeing and the seen, of the touching and the touched. It is time to emphasise that it is a reversibility always imminent and never realised in fact’’ (VI 147*/194; 146

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cf. 123/165). Commenting on this passage, Dillon gives a helpful explanation of precisely what Merleau-Ponty might mean by this ‘‘always imminent’’ and asymmetric reversibility: The trees ‘see’ the painter in a manner comparable to that in which the mirror ‘sees’ the painter: that is, the trees, like the mirror, let him become visible; they define a point of view on him which renders visible for him something that otherwise would remain invisible—his outside, his physiognomy, his carnal presence.29 Dillon goes on to point out the crucial distinction between my flesh and that of inanimate objects: The trees [which ‘see’ me] can function as the mirror that lets me experience my own visibility. Qua visible, the trees and I are made of the same stuff: flesh. . . . . . . Trees and mountains do not see; they are blind witnesses to my own visibility. The body as exemplar [sic] sensible does not function as an example of sensibility in inanimate things. The human body is that particular kind of flesh that allows the flesh of the world to double back on itself and be seen.30 Although Merleau-Ponty draws extensively on Husserl’s account of flesh, and uses very similar terminology to other phenomenological accounts of flesh, he is not first of all concerned with flesh as such. His primary interest is to give an account of the fundamental ontological interlacing between bodies. In his view, it is this interlacing that underlies the particular way in which we are affected in our flesh by other bodies. Likewise, it is this interlacing that transforms my relation to the world from that of a spectator observing a performance on a stage in front of me into that of an essential openness to the world. In our being, we are open to the world: We are ˆetre-au-monde (literally: Being-toward-the-world), according to the French translation of Heidegger’s In-der-Welt-sein (Being-in-the-world). This underlying relationship of openness to the world is precisely what Heidegger identifies as the ontological (or existential) hermeneutics that makes it possible for phenomena to appear. Merleau-Ponty’s flesh of the world does not subsume my sentient flesh. Rather, it is the underlying condition of interlacing that makes possible my sentience as flesh. Henry: Strict Auto-affection Marion’s account of flesh’s immediacy as auto-affection is strongly influenced by Henry, as Marion himself acknowledges (BG 366n86/321n2). Flesh as Absolute

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However, Henry is much more consistent than Marion in maintaining that auto-affection is to be understood as strictly immanent. In this respect, Henry makes clear precisely what is at stake in understanding flesh as strict auto-affection. Henry develops his phenomenology around the immediacy of sensation and affection pointed out by Husserl. For Henry, the immanence of auto-affection is the essence of phenomenality.31 Particularly in his later work, which focuses more explicitly on flesh, Henry also sets out to distance his understanding of flesh from Merleau-Ponty’s. However, his critique of Merleau-Ponty simplifies and misrepresents Merleau-Ponty’s views. In fact, Merleau-Ponty’s thought helps to highlight what is lacking in Henry himself—namely, a persuasive account of the relation between auto-affection and the world. In Henry’s account, the original autoaffection of flesh is the self-revelation of ‘‘Life,’’ which makes possible any subsequent openness to a world. Henry is concerned with ‘‘an original invisible corporality,’’ understood in relation to life rather than in relation to the world (Incarn. 172). Although Henry claims that he is undertaking ‘‘a phenomenologically rigorous analysis’’ (Incarn. 170), his account of flesh is far removed from the appearing of phenomena, and has at least some moments that are overtly metaphysical. In this respect, he lays bare some of the implications and underpinnings of Marion’s account of autoaffection—implications that are not consistent with Marion’s broader arguments. Henry’s most developed account of flesh appears in one of his final books, Incarnation: Une philosophie de la chair (2000). In this text, he applies his concept of auto-affection to an extended study of flesh, corporality, and incarnation. He introduces his own analysis of flesh by a strident critique of Merleau-Ponty’s thought on the reversibility of sensation and the flesh of the world. Based on extremely literal interpretations of selected texts from The Visible and the Invisible, Henry concludes that Merleau-Ponty attributes sentience to stones,32 and that his description of interlacing posits the ‘‘eclectic’’ and ‘‘inconceivable’’ flesh of the world as ‘‘the sole reality,’’ into which the human subject’s flesh is absorbed (Incarn. 165–66). For Henry, such views are an ‘‘absurdity,’’ in which Merleau-Ponty comes ‘‘dangerously’’ close to ‘‘naı¨ve realism,’’ and ‘‘replaces philosophical analysis by a system of metaphors’’ (Incarn. 166). According to Henry, Merleau-Ponty’s crucial error in The Visible and the Invisible is that he fails to account for our sensing as an act of intentional constitution, thinking instead only in terms of what is sensed. If there is a literal reversibility between seeing and being seen, seeing is reduced to an aspect of the visibility of that which is seen: ‘‘The transcendental power of constitution . . . is thus landed on the constituted, 148

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reduced to it, confused with it, identified with it—lost, conjured away . . . absorbed in the constituted’’ (Incarn. 166). In place of what Henry regards as Merleau-Ponty’s focus on visibility or sensibility in general, he focuses on the ‘‘transcendental and a priori possibility’’ of sentient acts: What is it that renders such acts possible? (Incarn. 167). His initial answer is a straightforward presentation of Husserlian constitution, in which the intentional acts of our bodies constitute the objects of those acts: Our own body is transcendental in the sense that it renders possible all that which is seen, heard, touched by it, the ensemble of qualities and sensible objects that compose the reality of our world—which is indeed a sensible world. . . . the mode according to which they [the senses] give rise to diverse types of sensing is intentionality. (Incarn. 167) Henry then moves beyond Husserl’s analysis by asking about the condition of possibility for this ‘‘intentional body’’ itself, pointing out that it cannot constitute its own condition of possibility. This very question is already problematic within the phenomenological framework that Henry has adopted because the intentional body only appears as the correlate of its intentional object. However, if Henry’s question is phenomenologically problematic, his answer is a decisive move outside the phenomenological domain. He proposes an enigmatic formula that becomes increasingly unfathomable as he elaborates on it: ‘‘The transcendental possibility of this intentional body itself . . . [is] the self-revelation of intentionality in life’’ (Incarn. 168). Henry is adamant that our original and transcendental corporality must be understood apart from the world because as soon as there is an intentional ecstasis towards the world, all that appears is that which is sensed. He believes that the body’s power of sensing only appears as such when there is no sensing outside of ourselves, no opening to a world, no intentionality, and no sensibility. He refers to the ‘‘essence’’ of this preworldly, radically immanent self-revelation simply as ‘‘life’’ (Incarn. 169–71). Henry does not indicate what form the appearing of this non-intentional ‘‘self-revelation’’ might take, which is the crucial difficulty in conceiving it in phenomenological terms. Instead, he offers an astonishing account of ‘‘the flesh’s generation in absolute Life’’—an account which is manifestly metaphysical, highly speculative, and overtly theological (Incarn. 172–79). He proposes first that flesh is ‘‘an original invisible corporality’’ (Incarn. 172). However, unlike the concept of the invisible that recurs in phenomenology from Heidegger onwards, where the invisible is Flesh as Absolute

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the invisible of the visible, Henry’s original invisible has no relation to any visible whatsoever. It is not the being of beings, nor the appearing of that which appears, nor the fold that is unfolded. Rather, flesh appears in a ‘‘radically immanent auto-affection’’ (Incarn. 173) that has ‘‘neither an oppositional structure, nor intentionality, nor ecstasis of any sort— nothing visible’’ (Incarn. 172). It is engendered in what Henry designates as the self-revelation of life, without adequately explaining what he means by this obscure concept: Life reveals flesh by engendering it, as that which comes to birth in it, being formed and set up in it, drawing its substance—its pure phenomenological substance—from the very substance of life. An impressional and affective flesh, whose impressionality and affectivity never derive from anything other than the impressionality and affectivity of life itself. (Incarn. 174) In the paragraph following this mysterious description, Henry’s account becomes even more problematic when, without warning or explanation, he replaces ‘‘life’’ with ‘‘Life,’’ and begins to speak of an ‘‘Arch-Flesh of Life [Archi-Chair de la Vie],’’ in which each flesh appears as the coming in itself of a life.33 There is a ‘‘reciprocal interiority of Flesh and Life,’’ which only appears in our flesh and our life ‘‘because, before time, before every conceivable world, it was established in the absolute Life as the phenomenological mode according to which that Life comes eternally in itself in the Arch-Pathos of its Arch-Flesh’’ (Incarn. 174). Henry still makes no attempt to justify his move away from phenomenology when, in the next paragraph, he uses the Christian scriptures and Church fathers as the basis for a reflection on God as the absolute Life who is the source of life (Incarn. 175). His conclusion is that our flesh appears to us when we experience our life in relation to the absolute Life of God, which is its source: ‘‘In as much as he only experiences himself in the Arch-passibility of absolute Life, in the Arch-Pathos of its Arch-Flesh, each one living has a flesh or, to say it better, he is flesh’’ (Incarn. 177). Henry’s account of flesh as the auto-affection of life (or Life) is a coherent account of affection that has no reference to exteriority or world, and is therefore strictly auto-affection. However, in preserving the immanence of this auto-affection, he precludes the appearance in affection of anything other than flesh, and reduces even flesh’s appearance to self-impression. Thus, he removes flesh and affection from the domain of phenomena. In this respect, Henry makes explicit the consequences of Marion’s claims about flesh as an absolute phenomenon and auto-affection. If Marion’s claims concern strict absoluteness, and strictly auto-affection, he would 150

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need to admit a metaphysical and perhaps even theological framework akin to that developed by Henry. Such a framework would undermine Marion’s claims to be setting out a nonmetaphysical phenomenology. It would also be inconsistent with his discussion of flesh, in which he proposes decidedly worldly experiences (suffering, pleasure, aging [IE 91ff./ 110ff.]) as moments when flesh appears as a phenomenon. Alternatively, Marion could admit that flesh is not a strictly absolute phenomenon, and that although its auto-affection may not itself be intentional, it always accompanies an ordinary, nonabsolute intentionality. Such a view would be much closer to Husserl’s account of flesh, and would regard flesh as both depending on, and rendering manifest, an underlying interrelationship between the world and me. I turn now to consider two instances of contemporary phenomenological approaches that develop an account of flesh along these lines, viewing flesh in the context of the world. Auto-affection in the World Bernet: the double life of the subject. In La vie du sujet, Rudolf Bernet argues for thinking about a ‘‘double life of the subject,’’ who appears to himself both in a mediated way through his constitution of the world, and in an immediate way that has no reference to the world (VS 8–9). Bernet maintains that although these two aspects of the life of the subject involve different modes of appearance, they ‘‘necessarily go together’’ (VS 327). Thus, the subject’s appearance as flesh is an immediate auto-affection, but it is inseparable from the subject’s relation to the world (VS 322). I outline Bernet’s analysis here, and show that it supports Marion’s contention that flesh appears as auto-affection, but that it also calls into question the possibility of this auto-affection being a strictly absolute phenomenon. In the concluding essay of La vie du sujet, Bernet investigates Husserl’s writings on intentionality in the light of critiques made by thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Henry.34 Each of these phenomenologists calls into question what Bernet describes as ‘‘the representationalist objectivism and egological subjectivism progressively put in place by Husserl’’ (VS 297). Bernet concedes that in Ideas I, Husserl’s preoccupation with the fulfilment of intention results in a stronger emphasis on objectivism and subjectivism (VS 314). However, Bernet contends that some of the key concepts developed by Husserl’s critics can already be found in Husserl’s texts, especially the Logical Investigations, Ideas II, and On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time: Flesh as Absolute

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Husserl accomplished decisive breakthroughs by envisaging a form of self-consciousness which precedes all objectification of ipseity, and by describing a form of intentional interlacing between subject and object that comes before their separation and opposition. This original intentionality is better known by other names, such as ‘‘fungierende Intentionalita¨t’’ (Fink), ‘‘transcendence of Being-in-theworld’’ (Heidegger), or again ‘‘perceptive faith’’ (Merleau-Ponty). (VS 299) Bernet argues that an original, nonobjectifying intention is associated with every ordinary intentional act of constitution, and that therefore the subject’s intentionality should be conceived as a ‘‘double intentionality.’’ Bernet discusses the role of this nonobjectifying intentionality both in the subject’s relation to the world and in the subject’s self-consciousness. First, he argues that all constitution of objects takes place in ‘‘the networks of meaning’’ of ‘‘the humanised reality of the cultural world’’ (VS 317). Our intentional acts are ‘‘preceded and rendered possible by the pre-givenness of a world’’ (VS 315), which provides ‘‘the non-objective presence of an acquisition of sedimented meaning that continues to act on the present life of the subject as well as on his anticipations of the future’’ (VS 317). For Bernet, the subject is related to this world by an intentionality that it receives as a given, rather than constitutes as an object. He suggests that it is this underlying receptive relation to the world that Merleau-Ponty describes by ‘‘perceptive faith’’ (VS 318). Second, and most immediately relevant to Marion’s account of flesh, Bernet argues that consciousness of an object is always accompanied by consciousness of oneself as the intending subject. However, while I directly intend the ‘‘primary object’’ of my act, I have only a ‘‘pre-reflexive’’ and ‘‘non-objectifying’’ consciousness of myself as the ‘‘secondary object’’ of my act (VS 320).35 Bernet proposes that this prereflexive and nonobjectifying self-consciousness is evident in Husserl’s accounts of the selfappearance of flesh and of the temporal flux of consciousness. In both instances, consciousness of a primary object is accompanied by a prereflexive self-consciousness: consciousness of worldly things is accompanied by consciousness of my flesh, and consciousness of the now of lived experiences (Erlebnisse) is accompanied by consciousness of the temporal flux of consciousness. Bernet is clear that this self-consciousness is not the object of direct intention, but rejects Henry’s view, which proposes that it is ‘‘purely impressional and therefore without relation to any form of intentionality or transcendence whatsoever.’’ Instead, Bernet describes the auto-affection of the subject’s self-consciousness as ‘‘having the form of an impressional intentionality’’ (VS 316). 152

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In the case of flesh, Bernet insists that while not itself being an object of perception, flesh only appears in being ‘‘put to work’’ in an act of perception: Each perception of an extended thing would therefore involve a double intentionality: the impressional intentionality which circulates among the sensations, and the objectifying intentionality which places this network of sensations in relation to worldly things. A double mode of manifestation corresponds to this double intentionality: the impressional or affective manifestation of flesh and the perceptive manifestation of the thing. (VS 322) Bernet agrees with Henry that flesh appears in a way that is quite different from that of worldly objects. Flesh appears in an immediate, impressional and affective way that is part of the original self-manifestation of the life of the subject. However, Bernet disagrees with Henry’s contention that the subject’s auto-affection in flesh is purely immanent: Nevertheless, this life of the subject is not limited to being the impressional self-manifestation of itself, since its intentionality also carries it, and at the same time, towards the objects of the world. A life which totally coincided with its self-manifestation would scarcely have the right to be called ‘subjective.’ Indeed, we have observed how subjective life is animated by a double intentionality which results in its appearing to itself precisely in making the objects of the world appear, or precisely in being affected by them. . . . . . . M. Henry is wrong to consider this self-manifestation as being more original than the manifestation of worldly things and as constituting in some way the very essence of manifestation. It has proven to be true not only that these two modes of appearance necessarily go together, but also that the subject does not coincide with the self-manifestation of his life. (emphasis mine) (VS 326–27) Bernet’s analysis supports Marion’s account of flesh as auto-affection. However, in Bernet’s understanding, this auto-affection cannot be presented as strictly absolute because it is always associated with a corresponding perception of the world. Romano: flesh and corporality. In an essay whose title refers to MerleauPonty’s description of vision as narcissistic,36 Claude Romano sets out Husserl’s concept of flesh, and then traces the way in which MerleauPonty develops Husserl’s understanding across a number of works, culminating in The Visible and the Invisible. Romano’s critical but sympathetic Flesh as Absolute

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analysis concludes by taking Husserl’s secondary object a step further. Like Bernet, Romano agrees with Husserl that every sensory perception is doubled, in that there is always a secondary appearance associated with the appearance of the primary object. However, where Bernet and Husserl identify this secondary appearance as being that of flesh, Romano’s understanding is closer to Merleau-Ponty’s. Romano rejects the idea of flesh as pure auto-affection, proposing that we should instead think of a ‘‘corporality,’’ in which interiority and exteriority are co-original, because of my ‘‘primitive being-outside of [my]self ’’ in a world (Il y a, 224). In this section, I set out the modifications Romano makes to Husserl’s and MerleauPonty’s understandings of flesh, and his insistence that sensibility is only possible because we are related to the world in a primitive corporality. Romano credits Husserl’s analysis of flesh and body with having laid the foundation for all subsequent phenomenological accounts of flesh and sensory perception. However, in his view, Husserl’s understanding remains sensation-focused, idealistic, solipsistic, and theoretical (Il y a, 178– 91). Although Romano regards Merleau-Ponty as making great progress in addressing these deficiencies, he maintains a critical distance from Merleau-Ponty’s thought. He proposes three key modifications to the fundamental approach that Merleau-Ponty inherited from Husserl. First, Romano argues that there is no reason for privileging the situation where one of my hands touches the other—an example that is exhaustively discussed by Henry as well as by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. In Romano’s view, what happens in touching my own hand ‘‘does not differ fundamentally from what takes place on the occasion of every contact with things’’ (Il y a, 215). Each time I touch any body whatsoever, I experience myself as touching, and as being affected by it. Therefore, all touch is ‘‘an event structured according to two poles, that of the world and that of me, in continuous interaction with each other: . . . touching is at once and indissociably proprioceptive and exteroceptive’’ (Il y a, 216). Touching my own body is no more originary an experience than touching another body because I touch my hand as touched and not as touching. Romano proposes that instead of focusing on flesh’s auto-affection, we should think in terms of a fundamental reciprocity and relation with the world: Since all exteroception already possesses in itself a proprioceptive dimension, . . . the experience of auto-contact . . . would appear to be derived from and subordinated to a more original experience: that by which, in exposing myself to the world, I apprehend myself in my relation to things. It is not the pure auto-affection of a monadic 154

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‘‘I’’ that founds the possibility of my contact with things, but the reciprocity of an original con-tact that alone renders proprioceptive experience thinkable. (Il y a, 218–19) In such a reciprocity, ‘‘proprioception and exteroception are thought as co-original’’ (Il y a, 222). Romano’s primary concern here is to counter the idealistic and solipsistic aspects of Husserl’s thought—characteristics that are much more pronounced in Henry—by insisting on the foundational role of my relatedness to the world. However, his view does not add greatly to Husserl’s insistence that perception is both the appearance of an object, and the appearance of myself as perceiver. Moreover, Romano’s criticisms of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty are overstated on this point. Despite Romano’s misleadingly incomplete quotation from Ideas II, it is not accurate to describe Husserl’s account of one hand touching the other as a ‘‘quasicoincidence’’ (Il y a, 183). As I outlined earlier, Husserl understands the doubling when one hand touches another in the sense of the same experience happening twice (my left hand touches my right, and then vice versa), rather than in the sense of some new kind of doubled experience.37 Similarly, although Merleau-Ponty describes the body as ‘‘at once seeing and seen’’ in Eye and Mind, he explicitly rejects any suggestion of strict coincidence in The Visible and the Invisible.38 For both Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, the key significance of one hand touching another is that, precisely because it can both touch and be touched, my enfleshed body establishes my sensible perception in a world of sensibility. Second, Romano argues that there is no reason for privileging touch over the other senses. It is not touch alone that is both proprioceptive and exteroceptive, but rather all the senses are necessarily so. He suggests that we are inclined to distinguish touch from the other senses because of a linguistic peculiarity (found in at least English, French and German) in which the same word is applied to inanimate objects and to perceiving subjects. Thus, a thing can touch me, but cannot see, taste, smell, or hear me. As Romano correctly points out, this peculiarity actually involves an equivocal use of touch: Things do not touch me in the same way that I touch them. Therefore, he concludes, it is more accurate to describe touch, along with the other senses, as elements of a general sensibility that places me in a world: ‘‘By its means, a relation is established between me and things’’ (Il y a, 221). This sensibility is not only tactual, but also visual, aural, and so on: ‘‘The dimension of reciprocity and contact, far from constituting a particularity of touch, is fundamentally valid for all the senses’’ (Il y a, 221). Flesh as Absolute

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Although Romano’s comments here are a helpful development of an insight already found in Heidegger, that things cannot touch as we touch,39 they do not deal with Husserl’s account of the distinctive localization of touching (see the earlier section in this chapter, ‘‘Husserl: Body and Flesh’’). Husserl rightly observes that touch sensations are localized to particular parts of my body in a way that other sensations are not.40 However, one could argue that all the senses contribute to localizing my body as a whole with respect to the world, by establishing the ‘here’ around which I situate the various parts of the sensible world. Moreover, even in the case of touch, I do not touch or even see that a particular part of my body is touching. Rather, I have an immediate impression of where in my body a particular touch sensation is localized: ‘‘It hurts here.’’ Although this locality can be touched and seen, it cannot be touched or seen as touching. In this respect, the other senses are very similar to touch. I have an immediate impression that I see from my eyes even though I cannot see my seeing as such. Similarly, I have an immediate, although less precise, sense of smelling and hearing things around a localized ‘here.’ Thus, Romano’s argument can be extended to Husserl’s discussion of localization. The fundamental experience to be considered is not a particular type of sensation as such, but rather the general sensibility that locates me in a world. Third, to emphasize that ‘‘the body is originally excentric to itself, . . . [and] constituted in itself by an original being-outside-itself,’’ Romano suggests that Husserl’s very concept of ‘‘flesh’’ should be replaced by ‘‘a corporality as undergoing the world, with the intimacy to oneself of this corporality signifying no more than a modality of this initial excentricity’’ (Il y a, 223). Rather than thinking of the body in itself, we should think of it as ‘‘the sensible (and sentient) modality of this primitive being-outside of self ’’ (Il y a, 224). This original corporality precedes and makes possible any distinction into sensing and sensed, constituting and constituted, flesh and body. In so far as my enfleshed body appears, it appears as originally and always open to the world, with an openness that can never be folded in on itself by pure auto-affection. Romano’s concept of corporality largely restates Merleau-Ponty’s concept of ‘‘the flesh of the world,’’ although with less florid language, and with more careful acknowledgment of the particularity of the sentient human body in that corporality. Romano’s fundamental insight is that the human body appears as flesh only because of its original relatedness to the world, and in the context of that relatedness.

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Conclusion Despite the diversity evident in the phenomenological understandings of flesh I have considered in this chapter, there is broad agreement that flesh appears in a way that is markedly different from that of constituted objects. Unlike such constituted objects, flesh appears immediately and as auto-affection: The sensations that I feel in my flesh are my sensations. However, there is a range of views about the way in which heteroaffection is related to this auto-affection. Marion proposes that flesh is strict auto-affection; that is, it appears without relation to any other phenomenon—it is absolute according to relation. However, he fails to argue for this convincingly, and further undermines his argument by placing flesh in relation to other phenomena in The Erotic Phenomenon. By not completely excluding the world from flesh’s appearance, Marion compromises his claim for flesh as an absolute phenomenon. Henry’s account of flesh is more consistent than Marion’s in maintaining that flesh is strict auto-affection. However, there are two problems with Henry’s account as it stands. First, it depends upon metaphysical claims about ‘‘Life’’ that are not immediately supported by experience: Henry gives no indication of what the self-appearance of Life in my flesh would be like. The metaphysical nature of these claims makes them problematic for Marion to appropriate, given his insistence that he is engaged in nonmetaphysical phenomenology. Second, describing affection as strictly auto-affection does not correspond to our experience. Although my sensation is clearly my sensation, if it is not at the same time an experience in which I sense some other, then it ceases to be sensation at all. Perhaps the closest one could come to strict auto-affection would be in an isolated flotation tank, where all hetero-affection is removed. However, the purported relaxation of such tanks is not achieved by allowing one to sense one’s flesh, but rather by total sensory deprivation. It seems that I only feel my flesh in auto-affection when I am also feeling some other in hetero-affection. The more convincing accounts of flesh describe affection as being double in some way so that it encompasses both auto-affection and heteroaffection. In different ways, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Bernet, and Romano each include some reference to this double affection. Their accounts have in common an insistence that while flesh appears in an exceptional and immediate way, its appearance is always related to the appearance of the world. Consequently, while flesh’s affection is properly auto-affection,

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it is not strictly and exclusively auto-affection. Even an experience such as desire, which might at first glance appear to be solely an experience of my flesh, is always directed toward an object that is not itself my desiring flesh. I conclude that flesh should not be understood as a phenomenon that is absolute according to relation, and so cannot be a paradigm for such phenomena. In the first part of this chapter, I argued that because Marion does not adequately demonstrate the theoretical possibility of absolute phenomena, he needs a convincing paradigm to fulfil this function. In the absence of such a paradigm, there is no reason to accept the possibility of absolute phenomena in general. Instead, my analysis of flesh has shown that even a phenomenon such as flesh, whose immediate and immanent auto-affection precludes its being constituted as an object, must be understood as part of an original relatedness between the world and me. Marion may be correct to describe flesh as an experience of self-givenness, but this very self-givenness is always given with the givenness of the world. The fundamental relatedness that underlies the phenomenon of flesh means that, far from being an absolute phenomenon, it is inescapably hermeneutic.

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7

The Face as Irregardable Icon

The fourth kind of saturated phenomenon proposed by Marion is the phenomenon that is saturated according to modality. These phenomena are ‘‘irregardable’’1—they have an irreducible invisibility which prevents them from being looked at as objects. He proposes three figures of this type of saturated phenomenon: anamorphosis, icons, and the face.2 There are fundamental difficulties with Marion’s general concept of saturation according to modality, and with his characterization of these phenomena’s irregardability. In the first section of this chapter, I argue that saturation according to modality is not necessarily a distinct kind of saturation, and that Marion’s accounts of particular irregardable phenomena cannot be extended to all irregardable phenomena. Therefore, in the subsequent sections, I discuss these accounts as individual studies of particular saturated phenomena rather than as a general account of phenomena that are saturated according to modality. Two different accounts of irregardability can be distinguished in Marion’s various descriptions of anamorphosis, icons, and the face. His first account depends on an inversion of intentionality: Instead of my looking at phenomena, they look at me. By contrast, in his second account, although the phenomena cannot be looked at with an intention that attempts to constitute objects, their appearing still remains associated with a particular way of ‘looking’ at them. Thus, an anamorphosis only appears if I situate myself at the correct viewing position; an icon only appears as such (rather than as an idol) if I venerate it; the face of another person 159

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appears when I ‘‘envisage’’ him or her with the necessary openness and ‘‘faith.’’ Marion’s first account of irregardable phenomena is deeply indebted to Levinas’ analysis of the face. Levinas describes the face as an ‘‘epiphany’’ rather than a phenomenon to emphasize that it does not appear as an object for a constituting intention in the way that ordinary phenomena appear. He insists that the face is radically and absolutely other, and cannot be reduced to being part of the totality which a subject seeks to establish on the basis of the same. In Levinas’ account, the face of the other is not an object to be looked at and known, but rather that which imposes its ethical injunction on me: You shall not kill!3 This conception of the face lies behind Marion’s claims that an irregardable phenomenon initiates its own appearing, and imposes itself on me from itself: ‘‘It manifests itself from itself, on the basis of itself and as itself ’’ (IE 121*/146). However, Marion’s second account of irregardable phenomena is quite contrary to Levinas’ emphasis on the asymmetry between the other person and me. In this account, although I still do not constitute phenomena, neither do they impose themselves on me. Instead, my opening myself to them in veneration or envisaging allows them to appear as invisible (i.e., without the ordinary visibility of objects that can be looked at). In this account, the simple inversion of intentionality in the first account is replaced by a ‘‘crisscross [croise´e]’’ of looks. Marion does not distinguish between these two accounts, and almost all of his texts on irregardable phenomena contain elements of both of them. In the later sections of this chapter, I set out the two accounts of irregardable phenomena that are present in his various descriptions of anamorphosis, icons, and the face. I argue both that his second account is more persuasive than his first account, and also that it undermines the claims that he makes on behalf of irregardable phenomena. If the appearing of an irregardable phenomenon depends on my venerating and envisaging, then, contra Marion, its givenness is not absolute, and its appearing is more complex than a simple self-manifestation. I argue that irregardable phenomena do not just impose themselves on me, but that my venerating and envisaging opens a prior hermeneutic space that makes their appearing possible and conditions it. From Irregardable Phenomenon to an Inversion of Looks Kant regards his categories of modality as being distinct from the other categories, in that ‘‘they do not augment the concept to which they are ascribed in the least, but rather express only the relation to the faculty of 160

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cognition’’ (CPR A 219/B 266). The categories of quantity, quality, and relation determine objects in themselves, or in relation to each other, and thereby determine an ‘‘entirely complete’’ concept of a thing (CPR A 219/B 266). The categories of modality determine how the fully determined object is related to the understanding, as it is applied to experience. Thus, an object is possible if it accords with the formal conditions of experience (in particular, space and time), actual if it connects with the material conditions of experience (i.e., actual perception), and necessary if its connection with the actual is determined by the general conditions of experience (in particular, by the law of causality) (CPR A 218/B 265–66).4 Marion focuses on the fact that Kantian modality expresses an object’s relation to the experience of a subject, and argues that Kant describes a phenomenon that is alienated from itself because it is shown by and for another, rather than showing and giving itself: ‘‘Far from showing itself, it lets itself be merely put on a stage that is set by and for another besides it; it is an actor without action, submitted to a spectator and transcendental stager, . . . [F]ar from giving itself, it lets itself be shown, made visible and put on stage’’ (BG 212–13*/297). In Marion’s judgment, such alienation of a phenomenon is part of its being constituted as an object ‘‘that gets its status from a preceding objectifying intentionality . . .—therefore, conditional’’ (BG 213*/297). He concludes that this alienating approach to a phenomenon can be summarized as a subject looking at an object. Consequently, he asserts that a saturated phenomenon is one that appears with such an excess that it ‘‘refuses to let itself be looked at as an object,’’ thereby annulling efforts to constitute it, and escaping from the objectness a subject seeks to impose on it (BG 213–14*/298–99). Marion then asks whether a phenomenon that refuses to let itself be looked at can still be seen. His answer is a decisive affirmative, on the basis of a distinction between ‘‘seeing [voir]’’ and ‘‘looking [regarder]’’ that echoes Sartre’s analysis of the objectifying look,5 and depends in large part on the etymological relation between ‘‘regarder [to look]’’ and ‘‘garder [to keep, hold]’’: In order to see, it is not as necessary to perceive by the sense of sight (or any other sense) as it is to receive what shows itself from itself because it gives itself in visibility according to its own initiative . . . On the other hand, looking at [regarder] is about being able to keep [garder] the visible thus seen under the control of the one who sees . . . without letting it have the initiative in appearing (or disappearing) . . . conserving it in permanent presence . . . transforming it into an object . . .—visible within the limits of a concept, therefore The Face as Irregardable Icon

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at the initiative of the look [regard] . . . in short, visible in conformity with objectness. . . . the look keeps [le regard garde] objects in an objectified state for the I. Hence, the look sees, but more originally it possesses and conserves—it guards [garde]. (BG 214*/299–300) According to this distinction, Marion describes saturated phenomena as ‘‘irregardable’’—unable to be looked at. Although ordinary phenomena are looked at and experienced as objects, he proposes that saturated phenomena should be regarded as ‘‘non-objects’’ that are experienced in a ‘‘counter-experience’’—one that ‘‘resists the conditions of objectification’’ (BG 215/300) and ‘‘imposes on me an actuality immediately its own’’ (BG 216/302). The contention that some phenomena exceed the concepts of an intentional subject, and thus do not appear under the conditions of objectness, recurs repeatedly in Being Given, and is very persuasive. However, it is by no means only irregardable phenomena that are not submitted to objectness. In earlier parts of the book, Marion criticizes Kant for submitting phenomena to the conditions of objectness with respect to quantity, quality, and relation. Now, if the defining characteristic of phenomena saturated according to modality is that they are simply unable to be looked at as objects, it is difficult to see anything that is particular to this kind of saturation. This difficulty is exacerbated in the following section of the chapter on saturation according to modality, where Marion gives three examples of saturated phenomena, and sets out the way in which all three are saturated according to quantity, quality, and relation.6 Certainly, there is a shift in emphasis with saturation according to modality: Saturations according to quantity, quality, and relation are more concerned with the phenomenon (which is, respectively, beyond measure, dazzling, and absolute), while saturation according to modality is more concerned with the subject (who is unable to look at the phenomenon as an object). This shift of emphasis is reflected in the titles of the two chapters of Being Given in which Marion elaborates the various kinds of saturation. Both §21 and §22 share the same main title (‘‘Sketch of the Saturated Phenomenon’’), and differ only in subtitle (respectively, ‘‘The Horizon’’ and ‘‘I’’). The first three kinds of saturation are concerned with the horizon, while saturation according to modality is concerned with the I. However, this shift in emphasis would be more accurately described as a different aspect of saturation, rather than as a different kind of saturation. One further step in Marion’s argument establishes the basis for his subsequent discussion of the icon and the face. Having argued that phenomena saturated according to modality are irregardable, he asserts that such 162

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a phenomenon ‘‘not only suspends the phenomenon’s subjection to the I; it inverts it’’ (BG 216/302). The constituting subject who looks at an object is replaced by a ‘‘constituted witness,’’ on whom a ‘‘passive synthesis’’ is ‘‘imposed’’ by an ‘‘inversion of the look’’ (BG 216–17*/302–3). If a phenomenon that inverted the look in this way existed, it would certainly be an irregardable and nonobjectifiable phenomenon. However, Marion gives no reason for nominating an inversion of the look as being a defining characteristic of a phenomenon that is saturated according to modality. Therefore, to the extent that he analyzes the icon and the face in terms of an inversion of the look, they do not necessarily function as paradigms of irregardable phenomena in general, but only of a particular kind of irregardable phenomenon. Thus, the significance of Marion’s accounts of anamorphosis, icons, and the face is qualified in two important respects. First, saturation according to modality may be better understood as a different aspect of saturation in general, rather than as a distinct kind of saturation. Second, because Marion does not establish that inversion of the look is a defining characteristic of saturation according to modality, there is no basis for extending accounts of this characteristic to apply to irregardable phenomena in general. Nevertheless, Marion’s accounts of these phenomena remain valuable as studies of saturated phenomena. In the remainder of this chapter, I therefore discuss them on their merits as individual studies, rather than addressing them together as a systematic treatment of phenomena that are saturated according to modality. Anamorphosis An anamorphosis (literally: taking form again, trans-forming) is a painting or drawing that can only be seen fully if looked at in a particular way. It might require a viewer to stand at a specific point, or to use a suitable mirror or lens. From all other points of view, an anamorphosis appears distorted, or only shows a part of its picture. The most widely known example of anamorphosis is Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors, which appears to be an ordinary portrait unless viewed from slightly above and to the right, in which case a skull appears in the foreground.7 Marion argues that anamorphoses impose the conditions of their appearing on a viewer, and that therefore anamorphosis is a ‘‘determination of the phenomenon according to givenness: it appears given by itself ’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 131/185). His account of the demands made by anamorphoses is convincing. However, I argue that, because an anamorphosis’ The Face as Irregardable Icon

