Phenomenology "wide open": after the French debate 9780823275106, 9780823224470, 9780823224463

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Translator's Preface (page xi)
1. From Controversy to Debate (page 1)
2. An Atheist Phenomenology? (page 13)
3. The Avatars of First Philosophy (page 27)
4. Articulations/Disarticulations (page 46)
5. Toward a "Minimalist" Phenomenology: The End of Overbidding (page 64)
Notes (page 83)
Index (page 103)

Citation preview

Phenomenology “Wide Open”

Series Board James Bernauer Drucilla Cornell Thomas R. Flynn

Kevin Hart

Jean-Luc Marion Adriaan Peperzak Richard Kearney Thomas Sheehan Hent de Vries Merold Westphal Edith Wyschogrod Michael Zimmerman

John D. Caputo, verte editor

PERSPECTIVES IN CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

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DOMINIQUE JANICAUD

Phenomenology “Wide Open” After the French Debate Translated by Charles N. Cabral

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York ua 2005

Copyright © 2005 Fordham University Press Phenomenology “Wide Open”: After the French Debate was originally published in French under the title La phénoménologie eclatée, © 1998, Editions de |’Eclat.

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. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy Series ISSN 1089-3938 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Janicaud, Dominique, 1937— [Phénoménologie éclatée. English] Phenomenology “wide open” : after the French debate / Dominique Janicaud ;

p- cm. — (Perspectives in continental philosophy ; no. 42) Includes index. ISBN 0-8232-2446-5 (hardcover)

1. Phenomenology. I. Title. II. Series. B2430 .J283P4413 2005

142’ .7 —dc22 2005000952

Printed in the United States of America

07 06 0554321 First edition

But why is it necessary to defend or to celebrate reason? Why exempt it so quickly from the examination of its effects, be they

ambivalent and agonizing? Why cast embarrassed glances toward the vocabulary —and the realities — of power, force, and

domination? Why this rush to use the water of reason to wash the hands of so many modern-day Pontius Pilates whose beloved research “results” are frequently questioned? — Dominique Janicaud, Powers of the Rational

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Contents

Trandlator’s Preface x1

1. From Controversy to Debate 1 2. An Atheist Phenomenology? 13

3. The Avatars of First Philosophy 27

4. Articulations/Disarticulations 46

Noteo 83 Index 103 Overbidding 64

5. Toward a “Minimalist” Phenomenology: The End of

“x

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Translator’s Preface

This text represents the third in a series, having been preceded by “The ‘Theological Turn’ of French Phenomenology” and ‘“Phenome-

nology and Theology,” which were published together in English under the title Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn”: The French De-

bate.' For a general introduction to the ideas of Dominique Janicaud,

I refer the reader to the excellent presentation by the translator of The “Theological Turn,” Bernard G. Prusak. It should also be mentioned that chapter 5, “Toward a ‘Minimalist’ Phenomenology” was

previously published separately as an article. That translation by Gregory Recco was modified significantly before appearing in its present form. Lastly, the translator's preface to “Phenomenology and Theology” by Jeffrey L. Kosky brings up a very significant issue of this debate. That is the question of the openness of phenomenology; within limits, and beyond these limits. I recommend that text highly. “Ts to translate a disinterested act? If it is not already the case for a diplomat or a businessman, what can be said of the philosopher” ?? With these words, Dominique Janicaud presents a major part of this debate in phenomenology. On a certain level, there will always be disagreement in translating thoughts and ideas from one language to another. A translator must remain vigilant to express the notions presented with neutrality and with a respect for the author’s intentions. Things easily go awry when a writer uses quotations from other texts to justify his own creative inspirations. In Phenomenology “Wide Open,” XL

the critique of Jean-Luc Marion falls along these lines. “To systematically translate the Husserlian Gegebenheit by ‘givenness’ and the Hei-

deggerian Geben by the same word is not only inexact, it leads to serious deformations. %

The same issue arises in chapter 4 of this text. As with chapter 3, the influence of the language used determines much of the meaning implied in the critique. There are moments when the passage from German into French does not have the same verbal force, “hidden” meaning, or connotation when related in English. Furthermore, any discussion of the relationship between phenomenology and hermeneutics requires extreme caution. The meaning of meaning is at stake.

I have tried to remain as faithful as possible to the spirit of the French text, which may have caused some awkwardness on occasion.