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appearing depends on a viewer’s conforming to these demands, it cannot be described as an instance of pure givenness. Anamorphoses appear not only as given by themselves, but also as received by a viewer. Marion first discusses the idea of anamorphoses in ‘‘The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible’’—an essay on perspective published in 1985, and later revised and incorporated into The Crossing of the Visible.8 In this essay, he describes anamorphosis as ‘‘complicated perspective,’’ and perspective as ‘‘simplified anamorphosis.’’ In Marion’s view, all perspective has an anamorphic character, in that it requires a viewer to take up a particular point of view if the splotches of color in a painting are to ‘‘take shape for the first time’’ (CV 12/28). Notably, this essay contains no parallel to Marion’s later descriptions of anamorphosis as a phenomenon welling up to appearance from itself. On the contrary, immediately after describing anamorphosis as ‘‘complicated perspective,’’ Marion identifies perspective as being the ‘‘work of the look’’ and ‘‘equivalent to the intentional aim’’ of Husserlian phenomenology (CV 12*/29). Although an anamorphosis appears only when a viewer conforms to the conditions proper to the painting, Marion’s view in this essay is that an anamorphosis’ appearing as a phenomenon still depends on a subject’s look, ‘‘which exercises the phenomenological function of intentionality’’ (CV 13/30). While Marion focuses on aesthetic considerations in The Crossing of the Visible, he moves to broader phenomenological questions in Being Given. Consistent with this shift, his discussion of anamorphosis in Being Given is not concerned with aesthetics but with the possibility of understanding all phenomena as anamorphic. He sees anamorphosis as offering a model in which phenomenality depends on what is given, rather than on a constituting subject (BG 117/166, 123ff./174ff.), and specifies two characteristics of anamorphosis as the basis for its being a model of phenomena in general. First, in appearing, an anamorphosis actively ‘‘gives itself ’’ (BG 131/ 185). When seen from the point of view that is particular to it, an anamorphosis changes its form, and appears in a striking new way. Marion describes this second appearing as the phenomenon’s arrival from ‘‘elsewhere’’—its ‘‘rising from the first to the second form . . . passing from that which goes without saying [va de soi] . . . to that which comes from itself [vient de soi]’’ (BG 124*/176). He argues that anamorphoses make clear what is true of all phenomena: Their appearance comes from ‘‘elsewhere’’ than the subject; they appear ‘‘by coming upon us despite us,’’ from their own self-giving and self-showing, ‘‘weighing on that which they come upon’’ (BG 123/174). 164

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Second, an anamorphosis takes back ‘‘phenomenality’s centre of gravity’’ from the subject and ‘‘gives itself ’’ (BG 131/185). While ordinary objects appear under conditions imposed by a subject, an anamorphosis imposes conditions on the ‘‘I/me,’’ appearing only for those who ‘‘submit’’ themselves to its demands by adopting the necessary point of view and aligning themselves along its ‘‘immanent axis’’ (BG 123/174, 124/176, 131/184). In Marion’s view, this inversion of initiative and determination should be understood as the ordinary or ‘‘proper’’ way in which phenomena appear (BG 124/176). When we force phenomena to appear as objects, we distort them by imposing external conditions on them. Marion’s account of anamorphosis presents a convincing argument that phenomena should not be understood as objects determined by ‘‘the subject’s whim [arbitraire]’’ (BG 131*/184). Instead, they should be recognized as exceeding the limits of any conditions imposed by a subject: They happen to, and even impose themselves on a recipient. However, Marion’s account becomes distorted and misleading when he claims that this is a simple inversion in which determinations that a subject imposes on an object are replaced by determinations that a phenomenon imposes on a recipient. He rightly insists that an anamorphosis appears by ‘‘arriving to me,’’ ‘‘coming upon me [m’advient],’’ and even ‘‘imposing itself on me’’ (BG 125–30/177–84), but his failing is to suggest that this appearing happens completely independently of the recipient, so that ‘‘it appears given by itself ’’ (BG 131/185). A crucial role for the recipient is implied by Marion’s own account of anamorphosis because the appearance of an anamorphosis depends not just on the phenomenon, but also on the recipient. Although Marion acknowledges that there can be no appearance without a recipient (BG 125/ 177), he describes that recipient in completely passive terms: The anamorphosis ‘‘submits the subject to its appearing’’ (BG 131/184) so that the recipient becomes ‘‘a point of arrival . . . a target’’ (BG 117/166), a ‘‘constituted witness’’ who—‘‘without initiative or delay’’—renders a phenomenon apparent by ‘‘lighting up as [an indicator lamp] on a control panel’’ when the phenomenon arrives (BG 217–18/302–3). However, this view of the recipient in terms of passive reaction is inconsistent with other parts of Marion’s account of anamorphosis, which make it clear that an anamorphosis’ appearing requires an active viewer. Thus, although an anamorphosis sets the conditions for its appearing, it can actually appear only if a viewer discovers these conditions, and then satisfies them. Marion explicitly acknowledges that viewers do not succeed in this by mere chance, nor do they simply wait passively to be oriented and ‘activated’ by an anamorphosis imposing its conditions. On the contrary, ‘‘consciousness The Face as Irregardable Icon

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must seek to align itself ’’ along the axis determined by an anamorphosis (BG 117/166), and this aligning entails ‘‘mak[ing] numerous and frequently fruitless attempts’’ before ‘‘the unique point of view’’ is found (BG 124/176). Undoubtedly, anamorphoses do not appear at the whim of a constituting subject, but their appearing nonetheless depends on an active and deliberate recipient. The necessary interaction between phenomenon and recipient is particularly clear in Marion’s description of learning to use a computer, which he proposes as an example of the anamorphic way in which phenomena ‘‘come upon me.’’ He declares that a computer appears as the equipment that it is ‘‘only once it functions, and it will function only once a hand . . . turns it on, taps on a key, fiddles with the keyboard’’ (BG 127/180). In this instance, he has no hesitation in stating the implicatures for the recipient’s role: That I lend myself to its playing defines the no-longer-only-theoretical but practical condition for the appearing of equipment. These phenomena are given only if I let them come upon me, and this double movement designates a new figure of contingency: the interaction of my being put in play with the phenomenon’s being put on stage. (BG 128*/181) There is no question here that a phenomenon could appear on its own, without a deliberate and active reception by ‘‘an associated actor’’ (BG 127/180). While this recipient may not determine the conditions of a phenomenon’s appearing, his or her active reception is certainly one of the conditions for that appearing. Therefore, Marion’s claims about anamorphosis need to be moderated and qualified. An anamorphosis might well appear by imposing itself on a recipient, but it does not do this ‘‘by coming upon us despite us. . . . accomplishing itself independently of our exchange, our efficiency, and our foresight’’ (BG 123/174). Even though it ‘‘gives itself ’’ and ‘‘gives itself,’’ it is not simply ‘‘given by itself ’’ (BG 131/185). Contra Marion, an anamorphosis shows itself not only in so far as it gives itself, but also in so far as it is received in an interaction with a recipient. Furthermore, if ‘‘anamorphosis . . . marks the first determination of the phenomenon according to givenness’’ as Marion maintains (BG 131/185), then givenness is not ‘‘pure,’’ but is qualified by its interaction with reception.9 Icons Marion introduces his theory of idols and icons in The Idol and Distance (1977), and develops it further in God without Being (1982) and in a series 166

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of essays from the 1980s that are collected in The Crossing of the Visible (1991). In Being Given (1997), he returns to these ideas, but considers idols and icons more independently from one another, as two separate instances of different kinds of saturated phenomenon. However, despite the different emphases in his work at these different stages, his understanding of idols and icons remains fundamentally consistent.10 In Marion’s theory, both idols and icons are invisible, although in different ways. He initially distinguishes them by comparing their functions with that of mirrors and prisms, respectively. An idol’s characteristics are determined by the looking intention, which it fills and satisfies. Like all mirrors, it remains invisible itself, while making visible that which looks at it. Rather than being an appearance of the transcendent, an idol merely reflects the concepts of the divine that are projected onto it.11 Turning to icons, Marion compares them with prisms, which make white light visible by showing it in something else, namely colors. In the same way, an icon allows the invisible and transcendent to appear without compromising its invisibility and transcendence. The distance between the viewer and the transcendent is ‘‘recognised’’ rather than ‘‘abolished,’’ in a manifestation that is ‘‘a sort of negative theophany.’’12 On several occasions, Marion identifies Christ as the ‘‘norm’’ for this iconic showing of the invisible in the visible, and quotes St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians: ‘‘He is the icon (εκ ν) of the invisible God’’ (Col 1:15).13 The two characteristics Marion specifies for anamorphosis can also be found in his analysis of icons. First, just as an anamorphosis gives itself from elsewhere, so an icon is the appearing from elsewhere of that which is genuinely other and transcendent.14 Second, just as an anamorphosis inverts the initiative of appearance and gives itself, rather than being constituted as an object by a subject, so an icon imposes itself on the one who sees it. The invisible is not constituted as an object when it appears in an icon, but ‘‘summons sight’’ and ‘‘proceeds up into the visible . . . bestowing the visible, so as to thus deduce it from itself [i.e., the invisible] and give itself to appear there’’ (GWB 17*/28). In short, ‘‘to give itself to be seen, the icon needs only itself ’’ (GWB 24/37; cf. 20/33). Indeed, according to Marion, an icon’s appearance is completely independent of its viewer: It is ‘‘a manifestation not only in and of itself, but strictly by and on the basis of itself (auto-manifestation)’’ (BG 232/323). Marion takes this second characteristic of anamorphosis, in which the initiative for a phenomenon’s appearing is inverted, a step further in his analysis of icons; an icon not only inverts the initiative for its appearing, but also inverts the very look of the viewer: The Face as Irregardable Icon

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The icon . . . no longer offers any spectacle to the look and tolerates no look from any spectator, but on the contrary exerts its own look over that which faces it. The looker takes the place of the looked upon; the manifested phenomenon is reversed . . . the paradox reverses the polarity of manifestation by taking the initiative, far from undergoing it; by giving it, far from being given by it. . . . [I]n this way, anamorphosis reaches its final excellence. (BG 232*/323) According to Marion, to see an icon means the ‘‘nearly perfect inversion’’ of ‘‘exchanging our look for the look which iconistically looks us in the face’’ (GWB 19/31, 21*/34). Instead of our looks being reflected back to us, as is the case with idols, ‘‘the look of the invisible, in person, aims at man’’ (GWB 19*/31; cf. CV 21–22/44, 33/62). Marion’s descriptions of this inversion, in which he attributes an intentional aim to icons, are reminiscent of Sartre’s analysis of the look in Being and Nothingness. According to Sartre, I can either look at another person, thus constituting him or her as an object in my world, or this can be simply inverted so that the other person looks at me and constitutes me as an object.15 However, although it may be possible to describe interpersonal relations in terms of such an inversion, in what sense can an icon be said to have intentions, aims and looks? These characteristics can only be attributed to icons themselves in a merely analogous way, in which case they would no longer have the capacity to constitute me as an object.16 Alternatively, they can be attributed to the saint or deity depicted in the icon, but in this case there are no apparent phenomenological grounds for making such an attribution. In one text, Marion opts clearly for the second of these alternatives, in which the icon’s look is attributed to the saint or deity that it depicts.17 However, most of his accounts of the icon’s look make more sense when they are read in an analogous sense, rather than as literal descriptions of an icon looking at me. Particularly in the essays of The Crossing of the Visible, Marion places the icon’s look in the context of a ‘‘crisscross [croise´e]’’ of looks between the viewer and the icon. In these passages, there is no suggestion that I am simply objectified and looked at by icons. Rather, I continue to look at an icon, though in a particular way that allows me to approach the icon as itself ‘looking’ at me: What is at stake in the operation of an icon concerns not the perception of the visible or the aesthetic, but the crisscrossed trajectory of two looks; in order for one who sees to let himself be seen and to tear himself away from the status of viewer, it is necessary for him to go back up, across the visible icon, towards the origin of the other 168

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look, confessing and thus allowing himself to be seen by it. (CV 60*/107; cf. 21/43, 87/153) Such an account of an icon’s visibility certainly avoids understanding the icon as an object, but without simply inverting the terms and making the icon a subject that objectifies its viewer. For this reason, it is Marion’s most convincing account of icons, and I believe it provides the basis for approaching his other descriptions of the icon’s look. Understanding an icon’s visibility as a ‘‘crisscross’’ of looks is also consistent with Marion’s description of a contemplative attitude to icons. In both God without Being and The Crossing of the Visible, he is very clear that icons do not appear as objects to be seen, but rather as invisible recipients of prayer and veneration (GWB 19/31, 19/32, 21/34; CV 21/43, 60/108, 65/115, 86/152, 87/153). Indeed, he admits that a phenomenon can only appear as an icon if it is approached with the appropriate spirit of veneration: ‘‘Certain beings can pass from idol to icon, or from icon to idol, changing in status only when venerated, . . . the manner of seeing decides what can be seen’’ (GWB 8–9*/16–17). Moreover, making such a reverent approach is a matter for the decision of the viewer: ‘‘It may be that only liturgy still summons us to such a decision: it provokes the final judgment of every look, which must, before it and it alone, either persist in still wanting to see an idol, or else agree to pray. Praying signifies here: letting the other (of the) look see me’’ (emphasis mine) (CV 65*/ 114–15). Marion’s account of a reverent and contemplative approach to icons makes a significant contribution to his claim that looking at phenomena in an objectifying way imposes a constraint on the phenomenal domain. Phenomena that appear as constituted objects for a constituting subject represent only one possible kind of phenomenality. Icons cannot appear in this way; instead, they appear only when received by a viewer who opens herself/himself in reverence and veneration. However, contra Marion, such reverent openness is by no means pure passivity before a phenomenon that is ‘‘a manifestation not only in and of itself, but strictly by and on the basis of itself (auto-manifestation)’’ (BG 232/323). Although an icon does give itself rather than being constituted by a subject, its appearance does not depend upon itself alone. Its appearing is not only a matter of givenness, but also of the way in which it is received.18 Icons may well look me in the face, but only if I open myself to receiving them as a focus of my veneration and contemplation. Implicit in such veneration of an icon is my recognition that this is an icon, and an appropriate object for The Face as Irregardable Icon

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veneration. Even though I do not constitute an icon as an object, my affirmation of it as an icon to be venerated entails a conceptual understanding. An icon’s appearing as icon depends on the hermeneutic space that is opened by my affirmation and reverent contemplation before it. The Face of the Other Person Marion’s examples of phenomena saturated according to modality reach their final development in the figure of the face of the other person. He first referred to the face in God without Being, where he briefly suggests that ‘‘every face is given as an icon’’ (GWB 19/31). Shortly after God without Being, the face appears as a major focus in ‘‘The Intentionality of Love’’ (1983), an essay dedicated to Levinas, and then again in ‘‘From the Other to the Individual’’ (1997), an essay where he proposes taking a step beyond Levinas’ concept of the face as ethical injunction.19 After mentioning the face briefly in Being Given, Marion focuses on it in the fifth study of In Excess, and makes his most recent comments on it in The Erotic Phenomenon (2003). Marion acknowledges that his thought on the face draws on the prior work of Levinas.20 However, his account of the face does not simply repeat Levinas’ thought. Over the course of his texts, a development becomes evident that can be framed in terms of stages that he lays out in ‘‘From the Other to the Individual.’’ In this essay, Marion proposes three stages in relating to another person, during which both oneself and the other are simultaneously individuated: first, asserting the primacy of the existent over existence; second, inverting intentionality by assigning it to the Other, who imposes ethical responsibility on me; third, individualizing the other by going beyond ethics, and loving him or her (beyond ethics).21 The second of these stages of individuation is clearly that of Levinas’ ethical injunction, in which the face of the other becomes visible in the prohibition: Thou shalt not kill! Reflections on this ethical relation to others lie behind Marion’s various descriptions of icons as inverting intentionality, so that I find myself looked at rather than looking. The third stage corresponds to his account of icons as a ‘‘crisscross’’ of looks, and is the one that becomes dominant as his thought increasingly focuses on the other person in the context of love. I now trace this development in Marion’s thought, and argue that it requires a revision of the claims he makes for the face as a saturated phenomenon that gives itself by imposing the weight of its call on me.

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‘‘The Intentionality of Love’’ In ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ Marion sets out to find a way through the aporia of love being both my love, and love of another. He begins by endorsing Levinas’ judgment that love is not a form of representational thought because such thought reduces otherness to being an aspect of myself; that is, to being part of the same.22 He then suggests that thinking of love in terms of phenomenological intentionality might allow it to escape from immanence because intention is always correlated with a transcendental object. However, because my immediate experience is only of my own Erlebnisse, and not of the other person as such, Marion concludes that understanding love as intentionality remains a form of ‘‘self-idolatry,’’ where the other reflects me back to myself.23 His solution to this aporia has two steps. First, quoting Levinas (and echoing Sartre), he describes another person looking at me as taking intentionality and initiative from me, leaving me with a ‘‘consciousness that flows against the current [conscience a` contre-courant], overturning consciousness.’’24 In this ‘‘counter-consciousness [contre-conscience],’’ I look the other in the face (‘‘envisager’’), rather than looking at an object; I look at the black and empty holes of his or her pupils, where there is no-thing to be seen.25 Because I am seen rather than seeing, the I who is subject is replaced by a me who is object.26 Second, drawing on Levinas’ thought, Marion describes this counter-consciousness as an ethical injunction. Even before I experience the other as the one who looks at me, I experience the other as the one for whom I am responsible.27 ‘‘The Intentionality of Love’’ is primarily an account of the second stage of individuation described earlier in this chapter, where the other person appears in my experience of an ethical injunction. However, there are also passages in this essay where Marion introduces elements of the third stage, where my experience of the other person is more of a ‘‘crisscross’’ between us. First, Marion is clear that he does not regard an ethical injunction as a simple inversion of intentionality. Although it is a moral consciousness weighing on me rather than a transcendental consciousness initiated by me, it remains my consciousness, and should not be understood as resulting from another’s intentionality.28 Second, unlike Levinas, Marion introduces a degree of symmetry into his account. He likens the crisscrossed look between two people to the crossing of swords between two duelists or the crossing of arms between two arm wrestlers. In each case, there is one single Erlebnis of tension and weight that can only be experienced in common.29 As these analogies clearly depend upon the intention of both persons, they are not entirely consistent with Marion’s

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assertion that an injunction should not be regarded as resulting from another’s intention. Nevertheless, both passages show Marion’s awareness that he cannot describe the appearing of another person as a phenomenon that simply extinguishes subjectivity and intentionality. Certainly, another person does not appear as an object constituted by me, but neither am I simply constituted as an object for him or her. This essay concludes by describing an ethical injunction as a summons that calls me to render myself open to another person by surrendering to him or her in faith.30 It is at this point that Marion comes closest to evoking the particular sort of receptive intentionality that is proper to love. The Face in Being Given In his texts proposing the theory of saturated phenomena, Marion briefly considers the face again. These texts are exclusively concerned with the second stage of individuation, and make no mention of any sort of mutuality. Thus, Marion describes the face as invisibly giving itself to me: ‘‘[It] gives me nothing to see—but gives itself by weighing on me’’ (BG 233/ 324). There is no suggestion of active reception here; on the contrary, this self-giving of a person’s face is a simple inversion in which ‘‘the other [person] acts’’ rather than me, and ‘‘constitute[s] me as his or her own’’: ‘‘Such an inversion of phenomenality’s polarity evidently implies that the I not only renounce its transcendental function of constitution, but that this function pass to the figure of . . . the witness: me, in so far as I receive myself from the very givenness of the irregardable phenomenon’’ (BG 233*/324). Interestingly, even though this is one of the points at which Marion acknowledges Levinas’ contribution to a phenomenology of the other person, his description of the other person’s look in Being Given makes no mention of ethical injunction, and is more akin to Sartre’s analysis than to that of Levinas. In Excess: ‘‘The Icon or the Endless Hermeneutic’’ Marion considers the face at length in the fifth chapter of In Excess, entitled ‘‘The Icon or the Endless Hermeneutic.’’ His initial comments in this study correspond to the second stage of individuation, describing the face as an ‘‘ethical phenomenon’’ that inverts intentionality and imposes itself on me: The phenomenality of the face forbids its being possessed, produced, and thus constituted as an intentional object. . . . If there 172

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must be intentionality here . . . it will not be a question, in any case, of mine on him or her, but of his or hers on me. If there must be intuition . . . it will fill no aim arising from me, but will contradict instead every aim at an object that I could foster. . . . Indeed, the injunction ‘‘You shall not kill!’’ imposes itself with an intuition that no concept could grasp and objectify. There is an excess of intuition because (as Kantian respect imposes itself on moral consciousness) the face imposes itself on me. . . . An anamorphosis par excellence is substituted for the centrifugal intentionality coming from me—a point of view coming from elsewhere, which imposes its angle of vision on me. (IE 116–17*/140–41) The simple inversion of intentionality described in this passage does not modify the structure of intentionality as such. Certainly, I am no longer a constituting subject, and my looking at an object is replaced by respect for a call that weighs on me (IE 118–19/142–43). However, this is only accomplished by substituting one intentionality for another. I am cast in the role of constituted object, with the face (as source of the ethical injunction imposed on me) taking on the role of constituting subject. Having established that the other’s face has phenomenological priority over me, in the next section of this study Marion asks a question that opens him to the third stage of individuation: [The face is] an invisible phenomenon, but one that envisages me. The question becomes: Can I, in my turn, envisage it? Can I reach, in return, this invisible but envisaging face as such, without lowering it to the rank of a constituted and objectified visible, in respecting its invisibility and saluting its own phenomenality, in short, in envisaging it as it envisages me? Must one hold the face to be envisageable or unenvisageable? (IE 119*/143–44) This is not the first occasion on which Marion considers this question. Already in God without Being, he maintains that the appearing of an icon ‘‘is a matter of rendering visible this invisible as such—the unenvisageable’’ (GWB 17/29). Almost 20 years later, he gives a different answer: Not only am I able to envisage the other’s face, but indeed there is no other way for it to appear to me: The other person appears to me only starting from the moment when I expose myself to him or her, thus when I no longer master or constitute the other and admit that he or she expresses self without signification [i.e., without a uniquely determinate signification]. The Face as Irregardable Icon

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. . . To accede to this face demands, on the contrary [to closing it up under a noema], envisaging it face-to-face, despite or thanks to its absence of definite signification. (IE 122*/146–47) In this passage, Marion proposes ‘‘envisaging’’ as an alternative to objectifying intentionality: To envisage a person means opening myself to him/ her without expectation of the determinate signification that would allow me to constitute him/her as a knowable object. He believes that we allow a person to appear as such only when we abandon our demand for a uniquely determined truth (whether understood according to the ‘‘classic definition’’ of adequation, or according to the ‘‘phenomenal definition’’ of showing itself from itself ), and approach him or her instead with faith: ‘‘Trust [confiance], not to say faith, offers the sole phenomenologically correct access to the face of the other person’’ (IE 121*/145). Accepting that the face of another person offers no determinate and univocal signification means accepting instead ‘‘an endless diversity of significations, all possible, all provisional, all insufficient’’ (IE 117*/141), and committing oneself to ‘‘the duty of pursuing an endless hermeneutic’’ that interprets these significations (IE 123*/148). I never see another person in the determinate way I can see an object, but must rather always wait for his/her further appearance: ‘‘To envisage a face requires less to see it than to wait for it, to wait for its accomplishment, the terminal act, the passage to actuality’’ (IE 122*/147). Because the meaning of a person’s life cannot be finally determined even at the point of his/her death, Marion describes this waiting and interpreting as continuing indefinitely, always beyond what can be attained in the present. On this basis, in a passage that explicitly draws on theology, he makes a surprising comparison that has no apparent connection with the preceding parts of this study: It is necessary for me to wait for the manifestation of the face of the other person as I must wait for the return of Christ. . . . The hermeneutic of the saturated phenomenon of the other person becomes, in Christian theology, one of the figures of faith, thus of the eschatological wait for the manifestation of the Christ. Because it is always deferred to the end of time, theological faith imposes itself as the sole correct approach to the face of the other. (IE 124*/149–50) As this study of In Excess develops, Marion increasingly focuses on the ‘‘endless hermeneutic’’ of the face that he announces in its title. It is clear that this hermeneutic is subsequent to the appearance of the face, and that its interpretations can never be brought to a close because of the excessive 174

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intuition and indeterminate signification given in that original appearance. However, Marion also sets out a crucial role for the one who envisages the other’s face prior to its actual appearing. He declares that the face appears to me only as face, rather than as object, because of my envisaging it, my waiting for it, my exposing myself to it in faith. Such an actively receptive stance that is prior to the appearance of phenomena is precisely what I have been describing as opening a hermeneutic space in which phenomenality becomes possible.31 The Face in The Erotic Phenomenon In The Erotic Phenomenon, Marion mentions the face only briefly, emphasizing that in the domain of love, the other person no longer appears with the absolute transcendence that s/he has in the domain of ethical injunction. Instead, the other person appears as partner in a reciprocal crisscross of looks and flesh. Marion’s description of the other person as the one who places me under an ethical injunction corresponds closely to his descriptions of the way in which a saturated phenomenon imposes itself on me from itself: [The face] draws its privilege from presenting to me the injunction ‘‘You shall not kill!’’ It manifests this commandment by silently but imperatively enacting it as an ethical demand that places the other person in an absolute transcendence. A stranger to the world, other than me, having rights over me by the intentionality that he or she imposes on me, the other person appears directly as an iconic face (without a fac¸ade to see), who envisages me at a distance. (EP 125*/198) However, Marion puts this description forward only to show how it is surpassed and overcome once the other person is no longer a stranger, but rather a partner in relationship. He is clear that, once we leave the domain of the universal and anonymous other to consider the particularity of real flesh and blood others, it is no longer a question of something being imposed on me. Instead, there is a mutual giving of one to the other, which, at least in the case of love, should be understood in terms of a fundamental reciprocity: ‘‘It is not a question of renouncing my priority so as to recognise it in the other, nor of rendering my dues to him or her; . . . we have only to give ourselves up [adonner] to each other and to give ourselves the status of adonne´ reciprocally’’ (EP 126*/199). Just as in the case of the duelists or arm wrestlers, here too Marion sees ‘‘one single loving The Face as Irregardable Icon

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phenomenon’’ made up of the crisscrossing of faces that have been individualized by becoming flesh (EP 127*/200). Such a crisscrossing cannot be understood as something that is simply imposed on me from itself. Marion’s account here does not describe the face of the other person appearing in an inversion of intentionality. Instead, he describes its appearance as depending on a mutual envisaging and crisscrossing of intentionality. The face is given to me rather than constituted by me, but this giving is not a pure givenness. The face’s givenness depends upon my receiving it by envisaging the other person in a way that also gives me to him or her. Envisaged or Given? Marion’s accounts of anamorphosis, icons, and the face make a convincing case that these phenomena are irregardable. Indeed, the phenomena he considers cannot be looked at as objects to be seen; they do not have the visibility of objects, and so, in a sense, remain invisible, and only appear as invisible. However, Marion does not successfully establish his further claim that such phenomena ‘‘invert intentionality’’ or impose themselves on me purely of themselves. This further claim fails because Marion’s own texts increasingly acknowledge that the appearing of these irregardable phenomena depends not only on themselves, but also on the way in which I receive them. As I have shown, according to Marion himself, these irregardable phenomena appear only in spaces that are opened by my veneration, envisaging, or exposing myself in faith. It is this space of interpretative reception that I describe as hermeneutic in a fundamental sense. Even in ‘‘The Icon or the Endless Hermeneutic,’’ in which this prior hermeneutic space is most evident, Marion resists acknowledging its consequences. He continues to maintain that—like all saturated phenomena—the face ‘‘imposes its phenomenon on me’’ (IE 117/141) in an appearance that depends only on itself: ‘‘In envisaging me, one can also say that it [the face] manifests itself from itself, on the basis of itself and as itself, more than any other phenomenon manages to do’’ (IE 121*/ 146). He rightly insists that the face manifests itself on its own basis, rather than on the basis of any determinate signification that I might try to impose on it. However, he fails to acknowledge that its appearing does not depend upon its givenness alone, but also on my receptiveness. The face’s appearance can only be accomplished if there is a prior hermeneutic envisaging in which I forgo any demand for a determinate signification, 176

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and expose myself in faith, ‘‘consecrating myself to its infinite hermeneutic’’ (IE 126/152) of subsequent interpretations. This envisaging, faith, and consecration are all part of my receptiveness prior to the face’s appearing. Following Marion’s lead in God without Being, one could even characterize my receptiveness as a nonobjectifying form of intentionality: ‘‘To envisage, if the term must have a phenomenological meaning, implies an aim, and hence an aim of Dasein’’ (GWB 69/105). In this passage, Marion is arguing that any God envisaged in Heideggerian terms will remain confined by the horizon of being, and will therefore be onto-theological. However, Marion’s appreciation of the implications of envisaging perhaps provides a clue as to how best to understand his account of the face. This account becomes clearer when instead of adopting the Levinasian terms used by Marion, where the face imposes itself on me in absolute transcendence, we think of Marion’s account of the face in Heideggerian terms, such that the other appears to me on the basis of myself as Dasein being fundamentally open to him or her as Mitdasein (Dasein-with). Heidegger argues that we do not begin as isolated subjects apart from the world, but rather that we are always already in a world, and with others who are also in that world (BT §25, 152/116; cf. §26). For Heidegger, this being-with is part of Dasein’s ontological structure, which then makes possible the appearance of others in a world.32 Critiquing this Heideggerian concept of Mitdasein is one of the themes around which Levinas constructs his analysis of the other person and the face in Totality and Infinity.33 Therefore, it is somewhat ironic that Marion’s account of the face becomes increasingly Heideggerian in content, while his claims about the face continue to be framed in terms that draw on Levinas’ critique of Heidegger. If it is acknowledged that the face appears when I envisage the other in a mutual crisscross of nonobjectifying looks, then it can no longer be claimed that the face is an irregardable phenomenon that appears on the basis of pure self-givenness. Like Marion’s other saturated phenomena, anamorphoses, icons, and the face appear in a hermeneutic space that is opened by the one to whom they are given.

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8

Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

Having considered each mode of saturation individually, Marion concludes his taxonomy of saturated phenomena by introducing a phenomenon that is saturated in all four divisions of Kant’s table of categories. This final instance of saturation is the phenomenon of ‘‘revelation,’’1 which he proposes as ‘‘the last possible variation of the phenomenality of the phenomenon inasmuch as given . . . the paradox to the second degree and par excellence, which encompasses all types of paradox’’ (BG 235/327). The account of Revelation is the most frequently criticized section of Being Given, with Dominique Janicaud and others suggesting that by introducing a theological domain, Marion compromises his repeated insistence that he is engaged in phenomenology rather than in theology.2 This controversy is exacerbated by suspicions about the influence of Marion’s own religious beliefs on his work, prompted by his decision to offer Jesus Christ as the sole example and paradigm of Revelation.3 I will not enter into this controversy as such, but will use it as evidence to support my contention that—just as with other saturated phenomena, Revelation does not simply appear in itself, of itself, and on the basis of itself. Rather, Revelation only appears in a hermeneutic space where it is recognized as revelatory. This hermeneutic space is opened by the faith of a recipient. I argue here that Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena leads him to give an account of Revelation and faith that is contrary to the Christian tradition, which he proposes as his paradigm of Revelation. As this can be demonstrated only in the context of Christian theology, I 178

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necessarily examine in some detail the understanding of Revelation in the Christian theological tradition. Nevertheless, my primary interest is not theological at all. I am arguing that there is a fundamental hermeneutic element implicit in the examples Marion describes, and that his theory of saturated phenomena should be modified to include this. Similarly, I make no claim to be presenting a universal or comprehensive account of Revelation as a religious phenomenon. Therefore, I will not address the issue of how Revelation and faith are understood in religions other than Christianity. Although I am optimistic that my account of Revelation and faith in Christianity could be applied fruitfully to other religions as well, assessing such an application is not the concern of this study. After outlining Marion’s own position (with limited critical intervention), the consequences of which are clearest in his account of the Gospel incident of the journey to Emmaus, I set out an alternative and explicitly hermeneutic account of Revelation. In this alternative account, Revelation’s appearance is set in a complex circular relationship with the recipient’s response of faith: Revelation’s appearance depends upon the recipient’s faith, which is in turn given by God’s initiative in Revelation. I then demonstrate that this understanding of the interrelationship of Revelation and faith is far more consistent with the Christian tradition than is Marion’s account. Finally, I show that Marion’s account of ‘‘revelation’’ as a saturated phenomenon also conflicts with his own accounts of Revelation and faith in other texts, which instead support my account of Revelation’s appearing in the hermeneutic context of faith. Revelation as a Saturated Phenomenon Marion first proposed the concept of saturated phenomena in an essay from 1988 entitled ‘‘The Possible and Revelation,’’ which briefly mentions saturated phenomena in its closing pages. Four years later, he elaborated on the concept in an essay entitled ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon’’ (1992), which he later revised and incorporated into book 4 of Being Given (1997). Marion’s understanding of saturation is consistent across these three texts, and many of his examples, including Revelation, are already present in the 1992 essay. In Being Given, he develops these examples much more clearly and fully, and also identifies Revelation as a distinctive fifth type of saturated phenomenon that includes all four of the possible modes of saturation. Paradoxically, while Marion’s claims about Revelation are much more dramatic in Being Given, the concerns which lie behind those claims are more explicit in the earlier essays. I begin this Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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section by outlining these concerns before summarizing his account of Revelation in Being Given, along with the consequences of this position for his understanding of the relation between faith and Revelation, as is evident in his 2001 account of the journey to Emmaus: ‘‘ ‘They Recognised Him; and He Became Invisible to Them.’ ’’ Motivations: Early Essays ‘‘The Possible and Revelation’’ is largely devoted to an extended account of Marion’s concerns about philosophy’s approach to religion. It begins by discussing the difficulty that phenomenology encounters in considering religious phenomena. Marion believes that the essential problem for philosophy is ‘‘the possibility of acknowledging a concept of revelation’’ (PR 2/14). Revelation is, by definition, ‘‘transcendent to experience, [but] nevertheless manifests itself experientially’’ (PR 2/14). As experientially manifested, it is part of experience, and yet it is simultaneously transcendent, and therefore outside the conditions of experience established by metaphysics—in particular, the conditions specified by the principle of sufficient reason. According to this principle, all that is must be able to be assigned a cause or a concept.4 Revelation is among the ‘‘beings [that are] irreducible to a conceptualizable cause,’’ and which metaphysics consequently dismisses ‘‘as illegitimate and hence impossible’’ (PR 2/14). Marion concludes that religion can retain metaphysical legitimacy only by repudiating Revelation; alternatively, if it remains faithful to Revelation, ‘‘it must first renounce concept, cause, and all reason, to the point where it comes to be expelled from metaphysical rationality under the nickname of Schwa¨rmerei’’ (PR 2/15). Marion points out that Heidegger enlarges phenomenology by freeing it from a restriction to the actuality of the visible, and establishing possibility and invisible phenomena (phenomena that are not immediately given) as phenomenology’s proper objects (PR 4/17, 6–8/20–22; quoting BT §7, 63/38, 60/36). Using arguments which he repeats and expands in section 19 of Being Given, he then insists that phenomena remain artificially determined, and unable to show themselves as they actually give themselves, as long as phenomenology admits the horizon and the ego as limits on appearing. In the case of Revelation, such a limitation means that Revelation is reduced to a constituted object of experience, and that it is therefore no longer either transcendent or revelatory. Marion rejects this reduction of Revelation to experience, arguing that the ‘‘recipient of

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[transcendent] revelation does not retain common measure with what revelation communicates; otherwise, revelation would not have been necessary.’’ Therefore, in order to retain its revelatory character, Revelation ‘‘transgresses the dimensions of Erlebnis’’ (PR 9/24). In Marion’s view, an example of transcendence being lost in precisely this way is Rudolf Bultmann’s essay on the concept of Revelation in the New Testament.5 Marion’s critique of Bultmann is particularly significant because this essay is an influential text in the development of twentiethcentury Christian thought on Revelation, which I discuss later in this chapter (‘‘Vatican II and Twentieth-Century Christian Theology’’). According to Marion, Heidegger’s influence leads Bultmann to begin from the believer’s faith experience, and so ‘‘to define revelation by beginning with the I and its lived experiences’’ (PR 9/24). This definition reduces Revelation to experience and excludes transcendence, so that Revelation becomes an ‘‘empty fact of revelation, which then, far from opening onto absolute possibility, refers lived experience back to itself ’’ (PR 9*/24). Marion concludes that an understanding of Revelation that begins from faith is fundamentally mistaken: The phenomenological method here is applied to theology only by reducing the revealed to the lived experience of the revealed, hence obscuring the revealed revealing itself. The phenomenological reduction provokes demythologization, and sola fides reduces revelatory transcendence to real immanence in consciousness. Although it believes, consciousness does not reach any transcendent (thus revealed) object but is nourished by the immanent lived experience of its solitary faith. . . . [T]hen the revealed is confined to lived experience of the revealed (faith, etc.), without receiving the revealed revealing itself. (PR 9–10*/25) Although his critique here focuses primarily on Revelation, Marion recognizes that it is applicable to transcendence in general: ‘‘The horizon of objectivity and the reduction to an ego confine givenness in the manifestation of objectivity, to the point of excluding revelation of an Other [Autre] that is authentically such’’ (PR 12*/29). Marion concludes that the phenomenological conditions of manifestation, as understood by Husserl and Heidegger, exclude the phenomenal possibility of Revelation, and indeed of transcendence in general. However, rather than seeing this as grounds for a ‘‘divorce’’ between phenomenology and theology, Marion closes this essay by suggesting a final hypothesis:

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Could not theology, in virtue of its own requirements, and solely in view of formulating them, suggest certain modifications of method and operations to phenomenology? . . . Could not theology’s requirements allow phenomenology to transgress its own limits, so as finally to attain the free possibility at which, from its origin, it claims to aim? (PR 13*/29–30) Such a transgression would entail going beyond the limits imposed by the ego and the horizon. Instead of the ego constituting an object, the ego would be understood ‘‘from a givenness that cannot be constituted, cannot be objectified and is prior to it’’ (PR 14/31). Instead of Revelation being understood as a phenomenon appearing on a horizon that is imposed on it and conditions it, Revelation would be understood as ‘‘staging itself on a horizon only by saturating it’’ (PR 15*/33). Marion suggests that such a transgression of phenomenology by theology could ‘‘[free] the possibility of revelation, hence possibility as revelation, from the grip of the principle of sufficient reason, understood as the a priori condition of possibility (hence of impossibility) for any event to come’’ (PR 16–17/34). However, he recognizes that ‘‘a definitive response’’ to such a ‘‘radical’’ challenge ‘‘could only be possible after long and difficult investigations, which are to a great extent still to come’’ (PR 16–17/34). ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon’’ begins by restating the concerns of ‘‘The Possible and Revelation’’ about the difficulty that philosophy encounters in dealing with religion. In Marion’s view, this difficulty arises from the impossibility of considering religious phenomena as simultaneously religious and objective. Any ‘‘philosophy of religion’’ is necessarily restricted to an objective study, within which religious phenomena are either ‘‘objectively definable but lose their religious specificity,’’ or they are ‘‘specifically religious but cannot be described objectively.’’6 To resolve this dilemma, Marion proposes the concept of saturated phenomena as a way of making space in philosophy for specifically religious phenomena, phenomena that ‘‘would . . . render visible what nevertheless could not be objectified.’’7 In the remainder of the essay, Marion then sets out an initial sketch of his theory of saturated phenomena. Thus, the stage is set for Being Given, where Marion develops a comprehensive analysis of saturated phenomena although his argument in this latter text is cast in purely phenomenological terms, and makes only a single passing reference to the more radical theological origin of his strategy.8

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Theoretical Elaboration: Revelation as Final Possibility in Being Given In a section of Being Given entitled ‘‘The Final Possibility,’’ Marion introduces Revelation as the final term in a series of possibilities for phenomenality (BG 234*/325). This series begins with an ‘‘initial determination’’ that applies to phenomenality in general, and that understands ‘‘the phenomenon as what shows itself only in so far as it gives itself ’’ (BG 236/ 328). His guiding concern in Being Given is to set out the complete range of possibility for this self-givenness of phenomena, and thus ‘‘to liberate the possibility in phenomenality’’ (BG 234*/326). The theory of saturated phenomena is a ‘‘first variation’’ on the initial determination, and argues for the possibility of phenomena exceeding limits that are imposed on them by a horizon and a constituting subject. These saturated phenomena exhibit a greater ‘‘degree of givenness’’ than phenomena that are restricted by the limits of a horizon and subjectivity. Having thus introduced the concept of degrees of givenness, Marion then considers what the maximum degree of givenness might be, and attempts ‘‘to envisage a phenomenon that gives (itself ) according to a maximum of phenomenality’’ (BG 234/326). He proposes that this maximum would be accomplished in a second and ‘‘ultimate variation’’ on the first variation, by a phenomenon that ‘‘concentrates in itself alone the four types of saturated phenomena, and gives itself [se donne] at once as historic event, idol, flesh and icon (face)’’ (BG 235*/327). Such a phenomenon would have a ‘‘fifth type of saturation . . . [that] saturates phenomenality to the second degree, by saturation of saturation’’ (BG 235/327). It would be ‘‘the paradox to the second degree and par excellence, which encompasses all types of paradox’’ (BG 235/327). He argues that such a maximal and ultimate figure of phenomenality is indeed possible: It is the phenomenon of ‘‘revelation.’’ Marion recognizes that proposing Revelation as a phenomenon is contentious, and that it is even more contentious to propose it as the phenomenon par excellence, the figure of the maximum degree of givenness in phenomenality. He attempts to reassure his critics that he is not clandestinely introducing theology into philosophy, and that, in particular, he is not transgressing Husserl’s insistence that the phenomenological reduction requires the bracketing of all forms of transcendence, explicitly including the transcendence of God. Marion’s key argument here is that he is considering Revelation as a ‘‘mere possibility,’’ and that he is therefore ‘‘able to describe it without presupposing its actuality’’ (BG 235*/327). In his view, such a description of Revelation ‘‘in its pure possibility and in

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the reduced immanence of givenness’’ makes no judgment on ‘‘its actual manifestation or ontic status, which remain matters that are proper to revealed theology’’ (BG 236*/329). He believes that ‘‘Revelation (as actuality) is never confounded with revelation (as possible phenomenon),’’ and commits himself to ‘‘scrupulously’’ marking this distinction by using a capital R only when he is referring to Revelation as actuality (BG 367n90/329n1). Contra Marion, I argue later in this chapter that this is a false distinction, because any description of Revelation as a possible phenomenon already presumes its actuality. Furthermore, an appreciation of this presumption is critical to understanding the appearance of Revelation. In short, a phenomenon can only be described as revelation by one who accepts that it is actually Revelatory. (See the section ‘‘The Possibility of revelation and the Actuality of Revelation’’ later in this chapter.)9 After defending the possibility of a phenomenological study of Revelation, Marion proposes a ‘‘precise example . . . [that] counts as paradigm of the phenomenon of revelation according to the paradox’s four modes of saturation’’: ‘‘the manifestation of Jesus Christ, as it is described in the New Testament’’ (BG 236/329). He then sets out each of the four ways in which he considers the phenomenon of Jesus Christ to be saturated. First, even though Jesus Christ fulfils the Old Testament prophecies, his appearing is unanticipated, and exceeds expectations: It is ‘‘a perfectly unforeseeable event’’ (BG 236*/329). Indeed, eventness that exceeds what can be foreseen is one of the characteristics the Gospels ascribe to Christ. He is ‘‘the one who is coming’’ (Jn 1:27; cf. 1:15), and his final coming remains unforeseeable even to him: ‘‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’’ (Mk 13:32). In Marion’s view, the unforeseeable event of Christ’s coming is one of the key aspects of his appearing. Therefore, this appearing ‘‘is a case par excellence of the event,’’ and is saturated according to quantity (BG 237/331). Second, the phenomenon of Christ is ‘‘unbearable,’’ and therefore saturated according to quality (BG 238/332). Marion sees indications of this characteristic in the awe and terror Jesus inspires on a number of instances: his dazzling appearance at the Transfiguration (Mk 9:3), the soldiers who come to arrest him falling to the ground when he calls himself by the divine name ‘‘I am he [γ εμι]’’ (Jn 18:6; cf. Ex 3:14), and the joy and terror of the women who see the angel at the empty tomb after the resurrection (Mt 28:8; Mk 16:8). In addition, Marion quotes Jesus’ own declaration that he still has many things to say, but that the disciples ‘‘cannot bear them now’’ (Jn 16:12). 184

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Third, Marion indicates two ways in which Jesus Christ is saturated according to relation and therefore appears as an absolute phenomenon, and more specifically, with ‘‘saturation pertaining to flesh’’ (BG 239/ 332). The initial characteristic of an absolute phenomenon that Marion identifies in the phenomenon of Jesus Christ is contained in a straightforward observation relating to the Crucifixion: ‘‘Only the flesh suffers, dies, and therefore can live’’ (BG 239/333). The second characteristic is more complicated, and relates to absolute phenomena as ‘‘outside or beyond any horizon’’ (BG 239/333). According to Marion, Christ appears as absolute in this way ‘‘by always subverting the supposedly unique horizon of phenomenality, so as to demand a plurality of horizons that is never definite [jamais de´finie; perhaps with the sense of ‘never determinate’]’’ (BG 239*/333). He cites a number of respects in which he believes this demand for a plurality of horizons to be evident: the final verse of John’s Gospel, stating that ‘‘the world itself could not contain the books that would be written’’ if all that Jesus said and did were to be written down (Jn 21:25); the three languages used in the inscription above the cross (Jn 19:20); the plurality of titles accorded to Christ; and the Church’s recognition of four evangelists, four traditional senses of scripture, and multiple literary genres in the scriptures. This list constitutes a somewhat arbitrary catalog of multiplicities associated with Jesus Christ. Far more substantial evidence would be needed if a convincing case were to be made that Christ’s appearance demands a plurality of horizons. However, there is a more fundamental difficulty with Marion’s argument at this point, in that he does not make it clear why such a plurality of horizons is proper to phenomena that are saturated according to relation. Although he earlier describes the possibility of phenomena that appear on ‘‘an infinite plurality of horizons’’ (BG 211/295), this is not one of the characteristics that he establishes for absolute phenomena. Indeed, his description of flesh, the paradigm of these absolute phenomena, is confined to the immediacy of its self-affection, and its mineness (BG 231–32/322–23). Finally, Marion identifies the phenomenon of Jesus Christ as irregardable, and thus saturated according to modality, ‘‘precisely because as icon he looks at me’’ (BG 240*/334). Christ’s disciples are not subjects who constitute him as an object. Rather, ‘‘Christ constitutes his disciples as witness by electing them’’ (BG 240*/334). In Marion’s view, this ‘‘inversion of looks’’ can be seen in a variety of Gospel episodes where Jesus sees and chooses his disciples before they see him. However, it is most apparent in the incident of the rich young man who comes to Jesus and asks Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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what he must do to inherit eternal life (Mk 10:17–22). Jesus lists the commandments, and, according to Marion’s interpretation, the young man allows himself to be measured by the demands of the counter-look of Jesus as icon, before replying that he has kept all these (BG 240/334). Jesus then looks at him and loves him (Mk 10:21), which for Marion amounts to Jesus ‘‘radically instituting what he looks at . . . the look recognises, instates, and individualises what it thus takes under its wing [le regard . . . prend sous sa garde]’’ (BG 241*/335). Jesus then makes a further demand of the young man: ‘‘Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, . . . then come, follow me’’ (Mk 10:21). Marion sees this as a ‘‘redoubling’’ of the paradox, ‘‘a saturation of saturation,’’ in which after being constituted as witness by Christ’s look, the young man must go beyond the initial saturation and ‘‘annul all possession and all originarity to ‘give’ himself to the poor’’ (BG 241*/335). He describes this as ‘‘saturation beyond itself, saturation to the second degree’’ (BG 241/335). This ‘‘redoubling’’ is quite a different concept of ‘saturation to the second degree’ from that which Marion initially proposed, in which all four types of saturation are present at once. Nevertheless, Marion concludes: ‘‘We therefore recover, in the figure of Christ, not only the four types of paradox, but the redoubling of saturation that defines the last among them’’ (BG 241/335). Marion’s description of Jesus Christ’s appearance as a phenomenon with all four types of saturation is open to a wide variety of criticisms. His selection of scriptural texts is quite eclectic, and does not reflect the overall concerns and emphases of the Gospels. There is no evidence that he has taken note of relevant scripture scholarship, either in his selection of texts or in his analysis of the texts and incidents he selects. For instance, he makes only passing reference to the Crucifixion, and no mention of Jesus as the one whose words, actions, and presence inaugurate the reign of God. Marion’s portrayal of Jesus Christ differs significantly from that arrived at either by a straightforward reading of the Gospels themselves, or by contemporary biblical exegesis and scholarship. His account gives the impression of an attempt to locate ‘proof texts’ from the Gospels to support his prior claim about the four modes of saturation in Christ’s appearance. Significantly, Marion cites only incidents where Christ’s appearance is in some way dazzling or overwhelming, and overlooks the many instances where people, including some of Jesus’ closest followers, respond to him with confusion and misunderstanding. Furthermore, Marion shows no appreciation of the insights of canonical criticism into the way the scriptures presume and are shaped by the faith of the Christian community, which sets out an account of what it has recognized as revelatory.10 186

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But even aside from these theological and scriptural shortcomings, Marion’s results are unconvincing on his own terms, particularly with respect to the third type of saturation (absolute phenomena that have the selfaffection of flesh), and with respect to the peculiar shift in the meaning of ‘‘saturation to the second degree.’’ However, expanding on critiques of this sort is not relevant to my primary interest, which is Marion’s understanding of Revelation, and, in particular, his understanding of the believer’s reception of Revelation. The consequences of Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena for his view of Revelation are clearest in an essay from 2001 where he sets out his understanding of the relationship between faith and Revelation in the context of the Gospel incident of the journey to Emmaus. Consequences: Faith as Conceptual in the Journey to Emmaus In ‘‘ ‘They Recognised Him; and He Became Invisible to Them,’ ’’ Marion examines the relation between faith and Revelation in the Gospel account of the journey to Emmaus (Lk 24:13–35). He argues that faith is not a compensation for a lack of evidence or intuition, but rather a compensation for a lack of concepts with which to understand the overwhelming intuition given by Revelation. In other words, faith provides a conceptual interpretation of Revelation after it has occurred. The essay begins with Marion proposing what he believes to be the most common understanding of faith. According to this understanding, faith compensates for a deficit in intuition that prevents us from having adequate knowledge about God. Because we have only a limited intuition of God’s presence, our concepts about God remain only partially filled, and require faith to make up for this: ‘‘I believe because, in spite of everything, I want to hold as true that which does not offer intuitive criteria sufficient to impose itself of itself ’’ (TRH 145*/134). That is, faith extends our limited intuition so that it adequately fills our concepts. Rejecting the ‘‘inanity’’ of this understanding of faith, Marion nevertheless accepts the idea that faith compensates for a lack (TRH 146/135). But where the common view identifies intuition as deficient, Marion proposes that the deficiency lies in our concepts. In his understanding, the Revelation of God (and Christ) gives more intuition than we can grasp by means of our insufficient concepts; Revelation is a phenomenon that is saturated with intuition, and that requires faith in order to compensate for the lack in our conceptual capacity. That is, faith extends our limited concepts so that they can adequately accommodate the excess of intuition we are given. Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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Marion then turns to the Gospel episode itself. Three days after Jesus’ death, a group of women find his tomb empty, and are told by angels that he has risen. The apostles do not believe the women’s story although Peter goes and confirms that the tomb is indeed empty. Later that day, two disciples traveling from Jerusalem to Emmaus are joined by Jesus, but do not recognize him. He asks them what they are discussing and, astonished at his ignorance, they tell him about their belief that Jesus was a prophet, their hope that he may have been Israel’s redeemer, their distress at his death, and their confusion after what the women have told them. Jesus rebukes them for being ‘‘foolish’’ and ‘‘slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared’’ (Lk 24:25). He insists that the Messiah had to suffer (Lk 24:26), and ‘‘interpret[s] to them [διερμνευσεν ατος] the things about himself in all the scriptures’’ (Lk 24:27).11 At the end of the journey, the disciples press Jesus to stay with them and, ‘‘when he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight’’ (Lk 24:30–31). The text ends with the two disciples hurrying back to Jerusalem, where the apostles confirm that Jesus has indeed risen. The interest for Marion lies in the disciples’ obtuseness, their incapacity to understand what has happened. In his view, their problem is not a lack of evidence: They know what has happened in Jerusalem; they were with Jesus during his ministry; they are familiar with the scriptures. They have, insists Marion, an abundance of intuition. However, they do not understand the intuition they have received. Their concepts are not sufficient to contain the intuition and grasp its meaning (TRH 146/136). Thus, they do not recognize Jesus when he comes beside them because they are unable to conceive of him being raised from the dead.12 He does not lack visibility; rather, they lack the capacity to understand what they see.13 Marion compares them with Peter, who is so overcome with the manifestation of Christ’s glory at the Transfiguration that, according to the account in Mark’s Gospel, ‘‘he did not know what to say’’ (Mk 9:6). Marion concludes: Standing before the Christ in glory, in agony, or resurrected, it is always words (and therefore concepts) that we lack in order to say what we see, in short to see that with which intuition floods our eyes. . . . God does not measure out his intuitive manifestation stingily, as though he wanted to mask himself at the moment of showing himself. But we, we do not offer concepts capable of handling a gift without measure and, overwhelmed, dazzled, and submerged by his glory, we no longer see anything. (TRH 148*/138) 188

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According to Marion, by interpreting the scriptures to the disciples on the road, Jesus provides them with new concepts that are adequate to the intuition they have received: ‘‘And then, when the concept at last matches the intuition, the phenomenon bursts forth with its superabundant glory’’ (TRH 149/139). This seeing of the phenomenon is reflected for Marion in the disciples’ later admission: ‘‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’’ (Lk 24:32). On arriving at Emmaus, the disciples ask Jesus to stay with them, a request which Marion connects to other Gospel passages, and interprets as a crucial profession of faith.14 Finally, as Jesus breaks the bread, the disciples recognize him. In Marion’s reading, this action of Jesus should be understood conceptually: It gives the disciples ‘‘the signification that will at last give meaning to all the intuitions that up to then had remained scattered and absurd’’ (TRH 150*/140). According to Marion, the disciples recognise Jesus ‘‘because the signification was making visible his phenomenon’’ (TRH 150*/141). Concluding the essay, Marion compares an inability to believe with an inability to see when there is too much light: ‘‘Faith . . . allows one to receive understanding of the phenomenon and the strength to bear its bursting forth. Faith does not deal with the deficit of evidence—it alone renders the look apt to see the excess of the saturated phenomenon par excellence: Revelation’’ (TRH 150*/141). By receiving Jesus’ ‘‘own significations and concepts,’’ the disciples are able ‘‘to constitute the intuition . . . into a complete phenomenon [phe´nome`ne ple´nier; fully a phenomenon]’’ (TRH 151/142). Because of their faith, their concepts are now adequate to the intuition that previously exceeded them; what was previously invisible because of its excess can now be constituted and seen as what it is. However, as soon as they understand, Jesus disappears. Marion suggests two reasons for this: First, because the issue now is not, or is not only, to see him, but to make him seen . . . Second, because such a phenomenon, saturated par excellence, cannot be touched (Jn 20:17), nor even contemplated in this world. (TRH 151–52*/142–43; emphasis added by translator) The primary difficulty with Marion’s account of this Gospel episode is his restriction of the disciples’ faith to their concepts and understandings of Jesus. Undoubtedly, the disciples’ concepts of Jesus (as prophet or redeemer of Israel) are inadequate, particularly because their understandings of prophet and redeemer do not include suffering and death.15 However, Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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the Gospel text does not point to this as the fundamental problem. Contrary to the translation quoted by Marion, Jesus does not accuse them of being ‘‘slow to understand’’; rather, he rebukes them for being ‘‘slow of heart to believe [βραδες τ καρδα το πιστεειν’’ (emphasis mine) (Lk 24:25).16 Marion compares the disciples’ condition when Jesus first comes alongside them with the overwhelming experience of hearing or seeing ‘‘nothing’’ because one does not understand a foreign language or the rules of chess (TRH 147/137). However, there is no indication that the disciples are at all overwhelmed or dazzled by what they have seen and heard. On the contrary, they ‘see nothing’ in the very straightforward sense of believing that there is nothing more to be seen. They are completely unaware of their misunderstanding, and believe that they have seen Jesus and his death all too clearly.17 Marion is right to describe Jesus’ interpretation of the scriptures as giving the disciples new concepts. However, contrary to Marion’s suggestion, these concepts are not on their own sufficient for the disciples to grasp the excess of the phenomenon that is manifesting itself. While they are listening to Jesus on the road, the disciples may realize that they have not seen the whole phenomenon of his Revelation, and their burning hearts may indicate that that they are dazzled by his excess. However, there is no evidence that the new concepts Jesus gives them are adequate to make sense of this;18 they do not actually recognize him until much later, when he breaks the bread. The disciples’ lack of faith is not simply a lack of concepts to understand the excess of Jesus’ Revelation, but also a lack of openness to his Revelation as such, which prevents them from seeing it as either revelatory or excessive. When the disciples finally recognize Jesus, it is not because his action of breaking the bread gives them a ‘‘signification,’’ as Marion claims, or at least not because they receive a signification in the conceptual sense that Marion has been using (TRH 150/140–41). On the contrary, far from this Revelation making Jesus conceptually clear to them, he now disappears entirely. The action of breaking the bread manifests the presence of the risen Jesus to them because of its connection with the Last Supper. There, Jesus’ actions of self-giving love (in washing the disciples’ feet and giving himself with the bread and wine) both anticipated his selfgiving on the cross, and demanded that his disciples give of themselves in the same way (Lk 22:19; Jn 13:14; 1 Cor 11:24–25). The disciples at Emmaus received the concept that Jesus had to suffer while they listened to him on the road, but now they receive again the personal offer of love and preparedness to suffer that Jesus made at the Last Supper. It is possible for Jesus to be revealed to them now because they are open to the love 190

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he offers them, and to his demand that they too give themselves in love.19 Their faith is not constituted simply by a conceptual understanding of Jesus’ claims, but also entails the acceptance of those claims, both the ones that he makes about himself, and also the ones that he makes on them. By their acceptance of him in faith, a space is opened in which his Revelation can be manifested to them, and so their eyes are opened to recognize him in his glory. Marion’s insistence on the purely conceptual nature of the disciples’ faith is particularly surprising because it leads him to a conclusion that is contrary not only to the Gospel account, but also to his own theory of saturated phenomena. He claims that the disciples finally recognize Jesus because they have received his own concepts and significations about himself, which enable them to ‘‘constitute’’ their intuition as a ‘‘complete phenomenon [phe´nome`ne ple´nier]’’ (TRH 151/142). In Marion’s description, since their inadequate concepts have been replaced, they now have ‘‘the strength to bear the bursting forth’’ of his Revelation, which had previously blinded them by its excessive brilliance (TRH 150*/141). That is, the phenomenon that was initially excessive and saturated is now seen as an ordinary constituted object, as something that is in fact no longer excessive or saturated. However, the journey to Emmaus is not a story of the previously invisible and dazzling becoming visible. In fact, the Emmaus story is quite the reverse of this: It moves from an object that is clearly grasped by the disciples to an excessive phenomenon that is so ungraspable that it disappears from sight. At the beginning of the story, the disciples’ misunderstanding prevents them from being dazzled by Jesus at all. They believe that they see Jesus clearly: He is the one who failed to fulfill their expectations of how the Messiah would redeem Israel. At this point, they experience their concepts of prophet and redeemer as fully adequate for constituting their intuition of Jesus as a complete, albeit disappointing, phenomenon. As the story progresses, they begin to appreciate that their concepts are inadequate, that their attempted constitution of Jesus’ meaning has failed, and that there is an excess beyond what they have been seeing. Only then is Jesus revealed in his dazzling and saturated excess as the risen one, who is beyond the disciples’ capacity to grasp as a visible, constituted phenomenon, and who therefore disappears from ordinary visibility. Thus, rather than progressing from dazzling invisibility to clearly grasped visibility, the Emmaus story moves from ordinary visibility to an overwhelming Revelation that goes beyond what can be seen: ‘‘They recognised him; and he vanished from their sight’’ (Lk 24:31). Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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The Revelation of the risen Jesus to the disciples at Emmaus happens when he breaks the bread. However, this action is the final moment in a process that begins even before he first appears beside them on the road. Over a period of time, the disciples undergo a gradual conversion that prepares them to receive the Revelation that is offered to them. This process of gradual conversion and reception perhaps offers an initial model for understanding God’s appearing in Revelation. At the beginning of the story, the disciples are sad, disappointed and confused. Although they belong to the small group of Jesus’ closest disciples who had faithfully followed him to Jerusalem, they have not understood the nature of his mission. According to Jesus himself, this is because, even though they are undoubtedly familiar with the scriptures, they have not situated Jesus in the context of prophecies about the Messiah’s suffering. Instead, they had set up false hopes for him as Israel’s redeemer, probably in the political sense of bringing liberation from Roman occupation. Talking with them on the road, Jesus gives them new insight into the scriptures, and particularly into the role of suffering in redemption. Their dismay at Jesus’ death and their hasty departure from Jerusalem suggest that they had not been open to accepting such suffering, either for Jesus or for themselves. Jesus’ interpretation of the scriptures seems to have an effect on them: Their strong urging that he stay with them at Emmaus goes beyond the requirements of hospitality, and they will later realize that their hearts were already burning within them. The warmth of their response to Jesus shows some acknowledgment of their own misunderstanding, as well as at least an initial openness to him and to his account of a suffering Messiah. However, this could not yet be called an experience of Revelation; even the awareness of their burning hearts happens only retrospectively (Lk 24:32). Jesus is finally revealed to them when he repeats the actions of the Last Supper: ‘‘When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them’’ (Lk 24:30). When the disciples share in these actions again, the past of the scriptures and the future promise of Israel’s redemption are dramatically brought together in a way that opens them to the meaning of Jesus’ death, and to his presence with them as the risen one. At the Last Supper, Jesus gives Israel’s ancient Passover rituals a new meaning by linking them to his own passing over from death on the cross to the new life of the resurrection. In doing so, he opens a new future for his followers, both by promising them a ‘‘new covenant’’ with God, and by asking them to repeat his self-giving, to ‘‘do this in remembrance of me’’ (Lk 22:14–20). It is through participating in Jesus’ repetition of these actions that the disciples at Emmaus experience Jesus’ 192

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Revelation: They understand his interpretation of the scriptures; they recognize him as the prophet who redeems Israel through his suffering; they realize that their hearts had been burning within them while they listened to him on the road; and they enter into a new future where they abandon their previous journey and return to Jerusalem as witnesses to the resurrection. For the early Christian community to whom Luke’s Gospel is addressed, this dynamic and powerful pattern of Revelation had profound resonance. Like the disciples on the road, the Christian community gathered to reinterpret the scriptures, and to repeat the actions of the Last Supper, making Jesus’ acts of self-giving love their own, and thus entering into the new future opened by his resurrection. Echoing the meal at Emmaus, they too came to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:35), and experienced his Revelation as having a transformative power that was dramatically present to them, but exceeded any ordinary visibility. Clearly, there is a crucial conceptual element in Jesus’ Revelation to the disciples. However, this conceptual element is part of a complex process of conversion that engages their whole persons. Their eyes are finally opened when, having moved from their previous misunderstandings to new concepts, these concepts are realized in them through an openness to Jesus’ love that entails reinterpreting their pasts, and entering into a new future where his self-giving is repeated in their lives. Jesus’ Revelation radically transforms the disciples; its overwhelming power dramatically exceeds any ordinary visibility, and must be understood in terms of their commitment to him in faith. Revelation Received by Faith The account of faith Marion develops in his essay on the journey to Emmaus is strongly shaped by his contention that Revelation is a saturated phenomenon (that exceeds our capacity to understand), rather than an impoverished phenomenon (that fails to provide sufficient evidence for itself ). However, because he insists that faith is a conceptual understanding, Marion is forced to describe the disciples as fully grasping Jesus’ Revelation in the breaking of the bread: That is, he is forced to describe Jesus’ Revelation as precisely not being saturated. Ironically, the discrepancy between Marion’s account and the Gospel text arises because the Gospel text supports his initial contention, that Revelation is saturated rather than conceptually graspable. The price for gaining this support is an interpretation in which faith is first of all understood in an existential and hermeneutic sense (rather than as purely conceptual), and in which Revelation Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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is not simply imposed on a passive recipient who then interprets it by means of particular concepts or beliefs. In this section, I draw on Heidegger’s 1927 essay ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology’’ to set out such a conception of the relation between Revelation and faith. I argue that Revelation is only manifested as Revelation in the hermeneutic space that is opened by faith, understood as an existential commitment that already accepts the claims of Revelation. Finally, I use this understanding of Revelation and faith to illuminate the confusion in Being Given between ‘‘revelation’’ as phenomenological possibility and ‘‘Revelation’’ as theological actuality. Faith as Existential Commitment I agree with Marion that a faith commitment to an ultimate or transcendent reality has a conceptual component, or cognitional content, which is expressed in beliefs. However, this conceptual dimension is a derivative aspect of faith, and is made possible by a more fundamental level of faith that underlies it: faith as openness to receiving Revelation, as acceptance of the claims made in Revelation, as trust in what is given, and as preparedness to make a personal commitment in response. Faith in the sense of concepts and beliefs about something derives from this primary, existential sense of faith as personal trust in, and commitment to, a complex of meaning-filled relationships and significations in which a person situates himself or herself.20 Such an existential faith is an instance of what Heidegger describes as the fundamental or ontological sense of hermeneutics. Primarily, faith is an acceptance that opens a hermeneutic space of meaning, in which a phenomenon can first be recognized as revelatory; faith is an existential commitment that makes it possible for Revelation to be made manifest. Revelation does not simply impose itself upon us; rather, it must be actively received and recognized in the meaning-filled world of a recipient’s faith. Heidegger sets out precisely such an understanding of the relation between Revelation and faith in his essay ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology.’’21 In the first part of this essay, Heidegger asks about what is studied in Christian theology, and considers the complex relation between faith and Revelation. He argues that Christian Revelation of the crucified God does not simply convey information about the occurrence of an impersonal event. Rather, one cannot ‘know’ that Christ is the crucified God without entering a particular relationship to God in which one’s entire Dasein is placed in relation to the cross. Therefore, Revelation is always 194

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about relation rather than simply information, and can never be given except in being received by faith: As communication, this revelation is not a conveyance of knowledge about present, past, or imminent happenings; rather, this communication makes one ‘‘take part’’ in the event that revelation (⳱ what is revealed therein) itself is. But this taking-part, which is only accomplished in existing, is only ever given as faith and through faith. Furthermore, in this ‘‘taking-part’’ and ‘‘sharing’’ [‘‘Teil-nehmen’’ und ‘‘Teil-haben’’] in the event of the crucifixion, the entire Dasein as Christian, i.e., related to the cross, is placed before God.22 Heidegger’s statement about Christianity can easily be generalized: To ‘know’ that God is God is to recognize oneself as a creature in relation to the divine. Corresponding to this idea of Revelation as primarily relation, rather than information, faith must be thought of as primarily existential, rather than in terms of knowledge. In Heidegger’s consideration of Christianity, his emphasis on Revelation as disclosed only in the participation of the one who receives it leads him to insist that faith is such a fundamental determination of Dasein’s existence that it should be described as ‘‘rebirth.’’ It is primarily a mode of existence that appropriates Revelation, rather than a type of knowledge about Revelation: The proper existentiell meaning of faith is: faith ⳱ rebirth. And rebirth not in the sense of a momentary outfitting with some quality or other, but rebirth as a mode of historical existence for a factical, believing Dasein in that history which begins with the event of revelation; in that history which, in accord with the meaning of the revelation, already has a definite final conclusion. . . . [F]aith is an appropriation of revelation that itself co-constitutes the Christian event; that is, the type of existence that determines a factical Dasein in its Christianity as a specific faculty. Faith is believing-understanding existence in the history revealed, i.e., occurring, with the Crucified.23 Although Heidegger does not explicitly mention hermeneutics in this essay, faith as rebirth is a clear instance of the network of relations and significations that he calls the ‘‘primordial . . . existential-hermeneutic ‘as’ ’’ in Being and Time (BT §33, 201/158). Faith as rebirth is an existential determination of Dasein that recognizes Revelation as revelatory, and appropriates it by placing the person in relation to the one who is revealed. In this way, faith restructures the network of relations and significations which define Dasein’s existence as Being-in-the-world. Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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In this respect, Marion’s understanding of faith has the same limitation as his understanding of hermeneutics. Just as he restricts hermeneutics to a marginal and derivative sense of conceptual interpretation after phenomena have already appeared, so he restricts faith to concepts and understandings after Revelation has already occurred.24 He excludes any sense of faith as an ontological or existential comportment that defines an openness, acceptance and trust before God, and that is the condition for Revelation to happen in the first place. It is because the disciples on their way to Emmaus lack such an existential faith that they are unable to accept Jesus’ resurrection, and unable to recognize him. After the change in their conceptual understanding that happens on the road, they are finally opened to accepting Jesus (and his claims) when he makes the concept of a suffering redeemer concrete by repeating the actions of the Last Supper. Their new openness to Jesus as the suffering redeemer, and to following him in his suffering, provides a hermeneutic space for him to be revealed to them, a Revelation so dazzling that he disappears from ordinary visibility. The Possibility of revelation and the Actuality of Revelation The disciples on the road to Emmaus illustrate why it is so problematic to speak of a phenomenological possibility of revelation distinct from the theological actuality of Revelation. As they later report to the other disciples in Jerusalem, Jesus is ‘‘made known to them in the breaking of the bread’’ (Lk 24:35); he is Revealed to them in his glory. Clearly, at this point, Jesus (dis)appears as a phenomenon of Revelation. But in what sense could such a phenomenon be understood as revelation? For one to whom it does not Reveal the divine glory, it is neither Revelation nor revelation; in fact, it is unlikely to be any sort of saturated phenomenon at all. As Jocelyn Benoist protests to Marion: ‘‘Where you see God, I see nothing or another thing.’’25 Robyn Horner identifies the crucial problem in Marion’s concept of revelation as phenomenological possibility. She points out that Marion is not constructing a phenomenology of religious experiences that can be described in a neutral way, but rather a phenomenology of God’s appearing: Marion is not cataloguing what others say is revelatory; on the contrary, he is asking us to contemplate that when someone bears witness to a revelatory phenomenon, it might actually be Revelatory. To describe something as revelatory involves a commitment in advance, not to the possibility of revelation, but to its actuality.26 196