In any case, there is a deliberate and decisive French “feel” to this translation. In addition, as translator, I have used an asterisk to indicate that I have modified the quoted translation or translated a title or passage. Translator’s notes are indicated by “—Trans.” in the notes section. Certain key words tend to resist translation. An obvious example of this is the phenomenological vwée. Throughout the text, when key

words appear, they are translated and then placed in parentheses. This is also the case with words that lose their ambivalence in English like “sense” and “meaning” (ven). The choice to retain the original terms was not intended to make the translation cluttered or more

difficult to read—although this may be the unfortunate result. Rather, this tactic aims at leaving the text open and granting greater access to it. “Controversy will never be an end in itself, apart from some kind

of small-talk notion which comes up when there is nothing else to chew on at the philosopher’s banquet.’”4 Dominique Janicaud never shied away from controversy, polemics, and most especially, from discussion. If this situation has continued to provoke discussion and debate for over a decade already, it must be because Dominique Janicaud really put his finger on something pertinent. From a theological

turn, to discussion of an atheistic phenomenology, to the ramifications of first philosophy, or to a re-evaluation of the relationship between hermeneutics and phenomenology, what is at issue are the various and varying forms of the phenomenological movement itself.

Janicaud’s acute insights into all the facets of this situation stand alone. Yet, more questions remain. xu om Translator’s Preface

Is phenomenology in jeopardy? Will the phenomenological movement survive intact amongst the ever-expanding adherence to some part of this doctrine? Will phenomenology cease to be a major influ-

ence in contemporary continental philosphy and beyond? Are we dealing with a purely and intrinsically French phenomenon in the vast domain of all philosophy? Can some resolution be brought about

through the limitation, or de-limitation, of our sphere of investigation? Will we ever “succeed in lifting the ambivalence out of the phenomenological project’’?®

Dominique Janicaud advises us to consider a “minimalist” approach. This would have to be one that invites us to leave phenome-

nology open to its greatest possibilities. We must consider “the scientific and metaphysical overinvestment of phenomenology. ’® yet,

in the end, “it is a question of imagining that phenomenology may finally and truly escape this unifying and foundational tendency (a new version of the transcendental illusion?) that has driven it to overburden immanence with a transcendence that is none other than that of subjectivity in its various guises and at its various levels.’ Let us hope that this text will further the ongoing debate in the Englishspeaking world. I am deeply grateful for the assistance several people contributed to me and to this project. There are many who have played an important role in its realization. I am genuinely indebted to Barbara, Mimi,

Edward J., Shane, Marie-Gabrielle, Michel, and Marie-Héléne without whom this translation would not exist. I wish also to thank the Jesuit Community of Boston College to whose continuous support I owe a great deal. Finally, I must say a few words about my professor and mentor whose untimely death has left a profound void. From the very instant I first encountered La putssance du rationnel (Powers of the Rational),®

Dominique Janicaud fundamentally expanded my thinking and my quest within philosophy. Over the years, his unending kindness, generosity, friendship, and direction continually enhanced my personal and intellectual development. My most sincere thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues for a man who can never be replaced or forgotten. He will remain with me always. Charles N. Cabral Avignon, 2005

Translator’s Preface m= xt

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From Controversy to Debate

Two nearly antithetical reports are at the origin of this new essay on French-speaking phenomenology. On the one hand, while remaining the target of harsh methodological criticism,! phenomenological research has experienced a veritable proliferation which can only encourage the interested scholar to

inquire about the various forms of this surprising vitality and to question the reasons for it. On the other hand, this creativity, which claims a phenomenological inspiration with obviously uneven degrees of felicity, extends into greatly divergent directions. The analyses formerly proposed in the “Theological Turn’? and in La philosophie en Europe® have thus proved

to be both confirmed and surpassed. They indeed seem to have been

confirmed for the most part; but, in an effort to avoid being both judge and jury, we will limit ourselves to giving as clear and impartial evidence as possible.

These analyses are also surpassed by their own intentions and goals, insofar as a serious reflection upon the method in phenomenol-

ogy brings with it a series of chain reactions that call into question the whole of phenomenology. Can the “Theological Turn” be disassociated from the other modifications (either methodological, ontological, existential, or critical), some of which were already present—at least to some extent—as traces or virtualities in Husserl’s works?

I

Hence a double constraint results: to prevent the necessary debate from being extinguished over the methodological demands of any phenomenology worthy of its name; and to avoid becoming isolated within a controversy which, having had its share of legitimacy, risks becoming sterile by limiting itself to the reinforcement of a relatively limited sphere. Even though it defines a delicate situation, this double

constraint may not render the task impossible under the condition that some precautions be taken. Indeed, we must avoid a remake, which would inevitably take on a style of 0a vu. The return of Tarzan is always less exciting than his first appearance out of the jungle. In the following pages, we wanted

to do more than simply return to what was already said, showing how right we were all down the line. The reader will judge if the author has succeeded in not limiting himself to reheating a dish that was already seven years old. Returning to the “Theological Turn,” having indeed appeared as both necessary and insufficient, it may prove useful and instructive to re-examine at least some of the important points that the discussions on this essay were able to bring out. This little book was without a doubt perceived as more controversial that it actually was. Even if certain passages may actually have had a somewhat corrosive character, what was essential was certainly not to be found there. The goal of the “Theological Turn” was to shake some dust off phenomenological studies and to provoke a debate on the method within this domain. Did this debate take place? At least it was started. Yet, we could also object that it was too often centered

on the label the “Theological Turn,” neglecting what was brought into question via this debate —namely, an overly confident or even

excessively presumptuous conception of the “possibilities” of phenomenology (and at the same time, an overly confident, overly disciplinary, imperious, and almost imperialist exercise of phenomenology). No doubt, in all honesty, the attribution “theological” should have been placed in parentheses since it was used ironically and almost by

disregard. At no time had I claimed that the phenomenologists who

are criticized had become theologians, in the strict sense of the term‘ —either as if they had become exegetes of the Revelation, or as if they directly professed a theology, whether rational or mystical. If I once used the expression “our new theologians,’ it was obviously cum grano salts. The literal sense would have taken all the spice out of

the affair, which consisted precisely in that the surreptitious turn toward the Other, the arch-original, the pure givenness, etc. occurred 2 a Phenomenology ‘Wide Open”

at the very heart of the most confirmed phenomenological pretensions.

Was it a question of a more religious than theological turn?® Such is the spirit of the recent book by Michel Henry, / Am the Truth. Yet,

apart from the fact that it had not been published in 1991, it could not have been adapted to qualify the earlier writings of this author as religious. In a similar way, Emmanuel Lévinas tried to maintain a clear difference between his philosophical writings and, for example, his Talmudic lectures’ on a different scale. The same thing goes for Marion: Reduction and Givennedd is not a religious book either in a dog-

matic sense, or by virtue of its spiritual influence. (On the other hand, this last eventuality is not to be excluded for the majority of works by Jean-Louis Chrétien.®°)

Had I only made mention of a “metaphysical turn, one could have rightly objected that my framework was too large and that it remained rather undetermined. Metaphysical in what sense? Certainly, Emmanuel Lévinas lays claim to the metaphysical momentum

of Plato and Descartes, but others are more mindful to explore the

resources of immanence (Henry) or to attempt explicitly to free themselves from metaphysics (Marion). Are our new phenomenologists all metaphysicians for the same reasons and on the same level? Hav-

ing responded negatively to this question, it was logical and beneficial to have refrained from forming an amalgam and to have noted the difference between “general metaphysics” and “special metaphysics’ —a distinction that may not be pointless despite its apparent formalism. All things considered, from the moment the historical context had

been delimited without ambiguity and it was equally clear that the question asked concerned the method of phenomenology, was the attribute “theological” so inappropriate, considering the liberties taken in relation to a consistent “methodological atheism”? What's more, even if the connotation of “theological” remains a bit controversial, did it prove to be so degrading? And did it not intend to raise a prob-

lem which had been more or less eluded up until that point by the authors in question? In the end, and rightly SO, no one could really contest that there had been a turn in French phenomenology. Yet, some would have preferred that we had qualified it otherwise, or perhaps that we had not qualified it at all. Each author would certainly have had his own version of a decidedly very complex turn. Was it unqualifiable? Let us nevertheless imagine what would have been the reactions if I had

From Controversy to Debate a 3

entitled my essay, “The Unqualifiable Turn of French Phenomenology”!

Making Good Use of the Controversy Should what was written seven years ago be prolonged and completed? Or, on the contrary, should it be corrected? In fact, we don't really have a choice: the two paths are compatible and even complementary. The “Theological Turn” established a summation and intended to be an initial clarification within the domain of the history of contemporary ideas: on this point, it is always possible and to be

hoped for that one can become more precise and clearer (and this demand is necessary, given the extent of the unquestionable vitality of French phenomenology and of the French phenomenological movement).? An ulterior motive came in to spice up the affair: it has to do with contesting the faulty phenomenological evidence of notions which, though clearly inspired and profoundly philosophical,

seemed to forget (or abusively appealed to) the limitations or requirements that should have guaranteed their methodological specificity. This task necessarily brought along with it a critical exercise, perhaps even controversy. Did we go too far in this direction?!°

Controversy has never been absent in philosophy, including among the greatest philosophers. Even after the decline of the medieval dwputatio, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant, just to name a few of the most prestigious, did not miss the opportunity to respond or to object

at times in a lively pitch. What can we say about Schopenhauer or Kierkegaard against Hegel, or of Marx against Proudhon and Diihring? The problem is not to know if we need controversy in philosophy but rather how to debate and on what level. Controversy will never be an end in itself, apart from some kind of small talk notion!! which comes up when there is nothing else to chew on at the philoso-

phers’ banquet. This was never the goal, even in The “Theological Turn.”