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To describe a phenomenon as ‘‘revelation’’ entails an affirmation that it is a phenomenon in which God is Revealed. In the absence of such an affirmation, such a phenomenon is not revelation but some other thing, or nothing, as Benoist rightly points out. Thus, it is not surprising that one of the elements in Marion’s phenomenology that critics such as Janicaud find particularly objectionable is the ambiguity between revelation and Revelation.27 In a recent essay, Marion responds to Benoist’s objection by acknowledging that not everybody sees each saturated phenomenon as saturated, and comparing these differences in perception to Heidegger’s transition from seeing entities as vorhanden to seeing them as zuhanden.28 However, this comparison implicitly admits that revelation cannot be separated from Revelation, no matter how ‘‘scrupulously [one] respect[s]’’ the difference in the way they are written (cf. BG 367n90/329n1). Heidegger is clear that Vorhandenheit and Zuhandenheit are ways of being for entities that arise from the way in which Dasein comports itself toward them. Depending on my hermeneutic stance toward an entity, it will appear as either vorhanden or zuhanden. In the same way, it is not the case that there are phenomena that impose themselves as revelation, and which may subsequently be affirmed by some recipients as Revelation. Rather, when that which is given is received as God’s self-disclosure—that is, received in faith—it appears as Revelation; when it is not received in faith, it appears as some other thing, or nothing. Faith is the particular existential commitment that opens a hermeneutic space in which a phenomenon can be recognized as revelatory, and can thus appear as Revelation. Faith Given by Revelation To this point, I have argued that Revelation cannot be understood as simply imposing itself upon a passive recipient who may or may not subsequently respond with faith. However, neither can faith be understood as simply prior to Revelation, and as determining or constituting Revelation’s appearing. Rather, faith and Revelation are always intertwined: Revelation cannot appear without being received in faith, but faith is itself experienced as being given by Revelation. Faith and Revelation correlate to each other, and can perhaps even be understood as two dimensions of a single event: the appearing of the divine. Heidegger recognizes this complexity in the relation between faith and Revelation, and begins ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology’’ by insisting that, while faith is a mode of Dasein’s existence, it is not a spontaneous choice of Dasein, but is given by Revelation: Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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The essence of faith can formally be sketched as a way of existence of human Dasein that, according to its own testimony, itself belonging to this way of existence, arises not from Dasein or spontaneously through Dasein, but rather from that which is revealed in and with this way of existence, from what is believed.29 Faith is at once Dasein’s very own, and yet given to Dasein; it is a way of existence proper to Dasein, but does not arise from Dasein’s own decision or projection. Thus, though revelation ‘‘is only revealed for faith,’’ it is Revelation that ‘‘first of all gives rise to faith.’’30 The complexity of this relation makes Heidegger’s description of faith as ‘‘rebirth’’ particularly appropriate. Just as birth is at the same time fundamentally proper to me as my birth, yet also something that happens to me, so faith is fundamentally a mode of my existence, and yet something that is given to me. In Christian terms, adopted by Heidegger, faith is at once a fundamental characteristic of my existence and an experience of God’s grace and mercy to me: Being placed before God means that existence is reoriented in and through the mercy of God grasped in faith. . . . [H]e [the believer] can only ‘‘believe’’ this possibility of existence as one which the Dasein concerned does not independently master, in which it becomes a slave, is brought before God, and is thus born again.31 Heidegger’s account of God’s role in the believer’s faith is not a new insight. On the contrary, one of the Christian tradition’s fundamental affirmations is to insist that faith both results from God’s initiative, and is at the same time a response that belongs properly to the believer. Therefore, faith can never be understood in isolation from Revelation, nor as simply prior to Revelation. Thus, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the first two headings in the section on ‘‘The Characteristics of Faith’’ are ‘‘Faith is a grace’’ (§153) and ‘‘Faith is a human act’’ (§§154–55). Roger Haight elaborates this complex interrelation between faith and Revelation at the beginning of his major Christological study: Although formally distinct, authentic religious faith and revelation are two aspects of the complex phenomenon of religious experience. Revelation is faith being met by, or even stimulated and initiated by, the ultimate. Revelation is the encounter in faith with the transcendent. In Christian terms, revelation is the presence of God encountered in faith, always in such a way that God takes the initiative in freedom: revelation is God’s self-presence, self-communication, and self-gift.32 198

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The Gospel account of the journey to Emmaus is sensitive to this complexity in the believer’s act of faith. The disciples’ initial inability to recognize Jesus and their subsequent openness to him are recounted in a passive voice that prescinds from ascribing their (in)capacity to see either to their personal acts and decisions or to God’s intervention: ‘‘Their eyes were kept from recognising him’’; ‘‘Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him’’ (Lk 24:16, 31). While these verses may be instances of the ‘divine passive,’ in which the passive voice is used to avoid mentioning the divine name, Jesus’ rebuke to the disciples makes it clear that their failure to see is not the result of God choosing to conceal himself from them: ‘‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!’’ (Lk 24:25). The disciples’ (lack of ) faith cannot be attributed simply to an act of their own will, nor to an act of the divine will.33 Supporting Accounts in the Christian Tradition It is evident that, in the Christian understanding, initiative and priority in the relation between faith and Revelation do not belong simply to God or to the believer. Faith is given in and through Revelation, but is itself the condition for Revelation’s appearing. Revelation must be actively received and does not simply impose itself on a recipient, but the believer’s active reception of Revelation does not constitute it as an object. The Christian tradition has consistently affirmed both of these poles, and carefully avoided resolving the tension between them. Although it has perhaps given most emphasis to God as having the ultimate initiative in both Revelation and faith, it has at the same time asserted that faith belongs properly to the believer, and is an active openness of the whole person to God. I now sketch a few notable moments in this tradition, each of which supports my claims about faith opening a hermeneutic space for Revelation. The New Testament The archetypal figure of faith in the scriptures is Abraham, who is called by God to leave his country and family for ‘‘the land that I will show you’’ (Gn 12:1). Abraham puts his whole life and livelihood at God’s disposal. This response of faith in God’s promise allows Abraham to enter into a covenant with God: ‘‘He believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness’’ (Gn 15:6). In the New Testament, Paul quotes this declaration about Abraham’s faith, and proposes him as the father of all Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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believers (Rom 4). In Paul’s view, the believer receives the grace of God’s self-disclosure by showing the same faith and commitment as Abraham: But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. (Rom 3:21–25) In one of the more widely-read adult catechisms produced by the Catholic church in recent years, the German bishops argue that, just as Abraham’s faith entailed a commitment of his whole life, so in the New Testament faith is synonymous with discipleship. Thus, to believe means to commit oneself in trust to following Jesus on his way, even if that leads to the cross: ‘‘[Faith] is an all-encompassing life-project and a stance of one’s entire existence. The believer is drawn into Jesus’ innermost fundamental stance.’’34 The bishops describe Revelation as happening as Revelation in the context of this commitment and openness: ‘‘In this trusting according of oneself to God, a light dawns on the believer. He recognises in the external words and deeds of revelation the self-revealing God. Faith thus bestows new knowledge. Still, the believer does not believe because he knows; rather, he knows because he believes.’’35 Thus, conclude the German bishops, faith is at once ‘‘a person’s response to God’s self-revelation,’’ a ‘‘gift of God’s illuminating grace,’’ and a ‘‘free and responsible human act’’ that opens a person to God and to God’s Revelation.36 In John’s Gospel, much emphasis is given to faith as the way in which the believer receives God’s revealed word. The centrality of this theme in John’s Gospel has been made clear by the respected Johannine scholar Francis J. Moloney.37 Moloney argues that authentic Johannine faith requires more than just accepting that Jesus’ word is true; it requires entrusting oneself to him as the λγος of God, and thus receiving the abiding presence of the λγος that he offers. Marion partially acknowledges this when he uses a quotation from John’s Gospel to comment on the disciples’ invitation to Jesus to stay with them when they arrive in Emmaus (Lk 24:29): ‘‘The whole question of the coming of Christ and of faith in him comes down to this: ‘to have his λγος abiding in us, or not’ (Jn 5:38)’’ (TRH 150/140). Indeed, having the λγος abide in us is one of the key concerns of John’s Gospel.38 However, as the rest of this verse, not quoted by Marion, indicates, one receives the λγος by ‘‘believ[ing] 200

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him whom he [the Father] has sent’’ (Jn 5:38b), and not simply, as Marion describes it, by accepting ‘‘his meaning, his concept, his interpretation’’ (TRH 150/140). Moloney emphasizes the repeated insistence in John’s text that authentic faith demands not only accepting Jesus’ concepts, but entrusting oneself to the power of his word. Moloney argues that the paradigm for authentic Johannine faith is Mary, who, at the wedding in Cana, ‘‘trusts unconditionally, indeed even in the face of apparent rejection and rebuke, in the efficacy of the word of Jesus.’’39 Johannine faith is primarily concerned with a fundamental and deeply personal trust and acceptance of Jesus as the λγος of God; this faith is the existential commitment that opens the believer to receive the abiding presence of the λγος. Concepts, significations, and understanding, expressed in beliefs about the λγος, are clearly a secondary concern, and derive from this primary act of openness and acceptance. Perhaps the clearest scriptural instance of the way in which Revelation’s appearing depends upon the believer’s faith is the crucifixion itself. For Christianity this event is the core of God’s Revelation, and is acknowledged as such by Marion, who cites a variety of Gospel texts to demonstrate that ‘‘Christ’s death offers the highest figure of his visibility’’ (BG 239*/332). However, the revelatory character of this event is by no means self-evident to those who witness it. Marion correctly points out that some of those present, such as the centurion, did experience Christ’s death as a moment of Revelation: ‘‘Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’ ’’ (Mt 27:54; quoted in BG 239/332). However, Marion neglects to mention that this judgement was by no means universal.40 Others taunted Jesus on the cross, seeing the crucifixion as no more than another execution of one condemned as a criminal (Mt 28:39–44). St. Paul famously boasts of the ambiguity of the cross in his first letter to the Corinthians: ‘‘For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God’’ (1 Cor 1:22–24). According to the New Testament itself, it is only within the particular space opened by Christian faith that the cross can be seen as the place of Jesus’ glorification, and the core of his Revelation of God’s love. Augustine, Aquinas, Vatican I Perhaps the most famous example of a commitment to Christian faith is Augustine’s account of his conversion. In books 6 and 7 of his Confessions, Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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Augustine recounts the long intellectual enquiry that eventually convinces him of the truth of Christianity. However, just as the new concepts received by the disciples on the way to Emmaus are not sufficient for them to recognize Jesus, so for Augustine this intellectual acceptance is not sufficient to bring about his conversion. In book 8, he describes his struggle with making a personal commitment of himself in faith, and his incapacity to bring this about by an act of the will (book 8, chaps. 5, 8, 11). His final moment of conversion, on reading the passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, is one that he experiences as God filling his heart with light (book 8, chap. 12). The light of Revelation appears to him for the first time when he receives it in an openness that entails a radical commitment of his whole life. Augustine describes his newfound faith as a gift of God’s grace, but he cannot be described as simply passively receiving that gift. Although he is tortured by his inability to attain faith on his own, this does not mean that his faith is an action simply imposed upon him by God. Augustine’s final conversion to faith is a complex interaction of his reception of and cooperation with God’s offer of Revelation and grace. Augustine describes his commitment as both the result of God’s mercy and intervention, and at the same time his own act, decided by his own will: But you, Lord, are good and merciful; . . . And this was what you did: I was able totally to set my face against what I willed and to will what you willed. But where had this ability been for all those years? And from what profound and secret depth was my free will suddenly called forth in a moment so that I could bow my neck to your easy yoke and my shoulders to your light burden, O Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer? (book 9, chap. 1)41 In Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, Augustine’s highly personal account is replaced by a much more systematic reflection on the relation between faith and Revelation (ST IIa. IIae., questions 1–7). Nevertheless, Augustine’s insights remain highly influential, and Aquinas cites Augustine as setting out a crucial threefold distinction in the act of faith: (1) faith is believing in God, where God is its material object (credere Deum); (2) faith is believing God, where God is its formal object (credere Deo); and, (3) as the will’s assent and commitment, faith is believing unto God (credere in Deum) (ST IIa. IIae., question 2, article 2). As is immediately evident from these three dimensions of faith, Aquinas understands faith as much more than an intellectual matter. Faith is a commitment of the whole person (credere in Deum), based on trust in God (credere Deo), and resulting in assent to particular beliefs (credere Deum). Moreover, Aquinas emphasizes that not only is this assent and commitment fundamental to the 202

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life of the believer, but it is also ‘‘that habit of mind whereby eternal life begins in us’’ (ST IIa. IIae., question 4, article 1). In other words, the commitment of faith is itself revelatory; it is an experience of ‘‘the substance of things to be hoped for’’ (Heb 11:1; quoted in ST IIa. IIae., question 4, article 1). Quoting Dionysius, Aquinas goes so far as to describe this revelatory dimension of faith as showing forth the truth: ‘‘Faith is the abiding foundation of those who believe, putting them in the truth and showing forth the truth in them.’’42 Aquinas’ other broad concern is to insist that faith results from both God’s grace and a properly human act. In discussing the act of faith in question 2, he affirms that faith is an act that ‘‘stands under the control of free will and is directed towards God,’’ and is therefore meritorious (ST IIa. IIae., question 2, article 9). At the same time, even though the act of faith is proper to the human will, this will does not rely purely on its own capacity: ‘‘To believe is an act of mind assenting to the divine truth by virtue of the command of the will as this is moved by God through grace’’ (ST IIa. IIae., question 2, article 9). In a later question, Aquinas makes clear that, in part, he emphasizes the role of grace so as to avoid the Pelagian error of asserting that faith is caused by free will alone (ST IIa. IIae., question 6, article 1). In this question, he offers a valuable analysis of the two necessary conditions for Revelation to be received by faith, and thus to appear. First, that which is believed must be proposed to the believer; the object of faith is transcendent to the believer, and is offered as pure gift and Revelation from God. Second, that which is proposed must be assented to by the believer, an assent for which Aquinas identifies both an external and an internal cause. Externally, an event such as a miracle or preaching is the occasion for someone’s assent. However, Aquinas observes that this external cause is not sufficient for the reception of Revelation in faith because, of a group of witnesses to a single event, some will believe and some will not. That is, on the basis of what is given, some will experience Revelation, and some will not; contra Marion, revelation does not simply impose itself of itself. Consequently, as well as the external cause, there must also be an ‘‘inner cause, one that influences a person inwardly to assent to the things of faith’’ (ST IIa. IIae., question 6, article 1). Revelation’s appearing depends on the believer’s assent to receiving it by opening him- or herself to it in faith. Although Aquinas makes it clear that this act of faith depends in turn on ‘‘God, moving us inwardly through grace’’ (ST IIa. IIae., question 6, article 1), it remains a free human act that is proper to the believer. As he affirms in an earlier question, grace is both ‘‘operative’’ and ‘‘cooperative,’’ in that actions depending on God’s grace should be attributed both to God as mover, and to the mind, which is Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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not just passively moved, but is itself also an active mover (ST Ia. IIae., question 111, article 2). In Aquinas’ account, Revelation is given by God, and appears in being received by faith, which itself depends on grace. However, this act of faith and openness, in which Revelation is received and appropriated, remains an act that belongs properly to the believer. Neither Revelation nor faith is given simply by being imposed. The First Vatican Council’s teachings on faith and Revelation in Dei Filius43 bear striking similarities to Aquinas’ analysis, and represent one of the Christian tradition’s strongest affirmations of God’s role as revealer in bringing about the human act of faith: We are obliged to yield to God the revealer full submission of intellect and will by faith. This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the catholic church professes to be a supernatural virtue, by means of which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us, we believe to be true what he has revealed, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation and can neither deceive nor be deceived. . . . [N]o one can accept the gospel preaching in the way that is necessary for achieving salvation without the inspiration and illumination of the holy Spirit, who gives to all facility in accepting and believing the truth. And so faith in itself . . . is a gift of God, and its operation is a work belonging to the order of salvation.44 In its corresponding list of anathemas, the Council goes so far as to condemn ‘‘anyone [who] says that human reason is so independent that faith cannot be commanded by God.’’45 Nevertheless, Dei Filius also affirms the necessity of free and active cooperation with God’s grace: ‘‘The assent of faith is by no means a blind movement of the mind . . . a person yields true obedience to God himself when he accepts and collaborates with his grace which he could have rejected.’’46 As well, the Council emphasizes that faith is an act that commits the whole person, by a ‘‘full submission of intellect and will,’’ on the basis of his or her trust in God: ‘‘We believe to be true what he has revealed . . . because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation.’’ Faith is not simply an intellectual assent to particular propositions, but also openness to God’s Revelation, arising from an existential commitment to and acceptance of his authority. A particular event is experienced as revelatory, and thus itself an object of faith, only because of this fundamental stance that commits the believer to faith in God. 204

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Vatican II and Twentieth-Century Christian Theology A century after Dei Filius, the Second Vatican Council took a dramatically different approach to the question of faith and Revelation in its constitution on Revelation, Dei Verbum.47 Rather than beginning with propositional truths, it cast faith and Revelation in essentially relational terms. Dei Verbum emphasizes Revelation as dialogical from its opening words: ‘‘The word of God calls for reverent attention and confident proclamation.’’48 God reveals himself out of love, and seeks to draw people into relationship with him: This [self-revelation of God] brings it about that . . . human beings can draw near to the Father and become sharers in the divine nature (see Eph 2:18; 2 Pet 1:4). By thus revealing himself God, who is invisible (see Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17), in his great love speaks to humankind as friends (see Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14–15) and enters into their life (see Bar 3:38), so as to invite and receive them into relationship with himself.49 Revelation is first of all an experience of being addressed by God and summoned to personal response, and only on this basis does it result in a communication of knowledge or concepts. In its paragraph on the response of faith, Vatican II quotes Vatican I, and at first sight appears to echo Dei Filius closely: In response to God’s revelation our duty is ‘‘the obedience of faith’’ (Rom 16:26; cf. Rom 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5–6). By this, a human being makes a total and free self-commitment to God, offering ‘‘the full submission of intellect and will to God as he reveals’’ (Dei Filius, chap. 3), and willingly assenting to the revelation he gives. For this faith to be accorded we have need of God’s grace, both anticipating and then accompanying our act, together with the inward assistance of the holy Spirit, who works to stir the heart and turn it towards God.50 However, Joseph Ratzinger, who was a member of the constitution’s drafting commission, emphasizes that this text makes significant and deliberate modifications to Dei Filius.51 The most important of these modifications affects Vatican I’s specification of faith as ‘‘believ[ing] to be true what he has revealed [ab eo revelata vera esse credimus].’’ In Ratzinger’s view, by beginning with such a definition, Vatican I sets a fundamentally propositional context: Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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Coming in the very first part of the chapter on faith, this definition strongly orients all the following statements in an essentially intellectual direction; and, although ever more corrective elements are set against this, they do not overcome the preceding overall tendency.52 Vatican II makes a subtle but crucial change to the language of Vatican I, speaking instead of ‘‘assenting to the revelation he gives [revelationi ab eo datae assentiendo].’’ As Ratzinger comments, this does not exclude propositional content, but sets it in a much broader context: ‘‘This shift from revelata to revelatio opens up a new perspective that, while it in no way eliminates the intellectual components of faith, understands them as components in a more comprehensive whole.’’53 Ratzinger also draws attention to the fact that Dei Verbum introduces the Pauline concept of ‘‘obedience of faith,’’ and places it in the opening sentence of its statement on faith. The following sentence specifies that this obedience is ‘‘total and free self-commitment to God,’’ before quoting Vatican I about ‘‘submission of intellect and will.’’ Ratzinger confirms that Vatican II intends faith to be understood in a way that accords with Bultmann’s highly existential interpretation of Paul’s thought about selfrenunciation and self-commitment: The self-renunciation of faith is not directionless, but involves a commitment to the Word; this self-renunciation means precisely being at the disposal of the concrete modes of encountering God and his call, as they are historically passed on to me in the Church’s proclamation. That such a view is absolutely faithful to the Pauline preaching has been made impressively clear by the work of R. Bultmann.54 Ratzinger is not alone in seeing Bultmann’s influence in Dei Verbum. Harold Wagner makes a more extended comparison of Bultmann’s understanding of Revelation with that of Dei Verbum, and identifies a number of specific parallels, including: Revelation as God’s personal self-giving in Christ (Dei Verbum, §4); Revelation as an offer of sharing in God’s life (Dei Verbum, §§1, 4); Revelation as an encounter with God that summons the believer to a personal response (Dei Verbum, §2); and faith as an existential response of the believer (Dei Verbum, §5).55 Bultmann is, in turn, strongly influenced by Heidegger, whose voice can be heard echoing throughout Bultmann’s texts. Thus, in the major text cited by Wagner, Bultmann describes the life Christ reveals as ‘‘a mode of being [Seinsweise] that we lay hold of in faith,’’56 and goes on to specify this mode of being in terms of self-understanding and authenticity: ‘‘Revelation does not mediate knowledge of a world-view, but rather 206

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makes an address. That a person thereby learns to understand himself means that he learns to understand his now, the moment, as a now that is qualified by the proclamation. For being in the moment is his authentic being [eigentliches Sein].’’57 In Bultmann’s account, it is clear that faith is primarily an existential commitment in which the believer moves from hubristic self-reliance to trusting in God as the giver of all s/he has received.58 This commitment results in an openness that allows Revelation to appear: ‘‘Outside of faith revelation is not visible; there is nothing revealed on the basis of which one believes. It is only in faith that the object of faith is disclosed; therefore, faith itself belongs to revelation.’’59 Marion quotes precisely this passage in his critique of Bultmann, rejecting any suggestion that the lived experience of encounter with God in faith might itself be the believer’s primary experience of Revelation (PR 9/24; see the earlier section in this chapter, ‘‘Motivations: Early Essays’’). Marion’s view of Bultmann’s understanding of faith and Revelation is not representative of the mainstream Christian tradition. Other major theological figures of the twentieth century have understandings of faith and Revelation that parallel Dei Verbum, and are similarly influenced by Bultmann and Heidegger. Two of these figures from the past 50 years are Karl Rahner and Walter Kasper, both of whom understand faith and Revelation in a way that is much more consistent with the hermeneutic approach I have outlined than with a concept-focused approach such as Marion’s. In considering Revelation, Rahner first distinguishes between ‘‘natural revelation’’ and ‘‘authentic [eigentlich] self-revelation.’’ He understands ‘‘natural revelation’’ as God’s creation of a finite being that is conscious of its own finitude, and thus situates itself in relation to infinity: ‘‘This already implies a certain disclosure of God as the infinite mystery.’’60 This natural Revelation is a part of the human condition, and raises God as a question that it is not itself able to answer. By contrast, God’s ‘‘authentic [eigentlich] self-revelation’’ is a personal and dialogical event, ‘‘in which God addresses the human person . . . [and] discloses something that is still unknown for man from the world: God’s inner reality and his personally free relationship to spiritual creatures.’’61 Rahner then distinguishes two aspects of this authentic Revelation: its transcendental aspect, and its categorial or historical aspect. In its transcendental aspect, Revelation is God’s free gift of ‘‘sanctifying and justifying grace,’’ which is ‘‘offered to all times and all people.’’ If accepted, this grace affects ‘‘the whole person, in all his or her dimensions,’’ making it possible to hear God’s self-disclosure with faith, and thus recognize it as Revelation.62 However, transcendental Revelation results only in a nonspecific, general consciousness. For Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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this transcendental Revelation to become concrete, it must be mediated by particular historical events, institutions and individuals (culminating in the incarnation). These mediations make up what Rahner calls the categorial or historical aspect of God’s self-revelation.63 Two features of Rahner’s discussion of this historical self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ are particularly relevant to the relation between faith and Revelation. The first of these features is what Rahner calls ‘‘the circular structure of faith knowledge.’’64 He points out that all grounds for faith are simultaneously objects of faith, and therefore revelatory only to one who already has faith. The events that most dramatically and clearly reveal God, and therefore give grounds to believe in him, are Jesus’ miracles, and above all the miracle of his resurrection. However, these events are themselves objects of faith; they appear as miracles only to one who believes that they are events in which God reveals his loving action. Thus, there is an unavoidable circularity in faith: ‘‘The ground of faith is reached only in faith.’’65 Expressed more generally, ‘‘salvation history,’’ the history of particular concrete events in which God reveals himself, belongs to history in general, but views particular events as revelatory because of its standpoint of faith. Salvation history is part of ‘‘the ‘objective’ human reality, surroundings and history,’’ but ‘‘does not need to make, and does not make, the claim that it is also graspable by a knowledge that is uninterested in measuring according to faith, and that is in this sense merely neutral-profane historical knowledge.’’66 The second relevant feature of Rahner’s discussion is his insistence that faith must be understood as an existential self-commitment. He argues that, in general, there must be a correspondence between an object of knowledge and the way in which it is known. In the case of Revelation, the object of knowledge is God’s offer of salvation, ‘‘which is directed to and lays claim to the whole person.’’67 Faith is nothing other than ‘‘salvific knowledge of [this] salvific object,’’ and therefore ‘‘can be accomplished only by the whole person committing his or her existence.’’68 While emphasizing the existential and free nature of faith, Rahner consistently repeats that this act depends on God’s grace, a dependence that compounds the circularity of the structure of faith. Kasper describes Revelation as the human recognition of God’s presence in worldly experience.69 Because these experiences are not necessarily recognized as revelatory, their appearance as Revelation depends on the attitude with which they are understood. Kasper is clear that the attitude that recognizes Revelation, and thus allows it to appear, is faith: ‘‘Only where God is recognised in faith as God does his divinity properly show itself in the world; only where he is thus glorified as Lord can his glory shine out 208

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and his lordship become a historical event.’’70 This faith that recognizes Revelation is not primarily propositional, but rather an existential commitment. At the same time, it recognizes itself as a response that is made possible only by Revelation: Faith . . . does not mean a categorial acceptance of the truth of certain suprarational truths; rather it is the fundamental option to enter into this dimension of divine mystery and, in terms of it, to understand and encounter life, the world, humanity and history. . . . Religious faith is of the order of a life decision that encompasses the whole person and all his or her acts. It is a kind of primary choice [Urwahl], a fundamental option, . . . As a responsible human act, this decision is a response that enters into revelation; it knows that it is invited, prompted and supported by this revelation. It is a primary trust [Urvertrauen] that understands itself as a gift.71 For Kasper, both Revelation and faith should be understood primarily in terms of personal openness and commitment: ‘‘Faith as personal selfconsigning of someone to God corresponds as the response to God’s personal self-disclosure in the Word.’’72 Conclusion on the Christian Tradition Three features of the complex interrelationship between faith and Revelation recur throughout these accounts from the Christian tradition. First, faith is primarily a free existential commitment of the whole person to God; belief in particular conceptual propositions depends on this prior foundational commitment. Second, faith is a response to God’s offer of himself in Revelation, and is made possible only by that very Revelation; the ultimate initiative belongs to God, and the existential commitment of faith is itself received as a gift. Third, God’s Revelation is accomplished only when his offer is accepted and recognized by faith; Revelation’s appearance depends upon the believer’s faith. These features support the hermeneutic account I have proposed, in which the believer’s commitment of faith opens him or her to receive God’s Revelation of himself, and thus makes it possible for that Revelation to appear. At the same time, the Christian tradition rejects any suggestion that the human person is capable of making this commitment simply by an act of will. Although faith is a free and existential commitment of the believer, it is a response that is only made possible by God’s initiative, and is itself received as a gift. Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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Supporting Accounts in Marion’s Texts Marion’s texts studying ‘‘revelation’’ as a saturated phenomenon describe Revelation as imposing itself overwhelmingly on a passive recipient who then interprets it by means of particular concepts or beliefs (see the earlier section in this chapter, ‘‘Revelation as a Saturated Phenomenon’’). However, the hermeneutic approach that I have proposed to understanding the interrelation of faith and Revelation is not completely foreign to Marion’s thought. In fact, many of his texts that mention faith or Revelation outside the context of saturated phenomena, and that date from both before and after Being Given, are far more consistent with a hermeneutic understanding of Revelation’s appearing than with the understanding he puts forward in the texts I discussed earlier. In this section, I set out three features of Marion’s other accounts of faith and Revelation that are consistent with the hermeneutic understanding I have proposed: faith as an existential commitment of love; faith as a condition for making possible the appearing of Revelation; and apophatic theology as an account of precisely such an existential and nonconceptual openness, making it possible for God to appear as excessive. Faith and Love In the 1978 essay ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ Marion argues that because the Christian God is essentially defined as love, ‘‘then love alone, and thus the will, will be able to reach him.’’73 Therefore, faith cannot be understood solely in terms of concepts arrived at by reason: ‘‘Faith neither compensates for the lack of evidence nor resolves itself in arguments, but decides by the will for or against the love of Love.’’74 Recognizing one’s incapacity to grasp God conceptually and to make an act of the will that is adequate to him means that such a faith requires self-abandonment in trust of God: ‘‘To believe, the will needs only to will otherwise: to abandon itself to the gift, instead of assuring itself of a possession. To believe, the will needs only to convert. Nothing separates it from faith but love.’’75 Similarly, in God without Being, where Marion’s main concern is to think of God in terms of love rather than being, he emphasizes the total demands of a faith response to God’s love. The affirmation of Christian faith can only be made by one who is ‘‘truly re-created in imitation of Christ’’ (GWB 196/275). This re-creation cannot be brought about by an act of human will, but only by abandoning oneself to God, and allowing his transforming power to act. Therefore, Marion concludes, the confession of faith is an ‘‘existential decision [that] would have no value if it were not inscribed in a logic of love. . . . [H]e who confesses that ‘Jesus 210

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[is] Lord’ nevertheless already performs an act of love’’ (GWB 196–97/ 276).76 Marion is very aware that at least in the Christian tradition, faith must be placed in the context of love. As well as making it clear that faith as intellectual assent is grounded in a more primary existential commitment, this context of love provides a helpful language for expressing the complex interrelation between faith as act and faith as gift that is received. Love is perhaps the human act that most fully engages and commits the whole person. However, love is not something that we simply choose to do; in a sense, it always happens to us. It is entirely ours, and yet, at the same time, something that we receive, and to which we abandon ourselves. These two aspects of love complement each other rather than being in opposition.77 When faith is understood as a form of love, this complementarity is preserved. Affirming that faith is received, and that the ultimate initiative in Revelation belongs to God, in no way requires a diminishing of faith as a fully human act that makes it possible for Revelation to be accepted as Revelation, and thus appear as a phenomenon. Faith as Condition for Revelation’s Appearing In at least three of his works, Marion acknowledges the crucial contribution to faith of receptive openness and love, precisely in this role of making it possible for Revelation to appear. First, in The Idol and Distance, Marion describes the self-abandonment, love, and prayer with which a recipient has to give him- or herself up to God’s distance in order to participate in that distance and receive God’s love: The traversal of the distance is measured solely according to the measure of the welcome that each participant can or cannot offer. . . . Only the openness of the participant limits and measures the scope of his participation in Goodness’ distance; he is given [se donne] (in) every excess simply by welcoming it; to give oneself [se donner] the two acceptations [of the French reflexive verb] are rigorously merged: it is inasmuch as he gives himself (abandons himself and opens himself ) to Goodness’ distance that the participant is given (acquires) the chance to participate therein more intimately.78 Marion goes on to argue that because what God gives is his kenotic love, this gift can only be received as what it is by a receiver who gives it again; if love is received as a possession, it is no longer love. Thus, God’s gift of himself can only be received by one with the necessary commitment to putting it into circulation and making it redundant by re-giving it: Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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A person therefore receives the gift as such only by welcoming the act of giving; that is, through repetition by giving him- or herself. Receiving the gift and giving it come together in one and the same operation: overabundance [redondance]. Only the gift of the gift can receive the gift, without appropriating it to oneself and destroying it as a simple possession. One who would not give would receive nothing that he does not immediately freeze by his possession.79 Second, in ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ Marion expresses a similar thought, this time in terms of the dazzling brightness of the Revelation of God’s love given in the figure of Jesus Christ. He argues that only one who has a faith based in love can receive this Revelation in a way that ‘‘interpret[s]’’ it and ‘‘recognise[s]’’ it as God’s love. Somewhat ironically, this passage anticipates Benoist’s later objection to Marion’s account of Revelation as a saturated phenomenon, highlighting as it does the inherent ‘‘ambivalence’’ in what the Crucifixion reveals: Depending on the love with which one looks at it, one sees either ‘‘the highest figure of God’’ or simply ‘‘nothing.’’80 Finally, in the fifth chapter of In Excess, Marion describes faith or confidence as a form of envisaging which allows the face of the other to manifest itself in its counter-intentionality. The face of the other appears as saturated, excessive, and undetermined only if it is approached with this confidence, rather than aimed at as an object with a determinate signification (IE 121–22/145–47).81 In the course of this account, Marion makes it clear that he regards such ‘‘faith’’ toward another person as analogous to the ‘‘theological faith’’ with which one must approach God’s Revelation.82 Apophatic Theology, Praise, and Revelation From his earliest writings, Marion has shown an interest in apophatic theology, with Dionysius the Areopagite being one of the recurring figures in his texts. Marion is attracted to apophatic theology because he believes that it offers a model of an approach that affirms God without reducing him to the measure of our concepts. Thus, it allows God to appear as God, rather than as an idol that merely reflects the image of the perceiver. Marion argues that apophatic theology achieves this because it is pragmatic rather than conceptual. Like liturgy, it praises God rather than defining him. Such a way of denominating God does not depend on a significative concept, but is instead a way of envisaging God that aims at him without a determinate signification. His various accounts of this 212

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nonsignificative denomination emphasize the conditions of openness and self-exposure that a perceiver must fulfill if he or she is to approach God without imposing a conceptual signification on him. Although Marion does not always explicitly name this openness as ‘faith,’ what he describes is a personal, pragmatic and existential commitment that is clearly recognizable as faith. Moreover, this faith commitment is the condition for God to reveal himself as God rather than appearing as an idol. In my view, what Marion describes is the way in which apophatic theology’s pragmatic commitment of faith opens a hermeneutic space in which the phenomenon of Revelation can appear. In The Idol and Distance, Marion introduces the idea of a ‘‘discourse of praise’’ as part of his commentary on the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. He argues that although Dionysius names God, he does this as praise rather than as statement, and thus avoids both the elimination of distance and the objectifying that happens in categorial predication. Marion believes that Dionysius’ insistence on God’s anonymity should not be understood as ‘‘negative predication,’’ reflecting an epistemic lack on our part, but rather as an inherent namelessness in God. In this way, God’s transcendence beyond all names and concepts is preserved, and Dionysius opens a distance that can then be traversed, and in which God can appear as God.83 An implicit conclusion of Marion’s comments is that God can reveal himself only in his transcendent distance if he is approached with a nonsignificative discourse, such as that of praise. Marion clearly states the requirements that this discourse of praise makes on the one who utters it. Praise demands personal commitment and self-abandonment: ‘‘The discourse of praise . . . absorbs the speaker in the performance of the gift through the statement.’’84 Such a commitment must, of course, arise from faith, which is not mentioned here. However, in God without Being, Marion does explicitly admit the role of faith in such nonsignificative discourse; he describes a confession of faith as a nonobjectifying predication that commits a person to charity, and ultimately to martyrdom (GWB, chap. 7). Marion returns to the theme of nonsignificative denomination at length in the final study of In Excess, ‘‘In the Name: How to Avoid Speaking of It,’’ where he defends apophatic theology from the objection that praise is ‘‘a disguised form of predication’’ (IE 134/161).85 As the substance of his argument is very similar to that which I just outlined from The Idol and Distance, I will not set it out in any detail. Instead, I discuss two sections of this study in which Marion describes praise in terms that are particularly close to the hermeneutic account of faith and Revelation that I have put forward. First, he argues that one of the ways in which Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing

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Dionysius avoids significations is by always addressing God indirectly: I praise you as good, as beautiful, as wise, etc. Marion concludes that such discourse uses an improper name to indirectly de-nominate God, rather than using a proper name that would determine him by applying concepts to him.86 Marion then describes this apophatic as as anticipating Heidegger’s analysis of the ‘‘as-structure’’ of understanding and interpretation in Being and Time. However, as I argued earlier, this ‘‘as-structure’’ of understanding reflects precisely that fundamentally hermeneutic structure of the appearing of phenomena that I have been proposing as missing from Marion’s phenomenology (see Chap. 2, ‘‘The Hermeneutics of Being and Time’’). Heidegger explicitly identifies the as-structure of understanding and interpretation as a ‘‘primordial . . . existential-hermeneutic ‘as’ ’’ (BT §33, 201/158). Despite this, Marion still avoids acknowledging that he is referring to something that Heidegger clearly understands in hermeneutic terms. Consistent with his repeated restriction of hermeneutics to interpretation after a phenomenon has appeared, Marion introduces a small but significant modification into Heidegger’s language: ‘‘To a large extent, these operators as . . . and inasmuch as . . . anticipate in theology what Heidegger will designate the phenomenological inasmuch as’’ (IE 144/ 174; Marion’s ellipses). Heidegger’s ‘‘existential-hermeneutic’’ becomes Marion’s ‘‘phenomenological.’’ The second section of ‘‘In the Name’’ that is significant for my argument comes some pages later, when Marion describes the commitment of love and self-exposure that is required for praise: ‘‘The words spoken no longer say or explain anything to me about some thing [vis-a`-vis] kept for and by my look. They expose me to what lets itself be said only for the sake of allowing me no longer to say it, but to recognise it as goodness, thus to love it’’ (IE 148*/178). As in the texts from The Idol and Distance cited earlier, there is no mention of faith in this final study of In Excess. Nevertheless, the attitude of praising God with self-exposure and love is clearly recognizable as an existential commitment of faith. Just as in The Idol and Distance, Marion does not state the implicit corollary of his argument: If one can only approach God as God by means of an existential commitment of faith such as that which is evident in praise, then God’s Revelation of himself can only appear in the hermeneutic space opened by this faith. Conclusion Marion’s various studies of Revelation constitute a compelling argument that for a phenomenon to be revelatory of God as God, it must allow 214

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transcendence, distance, and infinite excess to appear without being reduced to concepts that are imposed by a subject or a horizon. Such a phenomenon will be excessive, overwhelming, ungraspable, and, indeed, saturated. His insistence on this excess, and on the possibility of Revelation’s appearing as excessive, is an important contribution to the phenomenology of religious phenomena, and of excessive phenomena in general. However, Marion’s concern to prevent Revelation being determined or constituted by any other factor leads him to restrict and distort the role of faith in the appearing of Revelation. I have argued that faith cannot be limited to conceptual assent to Revelation after it has appeared. Rather, faith must also be understood in the more fundamental sense of an existential commitment that opens a hermeneutic space in which it is first possible for Revelation to appear at all. I have shown that this position is supported by the paradigm of Revelation proposed by Marion: namely, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, both as that Revelation is understood in the Christian tradition, and as Marion himself presents it in his texts that do not explicitly deal with saturated phenomena. The Christian tradition understands Revelation and faith in a complex circular interrelationship, and resists attributing the sole initiative to either of them. Although only those with faith recognize God’s self-revelatory appearance, this faith is itself received from God’s grace. Revelation cannot be understood as simply imposing itself from itself on a passive believer, but neither can faith be understood as a completely independent choice to accept God’s offer of Revelation. God is the ultimate source for both his self-revelation and for the believer’s faith, which recognizes and receives this Revelation. However, faith remains an existential commitment that belongs properly and immediately to the believer. God’s Revelation of his excess and transcendence appears only for those who accept Revelation’s claims, both those it makes about itself as revelatory, and those it makes on them to open themselves to its excess in faith and love. It is clear that there is a fundamental hermeneutic element implicit in the structure of the very appearing of the instance of Revelation that Marion proposes as a paradigm. The saturated phenomenon of Revelation may well be saturated ‘‘to the second degree,’’ but its appearing as Revelation cannot be understood apart from the existential commitment of a believer’s faith.

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Conclusion: Revising the Phenomenology of Givenness

Marion’s phenomenology of givenness emphatically focuses phenomenology on phenomena themselves—as they give themselves. He carefully exposes how various phenomenological approaches entail limits and conditions on phenomena, and demonstrates the failings of theories that presume or imply such limits. By introducing the concept of saturated phenomena, he places at the center of his theory a group of phenomena that are often classified as exceptional or marginal, and thus disregarded. His accounts of these various saturated phenomena are a persuasive argument that their richness and complexity offer a far better paradigm for understanding phenomenality than do everyday phenomena such as objects. Indeed, Marion’s claim about the paradigmatic status of saturated phenomena is so persuasive that it raises the question of whether all phenomena might not actually be saturated. The unresolved status of this question in his texts is made particularly evident by the three ways in which he uses events in his analysis: Historical events are the figure of one type of saturated phenomenon; the event is one of the five determinations of the given phenomenon; and eventness itself is a characteristic of all phenomena. In Chapter 4, I argued that Marion’s various accounts of events can only be reconciled with one another if events in general are regarded as saturated. Furthermore, because Marion ascribes an evental character to all phenomena, according to the terms of his theory, saturation should then be regarded as the normal way in which all phenomena appear. 216

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In this case, saturation should no longer be understood as a rare exception to ‘ordinary’ phenomenality; instead, ‘‘poor’’ and ‘‘common-law’’ phenomena (such as objects) should be seen as unusual exceptions to the norm of saturated phenomena. The prevalence of such apparently unsaturated phenomena should in turn be regarded as a consequence of everyday phenomena being distorted by the objectifying way in which we approach them. Thus, these everyday phenomena are not deficient reflections of an exceptional paradigm, but rather covered-over originals. Despite the clear importance of Marion’s contribution to phenomenology, this study has shown that Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena suffers from a number of defects, and cannot sustain the ambitious and far-reaching claims that he makes on its behalf. First, the theory itself contains a series of flaws. In particular, saturation cannot be presented as a simple extrapolation of the Husserlian concept of degrees of adequation (see Chap. 3). Similarly, Marion’s use of Kant’s table of categories to distinguish between different types of saturation remains problematic and unconvincing. For at least two of Kant’s four divisions (relation and modality), he fails to demonstrate that this classification actually identifies a distinct type of saturated phenomenon (see Chaps. 6 and 7). Second, although Marion wants to distance his analysis from the structures of Cartesian and Kantian subjectivity, he retains their essentially adversarial characterization of the subject-object relation, but inverts this relationship. Thus, he ascribes a quasi selfhood to phenomena, and relegates the subject to playing the passive adonne´, who is the screen onto which phenomena crash. This account certainly succeeds in displacing the subject from a dominant, constituting role, and removes any vestiges of Cartesian or Kantian sovereignty. However, in many instances, this dethroning seems to be accomplished by enthroning a new sovereign, rather than by overturning the dominion of sovereignty as such. The most serious defects in Marion’s theory result from his failure to acknowledge the hermeneutic dimension that I have identified in the structure of saturated phenomena. I have shown that this hermeneutic element is implicit in each of Marion’s accounts of these phenomena (Chaps. 4–8). The appearing of such phenomena depends on the interrelationship between the recipient and the world, and on the interpretive features of that relationship. In many instances (e.g., anamorphoses, idols, icons, the face of the other person), Marion himself describes the appearing of the phenomenon as dependent on the recipient approaching it in the appropriate way (e.g., with reverence for icons, or by envisaging a face rather than objectifying it). In other words, the space needed for these phenomena to appear (as themselves) is only opened by an active and Revising the Phenomenology of Givenness

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interpretive reception. Such an active reception is not compatible with the passivity of Marion’s adonne´, nor with his claims that phenomena give themselves solely on the basis of themselves. The phenomenon of ‘‘revelation’’ is particularly significant in Marion’s analysis because it is saturated in all four possible ways, and is therefore the saturated phenomenon ‘‘to the second degree and par excellence’’— ‘‘the maximum of saturated phenomenality’’ (BG 235/326–27). Additionally—as I showed by examining two of Marion’s essays—one of his motivations in developing the theory of saturated phenomena is to modify phenomenology in such a way that it can conceive of Revelation without reducing its transcendence to immanent experience (see Chap. 8). His various studies of Revelation give very solid support to his contention that for a phenomenon to be revelatory of God as God, it must allow transcendence to appear without being limited to a finite horizon or reduced to concepts that are imposed by a subject. Marion’s insistence on this excess, and on the possibility of Revelation’s appearing as excessive, is an important contribution to the phenomenology of religious phenomena, and of excessive phenomena in general. However, Marion’s concern to prevent Revelation from being determined or constituted by any other factor leads him to circumscribe and distort the role of faith in the appearing of Revelation, restricting it to conceptual assent to Revelation after it has appeared. I argued that instead of limiting faith in this way, faith must also be understood in the more fundamental sense of an existential commitment that opens a hermeneutic space in which it is first possible for Revelation to appear at all. I showed that this position is supported by the paradigm of Revelation proposed by Marion—namely, the Revelation of Jesus Christ—both as that Revelation is understood in the Christian tradition, and as Marion himself presents it in his texts that do not explicitly deal with saturated phenomena. In the case of Christian theology, I highlighted the resistance to any suggestion that either Revelation or faith should be attributed the sole initiative. Instead, it is clear that the Christian tradition has consistently affirmed that although only those with faith recognize God’s self-revelatory appearance, this faith is itself received by virtue of God’s grace. While not entering into the controversy about whether one should consider theological topics in phenomenology, I argued that there is no basis for Marion’s contention that one can examine the phenomenological possibility of revelation without affirming the theological actuality of God’s Revelation. On the contrary, to describe a phenomenon as ‘‘revelation’’ entails an affirmation that it is a phenomenon in which God is actually 218

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Revealed. In the absence of such an affirmation, such a phenomenon is not revelation but some other thing, or nothing. It is clear that Marion’s accounts of particular saturated phenomena should be modified to take account of the hermeneutic dimension that I have identified in their structure. However, my argument does not simply require a modification in these individual accounts. Rather, Marion’s overall theory of saturated phenomena ought itself to be modified. He nominates the phenomena in these accounts as representative ‘‘figures’’ of each type of saturated phenomenon. Further, his choice of Kant’s table of categories implies that these types constitute an exhaustive catalogue of all possible types of saturation. Thus, because the same hermeneutic dimension is a structural element in each representative figure of Marion’s exhaustive catalog of types of saturation, it can be concluded that on Marion’s own terms, no saturated phenomenon should be understood as given in and of itself, nor as appearing by imposing itself on a passive recipient. Instead, all saturated phenomena should be understood as appearing in a hermeneutic space that is opened by the active reception of the one to whom they are given. Moreover, because saturated phenomena function as paradigms in Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, and thus define the essential characteristics of all phenomena, his key claims about phenomenality in general also ought to be modified: Phenomena should not be understood as pure givens that appear on the basis of givenness alone; they do not have ‘selves’ that are the sole origins of their appearing; and they do not simply impose themselves of themselves on a fundamentally passive adonne´. While these claims are a dramatic and uncompromising way of excluding the sort of limited and conditioned phenomenality Marion sees in the theories of Husserl and Heidegger, they are irretrievably undermined by his own accounts of saturated phenomena. By studying the various saturated phenomena Marion proposes, I have shown that instead of assigning primacy solely to the ‘‘pure,’’ ‘‘absolute,’’ and ‘‘unconditioned’’ givenness of phenomena, the appearing of phenomena is better understood as a middle-voiced happening. The choice of a middle voice means that neither phenomena nor the recipient are described in terms that are exclusively active or passive. It reflects the essential interrelatedness of phenomena, the subject to whom they appear, and the world in which the event of that appearing occurs. This interrelatedness is hermeneutic not only in the sense that phenomena receive an epistemic interpretation subsequent to their appearance, but also in the ontological sense that interpretation is a fundamental part of the appearance’s structure. Revising the Phenomenology of Givenness

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Although I have demonstrated that Marion’s claims cannot be sustained, and have argued for their revision, I have not conclusively demonstrated the validity of these revised claims. Such a demonstration would rely on the legitimacy of Marion’s use of the Kantian table of categories to propose an exhaustive classification of types of saturation—and this Kantian classification is one of the elements of Marion’s theory that I have shown to be problematic. Thus, even if one accepts both the paradigmatic status of saturated phenomena and my claims about the hermeneutic character of the various saturated phenomena described by Marion, one cannot exclude the possibility of other saturated phenomena that are not hermeneutic in the same way. Nevertheless, this theoretical possibility of nonhermeneutic saturated phenomena is of relatively minor consequence. The broad range of saturated phenomena studied by Marion, along with the depth and persuasiveness of his accounts of these phenomena, make it improbable that other saturated phenomena would be found to have fundamentally different characters. The most compelling explanation for the hermeneutic character of Marion’s saturated phenomena is that they epitomize the fundamentally hermeneutic dimension of phenomenality in general. Marion is right to claim that his theory of saturated phenomena offers a new paradigm for phenomenology, and a revised understanding of phenomenality. However, this paradigm is not one in which phenomena give themselves and show themselves on the basis of some pure and absolute givenness. Rather, it is a paradigm in which phenomena only appear in a hermeneutic space that is opened by the one who receives them. Going back ‘‘to the things themselves’’ cannot be achieved by leaving hermeneutics behind.

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Notes

Introduction 1. Jean-Luc Marion, Descartes’ Grey Ontology, trans. Sarah Donahue (South Bend, Ind.: St Augustine’s Press, 2008); translation of Sur l’ontologie grise de Descartes: Science carte´sienne et savoir aristote´licien dans les ‘‘Regulae,’’ 2nd rev. ed. (1993; 1st ed., Paris: Vrin, 1975). Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Robert Armogathe, eds. Index des ‘‘Regulae ad directionem ingenii’’ de Rene´ Descartes (Rome: Edizioni dell’ Ateneo, 1976). Rene´ Descartes, Re`gles utiles et claires pour la direction de l’esprit en la recherche de la ve´rite´, trans. and ann. by Jean-Luc Marion, with mathematical notes by Pierre Costabel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977). 2. Jean-Luc Marion, Sur la the´ologie blanche de Descartes: Analogie, cre´ation des ve´rite´s ´eternelles, fondement, rev. ed. (1991; 1st ed., Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1981). Jean-Luc Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); translation of Sur le prisme me´taphysique de Descartes: Constitution et limites de l’onto-the´o-logie dans la pense´e carte´sienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986). Jean-Luc Marion, Cartesian Questions: Method and Metaphysics, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky, John Cottingham, and Stephen Voss (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); translation of Questions carte´siennes: Me´thode et me´taphysique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991). Jean-Luc Marion, On the Ego and God: Further Cartesian Questions, trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007); translation of Questions carte´siennes II: Sur l’ego et sur Dieu (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996). 3. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 68/74. 4. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 95/102. 221

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5. Although they were published somewhat later, Prolegomena to Charity (1986) and The Crossing of the Visible (1991) should also be included here because they are collections of earlier essays related to these concerns. 6. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 170/181. 7. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 203–4/213–14. 8. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 275–76/291–92. 9. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 289/306. 10. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 335/358. 11. Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism, 306/324. 12. Marion identifies these books as a trilogy in the introduction to In Excess (IE xxii/vii). Reduction and Givenness is largely devoted to critiques of the Husserlian and Heideggerian versions of the phenomenological project, and concludes by introducing Marion’s proposal for a reduction to givenness. Being Given is a systematic exposition of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, including the theory of saturated phenomena. In Excess is a series of studies on the five figures of saturated phenomena that Marion puts forward in Being Given. 13. ‘‘The first breakthrough of this universal correlational a priori between experienced object and manners of givenness (which occurred during work on my Logical Investigations around 1898) affected me so deeply that my whole subsequent life-work has been dominated by the task of systematically elaborating on this correlational a priori. The further course of the reflections in this text will show how, when human subjectivity was brought into the correlational problematic, a radical transformation of the meaning of this problematic became necessary, and finally had to lead to the phenomenological reduction to absolute, transcendental subjectivity.’’ (Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr [Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970], §48, 166n*; translation of Die Krisis der europa¨ischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Pha¨nomenologie: Eine Einleitung in die pha¨nomenologische Philosophie, ed. Walter Biemel, Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana), vol. VI [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1954], Hua VI 169–70n1.) In the Logical Investigations themselves, Husserl refers to the correlation as ‘‘the relationship . . . between the subjectivity of knowing and the objectivity of the content known’’ (LI, foreword to first edition, 1:2; Hua XVIII 7). 14. LI, Investigation 6, §47, 2:284/2:677. Cf. Ideas I 86–87; Hua III/1, 84. 15. This famous maxim is often quoted without specific reference to Husserl’s texts (e.g., Michel Henry, ‘‘Quatre principes de la phe´nome´nologie,’’ Revue de me´taphysique et morale 96 [1991]: 3, 5–6). Marion cites the original source of the maxim as Ideas I §19, Hua III/1, 43 (BG 329n6/20n1) and Hua III/1, 42–43 (IE 16n20/19n2). In fact, Husserl never uses this exact formulation although he does come close to it in the section of Ideas I cited by Marion (‘‘von den Reden und Meinungen auf die Sachen selbst zuru¨ckgehen’’ [41]; ‘‘die Grundforderung eines Ru¨ckganges auf die ‘Sachen selbst’ ’’ [42]). The sentiment is certainly Husserl’s, and is also present in his introduction to the Logical Investigations (‘‘Wir wollen uns 222

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schlechterdings nicht mit ‘bloßen Worten’ . . . zufrieden geben, . . . Wir wollen auf die ‘Sachen selbst’ zuru¨ckgehen’’ [LI, Introduction, §2, Hua XIX/1, 10]) and in Philosophy as Rigorous Science (‘‘Weg mit dem hohlen Wortanalysen. Die Sachen selbst mu¨ssen wir befragen’’ [Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft, in Aufsa¨tze und Vortra¨ge 1911–1921, ed. H. R. Sepp and Thomas Nenon, Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana), vol. XXV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986), Hua XXV 15]). According to George Heffernan, the customary formulation is actually proposed by Heidegger rather than by Husserl (‘‘Der Titel ‘Pha¨nomenologie’ dru¨ckt eine Maxime aus, die also formuliert werden kann: ‘zu den Sachen selbst!’ ’’ [BT §7, 50/ 27]). Heffernan himself proposes ‘‘Von den bloßen Worten . . . zu den Sachen selbst!’’ as more representative of Husserl’s thought, and holds Heidegger responsible for the ‘‘unfortunate’’ result that the briefer version has been adopted (George Heffernan, Am Anfang war die Logik: Hermeneutische Abhandlungen zum Ansatz der ‘‘Formalen und transzendentalen Logik’’ von Edmund Husserl [Amsterdam: B. R. Gru¨ner, 1988], 13). 16. Husserl, Ideas I §24, 44*; Hua III/1, 52. 17. Paul Ricoeur, Husserl: An Analysis of his Phenomenology, trans. Edward G. Ballard and Lester E. Embree (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1967), 4. 18. BT §6, 43ff./22ff.; §7, 58–59/34–35. 19. Jacques Derrida, Le proble`me de la gene`se dans la philosophie de Husserl (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990), 40; cf. Leonard Lawlor, Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 81. 20. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 158; translation of De la grammatologie, (Paris: Les E´ditions de Minuit, 1967), 227. 21. The example is Robyn Horner’s. Horner, Jean-Luc Marion: A Theo-logical Introduction, 43–44. 22. Derrida, Of Grammatology, 20. 23. Richard Kearney, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘On the Gift: A Discussion between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, Moderated by Richard Kearney,’’ in God, the Gift and Postmodernism, ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 54–78. 24. For discussions of the difference between Derrida and Marion in approaching the impossible, see John D. Caputo, ‘‘Apostles of the Impossible,’’ in God, the Gift and Postmodernism, ed. Caputo and Scanlon, 185–222 (esp. 199); Robyn Horner, ‘‘Aporia or Excess: Two Strategies for Thinking r/Revelation,’’ in Other Testaments: Derrida and Religion, ed. Yvonne Sherwood and Kevin Hart (London: Routledge, 2004), 325–36, esp. 327. 25. Jean-Louis Chre´tien, ‘‘Call and Response,’’ in The Call and the Response, trans. Anne A. Davenport (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), 5–32; translation of ‘‘L’appel et la re´ponse,’’ in L’appel et la re´ponse (Paris: Les E´ditions de Minuit, 1992), 15–44. Notes

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26. Marion also draws much encouragement from Henry’s endorsement of his innovation in articulating a fourth (non-Husserlian) phenomenological principle at the end of Reduction and Givenness (see Henry, ‘‘Quatre principes de la phe´nome´nologie,’’ 15ff.). A final indication of Henry’s influence is perhaps that Marion is the editor of Phe´nome´nologie de la vie, the four-volume collection of Henry’s writings (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2003–04). 27. I have chosen to follow Horner’s practice (in In Excess) of leaving ‘‘adonne´’’ untranslated. In Being Given, Kosky proposes that ‘‘adonne´’’ should be translated as ‘‘gifted,’’ which is succinct and retains a clear connection with the root of ‘‘adonne´’’ in the French donner (to give). However, the primary meaning of gifted in English is talented, which is quite misleading. 28. For instance: ‘‘A purely and strictly given phenomenon, one without remainder and that owes all its phenomenality to givenness’’ (BG 39*/61); ‘‘A powerful, factual confirmation for my hypothesis of the legitimate possibility [possibilite´ en droit] of a phenomenality reduced to pure givenness . . . that the phenomenon, at the very least, can be reduced to a pure given, and that it must do so if it is to appear absolutely’’ (BG 52–53/78); ‘‘How are we to conceive a givenness that is in the end absolutely unconditioned (without the limits of a horizon) and absolutely irreducible (to any constituting I)?’’ (BG 189*/264). I elaborate on these claims of Marion in Chapter 1. 1. Marion’s Claims 1. Marion repeats this critique in Being Given: ‘‘In short if [Husserl’s] objectness or [Heidegger’s] beingness could hide givenness in themselves, this is because their respective reductions are limited to leading back to the object or being, assigning in advance conditions of possibility to the given—nothing gives itself expect as object or being—imposing in advance on the phenomenal given that it give itself only according to two particular modes of manifestation’’ (BG 38/59). 2. I analyze Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena in Chapter 3. 3. ‘‘A phenomenality of givenness can permit the phenomenon to show itself in itself and by itself because it gives itself, but a phenomenality of objectness can only constitute the phenomenon on the basis of the ego of a consciousness that intends it as its noema’’ (BG 32/50). 4. On a number of occasions when he is discussing saturated phenomena, Marion repeats this claim that phenomena appear on the basis of themselves. For instance: ‘‘The manifested phenomenon is reversed into a manifestation not only in and of itself, but strictly by and on the basis of itself (auto-manifestation)’’ (BG 232/323; cf. 219/305); ‘‘It shows itself from itself, on the basis of itself ’’ (IE 33*/38); ‘‘It manifests itself from itself, on the basis of itself and in so far as itself ’’ (IE 121*/146). 5. BT §7, 54/31; quoted in BG 364n65/305n1; cf. BG 69/102, 221/ 309–10. 6. ‘‘The phenomenon can appear as such, and not as the appearance of something else more essential to it than itself . . . only if it pierces through the 224

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mirror of representation. . . . [W]hat appears force[s] its entry onto the scene of the world, advancing in person without a stuntman, double, or any other representative standing in for it. This advance is named, from the point of view of the one who knows, intentionality; from the point of view of the thing-itself, it is called givenness.’’ (BG 69/101; cf. 21–22/34–35, 26/40) 7. ‘‘Heidegger established and had it acknowledged that the phenomenon is defined as what shows itself in itself and on the basis of itself. . . . But he left largely undetermined how the self at work in what shows itself can be thought’’ (IE 30*/35). 8. ‘‘This complexity of mingled effects [in paintings] attests that a meaning—a meaningful effect—autonomous and irreducible, imposes itself, designating the real depths from which the visible surges up, as from a self— something Ce´zanne does not hesitate to call the ‘life’ of the visible, to emphasize the self and almost the interiority (‘interior resonance’) from which the phenomenon wells up in itself and by itself ’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 49–50/74). 9. Heidegger’s later reflections on ‘es gibt’ as originary givenness, and on Ereignis are an obvious attempt to take up this challenge, as are Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on the flesh of the world as the interlacing between subject and object. More recently, Secondo Bongiovanni has attempted at least to evoke the issue. He proposes that the idea of an active/passive distinction is derived from a fundamental relatedness: The subject is the event of an original relation of belonging: it is not given outside of its welcome of the ‘gift’ of self to self. In being (given), it is on the basis of an original relation (to the world and to others), which precedes any claim of selfhood for the self. The subject is given in a situation which is the world, a being-situated which implies an originary and constitutive relation with others. The subject is neither the (constituting) centre nor the sole constituted. It is given in so far as place-time of a reciprocity of belonging which precedes all activity and all passivity. (Secondo Bongiovanni, Identite´ et donation: L’e´ve´nement du ‘‘je’’ [Paris, L’Harmattan, 1999], 22–23) 10. BG 187/262; cf. RG chap. 1, chaps. 3–4; cf. BG §§1–3, §19, §25. 11. See Chap. 2, ‘‘Romano’s Evential Hermeneutics.’’ Romano’s major work is published in two complementary volumes: Event and World, trans. Shane Mackinlay (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), translation of L’e´ve´nement et le monde (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998); and L’e´ve´nement et le temps (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999). Some of the key features of these volumes are sketched in an earlier essay in the context of an analysis of aspects of Heidegger’s thought: ‘‘Le possible et l’e´ve´nement,’’ Philosophie 40 (Dec. 1993): 68–95 (pt. 1), and 41 (March 1994): 60–86 (pt. 2). I will refer to a revised version of this essay that appears in a collection of Romano’s essays: Il y a (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2003), 55–111. The text of Romano’s that I will draw on most often is Event and World (EW). Notes

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12. For instance: ‘‘Disposedness and understanding characterise as existentials the primordial disclosedness of Being-in-the-world. By way of being attuned, Dasein ‘sees’ possibilities, from out of which it is. In the projective disclosing of such possibilities, it is always already attuned. The projection of its ownmost capacity-to-be is delivered over to the fact of thrownness into the there’’ (BT §31, 188*/148). 13. ‘‘The existential analytic is thus limited to setting forth in its diverse modalities the single event that Dasein is itself, the event of its being’’ (EW 16/27). 14. ‘‘How, then, could events be envisaged as themselves, and thus comprehended, when Dasein’s understanding of Being remains an ontological-formal condition of possibility for all that can present itself to it as event? For events are in principle what themselves open the playing field where they can occur, the unconditioned ‘condition’ of their own occurrence, that whose an-archic welling up abolishes all prior condition, or even that which occurs before being possible’’ (EW 18/30). 15. Emmanuel Levinas makes a similar point in the opening chapter of Totality and Infinity: ‘‘The relation with Being that is enacted as ontology consists in neutralising the existent in order to comprehend or grasp it. It is hence not a relation with the other as such but the reduction of the other to the same. Such is the definition of freedom: to maintain oneself against the other, despite every relation with the other to ensure the autarchy of an I’’ (Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis, Duquesne Studies, Philosophical Series, no. 24 [Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969], 45–46; translation of Totalite´ et infini: Essai sur l’exte´riorite´, Le livre de poche, no. 4120 [Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1990; 1st ed., 1961], 36–37). 16. ‘‘In so far as the original essence of receptivity is defined in its internal structure by immanence, it becomes apparent that it itself constitutes the pure content which it receives. What the original essence of receptivity receives is itself. . . . Self-affection is the constitutive structure of the original essence of receptivity’’ (Michel Henry, The Essence of Manifestation, trans. Girard Etzkorn [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973], 233*; translation of L’essence de la manifestation [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963], 287–88). 17. Carlson leaves ‘‘interloque´’’ untranslated in Reduction and Givenness. This term, which is used ordinarily to describe someone who is nonplussed and taken aback by what is said to him or her, derives from the legal situation where an interlocutory judgement interrupts or preempts the argument of a case. Marion draws on both the technical origin and the ordinary usage. See RG 200–202/ 300–301. 18. ‘‘Thus I experience myself—or: the I is experienced—as claimed, assigned, and convoked in the accusative, deprived of its right to the nominative that names every thing in the manner of an accused; . . . Under the in this sense absolute hold of the claim, the me that it provokes attests to the relegation of any transcendental or constituting I’’ (RG 199/298). 226

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19. Although Marion does use the word interloque´ on two occasions in Being Given, these are only adjectival and incidental, rather than in the substantive mode of Reduction and Givenness. Kosky translates the first use in Being Given as ‘‘stupefied and taken aback,’’ and leaves the second use untranslated (BG 217/ 303, 269/371). 20. ‘‘This characteristic function also lets us finally remove the ambiguity that has until now haunted the ‘to whom/which.’ To be sure, any ‘to whom/which’ will be enough to welcome what gives itself, but only a ‘to whom’ (and never a ‘to which’) can assume the full role of the receiver—presenting what gives itself in such a way that it shows itself in the world. For this presentation implies reception in ‘feeling [sentiment],’ and it aims precisely at showing for thought, manifesting for a consciousness, forming for vision what, otherwise, would give itself to the blind. Therefore the receiver who presents and renders visible should see. He is in play like vision, exerts an aim, exposes a face, which one will have to look in the face as a personal other’’ (BG 265/364–65). 21. ‘‘More generally, givenness does not cut through the gift transitively; it stays there permanently. It belongs to the fold of givenness to organise the gift, and to manifestation to unfold it’’ (BG 117/166–67). 22. Later in Being Given, Marion makes clear that the relation between givenness and manifestation is not reciprocal. While all that is shown must first be given, not all that is given must be shown: ‘‘[Even] if all that shows itself must first give itself, it sometimes happens that what gives itself does not succeed in showing itself ’’ (BG 309/425). 23. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. 24. In these passages, Marion includes two brief quotes from Jean-Louis Chre´tien’s much more extended analysis of call and response (BG 287/396; 373n69/398n1). However, Marion’s discussion echoes that of Chre´tien far more closely than these quotes indicate. See Chre´tien, ‘‘Call and Response,’’ in The Call and the Response, trans. Anne A. Davenport (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), 5–32; translation of ‘‘L’appel et la re´ponse,’’ in L’appel et la re´ponse (Paris: Les E´ditions de Minuit, 1992), 15–44. 25. ‘‘The a priori call awaits the a posteriori of the response in order to begin to have been said and to phenomenalise itself ’’ (BG 287/395). 26. A re´pons is a liturgical refrain which is repeated between strophes of a psalm. Normally, the refrain is also sung (and repeated) before the first strophe, which may explain Marion’s choice of this term. ‘Responsory’ would reflect the liturgical provenance of re´pons more clearly in English than Kosky’s choice of ‘responsal.’ 27. ‘‘One could not decide to respond or even to refuse it; the response begins with the responsal and the responsal with the hearing. . . . The meanings invested by the responsal can be chosen, decided, arrive by accident, but the responsal is nothing like an optional act, an arbitrary choice, or a chance’’ (BG 288/398). 28. Marion is careful to distinguish this ‘‘willing [vouloir]’’ from the ‘‘metaphysical will [volonte´],’’ so as to avoid suggesting that he is speaking of a decision based on conceptual knowledge (BG 314/431). Notes

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29. ‘‘The decision to respond, and thus to receive, precedes the possibility of seeing’’ (BG 305*/420). 30. In Marion’s view, the circularity of this situation is ‘‘the most rigorous hermeneutic circle,’’ and so should not be regarded as problematic or vicious. Because the adonne´’s reception of the given is a condition for its receiving itself as the receiver, it is impossible either to enter this circle or to leave it (BG 308/ 423). 31. This resistance of the adonne´ to the given, which transmutes it into the shown, is so significant for Marion that he even uses it to characterize the genius of a painter like Mark Rothko: ‘‘Genius only consists in a great resistance to the impact of the given revealing itself ’’ (IE 52/62). 32. ‘‘Precisely because the principle ‘What gives itself shows itself ’ remains intact, it becomes possible to establish the finitude of phenomenality in the realm of givenness. For what gives itself shows itself only in so far as it is received by the adonne´, whose proper function consists in giving in return that the given show itself; and such a conversion of the given into a shown phenomenon can therefore be realised only to the extent—obviously finite—that the adonne´ receives and puts on the stage’’ (BG 310*/426). 33. Marie-Andre´e Ricard assesses Marion’s phenomenology of givenness in the context of Husserl’s correlation between immanence and transcendence, and draws attention to the risk of inverting the relation between subject and object. He concludes that Marion’s minimizing of the role of the subject ‘‘reduces the phenomenon to two unsustainable extremes: either the phenomenon is identified with a pure immediacy, a given in the most positivist sense of the term; or, on the contrary, to a self-being [auto-eˆtre], a ‘self ’ (BG 4/9) that usurps in some way the prerogative of the subject’’ (Marie-Andre´e Ricard, ‘‘La question de la donation chez Jean-Luc Marion,’’ Laval the´ologique et philosophique 57 [2001]: 88). 34. ‘‘I do not make it [the phenomenon] by my fact, ahead of the fait accompli; I let (myself ) be made, I let it make me [Je ne le fais pas de mon fait, devant le fait accompli, je (me) laisse faire, je le laisse me faire]’’ (BG 146*/207); ‘‘Far from being able to constitute this phenomenon, the I experiences itself as constituted by it. . . . Constituted and no longer constituting, the witness no longer enacts synthesis or constitution. Or rather, synthesis becomes passive and is imposed on it’’ (BG 216–17/302). 35. Cf. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), Fourth Meditation, §38; translation of Cartesianische Meditationen: Eine Enleitung in die Pha¨nomenologie, in Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortra¨ge, ed. Stephan Strasser, Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana) I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950). 36. Kosky’s ‘‘testator’’ translates Marion’s ‘‘testateur’’ very accurately. However, ‘testateur/testator’ does not fit this text, which makes no reference to wills or inheritance. The context demands that ‘‘testator’’ be understood in the sense of ‘one who gives testimony.’ 228

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37. BG 265/365; cf. 69/101, 146/207, 175/246, 304/419, IE 50/59–60. 38. ‘‘I therefore was said and spoken before being; I am born from a call that I neither made, wanted, nor even understood’’ (BG 290/400). 39. A particularly good instance of Marion’s appreciation of such a mediated relationality is his exploration of the interrelationship between the facticity of Dasein and the factuality of readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) and presence-athand (Vorhandenheit). (See BG §15, which I discuss in Chap. 4, ‘‘Facticity and Factuality.’’) 40. Both Grondin and Ricard (whose critiques of Marion I return to in Chap. 4) similarly conclude that the adonne´ is passive. Grondin believes that Marion insists ‘‘far more on the passivity of the subject . . . than on his or her mediation’’ (Jean Grondin, ‘‘La tension de la donation ultime et de la pense´e herme´neutique de l’application chez Jean-Luc Marion,’’ Dialogue 38 [1999]: 555), and Ricard argues that ‘‘the subject becomes for Marion the passive receptacle of that which gives itself ’’ (‘‘La question de la donation chez Jean-Luc Marion,’’ 94). Ricard also dismisses any suggestion that Marion’s image of the screen might be a ‘‘mediation,’’ judging it to be ‘‘a pure passivity’’ (92). 41. This privileging of the active/passive structure may contribute to Marion’s insistence that ‘donation’ be translated in English as ‘givenness’ (cf. Horner, translator’s introduction to In Excess [IE xi]), despite the connotations this has of something that is given in a fixed way, and which must simply be received. Other options, such as ‘givingness,’ may have more successfully evoked the actual occurring of giving (and appearing), on which he wants to focus. Cf., for instance, his clarification of the title Being Given, in which he emphasizes that Being should be read as a verb (i.e., the present participle of ‘to be’) rather than as a noun (i.e., ‘a being’): ‘‘The given verbally unfolds its givenness in it’’ (BG 2/6). 2. The Hermeneutic Structure of Phenomenality 1. Richard Kearney and Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘A Dialogue with Jean-Luc Marion,’’ Philosophy Today 48 (2004): 12. Kearney raises a similar question in The God Who May Be: The Hermeneutics of Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 33–34. Greisch and Grondin have expressed their criticisms in a number of texts since the publication of Reduction and Givenness: Jean Greisch, ‘‘L’herme´neutique dans la ‘phe´nome´nologie comme telle’: Trois questions a` propos de ‘Re´duction et donation,’ ’’ Revue de me´taphysique et de morale 96 (1991): 43–63; ‘‘Index sui et non dati: Les paradoxes d’une phe´nome´nologie de la donation,’’ Transversalite´s: Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 70 (Apr.– June 1999): 27–54; Jean Grondin, ‘‘La phe´nome´nologie sans herme´neutique: Jean-Luc Marion, Re´duction et donation,’’ Internationale Zeitschrift fu¨r Philosophie (1992): 146–53; ‘‘La tension de la donation ultime’’ (1999). 2. Kearney and Marion, ‘‘A Dialogue with Jean-Luc Marion,’’ 12–13. 3. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd, rev. ed., trans. W. GlenDoepel, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1989), part 2.2.1; translation of Warheit und Methode: Grundzu¨ge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tu¨bingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1960). A recent Notes