One will see that this “examination of conscience’ was itself double: it was both “scientific” and methodological. Our personal reflec-

tion benefited from the reactions, critical remarks, and the discussions evoked by The “Theological Turn.”'? Taking advantage of

a certain distancing and of all these echoes which characterize and enrich a true dialogue, we shall now attempt to develop and extend the discussion on the direction, the possibilities, and the limits of phenomenology, beyond making a simple summary of the book’s ““reception.” 4 um Phenomenology “Wide Open’

In supposing that the theses raised in The “Theological Turn” are

known, we shall avoid repeating them here, except to highlight, deeming it preferable to resume the discussion, taking into account the most significant direct or indirect reactions, questions, and objections.

Initially, an indirect reply shall be the focus of our attention. In 1992, a small collection of conference essays by Jean-Louis Chrétien,

Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, and Paul Ricoeur was published. Within this small book, the “Theological Turn” was apparently ignored.'4 Nevertheless, the collection came at the end of a two-year seminar held at l’Ecole Normale Supérieure on the topic ‘“Phenome-

nology and Hermeneutics of Religion,’ a theme assuredly larger than that of the methodological status of a part of French phenomenology since the 1960s. A shrewd observer, Jocelyn Benoist, however, saw within this gathering —and without being the only one to notice it—an indirect and symbolic response to the “Theological Turn’: “In 1992, a conference organized at Rue d’Ulm (“Phenomenology and Theology’) symbolically responded to Janicaud’s pamphlet in a highly significant way by uniting Michel Henry, Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jean-Louis Chrétien. This was a collusion which in some way verifies the theses by Janicaud in The “Theological Turn” [5*

Indeed, the author of the “Theological Turn” could hardly dream of obtaining a clearer confirmation of his theses, at least on the part of Jean-Luc Marion and of Michel Henry.!* The former, concerning what he calls the “saturated phenomenon, ” paradoxically declares that his concept of “strictly phenomenological” revelation leads to “the theophany, where the surfeit of intuition leads to the paradox that an invisible gaze visibly envisages me and loves me;’” the latter, in his text entitled “Speech and Religion: The Word of God,” separates the word of the world from the word of Life, and he presents the word of Life as the word of God, the eternal auto-affection of Life, whose message is: “ You are the Sons!’’!®

This confirmation of the thesis in The “Theological Turn” acts inversely for Paul Ricoeur, whose contribution “Experience and Language in Religions Discourse’’!’ analyzes the difficulties of a phe-

nomenology of religion, especially concerning the biblical “polyphonic text.” This type of study, specifying that once the religious discourse is constituted as such it could become the object of a phenomenology, does not fall at all under the critique of The “Theological From Controversy to Debate m= 35

Turn,” where precisely the methodological rigor of Ricoeur had been recognized and heralded. Having set these benchmarks, we obviously must now refine the analysis by pushing forward with the demonstration and by avoiding the practice of making an amalgam between two authors so very dif-

ferent from one another, despite their converging points of view. While Jean-Luc Marion touts a methodological scrutiny all the stricter, knowing how contested he already is in this domain, Michel Henry is unafraid to valiantly up the bidding. The one aims at stepping things up in order to defend his very ambitious idea of a phenomenology as a first (or ‘‘last’’) philosophy; the other accepts 7, he “Theological Turn” by going even further in the direction of a Christian phenomenology, as is the case in his recent book / Am the Truth.”° Thus, the debate orients itself differently in the two cases. It shall inevitably be brief for Henry since he offers us a confirmation of our

thesis assumed up to the point of a challenge. It will have to be a more meticulous debate with Jean-Luc Marion, and, beyond the denial or acceptance of the “Theological Turn,” it will have to call into

question his incontestably “maximalist” conception of phenomenology. Numerous readers of / Am the Truth, including the theologians and

biblical scholars among them, were struck by the audacious short circuit brought about between the teachings of Jesus and the phenomenology of Life. Without any historical or hermeneutical precau-