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instance of the development of this principle can be seen in Paul Ricoeur’s extensive discussion of the play of scales that occurs in the interpretation of a historical event. Ricoeur believes that historical accounts include a number of scales in their views on an event by zooming in and out, and so shifting the degree to which they regard that event as part of ‘‘microhistory’’ or ‘‘macrohistory.’’ Most obviously, an event can be seen on the microscale of the restricted and local horizon of its immediate surroundings, and then on the macroscale of a larger and broader horizon that includes many other events over a longer duration of time. Ricoeur insists that regardless of which scale is employed, the result demonstrates ‘‘the absence of commensurability of dimensions.’’ In varying the scale of one’s view, ‘‘one does not see the same things as larger or smaller, . . . One sees different things’’ (emphasis mine). In Marion’s terms, Ricoeur’s ‘‘incommensurable’’ views, which arise from the play of scales, make up an unquantifiable series that precludes any successive synthesis which would attempt to constitute the event as an object. (Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004], 209–33; translation of La me´moire, l’histoire, l’oubli, L’ordre philosophique [Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 2000], 267–301; quotes taken from 211–12/270.) 4. In Horner’s translation, these phenomenological legitimacies ‘‘assure some saturated phenomena better than others’’ (emphasis mine). Marion actually states that saturated phenomena give this assurance rather than receiving it: ‘‘its phenomenological legitimacies, that are provided by some saturated phenomena better than others [qu’assurent mieux que d’autres certains des phe´nome`nes sature´s]’’ (emphasis mine) (IE 33n/39n). 5. In Reduction and Givenness, Marion introduces a new phenomenological principle, which emphasizes that disclosure of givenness is the essential outcome and aim of any phenomenological reduction: ‘‘As much reduction, so much givenness’’ (RG 203*/303). He believes that this principle, which echoes the first of Husserl’s three phenomenological principles (‘‘As much appearance, so much being’’), is ‘‘more adequate’’ than any other to the original project which Husserl proposed for phenomenology in his second principle: ‘‘To the things themselves!’’ (BG 3/7). Eventually, he nominates it as the final and definitive principle of phenomenality (BG §1; IE 25–26/30). 6. Ricard, ‘‘La question de la donation chez Jean-Luc Marion,’’ 92. 7. Ricard, ‘‘La question de la donation chez Jean-Luc Marion,’’ 92. 8. Ricard, ‘‘La question de la donation chez Jean-Luc Marion,’’ 92. 9. This translation of Befindlichkeit is proposed by Theodore Kisiel, who describes Macquarrie and Robinson’s ‘‘state-of-mind’’ as ‘‘psychologically tinged’’ and ‘‘by far the worst blunder made in M&R’s translation.’’ While Kisiel accepts that Joan Stambaugh’s ‘‘attunement’’ is an improvement on ‘‘state of mind,’’ he argues that ‘‘disposedness’’ is better still: ‘‘To mute its psychological connotations further, one need only to translate it [Befindlichkeit] with its all important ‘present perfect’ suffix made fully explicit in the English, ergo as ‘disposedness,’ which brings it into close proximity with the equiprimordial ‘present 230

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perfect’ states of disclosedness, discoveredness, thrownness, fallenness, and resoluteness, as Heidegger himself gradually begins to prefigure, in this careful choice of word-endings, the full panoply of his temporal ontology.’’ (Theodore J. Kisiel, ‘‘The New Translation of Sein und Zeit: A Grammatological Lexicographer’s Commentary,’’ Man and World 30 [1997]: 243.) 10. Because this openness to the world is constitutive for Dasein, Ricoeur adopts Gadamer’s terminology and describes Being-in-the-world as ‘‘equivalent’’ to ‘‘belonging [appartenance/Geho¨ren],’’ where belonging is defined as a ‘‘prior relation of inclusion that encompasses the allegedly autonomous subject and the allegedly adverse object.’’ Belonging therefore has an ‘‘ontological priority’’ that makes it ‘‘the unsurpassable condition of any enterprise of justification and foundation.’’ (Paul Ricoeur, ‘‘Phenomenology and Hermeneutics,’’ in From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II, trans. John B. Thompson [Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1991], 29–30; translation of ‘‘Phe´nome´nologie et herme´neutique: En venant de Husserl,’’ in Du texte a` l’action: Essais d’herme´neutique II [Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1986], 44–46.) 11. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 18th ed. (2001; 1st ed., Tu¨bingen: Max Niemeyer, 1927), 441–42. 12. This term is explained later in this section. 13. The event is the figure Marion proposes for the first type of saturated phenomenon—phenomena that are saturated according to quantity. For a detailed analysis of Marion’s understanding of events, see Chap. 4. 14. Greisch suggests that Romano’s evental-evential distinction should itself be regarded as ‘‘ontological.’’ (Jean Greisch, ‘‘ ‘L’herme´neutique e´ve´nementiale’ ’’: De la mondification a` la temporalisation du temps,’’ Critique 57, no. 648 [2001]: 404.) 15. Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, trans. M. A. Screech and Allen Lane (London: Penguin, 1991), book 1, chap. 28, p. 212; translation of Les Essais: Livre I, ed. Pierre Villey (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988), 188; quoted in EW 42/59. Interestingly, Marion too uses our inability to explain a relationship as an illustration of the saturation of events. Like Romano, he proposes the friendship between Montaigne and La Boe´tie as an example of this lack of explanatory causes in relationships, and draws on the very same part of Montaigne’s text (IE 38/44). Marion does not indicate that he was influenced by Romano at this point, though he is certainly familiar with Romano’s text, which he quotes a few pages later in a different context (IE 42/50). 16. Romano’s description of an innerworldy fact as a ‘‘fait accompli’’ should not be confused with Marion’s description of the event as a ‘‘fait accompli’’ (BG §15). Marion carefully distinguishes the fait accompli of an event from the actuality of an effect, while Romano’s innerworldly fact is precisely such an actuality. 17. An evential event ‘‘occurs in and of itself [se produit . . . a` partir de soimeˆme]’’ (EW 28/42; cf. BG 138/196); it appears as ‘‘its own origin’’ and on ‘‘its own horizon’’ (EW 42/60; cf. BG 229/318–19); it cannot be explained as the Notes

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effect of any preceding cause, and is therefore ‘‘an-archic’’ (EW 41/58; cf. BG 160–61/227), ‘‘unforeseeable [impre´visible]’’ (EW 42/60; cf. BG 199–200/ 280–81, IE 33/38), and even ‘‘impossible’’ (EW 89/122; cf. BG 172–73/ 243–44). 18. In his recent study of selfhood, Charles Larmore makes a similar point in criticising Marion’s account of problems. Marion characterizes a problem as constituted by givens that are imposed on me: ‘‘I have at least to resolve a given, to which I must respond precisely because I have neither chosen it nor foreseen it nor straightaway constituted it. Now, this given gives itself to me, because it imposes itself on me, summons me, and determines me—in short, because I am not the author of it’’ (IE 24–25*/28; cf. BG 62–64/92–94). Larmore protests: Even if one has to say that every real problem, not having been purely invented, imposes itself on me and demands a response, I am not merely ‘‘the registrar, the recipient, or the object’’ [IE 26*/30] of its bursting forth. It is my own perspective that constitutes it as a problem, just as this perspective in fact conditions all the passive aspects of my experience . . . Even if I am not, strictly speaking, the ‘author’ of a problem, I am no less, by my actual commitments, part of its conditions of possibility. (Charles Larmore, Les pratiques du moi [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004], 222) 19. Romano believes that Heidegger’s restriction of possibility to Dasein’s selfprojection depends on his ignoring the significance of birth. In turn, this allows Heidegger to present death as one of my actual and appropriable possibilities, thus avoiding the need to grapple with death as something radically other which happens to me (Romano, Il y a, 57–88). 20. In this context, it is somewhat ironic that Marion claims support for his phenomenology by an apparent allusion to Heidegger’s axiom that ‘‘higher than actuality stands possibility’’ (BT §7, 63/38): ‘‘In phenomenology, even the least possibility obliges’’ (BG 199/280). Marion does not cite Heidegger at this point, but the reference to Heidegger’s discussion of phenomenology in par. 7 of Being and Time seems clear. 21. Marion introduces the idea of saturation by arguing that Husserl’s account of adequation is incomplete. If it is possible for intuition to fall short of intention, or be adequate to it, then it is also logically possible for intuition to be in excess of intention: ‘‘To the phenomenon characterised most often by lack or poverty of intuition (a disappointment of the intentional aim), or, exceptionally, by a mere equality between intuition and intention, why wouldn’t there correspond the possibility of a phenomenon where intuition would give more, indeed immeasurably more, than intention would ever have aimed at or foreseen?’’ (emphasis on ‘‘possibility’’ mine) (BG 197*/276–77) 22. Grondin, ‘‘La tension de la donation ultime,’’ 554. 23. Grondin, ‘‘La tension de la donation ultime,’’ 554.

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24. Grondin, ‘‘La tension de la donation ultime,’’ 554. 25. Greisch goes further still, suggesting that this form of receiving is related to understanding, so that the transformation of givenness into manifestation should be regarded as ‘‘a hermeneutic operation’’ (Greisch, ‘‘Index sui et non dati,’’ 51). In a similar vein, he proposes that one of Marion’s earlier references to this transformation could be rephrased in terms of interpretation: ‘‘In modifying the formula ‘the phenomenon shows itself in so far as given and the given gives itself in so far as shown’ (BG 121/172) into: ‘the phenomenon shows itself in so far as interpreted (made explicit) and the shown gives itself in so far as interpreted,’ am I just playing with words, or am I drawing attention to an aspect that the phenomenology of givenness silently passes over?’’ (36). Greisch also recalls that, for Heidegger, understanding refers first of all to a ‘‘way of being’’ rather than to a ‘‘modality of knowledge’’ (51). 26. These transformations include: the reduction of events to objects by a constituting ego; the appearance of an anamorphosis to one who looks at a painting correctly; the viewer’s look as determining whether a given appears as an idol or as an icon; and the envisaging that is required for another to appear as face, rather than as object. 3. The Theory of Saturated Phenomena 1. Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon,’’ in The Visible and the Revealed (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 18–48; first appeared in Philosophy Today 40 (1996): 103–24; translation of ‘‘Le phe´nome`ne sature´,’’ in Le visible et le re´ve´le´ (Paris: Cerf, 2005), 35–74; first appeared in Marion et al., Phe´nomenologie et the´ologie (Paris: Criterion, 1992), 79–128. 2. ‘‘The religious phenomenon thus amounts to an impossible phenomenon, or at least it marks the limit starting from which the phenomenon is in general no longer possible. Thus, the religious phenomenon poses the question of the possibility of the phenomenon in general, more than of the possibility of religion.’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon,’’ 18*/35); ‘‘Phenomenology cannot give its status to theology, because the conditions of manifestation contradict or at least are different from the free possibility of revelation. . . . [C]ould one not inquire into the (unconditional) conditions to which the phenomenological method would have to subscribe in order to attain a thought of revelation?’’ (PR 13/29). I discuss this theological context for Marion’s early texts on saturated phenomena more fully in Chap. 8, ‘‘Motivations: Early Essays.’’ 3. The authority Marion claims for this injunction seems to be drawn from its allusion to Heidegger’s discussion of phenomenology in Being and Time, in which he insists that ‘‘higher than actuality stands possibility’’ (BT §7, 63/38). Marion first makes this remark in ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon’’ (113/105); in an earlier section of that essay (omitted from Being Given), he includes the actual quote from Heidegger (107/89).

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4. In a recent essay, Marion goes so far as to insist on the banality of saturated phenomena. See Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky, in The Visible and the Revealed, 119–44; first appeared in CounterExperiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion, ed. Kevin Hart (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 383–418; translation of ‘‘La banalite´ de la saturation,’’ in Le visible et le re´ve´le´, 143–82. 5. ‘‘The saturated phenomenon refuses to let itself be regarded as an object. . . . The saturated phenomenon must be determined as a nonobjective or, more exactly, nonobjectifiable phenomenon; . . . The saturated phenomenon contradicts the subjective conditions of experience precisely in that it does not admit constitution as an object’’ (BG 213–14/298–99). 6. In Chapter 4, I argue that Marion’s texts progressively present saturated phenomena not only as the norm for phenomenality, but also increasingly as the normal way in which all phenomena appear (see Chap. 4, ‘‘Excess, Saturation, and Reduction to Objectivity’’). 7. G. W. Leibniz’s ‘‘Monadology’’: An Edition for Students, ed. and trans. Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), §32. Surprisingly, Marion quotes the principle as given in Principles of Nature and Grace, §7, which focuses less on the metaphysical possibility of things being as they are, and elaborates the principle more in terms of the intelligibility to which it gives rise (i.e., the epistemic consequences of the principle). However, the version in Principles does assist Marion’s purpose of critiquing the ‘‘metaphysical regime’’ by explicitly locating the principle of sufficient reason in the domain of metaphysics. See G. W. Leibniz, ‘‘Principles of Nature and Grace, Founded on Reason,’’ in Leibniz: Philosophical Writings, trans. Mary Morris, ed. C. R. Morris (London: Dent, 1968), 25–26. 8. Criticizing Leibniz’s principle in a more recent essay, Marion similarly interchanges (particular) reasons and (the power of ) reason, and applies Leibniz’s principle even to the possibility of reason thinking itself: ‘‘Therefore reason, which does not know how to give, never suffices for giving this other ‘reason’ for rendering reason—hence the gift alone can give it. Reason becomes truly sufficient only if the gift (reduced to givenness) gives it (and renders it) to itself. Reason suffices no more for thinking itself than for thinking the gift’’ (Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘The Reason of the Gift,’’ trans. Shane Mackinlay and Nicolas de Warren, in Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion, ed. Ian Leask and Eoin Cassidy [New York: Fordham University Press, 2005], 132; translation of ‘‘La raison du don,’’ in Philosophie 78 [June 2003]: 31). 9. Leibniz, Monadology, §38; cf. §§37–41. 10. ‘‘If reason can ground phenomena, this is first because it must save them’’ (BG 182/255). 11. Leibniz names God as the ‘‘ultimate’’ sufficient reason—the source of a fundamental order and reasonableness in the world (Monadology, §38). Although this affirmation has consequences for the possibility of reason to know the world, it does not follow that the world is conditioned by reason. The facts for which 234

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there are sufficient reasons remain contingent rather than necessary (Monadology, §36). Unlike necessary truths (which ‘‘depend solely on God’s understanding’’), contingent truths are ‘‘arbitrary and depend upon his [God’s] will’’ and his ‘‘choice of the best’’ (Monadology, §46). Reason is not involved, whether that reason be understood as finite human reason, infinite divine reason, or reason as some eternal principle. 12. In Leibniz, that which conditions phenomena is the infinity and perfection of God, rather than the finite reason of the Kantian human enquirer (Monadology, §§38–41). 13. Husserl, Ideas I, §24, 44*; Hua III/1, 52. 14. Husserl, Ideas I, §44, 94*; Hua III/1, 100. 15. Husserl, Ideas I, §44, 95; Hua III/1, 101. 16. Marion further claims that Husserl explicitly restricts all possible unknowns to being nothing more than the horizon for the known, to which they ‘‘refer in advance,’’ and therefore to being of the same order as that which is already known. According to Marion, Husserl understands the unknown as ‘‘always already compatible, compressible, and homogeneous with the already experienced, already looked at, and already interiorised by intuition’’ (BG 186*/ 260–61). Marion’s primary support for this claim comes in a text from Husserl, which he quotes as follows: ‘‘Anything unknown is a horizon of something known.’’ However, at this point, Husserl is not setting out his own position, but rather that of the natural attitude, in order to contrast it with the approach he proposes in phenomenology. This is quite clear when Husserl’s text is placed in its original context, and a crucial word omitted by Marion is restored: ‘‘The situation here is not as it is in the case of what is given in the natural attitude, . . . Anything unknown there is a horizon of something known. . . . How different it is in phenomenology. [Es ist nicht so wie bei den Gegebenheiten der natu¨rlichen Einstellung, . . . Alles Unbekannte ist dabei Horizont eines Bekannten. . . . Wie anders in der Pha¨nomenologie.]’’ (emphasis mine) (Husserl, Ideas I, §63, 148; Hua III/1, 150. 17. Husserl, Ideas I, §82, 196*; Hua III/1, 200. 18. ‘‘Can we imagine phenomena such that they would invert limit (by exceeding the horizon, instead of being inscribed within it) and condition (by leading the I back to itself, instead of being reduced to it)?’’ (BG 189*/264). 19. Marion implies that Kant describes the relation between intuition and concepts in terms of adequation. He says that this adequation is a particular instance of the ‘‘synthesis’’ between intuition and concepts, and criticizes Kant for making the truth of the phenomenon strictly dependent on the ‘‘balance’’ or ‘‘equality’’ in this relation (BG 192/270). It is difficult to find support for this criticism in Kant’s text. In the passage Marion cites, Kant mentions his presuppo¨ bersition of the ‘‘nominal definition of truth, namely that it is the agreement [U einstimmung] of cognition with its object,’’ before going on to consider the conditions of a true cognition (CPR A 58/B 82). In other places, Kant states that a concept can only yield cognition if it has an intuition ‘‘in some way corresponding [korrespondierende]’’ to it (CPR A 50/B 74*), and that cognition is only Notes

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possible when the object that is thought through a concept ‘‘corresponds [entspricht]’’ to an intuition (CPR A 92–93/B 125). However, each of these texts describes the relation in question in very general terms, without suggesting that it is measurable, let alone that it can (or should) be in a state of equilibrium, or adequation. Further, there are three different pairs which Kant describes as being in correspondence or agreement: cognition and its object, intuition and a concept, and an object and intuition. Finally, while synthetic a posteriori judgements involve placing the manifold of intuition under a concept, Kant’s account of synthesis as such is not concerned with the relation of intuition and concepts, but with the combining of the manifold of intuition or the manifold of representations (CPR A 94, 98–110/B 127, 129–136). 20. ‘‘Ple´nier’’ has the sense of fully rather than of filled-up. Therefore, ‘‘phe´nome`ne ple´nier’’ should be understood as fully a phenomenon rather than as a filled phenomenon. A different French word would be needed (e.g., rempli, complet) if one wanted to refer to Husserlian adequation, in which intuition ‘‘fills’’ intention, and which is regarded by Marion as characteristic of ‘‘common-law phenomena.’’ In contrast to such adequation, ‘‘phe´nome`ne ple´nier’’ strongly suggests the top degree of Marion’s topology of phenomena—saturated phenomena— which are the full instance of phenomenality. 21. ‘‘Now this ideal of evidence, supposedly designating the maximum and extreme ambition for the truth, nevertheless claims, with strange modesty, only an ‘adequation,’ a mere equality’’ (BG 190/266). 22. In fact, Kant discourages any judgement about priority: ‘‘Neither of these properties is to be preferred to the other’’ (CPR A 51/B 75). 23. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgement, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), §57, remark 1; translation of Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. Heiner F. Klemme (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2001), Akademie Auflage, 5:342. 24. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgement, §57, remark 1, Akademie Auflage, 5:343. 25. Marion simply announces this choice, without introduction or explanation: ‘‘I will sketch a description of the saturated phenomenon by following the lead of the categories of the understanding defined by Kant. But the saturated phenomenon exceeds these categories (as well as principles), since in it intuition passes beyond the concept. I will therefore follow them by inverting them’’ (BG 199/280). 26. This lack of correspondence is particularly evident in the case of saturation according to modality. I argue in Chapter 7 that saturation according to modality corresponds so poorly to Kant’s table of categories that it might be better understood as a different aspect of saturation in general, rather than as a distinct type of saturation. (See Chap. 7, ‘‘From Irregardable Phenomena to an Inversion of Looks.’’) 27. Kant considers nothingness in relation to each of the four divisions in his table of categories (CPR A 290ff./B 346ff.). (1) According to quantity, nothingness is the ‘‘none,’’ an object which can have no intuition corresponding to its 236

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concept. It is the ens rationis of an ‘‘empty concept without object,’’ such as the noumenon. (2) According to quality, nothingness is the nihil privatum of the absence of a something. It is an ‘‘empty object of a concept,’’ such as a shadow or cold. (3) According to relation, nothingness is ‘‘the mere form of intuition’’ as the condition of appearances. It is the ens imaginarium of an ‘‘empty intuition without an object,’’ such as pure space or pure time. (4) Finally, according to modality, nothingness is the object of a self-contradictory concept ‘‘because the concept is nothing.’’ It is the nihil negativum of an ‘‘empty object without concept,’’ such as a rectilinear figure with two sides. Despite Marion’s assertions to the contrary, only the first of these four is clearly an account ‘‘of the deficiency of intuition’’ (BG 195/274). In the second case, intuition gives a state of affairs as object, in which a particular concept can be fulfilled only negatively, by way of absence. In the third case, although the mere form of intuition is empty and without substance, it does give pure space and pure time, ‘‘which are to be sure something, as the forms for intuiting,’’ even if they ‘‘are not in themselves objects that are intuited’’ (CPR A 291/B 347). In fact, Kant describes the second and third cases as giving ‘‘data for concepts,’’ albeit empty data. Moreover, even this empty giving is dependent on the capacity of intuition to give positively, for ‘‘if light were not given to the senses, then one would also not be able to represent darkness, and if extended beings were not perceived, one would not be able to represent space’’ (CPR A 292/B 349). In the fourth case, Marion acknowledges that ‘‘nothingness as nihil negativum . . . would seem to have to be defined by the deficiency of the concept and not of intuition’’ (BG 196/274–75). However, he then argues that by Kant’s own admission, a two-sided rectilinear figure is not a proper self-contradictory concept, but only becomes a contradiction when an attempt is made to conceive it in space. At this point, the pure form of space imposes constraints that dictate that the concept is impossible. Therefore, Marion concludes, the failure is again the consequence of intuition, which determines the conditions of experience, including space. Here, he is correctly using Kant’s own account of the contradiction in this particular instance to specify the source of its impossibility (CPR A 220–21/B 268). Nevertheless, demonstrating that Kant has chosen his example poorly does not constitute a demonstration that self-contradictory concepts are made impossible by a failure of intuition. There is no suggestion of a failure of intuition in Kant’s earlier discussion of a self-contradictory concept, when he gives the example of an unlearned person being learned (CPR A 153/B 192). 28. LI, Investigation 6, §17, 2:228/2:599; cf. LI, Investigation 5, §38, 2:160/ 1:500. 29. Jocelyn Benoist frames a similar criticism of Marion in terms of intuition and signification, arguing that these terms refer to different forms of givenness that should be seen in relation to each other rather than in opposition: ‘‘He [Marion] begins by opposing two dimensions of experience—or let us say of the unveiling of things—(intuition and signification), in a way that, in reality, they cannot be opposed (it would be much more necessary to distinguish them rather Notes

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than to oppose them, which distinguishing is already a way of thinking them—too quickly—in relation to each other)’’ (Jocelyn Benoist, ‘‘L’e´cart plutoˆt que l’exce´dent,’’ Philosophie 78 [June 2003]: 92; see also 80–83). 30. ‘‘This correlation [between the appearing and what appears] is orchestrated [by Husserl] in several different pairs—intention/intuition, signification/ fulfilment, noesis/noema, etc.; . . . [T]he highest phenomenality is accomplished in the perfect adequation between these two terms, when subjective appearing is equal to what appears objectively’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 190/265–66; cf. 187–88/ 262, 196–97/276). 31. Marle`ne Zarader, ‘‘Phenomenality and Transcendence,’’ trans. Ralph Hancock, John Hancock, and Nathaniel Hancock, in Transcendence in Philosophy and Religion, ed. James E. Faulconer (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2003), 110. Benoist, responding to the efforts of Marion (among others) to rethink subjectivity, similarly argues that a ‘‘functional analysis’’ of the subject’s role demonstrates the indispensability of the subject (Jocelyn Benoist, ‘‘Le sujet, ou plutoˆt la subjectivite´,’’ in L’ide´e de phe´nome´nologie [Paris: Beauchesne, 2001], 109). 32. Zarader, ‘‘Phenomenality and Transcendence,’’ 114. 33. Marion is here responding to an objection raised by Romano, that a reduction to givenness requires precisely that transcendental subject which Marion wants to refigure as the adonne´ (Romano, ‘‘Remarques sur la me´thode phe´nome´nologique dans E´tant donne´,’’ Annales de Philosophie 21 [2000]: 10–12). 34. Jacob Rogozinski goes so far as to suggest that because the adonne´ converts the given into the shown, and operates the reduction to givenness in which it is given to itself, it should simply be renamed as the Ego: ‘‘The adonne´ is never a pure adonne´, but always also adonnant: a condition, in a quasi-transcendental sense, of the givenness which ‘precedes’ it and calls it, but which it ‘precedes’ in rendering it possible. If it is no longer only adonne´, why not confer another name on it, restoring to it the old name of Ego?’’ (Jacob Rogozinski, ‘‘Questions,’’ Annales de Philosophie 21 [2000]: 26). 35. Zarader, ‘‘Phenomenality and Transcendence,’’ 114–15. 36. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 174n7*/149n2. 37. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 123/150. 38. In a footnote at this point, Marion cites Plato’s recounting of the story in which desire ( ρως) is begotten as the offspring of poverty (πενα) and plenty in The Symposium (203b). This remains an obscure allusion, as Marion gives no indication of how Plato’s discussion relates to his own argument. 39. Benoist similarly objects to Marion that Husserl has a clear appreciation of the ‘‘fundamental and relatively uniform richness of intuition,’’ arguing that ‘‘in a sense, intuition is always ‘saturating’ ’’ (Benoist, ‘‘L’e´cart plutoˆt que l’exce´dent,’’ 87). 40. ‘‘It comes along with our nature that intuition can never be other than sensible’’ (CPR A 51/B 75). 41. There are other factors which affect the degree of adequation, such as the relative contribution of perceptual and imaginative intuition, and the complexity 238

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of the presentation (i.e., the degree to which it is built up from a manifold of apperceptions; cf. LI, Investigation 6, §29). However, these factors only place more conditions on the achievement of adequation; in no way do they make it any less of an absolute limit. 42. Husserl is aware of this difficulty, which is apparent on various occasions when he insists on the relation between the intentional and external objects, without ever elaborating on this relation’s nature. For example: ‘‘The object, as it is in itself . . . is not wholly different from the object realised, however imperfectly, in the percept.’’ (LI, Investigation 6, §14, 2:221/2:589) 4. Events 1. I have chosen to follow Kosky in translating ‘‘e´ve´nementialite´’’ as ‘‘eventness,’’ rather than Horner’s ‘‘eventmentality.’’ Consistent with this, I translate ‘‘e´ve´nementiel’’ as ‘‘evental,’’ rather than Horner’s ‘‘eventmental.’’ These translations are more faithful to the relatively uncomplicated nature of the French words, and avoid the unfortunate connotations of ‘mental’ and ‘mentality’ suggested by Horner’s choices. Additionally, they allow me to highlight the novelty of Romano’s ‘‘e´ve´nemential’’ by rendering it as the more unusual ‘‘evential’’ (see Chap. 2, ‘‘Romano’s Evential Hermeneutics’’). 2. A full account of the connection Marion makes between these characteristics and saturation according to quantity is given in the section on Being Given later in this chapter. 3. In light of Janicaud’s suspicions that Marion uses givenness surreptitiously to introduce God as giver, it may be interesting to ponder the implications of the giver’s status as the only characteristic of the gift to which no saturated phenomenon corresponds. (Dominique Janicaud, ‘‘The Theological Turn in French Phenomenology,’’ trans. Bernard G. Prusak, in Janicaud et al., Phenomenology and the ‘‘Theological Turn’’: The French Debate [New York: Fordham University Press, 2000], 62–65; translation of Le tournant the´ologique de la phe´nome´nologie franc¸aise [Paris: E´ditions de l’e´clat, 1990], 49–51. Dominique Janicaud, Phenomenology ‘‘Wide Open’’: After the French Debate, trans. Charles N. Cabral (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 15–18; translation of La phe´nome´nologie ´eclate´e [Paris: E´ditions de l’e´clat, 1998], 27–31). 4. The function Marion describes here relates to knowing as such, rather than to a theory of knowledge. It is therefore epistemic rather than epistemological. 5. Marion himself uses no qualifier at this point, referring simply to ‘‘reality,’’ despite his argument being qualified from the outset as a ‘‘phenomenological look [regard]’’ at Descartes’ text (emphasis mine) (BG 162*/230), and his concluding that the effect has ‘‘phenomenological superiority’’ over the cause (emphasis mine) (BG 164/232). In light of Husserl’s insistence on the bracketing of existence in the phenomenological reduction, Marion’s use of ‘‘reality’’ here is highly problematic. The priority with which he is concerned would be more accurately described as one of ‘phenomenality’ although this would make it far Notes

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more difficult for him to contrast his phenomenological perspective with Descartes’ metaphysical perspective. 6. At one point in his analysis, Marion quotes Husserl as describing the contingency he is discussing as ‘‘facticity [facticite´]’’ (BG 140/198), even though Husserl himself refers to ‘‘factualness [Tatsa¨chlichkeit],’’ and not to facticity (Faktizita¨t) (Husserl, Ideas I, §2, 7; Hua III/1, 12). In Marion’s defence, Husserl was writing before Heidegger made the distinction between these two terms so crucial, and ‘‘facticite´’’ is the word used by Ricoeur at this point in the standard French translation of Husserl (Ide´es directrices pour une phe´nomenologie [Paris: Gallimard, 1950], §2, 17). However, as the focus of Marion’s discussion is precisely Heideggerian facticity, it is regrettable that he gives such a misleading impression of Husserl’s text. The standard French translations of Sein und Zeit now carefully distinguish between these two terms, with Martineau using ‘‘factualite´ [Tatsa¨chlichkeit]’’ and ‘‘facticite´ [Faktizita¨t],’’ and Vezin using ‘‘e´tat-de-fait [Tatsa¨chlichkeit]’’ and ‘‘factivite´ [Faktizita¨t]’’ (Heidegger, Eˆtre et temps, trans. Emmanuel Martineau [Paris: Authentica, 1985], §12, 63; Heidegger, Eˆtre et temps, trans. Franc¸ois Vezin [Paris: Gallimard, 1986], §12, 89). Moreover, Ricoeur attempts to avoid confusion in his translation of Husserl by including the German original in the body of the text at this point. When Marion quotes Ricoeur’s translation, he relegates the German to a footnote (giving it as ‘‘Tatsa¨chlichtkeit [sic; Eng. ed. likewise]’’), and makes no comment on it (BG 354n30/ 198n1). Unfortunately, in Being Given, Kosky modifies the standard English translation of Husserl so that it corresponds to Marion’s French translation, replacing ‘‘factualness’’ with ‘‘facticity’’ (BG 140, quoting Husserl, Ideas I, §2, 7; reference to Eng. ed. given in note, without any indication of modification [BG 354n30]). Additionally, the use of endnotes in Being Given, instead of the footnotes used in E´tant donne´, makes Husserl’s original ‘‘Tatsa¨chlichkeit’’ even less apparent in the English edition than in the French. 7. BT §41, 236*/192; cf. §12, 82/56, §29, 174/135. Rather than quoting this text of Heidegger, Marion quotes the summary description of care, which follows shortly afterward, but is less explicit about the connection between facticity and Being-in-the-world (BT §41, 237/192). Oddly, though, toward the end of Being Given, Marion does quote the summary definition of care from a later passage in Being and Time (BT §50, 293/249–50), where Heidegger is explicitly paraphrasing the earlier text (BG 355n41/204n2). 8. Although Marion gives no reference to Heidegger at this point, his description closely echoes Heidegger’s text: ‘‘Dasein itself—and this means also its Being-in-the-world—first understands itself ontologically from those entities and their Being which it itself is not, but which it encounters ‘within’ its world’’ (BT §12, 85*/58). 9. Marion’s comments on the world are omitted in the English translation. 10. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky, in The Visible and the Revealed, 119–44, esp. 124–27; first appeared in Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion, ed. Kevin Hart (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of 240

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Notre Dame Press, 2007), 383–418, esp. 389–91; translation of ‘‘La banalite´ de la saturation,’’ in Le visible et le re´ve´le´, 143–82, esp. 153–56. See also Marion’s ‘‘Note on the Origin of the Texts,’’ in The Visible and the Revealed, xvii/187. 11. Marion is not suggesting that events such as a war are simply incomprehensible. Rather, he is arguing that we cannot arrive at the kind of understanding that would totally and definitively explain events by means of identifying their causes. 12. BG 169/238, quoting Marcel Proust (translation modified by Kosky), Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 1, Swann’s Way, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (New York: Vintage Books, 1970; repr. of New York: Random House, 1934), 34*; translation of A` la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 1, Du coˆte´ de chez Swann, ed. Pierre Clarac and Andre´ Ferre´ (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), 45. The italics are added by Marion although he does not indicate this. 13. BG 169/238, quoting Proust, Swann’s Way, 34*/45 (translation modified by Kosky). 14. For a full discussion of Marion’s critique of Heidegger’s focus on Dasein’s self-projection, see Chap. 1, ‘‘The Subjectivity of Dasein’s Self-Projection.’’ 15. Kant gives a slightly more extended version of the principle in his first edition: ‘‘All appearances are, as regards their intuition, extensive magnitudes’’ (CPR A 162). 16. BG 201*/282; cf. 217/302, 226/315. For an account of Marion’s use of the term ‘‘passive synthesis’’ in relation to Husserl and Kant, see Chap. 1, ‘‘The Adonne´ as Passive Recipient.’’ 17. Rene´ Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, trans. Robert Stoothof, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), §73, 354; AT 11:383. 18. Kosky translates ‘‘jamais fini’’ as ‘‘ever finite,’’ which gives the sentence a meaning quite contrary to the sense of Marion’s argument. 19. In the English edition, an endnote is included at this point, referring to Merleau-Ponty’s Phe´nome´nologie de la perception, 426 (BG 366n83). There is no footnote at the corresponding point in E´tant donne´, and the text of MerleauPonty indicated in the endnote has no apparent connection with Marion’s text. 20. Marion’s argument here is more convincing if ‘‘forbids’’ is understood in the sense of prevents. Although the actuality of a situation may well prevent something, it is difficult to conceive how it can forbid it. Perhaps he intends ‘‘practically’’ to indicate this hyperbole, so that the sense of the phrase ‘‘practically forbids’’ would be prevents so forcefully that it is effectively forbidden. 21. Kosky translates ‘‘topique’’ as ‘‘topics,’’ without indicating how he intends the word’s meaning to be transposed for this context. 22. This topology is extended in the following chapter of Being Given, to include revelation as ‘‘the final possibility,’’ which includes all four types of saturation (BG 234ff./325ff.). Notes

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23. Thus, in a play on words which is lost in translation, the book is titled De surcroıˆt, because it ‘‘treats again of the excess [traiter de surcroıˆt du surcroıˆt]’’ (IE xxii*/vi). 24. The chapter was originally given as a lecture in January 1999, less than 18 months after the first publication of Being Given in October 1997. It may be that Marion did not want to presume that his audience was familiar with the theory of saturated phenomena contained in Being Given, and therefore focused on the characteristics of saturated phenomena without laying out the whole theory behind them. 25. ‘‘Ple´nier’’ has the sense of fully rather than of filled-up. Therefore, ‘‘phe´nome`ne ple´nier’’ should be understood as fully a phenomenon rather than as a filled phenomenon. A different French word would be needed (e.g., rempli, complet) if one wanted to refer to Husserlian adequation, in which intuition ‘‘fills’’ intention, and which is regarded by Marion as characteristic of ‘‘common-law phenomena.’’ In contrast to such adequation, ‘‘phe´nome`ne ple´nier’’ strongly suggests the final category of Marion’s topology of phenomena—saturated phenomena— which are the full instance of phenomenality. 26. Horner’s translation is misleading here, as it transforms ‘‘eidetically’’ into an adjective that qualifies ‘‘phenomena’’: ‘‘eidetic phenomena temporalized as events’’ (IE 39). 27. ‘‘The event of my death—the closest, the least distant, from which all that separates me is one misfired heartbeat—remains inaccessible to me by the excess in it, at least provisionally inevitable, of its pure givenness over phenomenality’’ (IE 40*/48). 28. ‘‘It happens to me precisely in that it happens, and it happens only in so far as it has given me a future’’ (IE 42*/50). 29. ‘‘My birth is not qualified as a phenomenon . . . because it would show itself but because, in the very lack of all direct showing, it happens as an event [that is] never present, always past, but never surpassed for all that—in fact, always to come. My birth does indeed phenomenalise itself, but as a pure event, unforeseeable, unrepeatable, exceeding all cause and rendering possible the impossible (namely my life that is always new), surpassing all expectation, all promise, and all prediction’’ (IE 42–43*/50–51). 30. ‘‘De plein droit’’ is a legal term referring to something which has full standing of itself, independent of any external initiative or juridical legitimation. For instance, when a payment is overdue, the person in default becomes liable for interest de plein droit, without this liability needing to be formally declared. 31. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 126/155; emphasis added by translator. 32. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 140*/176. 33. Marion’s description of this distortion strongly echoes Heidegger’s analysis of our everyday tendency to reduce readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) to presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) although he does not refer to Heidegger at this point. 242

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34. Marion himself does not refer to Heidegger’s analysis at this point although he does cite Heidegger when he makes a similar point in Being Given (BG 44/66). 35. Of course, no philosophical account is ever purely descriptive. In proposing a particular understanding of some matter, a philosopher is inviting people to change their beliefs about that matter, and, at least potentially, to change the actions which are based on those beliefs. For instance, Kant’s account of the limits of pure reason advocates far more demanding constraints on the justifications we will accept for arguments, and in particular on the status we accord to the ideas of I, world, and God. Similarly, Heidegger’s account of inauthentic and authentic Being-toward-death advocates a change in the way we live our lives in relation to death (BT §§52–53). 36. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 126/156. 37. This argument also applies to Marion’s dismissal of the significance of a particular individual being blind to saturated phenomena: If a phenomenon does not appear as saturated, in what sense is it still a saturated phenomenon? Marion’s discussion of such blindness is prompted by Jocelyn Benoist’s protest in a 1994 lecture at which Marion was present: ‘‘Where you see God, I see nothing or something else’’ (Benoist, ‘‘Le ‘tournant the´ologique,’ ’’ in L’ide´e de phe´nome´nologie (Paris: Beauchesne, 2001), 102; cf. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 123–24/151–52.) 38. Proust, Swann’s Way, 34*/45. 5. Dazzling Idols and Paintings 1. Marion is very critical of Kant for using zero as the reference point for intensive magnitude: ‘‘Intensity is defined starting from its degree zero. There is no better way of affirming that the absolute and unquestioned dominance of the paradigm of a poor phenomenon, indeed one empty of intuition, definitively blocks, in metaphysics at least, every advance toward the free phenomenality of givenness’’ (BG 203*/285). However, while Kant repeatedly discusses the degrees between a particular intensity and zero, this is only to demonstrate that even though intensity is a unity rather than an aggregated manifold, it still has a magnitude. At no point does Kant suggest that there is any upper limit to intensive magnitude. On the contrary, while all intensity has some relation to the fixed point of zero, setting a maximum degree for intensity would contradict the logic of Kant’ s thought: ‘‘In inner sense, namely, the empirical consciousness can be raised from 0 up to any greater degree [jedem gro¨ßern Grade]’’ (emphasis mine) (CPR A 176/B 217). 2. I have followed Horner’ s practice (in In Excess) of translating ‘‘regard’’ as look, rather than the more customary gaze, because in general a regard does not have the deliberate, sustained, and focused character of a gaze. 3. Plato, Republic VII, 515c–516a; cited in BG 204/286. 4. Jean-Luc Marion, The Idol and Distance: Five Studies, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001); translation of L’ idole et la distance: Cinq ´etudes (1991; 1st ed., Paris: Grasset, 1977). Notes

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5. In his most recent discussion of idols, Marion recognizes the consistency of his accounts by explicitly referring to his 1982 account in God without Being (IE 61n/73n). 6. GWB 9–14/18–23, 25–29/39–44; The Idol and Distance, 4–7/19–22; CV 85–87/151–53; IE 60–61/73. 7. ‘‘In short, the icon and the idol are not at all determined as beings against other beings, since the same beings (statues, names, etc.) can pass from one rank to the other. The icon and the idol determine two manners of being for beings, not two classes of beings’’ (GWB 8/16). 8. He contrasts Claude Lorrain’s The Embarkation of Saint Ursula with the similar scene in Turner’s The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire. According to Marion, the former is not saturated because it portrays illuminated objects, while the latter is saturated because it ‘portrays’ the dazzling glare of light itself (BG 205/287). 9. The idol as one possible way among many in which paintings appear is particularly evident in ‘‘The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible.’’ As I outlined earlier, there is a strong parallel between Marion’s theory of idols and his account in this essay of the first way in which the interaction of the visible and the invisible can be suspended. 10. ‘‘Consciousness lives and experiences the visible in the very act of rendering visible the experienced visible’’ (CV 16/34). 11. This section of Being Given cites The Crossing of the Visible (BG 337n90/ 73n1), and is cited in turn when Marion discusses the saturating visibility of paintings in In Excess (IE 65n1/79n1). 12. Michel Henry, The Essence of Manifestation, 233/287–88. 13. ‘‘The idol thus acts as a mirror, not as a portrait: a mirror that reflects the look’s image, or more exactly, the image of its aim and of the scope of that aim’’ (GWB 12*/21); ‘‘It [the idol] shows it [the look] not only or first what it gives to look at, but especially the measure of this look itself ’’ (IE 61/73; cf. BG 229/ 320). 14. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, Fifth Meditation, §50, 109; Hua I 139. Cf. Husserl, Ideas I, §44, 94; Hua III/1, 100. 15. Marion hints at this parallel in two brief comments that compare paintings with events (the paradigm of phenomena saturated according to quantity). One such remark is: ‘‘There is an eventness of the painting’’ (IE 72*/87; cf. BG 48/72). 16. However, in his earlier work, he admits that, at least in the case of paintings that remove the final object (such as those by Monet and Pollock), the painting ‘‘does not impose itself to be seen, since it is the look which imposes on it to appear as it appears, a simple representative of the desire to see or to be made to see [Il ne s’impose pas a` voir, puisque c’est le regard qui lui impose de paraıˆtre comme il paraıˆt, simple repre´sentant du de´sir de voir ou de se faire voir]’’ (emphasis mine) (CV 34*/63). 17. ‘‘The look precedes the idol because an aim precedes and gives rise to that at which it aims’’ (GWB 11/19). 244

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18. ‘‘The idol still remains, in one way or another, proportionate to the expectation of the desire whose anticipation it fills (sometimes to a greater degree than expected)’’ (CV 33*/62). Immediately after this, Marion uses strikingly similar terms to describe one of the ways in which paintings are visible: ‘‘It [the painting] does not impose itself to be seen, since it is the look which imposes on it to appear as it appears’’ (CV 34*/63). 19. Marion again emphasizes this dependence in his discussion of the saturation of some of Paul Klee’s paintings in In Excess: ‘‘The saturation of the visible becomes, to the one who knows how to look at it as it gives itself, really unbearable’’ (emphasis mine) (IE 67/81). 6. Flesh as Absolute 1. For example, in the first analogy, Kant argues that to experience a series of different appearances as ‘change’ requires not only a sequential modification in my perceptions, but also the concept of an enduring substance which persists throughout the modification and is its subject (CPR A 182ff./B 224ff.). 2. Marion quotes Kant’s text inaccurately here, suggesting that Kant is referring to phenomena rather than appearances: ‘‘All phenomena are in time’’ (emphasis mine) (BG 209/292). 3. ‘‘The phenomenon receives an intuition that exceeds the frame set by the concept and signification that aim at and foresee it. . . . The concept or signification of the object coincides exactly with the limits of its horizon, without a significant reserve as yet unfulfilled’’ (BG 209/293). 4. Cf. ‘‘If a perception is given to us in a temporal relation to others (even though indeterminate), it cannot be said a priori which and how great this other perception is, but only how it is necessarily combined with the first, as regards its existence, in this modus of time. . . . An analogy of experience will therefore be only a rule in accordance with which unity of experience is to arise from perceptions (not as a perception itself, as empirical intuition in general), and as a principle it will not be valid of the objects (of the appearances) constitutively but merely regulatively’’ (CPR A 179–80/B 222–23). 5. ‘‘If, therefore, we experience that something happens, then we always presuppose that something else precedes it, which it follows in accordance with a rule’’ (CPR A 195/B 240). 6. For example, compare these two remarks. Kant: ‘‘I cannot go back from the occurrence and determine (through apprehension) what precedes’’ (CPR A 193–94/B 239). Marion: ‘‘The fact, precisely in so far as it wells up in fact, annuls the legitimacy of asking it about its cause. . . . [I]f the inquiry into its cause or causes ever becomes possible, this will only happen after the fact, by relying on the fact that it already arrived in fact’’ (BG 140*/199). 7. The function Marion describes here relates to knowing as such, rather than to a theory of knowledge. It is therefore epistemic, and not epistemological. 8. Benoist is similarly confused by this catalogue given by Marion of three ways in which a phenomenon can exceed its horizon(s) although he sets out a set Notes

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of difficulties that is somewhat different from mine: ‘‘These distinctions are in themselves very formal, and have a clearly speculative style. Now, taken one at a time, it is very difficult to assign them a meaning, and to see in them anything else than a way of playing on the habitual sense of the word ‘horizon’ in phenomenology’’ (Benoist, ‘‘L’e´cart plutoˆt que l’exce´dent,’’ 90; see also 90–92). 9. ‘‘Originally it [flesh] always auto-affects itself first in and by itself. . . . Affection refers to no object, according to no ecstasis, but only to itself; for it itself is sufficient to accomplish itself as affected. . . . The immediacy of autoaffection blocks the space where the ecstasis of an intentionality would become possible’’ (BG 231*/322). 10. ‘‘Yet there is a deceiver. . . . And he might deceive me as much as he can, he will still never effect that I would be nothing, so long as I shall cogitate that I am something. So that—all things having been weighed enough, and more—this statement were, finally, to be established: ‘I am, I exist’ is necessarily true, so often as it is uttered by me or conceived by the mind’’ (Rene´ Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: A Bilingual Edition, trans. and ed. George Heffernan [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990], Second Meditation, 101; AT 7:25). 11. ‘‘Before the cogito exists, the ego would be well and truly already established in its unconditioned existence as corpus et sensus. The sentient body would be anterior and not posterior to the cogitatio’’ (IE 86*/104). 12. Descartes, Meditations, Second Meditation, 107; AT 7:28. 13. ‘‘Flesh is, in the first place, the medium of all perception; it is the organ of perception and is necessarily involved in all perception’’ (Husserl, Ideas II, §18, 61*; Hua IV 56). Marion restates flesh’s perceptual role in terms of the transformation of the given into a phenomenon: ‘‘There is nothing optional about flesh—it alone converts the world into an appearance, in other words, the given into a phenomenon. Outside my flesh, there is no phenomenon for me’’ (IE 89*/ 107). 14. ‘‘Whereas, with regard to all other things, I have the freedom to change at will my position in relation to them and thereby at the same time vary at will the manifolds of appearance in which they come to givenness for me, on the other hand I do not have the possibility of distancing myself from my flesh, or my flesh from me’’ (Husserl, Ideas II, §41, 167*; Hua IV 159); ‘‘If thereby the a priori (although entirely empty) possibility of actual ghosts is granted, then the immediate consequence is that a psychic subject without a material flesh is indeed thinkable, i.e., as a ghost instead of a natural animal being, but in no way without a flesh of some kind’’ (Husserl, Ideas II, §21, 101*; Hua IV 95). 15. Edmund Husserl, Zur Pha¨nomenologie der Intersubjektivita¨t: Texte aus dem Nachlass, ed. Iso Kern, vol. 3, 1929–1935, Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana) XV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), Hua XV 567. 16. ‘‘It does not fix itself to its flesh; it fixes itself to itself as flesh. As one ‘casts in plaster’ the face of someone recently deceased in order to freeze it and then to draw a portrait of it, the ego casts itself in flesh in order to fix, if not freeze, itself, 246

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and in this way take its first self.’’ (IE 91/110); ‘‘I can take neither leave nor distance from my flesh, because I do not have it, but I am it’’ (emphasis mine) (IE 92/111). 17. ‘‘For the growth of one [flesh] is made as the passivity of the other provokes it; and the passivity of the one is deepened as the augmentation of the other allows. Augmentation does not come actively from itself, but passively from the nonresistance of another passivity, more powerful than any activity’’ (EP 119*/ 188). 18. Husserl, Ideas II, §36, 152*; Hua IV 145. Cf. ‘‘The touch-sensing is not a state of the material thing, hand, but is precisely the hand itself, which for us is more than a material thing, and the way in which it is mine entails that I, the ‘subject of the flesh,’ can say that what belongs to the material thing is its, not mine. . . . On this surface of the hand I sense the sensations of touch, etc. And it is precisely thereby that this surface manifests itself immediately as my flesh’’ (§37, 157*/150). 19. Husserl, Ideas II, §36, 153; Hua IV 145. Cf. ‘‘Flesh comes to light, at one and the same time, as flesh and as material thing’’ (§41, 165*/158). 20. ‘‘In the case of the hand lying on the table, the same sensation of pressure is apprehended at one time as perception of the table’s surface . . . and at another time produces, with a ‘different direction of attention,’ in the actualisation of an other [sic] stratum of apprehension, sensations of digital pressure’’ (Husserl, Ideas II, §36, 154; Hua IV 146–47; cf. §40, 163/155–56). 21. Husserl, Ideas II, §36, 153–54*; Hua IV 146. 22. Husserl, Ideas II, §37, 156; Hua IV 148; cf. §37, 159/151. Husserl argues that touch is also preeminent among the senses because of the ‘‘double sensation . . . and double apprehension’’ when one part of the body touches another part. My hand as touching can also be touched as an object by my other hand (§37, 155/147). According to Husserl, this is not possible for the other senses: ‘‘I do not see myself, my flesh, the way I touch myself. What I call the seen flesh is not a seeing that is seen, the way my flesh as touched flesh is a touching that is touched’’ (§37, 155*/148). In my view, this further argument for the preeminence of touch unnecessarily complicates Husserl’s discussion of the localization of sensing. His main argument does not require that I touch that which is touching, but only that sensations be localized to an object that is itself sensible. Moreover, there are at least two difficulties with singling out the double sensing of one part of the body touching another. First, I can never touch my flesh as that which is touching, but only my physical body as that which is touched. I am no more able to touch my hand as touching than I am able to see my eye as seeing. Both are apprehensible to my senses only as physical objects, and not as flesh. In fact, when Husserl first discusses this double sensing, he admits that it is in principle no different from touching any other physical object: ‘‘In the case of one hand touching the other, it is again the same [as touching a paperweight or a hand lying on a table], only more complicated, for we have then two sensations, and each is apprehendable or experienceable in a double way [viz., both as Notes

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a sensation localized in a touching hand, and as the sensing of a touched object’s physical features]’’ (§36, 154/147; cf. ‘‘And if this [sensation in one’s hand] happens by means of some other part of one’s flesh, then the sensation is doubled in the two parts of the flesh, since each is then precisely for the other an external thing that is touching and acting upon it, and each is at the same time flesh’’ [§36, 153*/145]). Second, while the localization of tactual sensings to particular parts of my body is quite different from what happens in seeing, it can also be argued that seeing, hearing, and the other senses are equally important for localizing my body as a whole with respect to the world. Thus, while touch might well localize my flesh in my body, the other senses perform the same localizing of my flesh in the world. (Contra Husserl: ‘‘Each thing that we see is touchable and, as such, points to an immediate relation to flesh, though it does not do so in virtue of its visibility’’ [emphasis mine] [§37, 158*/150]). Husserl does admit this localization of flesh in the world, though without reference to sight: ‘‘All things of the surrounding world possess an orientation to the flesh, just as, accordingly, all expressions of orientation imply this relation. The ‘far’ is far from me, from my flesh; the ‘to the right’ refers back to the right side of my flesh, e.g., to my right hand’’ (§41, 166*/158). I will return to these considerations of touch in relation to the other senses when I discuss Romano’s account of flesh in this chapter (‘‘Romano: flesh and corporality’’). 23. This is explicit in the case of Henry (Incarn. §§21–22, §31) but remains more implicit in the case of Marion: ‘‘There is no flesh of the world [Il n’y a pas de chair du monde]’’ (EP 114*/181). 24. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘‘Eye and Mind,’’ trans. Carleton Dallery, in The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Perception, Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics, ed. James M. Edie (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 163*; translation of L’oeil et l’esprit (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 19. 25. Cf. Merleau-Ponty, ‘‘Eye and Mind,’’ 163/19, 167/32. 26. ‘‘If there is a relation of the visible with itself that traverses me and constitutes me as a seer, this circle which I do not form, which forms me, this coiling over of the visible upon the visible, can traverse, animate other bodies as well as my own. . . . [T]he field [is] open for other Narcissus, for an ‘intercorporeity’ ’’ (VI 140–41/185); ‘‘This means that my body is made of the same flesh as the world (it is a perceived), and moreover that this flesh of my body is participated in by the world, the world reflects it, encroaches upon it and it encroaches upon the world. . . . [T]hey are in a relation of transgression or of overlapping’’ (VI 248*/302). 27. Merleau-Ponty, ‘‘Eye and Mind,’’ 167*/31–32. 28. Martin C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology, 2nd ed. (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1997 [1st ed., Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1988]), 174. 29. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology, 161–62. In this text and the following one, Dillon is referring to an oft-criticized passage of ‘‘Eye and Mind,’’ in which 248

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Merleau-Ponty quotes the painter Andre´ Marchand: ‘‘In a forest, I have felt many times over that it was not I who looked at the forest. Some days I felt that it was the trees that were looking at me’’ (Merleau-Ponty, ‘‘Eye and Mind,’’ 167*/31, quoting Georges Charbonnier, Le monologue du peintre [Paris: Julliard, 1959], 143–45). 30. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology, 168–69. 31. ‘‘Every appearance is, in a radical sense, self-appearance’’ (Michel Henry, Phe´nome´nologie mate´rielle [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990], 132). Auto-affection is a key concept in each of Henry’s main phenomenological works: The Essence of Manifestation (1963); Phe´nome´nologie mate´rielle (1990); Incarnation (2000). 32. ‘‘It has still never been seen that a stone touched by my hand sets itself in its turn to touch my hand, to palpate it, to caress it’’ (Incarn. 167). 33. ‘‘Everywhere and necessarily, wherever a life comes in itself, this coming will be identically that of a flesh, the coming in itself of this flesh in the Arch-Flesh of Life’’ (Incarn. 174). 34. Rudolf Bernet, ‘‘Une vie intentionnelle sans sujet ni objet?’’ VS 297–327. 35. Of course, I can subsequently take this prereflexive consciousness of myself, and directly intend it as the primary object of a subsequent act of consciousness. In this case, my consciousness of myself is reflexive rather than prereflexive. However, such a reflexive act is still accompanied by a prereflexive awareness of myself as the one who is performing it. 36. Claude Romano, ‘‘Le miroir de Narcisse: Sur la phe´nome´nologie de la chair,’’ in Il y a, 177–224. 37. The full text of Ideas II which Romano refers to (with Romano’s quote italicized) is: ‘‘And if this [sensation in one’s hand] happens by means of some other part of one’s flesh, then the sensation is doubled in the two parts of the flesh, since each is then precisely for the other an external thing that is touching and acting upon it, and each is at the same time flesh’’ (Husserl, Ideas II, §36, 153*; Hua IV 145). Romano interprets this text as claiming that ‘‘there is only one single and identical sensation redoubled in the two hands . . . a simple autoaffection of the self by the self ’’ (Il y a, 183), even though Husserl makes it clear that the doubling refers to each hand having its own sensation, as well as being an object for the other. For a fuller discussion of Husserl’s account of one hand touching another, see Chap. 6, n. 22. 38. ‘‘The enigma is that my body is at once seeing and seen. . . . It sees itself seeing; it touches itself touching; it is visible and sensible for itself ’’ (‘‘Eye and Mind,’’ 162*/18). Cf. ‘‘To begin with, we spoke summarily of a reversibility of the seeing and the seen, of the touching and the touched. It is time to emphasise that it is a reversibility always imminent and never realised in fact’’ (VI 147*/ 194); ‘‘But this [original visibility] does not mean that there is fusion or coincidence of me with it [a seen object]; on the contrary, this occurs because a kind of dehiscence opens my body in two, and because between my body looked at and my body looking, my body touched and my body touching, there is overlapping or encroachment’’ (VI 123*/165). Dillon argues that the reference to a quasi Notes

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simultaneity in Eye and Mind should be regarded as ‘‘an oversight,’’ and that The Visible and the Invisible should be regarded as Merleau-Ponty’s ‘‘considered’’ position (Dillon, Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology, 272–73n11). 39. ‘‘Taken strictly, ‘touching’ is never what we are talking about in such cases . . . because in principle the chair can never touch the wall, even if the space between them should be equal to zero. If the chair could touch the wall, this would presuppose that the wall is the sort of thing ‘for’ which a chair would be encounterable’’ (BT §12, 81/55). 40. One could argue that taste also has a degree of localization to different parts of the mouth and tongue. Similarly, smell can also be quite localized in cases like acrid smoke smelt in the back of the throat, or eucalyptus giving a raw, clear warmth in the nasal passage. 7. The Face as Irregardable Icon 1. Literally: unable to be looked at. Though irregardable appears sometimes in popular usage, it does not appear in standard French dictionaries. I follow Kosky’s practice in Being Given, where ‘‘irregardable’’ is treated as an English neologism (cf. BG 212; 364n59). 2. An anamorphosis is a painting or drawing that can be seen fully only if looked at in a particular way. 3. ‘‘I do not know if one can speak of a ‘phenomenology’ of the face, since phenomenology describes what appears. So, too, I wonder if one can speak of a look turned toward the face, for the look is knowledge, perception’’ (Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, trans. Richard A. Cohen [Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1985], 85; translation of E´thique et infini: Dialogues avec Philippe Nemo [Paris: Fayard, 1982], 89). ‘‘I am not all sure that the face is a phenomenon. A phenomenon is what appears. Appearance is not the mode of being of the face’’ (Levinas, ‘‘The Paradox of Morality: An Interview with Emmanuel Levinas,’’ in The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other, ed. Robert Bernasconi and David Wood [London: Routledge, 1988], 171). Experience, the idea of infinity, occurs in the relationship with the other person [Autrui]. The idea of infinity is the social relationship. This relationship consists in approaching an absolutely exterior being. The infinity of this being, which one can for that very reason not contain, guarantees and constitutes this exteriority. It does not amount to the distance between a subject and an object. An object, we know, is integrated into the identity of the same; the I makes of it its theme, and then its property, its booty, its prey or its victim. The exteriority of the infinite being is manifested in the absolute resistance which—by its apparition, its epiphany—it opposes to all my capacities [pouvoirs]. Its epiphany is not simply the apparition of a form in the light—sensible or intelligible—but already this no hurled at [my] capacities; its logos is: ‘‘You shall not kill.’’ 250

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(Levinas, ‘‘Philosophy and the Idea of the Infinite,’’ in Collected Philosophical Papers, trans. Alfonso Lingis [Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987], 54–55*; translation of ‘‘La philosophie et l’ide´e de l’infini,’’ in En de´couvrant l’existence avec Husserl et Heidegger (e´dition suivie d’Essais nouveaux), 3rd ed., corr., [Paris: J. Vrin, 2001], 239–40. Cf. Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis [Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969], 50–51/ 43; translation of Totalite´ et infini: Essai sur l’exte´riorite´ [1990; 1st ed., Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1961.]) 4. Kant is not concerned here with metaphysical necessity, but rather with the necessity of effects in relation to causes, as established in his second analogy of experience. Thus, if a cause is determined to be actually existing (on the basis of perception), then the effect of that cause is thereby determined as necessarily existing (CPR A 226–29/B 279–82). 5. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1956), part 3, chap. 1, §4; translation of L’eˆtre et le ne´ant: Essai d’ontologie phe´nome´nologique (1976; 1st ed., Paris: Gallimard, 1943). 6. Marion’s three examples are Descartes’ idea of the infinite, Kant’s account of the sublime, and Husserl’s concept of internal time consciousness (BG 219ff./ 305ff.). 7. The National Gallery, London, NG1314. 8. Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible,’’ in Alain Bonfand, Ge´rard Labrot, and Jean-Luc Marion, Trois essais sur la perspective (Paris: E´ditions de la Diffe´rence, 1985). Revised in CV, 1–23/9–46. 9. Greisch focuses on this role of reception that is implicit in Marion’s account of anamorphosis and suggests that anamorphosis should therefore be understood hermeneutically: ‘‘Is not this ‘ana-morphosis’ a synonym of ‘hermeneutic metamorphosis,’ on the condition of taking this in the sense that Heidegger gives it when he speaks of ‘the hermeneutic as’?’’ (Greisch, ‘‘Index sui et non dati,’’ 37). 10. Marion explicitly identifies his understanding of icons in Being Given as conforming to his earlier account in God without Being (BG 367n88/324n1). 11. Marion, GWB 9–14/18–23; The Idol and Distance, 4–7/19–22; CV 85–87/151–53; IE 60–61/73. 12. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 8–9/22–24; cf. GWB 17–18/28–29. 13. Marion, GWB 17/28; cf. The Idol and Distance, 8/22; CV 57/102, 62/ 111. 14. Marion strikes a decidedly Levinasian note when he suggests that this ‘‘elsewhere’’ is in fact at an infinite depth: ‘‘Whereas the idol is always determined as a reflex, which makes it come from a fixed point, on the basis of an original which, fundamentally, it echoes [revient] . . . the icon is defined by an origin without original: an origin itself infinite, which pours itself out or gives itself throughout the infinite depth of the icon’’ (GWB 20*/32–33). Notes

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15. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, part 3, chap. 1, §4, 340–47/298–305. 16. In Ruud Welten’s view, all such references to ‘‘reversed intentionality’’ should be interpreted metaphorically. He argues persuasively that because consciousness is always intentional, even saturated phenomena presume intentionality. Without intentionality, there can be no consciousness, and without consciousness, there can be no experience of the appearing of phenomena, and therefore no phenomenality—whether saturated or otherwise: This type of (French) phenomenology [Sartre, the later Merleau-Ponty, Henry, Levinas, Marion] wants to reverse or even ban intentionality. From a Husserlian point of view, such a critique does not make sense (cf. LI, Investigation 5, §15) because it fails to appreciate the essence of intentionality by making it nothing more than a metaphor. . . . If we talk about a ‘reversed intentionality’, something comes in which does not exactly reverse intentionality but, rather, changes the meaning of intentionality. We get something ‘like-intentionality’ but not intentionality strictly speaking, for intentionality is a property of consciousness. In the case of a reversed intentionality, the intentionality becomes an intentional object itself. In this manner, we cannot reach much further than ‘the look’ (le regard) in Sartre, which makes me aware of the intentionality from the other to me. But, this still presupposes intentionality on my side. . . . It makes no sense to understand the saturated phenomenon outside consciousness, outside experience, or outside affection. (Ruud Welten, ‘‘Saturation and Disappointment: Marion According to Husserl,’’ Bijdragen: International Journal in Philosophy and Theology 65 [2004]: 89–90) 17. In the closing pages of the first essay in The Crossing of the Visible, Marion asserts that the icon’s painted look is the ‘‘treasure chest’’ for the actual look of the one who is depicted, though he gives no argument to support this: ‘‘The icon is definitively removed from the objectivity of a spectacle dependent upon consciousness by reversing the relation between spectator and spectacle: the spectator discovers himself to be seen invisibly by the painted look on the icon, which henceforth appears as the visible treasure chest of a central and invisible instance that is never (by definition) painted—the look of the saint, of the Virgin, or of the Christ’’ (CV 21–22*/44). 18. Marion implicitly admits this in introducing his discussion of idols and icons in God without Being: ‘‘In outlining the comparative phenomenology of the idol and the icon, it is therefore a question of specifying not any particular matter of aesthetics or art history, but two modes of apprehension of the divine in visibility. Of apprehension, or also, no doubt, of reception’’ (emphasis mine) (GWB 9/17–18). 19. Jean-Luc Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 71–101; translation of ‘‘L’intentionnalite´ de l’amour,’’ in Prole´gome`nes a` la charite´ (Paris: E´ditions de la Diffe´rence, 1986), 89–120. Marion, ‘‘From the 252

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Other to the Individual,’’ trans. Robyn Horner, in Transcendence, ed. Regina Schwartz (London: Routledge, 2004), 43–59; translation of ‘‘D’autrui a` l’individu,’’ in Levinas et la phe´nome´nologie, ed. Marion, annex to Levinas, Positivite´ et transcendance (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000), 287–308. 20. BG 233–34n88/324n1; IE 115/139. 21. Marion, ‘‘From the Other to the Individual,’’ 54–55/307. 22. ‘‘What can I ever love outside of myself, since the path of loving consists in reducing all alterity to myself, under the figure of the represented?’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 71–72*/92). 23. ‘‘When I experience love, even a sincere love, for the other, I first experience not the other but my lived conscious experience’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 76/96). 24. Emmanuel Levinas, ‘‘A Man-God?’’ (1968) in Entre Nous: On Thinkingof-the-Other, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 58*; translation of ‘‘Un Dieu homme?’’ in Entre nous: Essais sur le penser-a`-l’autre (Paris: Grasset, 1991), 75; quoted in Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 82/102. 25. Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 81/101; cf. CV 56/101–2. 26. ‘‘The I can waver only if, far from naming the poles of exteriority as its objects (objectives of its [intentional] aim), it discovers itself to be the object of another aim; in short, only if the nominative I is dismissed in the accusative me’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 84/104). 27. ‘‘The injunction renders me responsible for the other (Levinas) and not simply before the other (Sartre). Even if the other did not see me, and thus could not judge me, I would experience, by discovering myself as an accusative dismissed from the nominative, that I owe myself to him: for him to live, I owe it to him to dedicate myself ’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 86*/105–6). 28. ‘‘The injunction does not come from the other toward me, by an inverted intentionality of the other consciousness acting against my own. It actually arises in me, as one of my lived experiences, which an originary presence assures to my consciousness; yet, as a lived experience of my consciousness, the injunction imposes on my consciousness, without the least bit of intentionality (neither its own, nor another’s), the coming by right of the other’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 91*/110; cf. 86–87/106–7). 29. ‘‘Intentionality and the injunction exchange nothing, especially not two (objectified) lived experiences; yet they come together in a lived experience which can only be experienced in common, since it consists in the balanced resistance of two intentional impetuses’’ (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 88/108; 89/108–9.) 30. Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ 100–1/120. 31. In a short essay from 1994, Marion uses exactly this terminology of opening a space to describe the attitude that is required if one is to accept the other’s face and thus allow it to appear: To accept the other’s face, or better, to accept that I am dealing with an other (and not an object), a face (and not a spectacle), a counter-look (and Notes

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not a reflection of my own), depends uniquely on my willing it so. What I will organises itself into the following alternative: either I do not love him and I pass him by going around him (Lk 10:31–32); or I ‘‘approach him and, seeing him, am unsettled’’ (Lk 10:33). This alternative, this crisis, and this judgment determine either the appearing of the other, or his occultation. . . . Only charity . . . opens the space where the look of the other can shine forth. The other appears only if I gratuitously give him the space in which to appear; . . . It is up to me to set the stage for the other, not as an object that I hold under contract and whose play I thus direct, but as the uncontrollable, the unforeseeable, and the foreign stranger who will affect me, provoke me, and—possibly—love me. (emphasis mine) (Marion, ‘‘What Love Knows,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 166–67*; not included in Prole´gome`nes a` la charite´) 32. Marion’s account of the other’s face imposing itself on me may get some support from an uncharacteristic passage later in Being and Time, where Heidegger describes hearing the voice of another as constitutive for understanding oneself: ‘‘Listening to . . . is Dasein’s existential Being-open as Being-with for the other. Indeed, hearing constitutes the primary and authentic openness of Dasein for its ownmost potentiality-for-Being—as in hearing the voice of the friend whom every Dasein carries with it’’ (BT §34, 206*/163; Heidegger’s ellipsis). 33. ‘‘In Heidegger coexistence is, to be sure, taken as a relation with the other person [autrui], irreducible to objective knowledge; but in the final analysis it also rests on the relationship with being in general, on understanding, on ontology. Heidegger posits this ground of being in advance, as the horizon on which every being arises, as though the horizon, and the idea of limit it includes and which is proper to vision, were the ultimate framework of relation. Moreover, for Heidegger intersubjectivity is coexistence, a we prior to the I and the other [Autre], a neutral intersubjectivity’’ (Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 67–68*/63). 8. Revelation: The Phenomenon of God’s Appearing 1. Because Revelation itself refers to a mode of appearance, Marion’s denotation of Revelation as a phenomenon can be somewhat confusing. Strictly speaking, Revelation does not itself appear as a phenomenon. Rather, Revelation is the phenomenon in which God (or his word, etc.) appears. 2. See, for instance, Janicaud, Phenomenology ‘Wide Open’, 17–18, 67–68, which objects to texts such as BG 5/10, 234–36/326–29. 3. ‘‘The manifestation of Christ counts as paradigm of the phenomenon of revelation according to the paradox’s four modes of saturation’’ (BG 236/329). 4. ‘‘All that is (a being), is in the measure that a causa (actuality) sive ratio (concept) renders reason of its existence, or its inexistence, or of its dispensing of all cause’’ (PR 2*/14). 5. Rudolf Bultmann, ‘‘The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament,’’ in Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. and trans. Schubert M. Ogden (London: Collins, 1964), 67–106; translation of ‘‘Der Begriff der 254

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Offenbarung im Neuen Testament (1929),’’ in Glauben und Verstehen: Gesammelte Aufsa¨tze, 4 vols. (Tu¨bingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1933–65), 3:1–34. 6. Marion, ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon,’’ 18/35. 7. Marion, ‘‘The Saturated Phenomenon,’’ 18*/35. 8. ‘‘The debate is summed up in a simple alternative: must the possibility of the appearing of God be confined to the uninterrogated and supposedly untouchable limits of one or the other figure of philosophy and phenomenology, or should phenomenological possibility be broadened to the measure of the possibility of manifestation demanded by the question of God?’’ (BG 242*/336). 9. Because I do not accept the validity of Marion’s distinction between revelation and Revelation, I use lowercase for revelation only when specifically discussing Marion’s own use of these terms. 10. See, for example, Raymond E. Brown and Raymond F. Collins, ‘‘Canonicity,’’ in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990), 1034–54. 11. Marion quotes this phrase, ‘‘διερμνευσεν ατος,’’ in a misleading and anachronistic translation: ‘‘He made the hermeneutic to them’’ (TRH 149/139). 12. ‘‘They do not recognise him because they cannot even imagine that this is really him, Him’’ (TRH 147/136). 13. ‘‘They see nothing in the sense that one sees nothing in a game of chess if one does not know how to play; they hear nothing in the sense that one hears nothing (except noise) in a conversation if one does not know the language in which it takes place’’ (TRH 147*/137). 14. ‘‘Indeed, the whole question of the coming of Christ and of faith in him comes down to this: ‘To have his λγος abiding in us (μ"νοντα), or not’ (Jn 5:38). For the first time since ‘the events,’ the disciples ask Christ, and thus in fact the λγος himself and in person, to stay with them and they with him—that is, they ask to receive his λγος, his interpretation of what has come to pass in intuition and which they have nevertheless neither seen, nor caught, nor understood. They at last ask him his meaning, his concept, his interpretation of the intuition of Easter that, though public, is unintelligible to spectators’’ (TRH 150*/140). 15. ‘‘Why do they not understand? Because they do not recompose these significations [about Christ as the prophet who was to restore Israel, but was put to death] starting from the Passion as revelation of the charity of God, and thus also from the Resurrection as the fulfilment of this very charity’’ (TRH 148*/138). 16. This mistranslation is particularly surprising because Marion’s quotation includes the Greek original for an earlier word in this verse (TRH 146/136). Furthermore, he quotes the verse accurately in two previous texts: (1) ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement’’ (1978), in Prolegomena to Charity, 68n9/87n7; and (2) GWB 147/208. 17. Thus, Marion’s comparison between this scene and the Transfiguration is quite misplaced because the disciples on Mount Tabor are clearly overawed by Notes

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the dazzling phenomenon they witness, and very aware of their own inadequacy before it. In contrast, although the disciples on the road to Emmaus may well be frightened, disappointed, and confused, there is little indication of their being dazzled. 18. Marion may be aware of the weakness of his argument at this point because he explicitly adds interpolations to the biblical text in order to make it consistent with his interpretation. In these glosses, the disciples describe their minds burning within them as well as their hearts, and refer to Jesus as opening the concepts of the scriptures, rather than the scriptures per se: ‘‘ ‘Did not our hearts [and thus our minds (esprit)] burn within us while he talked to us on the road in such a way as to open to us the [concepts of the] Scriptures?’ ’’ (TRH 149/139, quoting Lk 24:32; Marion’s interpolations). 19. Eugene LaVerdiere arrives at a similar conclusion in his commentary on Luke: ‘‘In sharing Jesus’ meal, the two disciples accept the attitude which was his as he entered into the passion’’ (Luke [Dublin: Veritas, 1980], 287). In an earlier essay, Marion himself describes Jesus’ breaking of the bread at Emmaus as a ‘‘sign of charity’’ rather than in terms of conceptual signification (‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 68n9/87n7). 20. This complex of relationships is never private, but belongs at least in part to a community. Consistent with this, the disciples’ response when they finally recognize Jesus at Emmaus indicates that they see themselves as sharing in the faith of a community. They immediately return to Jerusalem, where their personal shared experience is validated by the apostles: ‘‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’’ (Lk 24:34). 21. Martin Heidegger, ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology,’’ trans. James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo, in Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 39–62; translation of ‘‘Pha¨nomenologie und Theologie,’’ in Wegmarken, 3rd ed., ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1996), 45–78. 22. Heidegger, ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology,’’ 44*/52–53. 23. Heidegger, ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology,’’ 44–45*/53–54. 24. Thus, in his account of the journey to Emmaus, Marion speaks of the concepts that Jesus gives the disciples to interpret his revelation as ‘‘a hermeneutic’’ (TRH 148/138, 149/139). 25. Jocelyn Benoist, ‘‘Le ‘tournant the´ologique’ ’’ (1994), in L’ide´e de phe´nome´nologie, 102. 26. Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits of Phenomenology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), 157–58. Vincent Holzer makes a similar point: ‘‘Possibility, erected as a phenomenological principle, can no longer exclude revelation as fact, received under the name of tradition’’ (Vincent Holzer, ‘‘Phe´nome´nologie radicale et phe´nome`ne de re´ve´lation: Jean-Luc Marion, E´tant donne´: Essai d’une phe´nome´nologie de la donation,’’ Transveralite´s: Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 70 [April–June 1999]: 58; see also 67–68). 256

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27. Janicaud, Phenomenology ‘‘Wide Open,’’ 8/17–18. 28. Marion, ‘‘The Banality of Saturation,’’ 388–91/150–56. Marion goes on to discuss the ‘‘banality of saturated phenomena,’’ proposing that saturated phenomena are far more common than might be supposed even though they are very often not perceived as such. Such ‘‘banality’’ suggests that saturation is analogous to Zuhandenheit: Just as a Zuhandenes appears as a Vorhandenes when it is approached as an object, so the given offers saturation, but may be distorted and restricted in a way that prevents it from appearing as saturated. 29. Heidegger, ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology,’’ 43–44/52. 30. Heidegger, ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology,’’ 44*/52. 31. Heidegger, ‘‘Phenomenology and Theology,’’ 44/53. 32. Roger Haight, Jesus, Symbol of God (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1999), 5–6. 33. A similar complexity is evident in one of Jesus’ sayings that most strongly affirms God’s role in a believer’s faith: ‘‘No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me’’ (Jn 6:44). Although it is clear that no one can come to faith in Jesus simply of her/his own volition, there is no suggestion that everyone drawn by the Father will respond in a way that leads them to faith. God’s gift of grace is a necessary condition for faith, but not a sufficient condition. 34. Mark Jordan, ed., The Church’s Confession of Faith: A Catholic Catechism for Adults, trans. Stephen Wentworth Arndt (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 37*; translation of Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, ed., Katholischer Erwachsenen-Katechismus: Das Glaubensbekenntnis der Kirche (Bonn: Verband der Dio¨zesan Deutschlands, 1985), 41. 35. Jordan, The Church’s Confession of Faith, 37*/41. 36. Jordan, The Church’s Confession of Faith, 37–38*/42. 37. Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1998); Belief in the Word: Reading the Fourth Gospel, John 1–4 (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1993); Signs and Shadows: Reading John 5–12 (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1996); Glory Not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21 (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1998). 38. This is announced as early as the prologue: ‘‘But to all who received him [the λγος], who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God’’ (Jn 1:12). 39. Moloney, The Gospel of John, 68. Other models of authentic Johannine belief proposed by Moloney are John the Baptist (Jn 3:29–30; Moloney, The Gospel of John, 107), the Samaritan villagers (Jn 4:42; Moloney, The Gospel of John, 148), the royal official from Capernaum (Jn 4:50; Moloney, The Gospel of John, 154), the beloved disciple (Jn 20:8; Moloney, The Gospel of John, 520), Mary Magdalene (Jn 20:18; Moloney, The Gospel of John, 527), and Thomas (Jn 20:28; Moloney, The Gospel of John, 537). 40. By contrast, in ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement’’ Marion emphasizes the variety of interpretations made by those who witnessed the Crucifixion: ‘‘Standing before Christ on the Cross, . . . those who do not accept to love him see nothing, except the confirmation of their denial; those who do love him . . . Notes

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[see] the highest figure of God, royal in his kenosis’’ (‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 66/85). The contrast between Marion’s texts is highlighted by the somewhat ironic fact that Benoist almost paraphrases this 1978 text in his later objection to Marion: ‘‘Where you see God, I see nothing or something else’’ (Benoist, ‘‘Le ‘tournant the´ologique,’ ’’ in L’idee´ de phe´nome´nologie, 102). 41. The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. Rex Warner (New York: MentorOmega, 1963), 184. 42. Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, chap. 7, in Patrologia graeca, 3:872; quoted in ST IIa. IIae., question 4, article 1. 43. Vatican I, ‘‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Dei Filius’’ (April 24, 1870), trans. Ian Brayley, in Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward; Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 804–11. 44. Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap. 3. 45. Vatican I, Dei Filius, canons, §3.1. 46. Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap. 3. 47. Vatican II, ‘‘Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum’’ (November 18, 1965), trans. Robert Murray, in Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 971–81. 48. Vatican II, Dei Verbum, §1. 49. Vatican II, Dei Verbum, §2. 50. Vatican II, Dei Verbum, §5. 51. Joseph Ratzinger, ‘‘Dei Verbum: Kommentar zum Prooemium, I. und II. Kapitel,’’ in Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil: Dokumente und Kommentare, 3 vols., ed. Herbert Vorgrimler et al. (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1967), 2:504–28. 52. Ratzinger, ‘‘Dei Verbum,’’ 513. 53. Ratzinger, ‘‘Dei Verbum,’’ 513. 54. Ratzinger, ‘‘Dei Verbum,’’ 514. 55. Most of the texts that Wagner identifies as parallels to Dei Verbum are taken from Bultmann’s essay ‘‘The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament,’’ from 99–100/29 and 102/31 (revelation as God’s personal self-giving in Christ); 82–83/14–15 and 100/29 (revelation as offer of sharing in God’s life); 101–2/30–31 (revelation as summoning encounter with God); and 93/23 (faith as existential response) (Harold Wagner, ‘‘Das Versta¨ndnis von Offenbarung im Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil und bei Rudolf Bultmann,’’ in Rudolf Bultmanns Werk und Wirkung, ed. Bernd Jaspert [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984], 401–6). 56. Bultmann, ‘‘The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament,’’ 93/23. 57. Bultmann, ‘‘The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament,’’ 101*/ 30. 58. Bultmann, ‘‘The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament,’’ 95/25. 59. Bultmann, ‘‘The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament,’’ 93/23. 60. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 258

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1978), 170; translation of Grundkurs des Glaubens: Einfu¨hrung in den Begriff des Christentums (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1976), 173. 61. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 171*/174. 62. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 171–72*/174–75; cf. ‘‘The historical-personal revelation of the Word first of all meets the inner spiritual uniqueness of a person. From his spiritual radiance, God communicates himself to this inner uniqueness in his ownmost reality, and gives to the person as transcendence the possibility of receiving this personal self-communication and self-disclosure, and of hearing it and accepting it in faith, hope and love, in such a way that it is not lowered to the ‘level’ of the finite creature as such, but rather can actually ‘reach’ the person as the self-disclosure of God in himself ’’ (170*/174). 63. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 173–74/176–77. 64. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 230/228. 65. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 240/237. Rahner is clear that the circularity of faith is part of its essential structure, and not a deficiency that must be suffered only by those who are not eyewitnesses to Jesus’ miracles. He points out that even though the first disciples ‘‘had an immediate historical experience of Jesus,’’ their act of faith in Jesus remains ‘‘a total and existentiell decision in freedom’’ (241/239). Indeed, the Gospels record that many others who had the same immediate personal experience did not become believers. 66. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 241*/238. 67. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 242*/239. 68. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 242*/239–40. 69. ‘‘The word ‘revelation’ serves as a categorial expression for those worldly experiences, domains of experience and aspects of experience, in which the human person recognises signals, signs and symbols, through which the unsayable divine mystery discloses itself to him or her’’ (Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell [London: SCM Press, 1984], 116–17*; translation of Der Gott Jesu Christi [Mainz: Matthias-Gru¨newald-Verlag, 1982], 152). 70. Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, 123*/159. 71. Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, 117–18*/153. 72. Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, 121*/157. 73. Marion, ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 61/79. 74. Marion, ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 62/80. 75. Marion, ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 64–65/83. 76. The added ‘‘is’’ is Marion’s interpolation. 77. In another context, where he doesn’t explicitly mention love, Marion offers some rich reflections on how an act can be at once properly mine, and yet given to me. In the final book of Being Given, he sets out his understanding of the adonne´ as the one who ‘‘receives himself from what he receives’’ (BG 322*/ 442). The adonne´ does not take on the subject’s role even though it remains at Notes

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the centre of phenomenality ‘‘as a pole of givenness’’ (BG 322/442) that transforms the given into a phenomenon that is shown (BG 264/364). Marion’s analysis of the adonne´ here is a more nuanced appreciation of the complex relation between the given and its receiver than in any other part of Being Given. This complexity is most evident in Marion’s account of call and response, in which he emphasizes that although the initiative always rests with the call, a call is only shown in the response that comes after it: ‘‘The call gives itself phenomenologically only by first showing itself in a response. The response that gives itself after the call nevertheless is the first to show it’’ (BG 285/393). Such a response, which ‘‘performs the call,’’ and in which ‘‘the adonne´ renders visible and audible what gives itself,’’ is named by Marion as a ‘‘responsal [re´pons]’’ (BG 288/397). However, as I argued earlier (Chap. 1, ‘‘The Adonne´ as Passive Recipient’’), Marion does not maintain a complementarity between the active and passive dimensions of reception, with his account of the responsal ultimately making it more of a reaction than the response of a human agent. 78. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 158–59*/197. 79. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 166*/205. 80. ‘‘If what reveals itself is always summed up in Love, then only the look that believes, and therefore only the will that loves, can welcome it. Thus only the conversion of the look can render the eye apt to recognise the blinding evidence of love in what bedazzles it. Standing before Christ on the Cross, . . . those who do not accept to love him see nothing, except the confirmation of their denial; those who do love him . . . [see] the highest figure of God, royal in his kenosis. The same single figure thus provokes this ambivalence, not because it is itself weighted with the least ambiguity, but because each mind [esprit] uses its own measure to interpret it’’ (Marion, ‘‘Evidence and Bedazzlement,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 66*/85). 81. See my earlier discussion of this passage (Chap. 7, ‘‘In Excess: ‘The Icon or the Endless Hermeneutic’ ’’). Naming this approach to another person as ‘‘faith’’ is consistent with a 1983 essay in which Marion describes ethical injunction as a summons which calls me to render myself open to another person by surrendering to him or her in faith (Marion, ‘‘The Intentionality of Love,’’ in Prolegomena to Charity, 100–1/120). 82. ‘‘It is necessary for me to wait for the manifestation of the face of the other person as I must wait for the return of Christ. . . . The hermeneutic of the saturated phenomenon of the other person becomes, in Christian theology, one of the figures of faith, thus of the eschatological wait for the manifestation of the Christ. Because it is always deferred to the end of time, theological faith imposes itself as the sole correct approach to the face of the other’’ (IE 124*/149–50). 83. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 183–86/223–26. 84. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 191/231. 85. Marion attributes this objection to Derrida. However, in Derrida’s response to the paper that was the initial version of this study, he rejects Marion’s characterization of his position. (‘‘Derrida’s Response to Jean-Luc Marion,’’ in 260

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God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon [Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999], 42–45.) 86. ‘‘At issue is not so much a strict form of denomination, since, according to the same text, prayer does not consist in causing the invoked one to descend into the realm of our language . . . but in elevating ourselves toward the one invoked by sustained attention. The approach of prayer always consists simply in de-nominating, not naming properly, but setting out to intend God in all impropriety. In this way, prayer and praise are carried out in the very same operation of an indirect aim’’ (IE 144/173–74).

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Index

adequation, 63–65, 67, 71–74, 95, 135, 174, 217, 232n21, 235n19, 236n21, 238n30, 238n41 Husserlian, 67, 71, 74, 236n20, 242n25 adumbration, 62, 91 amazement, 30, 92–93, 96–97 anamorphosis, 55, 76, 80, 159–60, 163–68, 173, 176, 233n26, 250n2, 251n9 Aquinas. See Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 201–2 being, 3–4, 7–9, 15, 17, 20–24, 36, 39–41, 49, 54–55, 82, 84–88, 127, 146–47, 150, 177, 206–7, 224n1, 240n8, 244n7, 254n33 Benoist, Jocelyn, 196–97, 212, 237n29, 238n31, 238n39, 243n37, 245n8, 258n40 Berkeley, George, 5 Bernet, Rudolf, 131, 142, 151–54, 157 birth, 22, 28, 32, 46, 48–53, 79, 99, 102–4, 108, 110–11, 113, 150, 198, 232n19, 242n29 La Boe´tie, E´tienne, 44, 80, 102, 113–14, 231n15

Bongiovanni, Secondo, 225n9 Brentano, Franz, 6 Bultmann, Rudolf, 181, 206–7, 258n55 call, 9–10, 23, 25–29, 32, 173, 227n25, 229n38, 260n77 and response, 9, 27–28, 227n24, 260n77 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, 27 Chre´tien, Jean-Louis, 8–9, 227n24 constitute/d, 2, 8–13, 18, 24, 92, 101–2, 104, 114, 137, 148, 189, 225n9 constituted objects, 7, 10, 15, 68, 90, 93–94, 97, 99, 109, 112, 115, 119, 127, 132, 134, 149, 152, 157–59, 161, 167–70, 172–74, 180, 185, 191, 230n3 constituted phenomena, 11–12, 30, 81, 105, 123–24, 134, 143, 160, 191, 224n3, 228n34 constituted witness, 10, 163, 165, 186 and ego, 182 and flesh and body, 156–57 and intuition, 189, 191 constitution, 6–8, 19, 37, 63, 88, 97, 101, 109–10, 131, 148, 152, 172, 191, 228n34, 234n5 279

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Husserlian, 20, 142, 149 Kantian, 105, 108–10, 131 corporality, 142, 146, 148–49, 153–54, 156 death, 22, 48, 79, 99, 102–3, 174, 232n19, 242n27, 243n35 Jesus’, 188–90, 192, 201, 255n15 Derrida, Jacques, 2, 8–9, 223n24, 260n85 Descartes, Rene´, 2–8, 22, 37, 41, 47, 63, 82–83, 116, 137–38, 217 and amazement, 92 Cartesian subjectivity, 116, 217 and the ego, 12–13, 20–21, 23, 33–34, 37–38, 41, 63, 137–38, 246n10 and the infinite, 251n6 and metaphysics, 240n5 Dillon, Martin, 146–47, 248n29, 249n38 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 35 Dionysius the Areopagite, 9, 203, 212–14 ecstasis, 136, 141, 149–50, 246n9 face, 4, 9–10, 11, 35, 57, 78, 80, 159–77, 183, 212, 217, 227n20, 233n26, 260n82 facticity, 33, 81, 84–87, 89, 91, 229n39, 240n6, 240n7 flesh, 10, 11, 57, 78, 80, 106, 130–58, 175–76, 183, 185, 187, 225n9 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 36, 231n10 gift, 4, 9, 17, 27, 55, 76–78, 224n27, 225n9, 227n21, 234n8, 239n3 and God, 188, 198, 200, 202–4, 207, 209–13 givenness, 6–7, 10, 14–19, 24–27, 29, 31, 33–34, 49, 55–60, 63, 66, 106, 122, 124, 136–38, 152, 158, 160, 163, 166, 169, 172, 181–84, 222n13, 224n1, 225n6, 225n9, 227n21, 227n22, 228n32, 229n41, 230n5, 233n25, 237n29, 238n33, 260n77 of the gift, 76–78 and God, 239n3 of phenomena, 2, 7, 10–12, 29, 33, 37, 58, 183, 219 280

pure/absolute, 7, 13, 16–17, 33, 55, 68, 69, 164, 176, 177, 219, 220, 224n28, 242n27 self-, 17, 136, 138, 158, 177 God, 1, 3–5, 8–9, 60, 82–83, 150, 167, 177, 178–215, 234n11, 235n12, 239n3, 243n37 the divine, 167, 195, 197, 252n18 Greisch, Jean, 35–36, 229n1, 231n14, 233n25, 251n9 Grondin, Jean, 35–36, 55–56, 229n40, 229n1 Haight, Roger, 198 Heffernan, George, 223n15 Heidegger, Martin, 2, 5, 7–11, 13, 108, 151–52, 156, 177, 178–215, 181, 194, 206–7, 219, 222n12, 223n15, 225n9, 225n11, 231n9, 242n33, 243n34 and being, 8–9, 11, 15, 20–24, 36, 37, 39–42, 49, 84–88, 224n1, 226n14, 233n25, 240n8, 254n33 and birth, 232n19 Cartesian tendencies of, 47 and Christianity, 194–95, 197–98 and coexistence, 254n33 and Dasein, 20–25, 33, 39–42, 45, 47, 49–55, 84, 86, 91, 177, 197, 232n19, 240n8, 241n14, 254n32 and death, 232n19, 243n35 and facticity, 84, 86, 91, 240n6, 240n7 and givenness, 225n9 and hermeneutics, 35–39, 41, 52, 147, 194–95, 214, 251n9 and phenomena, 15, 17–20, 56, 147, 149, 180, 225n7, 232n19 and phenomenology, 180, 232n20, 233n3 and possibility, 232n20 and understanding, 38–41, 214, 233n25 Henry, Michel, 2, 8, 10, 23, 123, 130–31, 142, 144, 146–55, 157, 224n26, 226n16, 248n23, 249n31, 252n16 hermeneutics, 13, 20, 21, 35–56, 101, 104, 112–16, 127–29, 147, 194–96, 214, 220 hermeneutic circle, 56, 228n30

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Holbein, Hans, 163 Holzer, Vincent, 256n26 horizon, 2, 4, 11, 44–45, 47, 53, 58, 62–63, 65, 73, 88, 90, 93–94, 102, 126, 133, 135, 162, 180, 182, 185, 215, 235n16, 246n8, and being, 177, 254n33 and projection, 47, 50, 52, 53, 62 Horner, Robyn, 3, 196, 224n27, 230n4, 239n1, 242n26, 243n2 Husserl, Edmund, 2, 5–11, 13, 15, 25, 84, 93, 125, 131, 135, 144, 222n13, 222n15, 223n15, 224n1, 235n16, 238n30, 240n6, 251n6, 252n16 and adequation, 63–64, 67, 71–74, 217, 232n21, 236n20, 242n25 and affection, 137, 148, 157 and body and flesh, 131, 138, 142–44, 147, 151–57, 246n13, 246n14, 247n18, 247n19, 247n20, 247n22, 249n37 and constitution, 20, 149 and ego, 20, 23, 63, 151 and idealism, 73 and immanence, 37–38, 228n33 and intention/ality, 6, 67, 69–72, 74, 121, 149, 151–52, 238n30, 239n42 and intuition, 6, 62, 65, 67, 69–71, 74, 238n30, 238n39 and passive synthesis, 30, 241n16 and phenomenology, 23, 33, 37, 59, 61–65, 70–71, 164, 181, 183, 219, 222n12, 224n26, 230n5, 239n5 and principle of principles, 7, 61–63 and psychologism, 6 and revelation, 181 and saturated phenomena, 59, 65, 67, 219 and transcendence, 181, 183, 228n33 icon, 4, 35, 78, 80, 106, 120, 127, 159–77, 183, 185–86, 217, 233n26, 244n7 idealism, 6, 22, 73, 144 idol, 76, 80, 106, 117–29, 159, 166–69, 183, 212–13, 217, 233n26, 251n14, 252n18 intention/ality, 6, 10, 13, 62, 90, 112,

119–22, 127, 167–68, 173–77, 212, 225n6, 239n42, 242n25, 252n16, 253n28, 253n29 and adequation, 64, 235n19, 235n20 counter/reversed intentionality/ consciousness, 10, 127, 171, 186, 212, 252n16, 253n31 and flesh, 136, 139, 148–53, 246n9 and horizon, 63 and immanence and transcendence, 37–38 and intuition, 65, 67–74, 94–95, 103–4, 112, 122, 232n21, 236n20, 238n30, 242n25 and love, 170–72 and the Other, 170 and phenomena, 30, 159–62, 164 and saturated phenomena, 57, 67, 106 intuition, 1, 6–7, 11, 24, 59, 62, 64–66, 113, 117–18, 126, 129, 235n16, 237n27, 238n41, 241n15 and adequation, 64, 242n25 excess of, 58, 67, 95, 97–98, 104–6, 112, 173, 175–76, 187 inner intuition, 131, 135 and intention, 65, 67–74, 94–95, 103–4, 112, 122, 232n21, 236n20, 238n30, 242n25 and perception, 245n4 and phenomena/lity, 57, 63, 64, 94–95, 104, 135, 243n1, 245n3 and revelation, 187–89, 191 and saturated phenomena, 58–59, 67, 91, 97–98, 105–6, 110–11, 130, 236n25, 236n26, 238n39, 238n40 and signification, 237n29 Janicaud, Dominque, 178, 197, 239n3 Jesus Christ, 178, 184–86, 188–93, 196, 199–202, 208, 210, 212, 215, 218, 256n18, 256n19, 256n24, 257n33, 259n65 Kandinsky, Wassily, 123 Kant, Immanuel, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 59, 61, 64, 83–84, 109, 111, 118, 130, 236n22, 236n27, 241n16, 243n1, 245n6 Index

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and appearances, 131–35, 241n15, 245n1, 245n2 and constitution, 105, 108–10 and experience, 61, 63, 131–35, 245n6 and Husserl, 63–64 and intuition, 6, 65–66, 70, 74, 91, 118, 235n19, 236n27, 241n15 Kantianism, 29, 34, 60, 67, 116, 217, 235n12 and metaphysics, 59, 61, 251n4 and passive synthesis, 241n16 and phenomena/lity, 60–61, 64, 100, 102, 105, 109–11, 130, 132–35, 161–62, 235n19, 241n2, 245n2 and possibility, 59–60 and pure reason, 243n35 and saturated phenomena, 57, 59, 66, 91–92, 110–11, 133, 178, 217, 220, 236n25 and the sublime, 66, 251n6 and successive synthesis, 30, 91–92, 96, 100–101 table of categories, 11, 57, 66, 76, 91, 105, 109, 117, 130, 160–61, 178, 217, 219–20, 236n25, 236n26, 236n27 Kasper, Walter, 207–9, 259n70 Kearney, Richard, 35, 229n1 Kisiel, Theodore J., 230n9 Kosky, Jeffrey L., 224n27, 227n19, 227n26, 228n36, 239n1, 240n6, 241n18, 241n21, 250n1 language, 8, 55, 255n13, 261n86 Larmore, Charles, 232n18 LaVerdiere, Eugene, 256n19 Leibniz, Gottfried, 4, 23, 59–61, 234n7, 234n8, 234n11, 235n12 Levinas, Emmanuel, 2, 8–10, 23, 25, 160, 170–72, 177, 226n15, 250n3, 251n14, 252n16, 253n27, 254n33 Lorrain, Claude, 244n8 Marchand, Andre´, 249n29 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 131, 142, 144–49, 151–57, 225n9, 241n19, 249n29, 250n38, 252n16 metaphysics, 3–5, 7–8, 17, 22–23, 58–59, 282

61, 75, 81–83, 131, 148–49, 151, 157, 180, 234n7, 240n5, 243n1, 251n4 Moloney, Francis J., 200–1, 257n39 Monet, Claude, 121–22, 244n16 de Montaigne, Michel, 44, 80, 102, 113–14, 231n15 noesis, 6, 64, 138 ontology, 7, 82, 104, 144, 146, 226n15, 231n9, 254n33 onto-theology, 1, 20, 177 otherness/alterity, 8–10, 22, 42, 171, 253n22 painting, 11, 57, 78, 80, 92–93, 94, 96, 117–29, 225n8, 233n26 Pascal, Blaise, 5, 83 phenomenology, 2, 6–8, 12–13, 16–18, 20, 26, 36–37, 58–59, 67–68, 72, 74, 81, 98, 104, 109, 142, 144, 148, 150, 164, 172, 178, 180, 197, 217, 246n8, 250n3, 252n16, 252n18 and flesh, 142, 148, 151 of givenness, 2, 7, 10–13, 15, 18, 23, 33–35, 37, 54, 59, 63, 69, 106, 216, 219, 222n12, 224n3, 228n33, 233n25, 243n1 and Heidegger, 149, 180, 232n20, 233n3 and hermeneutics, 37 Husserlian phenomenology, 5, 59, 144, 164, 230n5, 235n16 and the invisible, 149 Marion’s, 197, 214, 217–18, 232n20 and metaphysics, 151, 157 and religious experience, 196–97 and religious phenomena, 180, 215, 218 and saturated phenomena, 110, 218, 220 and theology, 150, 178, 181–82, 194, 196–97, 218, 233n2, 255n8 Plato, 118, 124, 238n38 Pollock, Jackson, 121–22, 244n16 possibility, 4, 11, 20–22, 47–48, 50,

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53–54, 83, 114–15, 149, 180–85, 224n1, 226n14, 232n18, 232n20, 233n3, 241n22, 256n26 absolute, 181 and Dasein, 20, 22, 41, 232n19 excess of, 103 Kant on, 59–60 impossibility, 9 phenomenological, 194, 196, 218, 255n8 Proust, Marcel, 90, 114–15 psychologism, 6 Rahner, Karl, 207–8, 259n62, 259n65 Ratzinger, Joseph, 205–6 realism, 73, 144, 148 reduction, 4, 8, 16, 23, 100, 105, 107, 108, 110, 144, 224n1, 230n5 eidetic, 144 of events, 107, 112, 233n26 to givenness, 15, 30, 69, 123–24, 222n12, 224n1, 238n33, 238n34 phenomenological, 17, 63, 125, 181, 183, 222n13, 230n5, 239n5 responsal, 29, 32, 227n26, 227n27, 260n77 revelation, 1, 11, 57, 84, 106, 178–215 Ricard, Marie-Andre´e, 37–38, 228n33, 229n40 Ricoeur, Paul, 7, 230n3, 231n10, 240n6 Rogozinski, Jacob, 238n34 Romano, Claude, 20–23, 37, 52, 54, 113–14, 225n11, 231n16, 238n33 and advenant, 48–53 and birth, 49–51, 113 and evential hermeneutics, 41–48, 54, 113, 116, 231n14, 239n1 and flesh, 131, 142, 153–57, 249n37 and friendship, 114, 231n15 and possibility, 53–54, 232n19 and selfhood, 48, 114 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 151, 161, 168, 171–72, 252n16, 253n27

Schelling, Friedrich, 84 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 35 selfhood, 17–18, 45, 48, 50, 52, 114, 139, 217, 225n9, 232n18 Sua´rez, Francisco, 83 subjectivity, 18, 24–25, 45, 68–69, 105, 116, 172, 183, 217, 222n13, 238n31 sublime, 66, 251n6 subsumption, 69, 70 sufficient reason, principle of, 4, 60–61, 180, 182, 234n7, 234n11 synthesis/e, 30–31, 63, 91–92, 96–97, 100–2, 105, 113, 117, 163, 228n34, 230n3, 235n19, 236n19, 241n16 theology/theological, 1–2, 9–10, 149, 151, 174, 178–79, 181–84, 187, 194, 196, 207, 210, 212–14, 218, 233n2, 260n82 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 202–4 time, 4, 30, 45, 62, 87, 89, 93–94, 99, 102, 113, 126, 131, 133, 135, 161, 230n3, 237n27, 245n4, 251n6 transcendence, 8, 21, 42, 124, 136, 141–42, 144, 152, 167, 181, 183, 215, 218, 259n62 absolute, 175, 177 God’s, 198, 213, 215 and immanence, 37–38, 142, 144, 228n33 Turner, William, 122, 244n8 Vatican I, 204–6 Vatican II, 205–6 Wagner, Harold, 206, 258n55 Welten, Ruud, 252n16 Zarader, Marle`ne, 68–69

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Perspectives in Continental Philosophy Series John D. Caputo, series editor

John D. Caputo, ed., Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. Michael Strawser, Both/And: Reading Kierkegaard—From Irony to Edification. Michael D. Barber, Ethical Hermeneutics: Rationality in Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation. James H. Olthuis, ed., Knowing Other-wise: Philosophy at the Threshold of Spirituality. James Swindal, Reflection Revisited: Ju¨rgen Habermas’s Discursive Theory of Truth. Richard Kearney, Poetics of Imagining: Modern and Postmodern. Second edition. Thomas W. Busch, Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorporation—Essays on Late Existentialism. Edith Wyschogrod, Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics. Second edition. Francis J. Ambrosio, ed., The Question of Christian Philosophy Today. Jeffrey Bloechl, ed., The Face of the Other and the Trace of God: Essays on the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Ilse N. Bulhof and Laurens ten Kate, eds., Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology. Trish Glazebrook, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Science. Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, and Philosophy. Mark C. Taylor, Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard. Second edition. Dominique Janicaud, Jean-Franc¸ois Courtine, Jean-Louis Chre´tien, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricœur, Phenomenology and the ‘‘Theological Turn’’: The French Debate.

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Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt. Introduction by Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. Jean-Luc Marion, The Idol and Distance: Five Studies. Translated with an introduction by Thomas A. Carlson. Jeffrey Dudiak, The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas. Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits of Phenomenology. Mark Dooley, The Politics of Exodus: Søren Keirkegaard’s Ethics of Responsibility. Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith. Edith Wyschogrod, Jean-Joseph Goux, and Eric Boynton, eds., The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice. Stanislas Breton, The Word and the Cross. Translated with an introduction by Jacquelyn Porter. Jean-Luc Marion, Prolegomena to Charity. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Peter H. Spader, Scheler’s Ethical Personalism: Its Logic, Development, and Promise. Jean-Louis Chre´tien, The Unforgettable and the Unhoped For. Translated by Jeffrey Bloechl. Don Cupitt, Is Nothing Sacred? The Non-Realist Philosophy of Religion: Selected Essays. Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena. Translated by Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud. Phillip Goodchild, Rethinking Philosophy of Religion: Approaches from Continental Philosophy. William J. Richardson, S.J., Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. Jeffrey Andrew Barash, Martin Heidegger and the Problem of Historical Meaning. Jean-Louis Chre´tien, Hand to Hand: Listening to the Work of Art. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Jean-Louis Chre´tien, The Call and the Response. Translated with an introduction by Anne Davenport. D. C. Schindler, Han Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth: A Philosophical Investigation. Julian Wolfreys, ed., Thinking Difference: Critics in Conversation. Allen Scult, Being Jewish/Reading Heidegger: An Ontological Encounter. Richard Kearney, Debates in Continental Philosophy: Conversations with Contemporary Thinkers. Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Heidegger, Ho¨lderlin, and the Subject of Poetic Language: Towards a New Poetics of Dasein. Jolita Pons, Stealing a Gift: Kirkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible. Jean-Yves Lacoste, Experience and the Absolute: Disputed Questions on the Humanity of Man. Translated by Mark Raftery-Skehan. Charles P. Bigger, Between Chora and the Good: Metaphor’s Metaphysical Neighborhood.

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Dominique Janicaud, Phenomenology ‘‘Wide Open’’: After the French Debate. Translated by Charles N. Cabral. Ian Leask and Eoin Cassidy, eds., Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion. Jacques Derrida, Sovereignties in Question: The Poetics of Paul Celan. Edited by Thomas Dutoit and Outi Pasanen. William Desmond, Is There a Sabbath for Thought? Between Religion and Philosophy. Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba, eds., The Phenomoenology of Prayer. S. Clark Buckner and Matthew Statler, eds., Styles of Piety: Practicing Philosophy after the Death of God. Kevin Hart and Barbara Wall, eds., The Experience of God: A Postmodern Response. John Panteleimon Manoussakis, After God: Richard Kearney and the Religious Turn in Continental Philosophy. John Martis, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: Representation and the Loss of the Subject. Jean-Luc Nancy, The Ground of the Image. Edith Wyschogrod, Crossover Queries: Dwelling with Negatives, Embodying Philosophy’s Others. Gerald Bruns, On the Anarchy of Poetry and Philosophy: A Guide for the Unruly. Brian Treanor, Aspects of Alterity: Levinas, Marcel, and the Contemporary Debate. Simon Morgan Wortham, Counter-Institutions: Jacques Derrida and the Question of the University. Leonard Lawlor, The Implications of Immanence: Toward a New Concept of Life. Clayton Crockett, Interstices of the Sublime: Theology and Psychoanalytic Theory. Bettina Bergo, Joseph Cohen, and Raphael Zagury-Orly, eds., Judeities: Questions for Jacques Derrida. Translated by Bettina Bergo and Michael B. Smith. Jean-Luc Marion, On the Ego and on God: Further Cartesian Questions. Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner. Jean-Luc Nancy, Philosophical Chronicles. Translated by Franson Manjali. Jean-Luc Nancy, Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity. Translated by Bettina Bergo, Gabriel Malenfant, and Michael B. Smith. Andrea Hurst, Derrida Vis-a`-vis Lacan: Interweaving Deconstruction and Psychoanalysis. Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body. Translated by Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas. Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am. Edited by Marie-Louise Mallet, translated by David Wills. Jean-Luc Marion, The Visible and the Revealed. Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner and others. Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology. Translated by Scott Davidson. Jean-Luc Nancy, Corpus. Translated by Richard A. Rand. Joshua Kates, Fielding Derrida. Michael Naas, Derrida From Now On. Shannon Sullivan and Dennis J. Schmidt, eds., Difficulties of Ethical Life.

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Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain? Translated by Sebastian Rand, Introduction by Marc Jeannerod. Claude Romano, Event and World. Translated by Shane Mackinlay. Vanessa Lemm, Nietzsche’s Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics, and the Animality of the Human Being. B. Keith Putt, ed., Gazing Through a Prism Darkly: Reflections on Merold Westphal’s Hermeneutical Epistemology. Eric Boynton and Martin Kavka, eds., Saintly Influence: Edith Wyschogrod and the Possibilities of Philosophy of Religion. Kevin Hart and Michael A. Signer, eds., The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians.

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