tions, even without resorting to faith, phenomenology becomes religious and evangelical. If we can accept that “the phenomenology of Christ concerns the apparition of Christ,”?! it is otherwise at least surprising to discover a phenomenology at the core of the Trinity and to see Divine Revelation confused with the Auto-Revelation of Life.?? What becomes of the transcendence of God, and of the specificity of phenomenology as well, if we follow Henry in admitting, “the reciprocal interiority of the Father and Son, that is, the Son’s Arch-gener-

ation as the Father’s self-generation, means in phenomenological terms that each receives his glory only from the other. . . .”??5 The theologism of phenomenology is literal here, since it is the vision of God in God, yet without having justified either what “phenomenality” is at issue on this level or on what grounds we must admit a Trinitarian conception of divine life as phenomenologically evident [which, after all, the Catholic Church had to make into dogma, showing clearly that this Arch-Revelation escaped the natural comprehension of the majority of mortals (which is, moreover, still the case for 6 m Phenomenology “Wide Open”

a good part of humanity, not even counting the monotheistic religions which ignore or reject the Trinity)]. To discuss this type of “phenomenology point by point, no matter how eloquent it may be, is an exercise done in vain. The Arch is presented “take it or leave it’ since it refers to “ipseized Life in the Arch-Ipseity of the Arch-

Son ... 4 in such a way that man himself is the Son in The Son (which implies this obviously empirically “shaky” hypothesis: “‘so then, if the Son does not exist, no man is possible’).”° All we have left to do is to wonder why the appeals to phenomenology (and its deviousness) were necessary at all for such an imposing and clearly evident process as auto-revelation, which has taken, nevertheless, two thousand years to reveal itself as the identification between phenomenology and Divine Love. Jean-Luc Marion proceeds in another manner. Not that he is any less sure of himself, but he intends to justify himself through an argumentative track?® —an attitude that we would indeed expect from a philosopher trained in the Cartesian school. And if, once more, a certain appeal to phenomenology is not absent, it brings along with it precautions and strategic “tactics” (ruses) that must be identified in order to establish the relative coherence and clear limits.

Denials and Concessions We have seen that, as early as the year following its publication, the “Theological Turn” witnessed a closed-door reception from a collection of articles that otherwise kept silent on its behalf: “There is no drift or turn here, not even a ‘theological’ one. . . .”?” A new version of this gesture of denial is presented in Being Given in such a way that the hurried reader could retain only this rejection and the refusal to

admit the relevance of the critique presented in the “Theological Turn.’ Nevertheless, from the very first pages of Being Given, a whole strategy of response is formulated, which matches the author’s own refusal to make concessions (completed throughout the work)78

which do not seem totally negligible—to the extent that they acknowledge that the phenomenological evidence of the word “givenness’ is lesser in degree than its ambiguity and its strong metaphysical connotation. If the criticism formulated in the “Theological Turn” had been deemed totally irrelevant, he would not have needed to respond to it in such a detailed manner. And yet it is taken into account, but on the pretense that this criticism “although with much From Controversy to Debate ma 7

talent, most often is directed toward precisely what we did not say. °* It’s an interesting expression, since it concedes that at times I happened to reply to what was truly said —all the while pointing to an “unsaid” which raises a question. Firstly, and without retaining the (purely historical) sense of the “Theological Turn, two arguments confront me: a) that “every phenomenon must be able to describe itself” and that there is no good reason for excluding from this claim the Revelation which “has full right to fall within the domain of phenomenality,’*°* and b) that the Revelation is approached, not in its theological pretension but as a possibility of phenomenality, ‘the ultimate possibility, the paradox of paradoxes,’* without being an exception to the “principle of reduction to immanence.

The first argument grants me exactly what I proposed in the “Theological Turn”: in capitalizing the Revelation among all possible or actual revelations, Marion leaves behind the methodological neu-

trality which he otherwise lays claim to. Strictly considered, the (truly legitimate) postulation that “every phenomenon must be able to describe itself” only implies integration of the Revelation within this domain, if one has shown its phenomenal character (or that which gives itself as a phenomenon) in the said Revelation. What is there to counter the objection that would assert that the turning tables such as the ones Victor Hugo consulted in Hauteville House (as well as many other less noble paranormal revelations) also have full right to fall within the domain of phenomenality? At no time did I contest the justification for a phenomenology of religion, of religious phenomena, or even of para-religious phenomena ~ given that the descriptive rules at work in such an enterprise are clearly explained. What I contested was the alignment between revelation and Revelation and that a phenomenology —all the while claiming to be strict and neutral —sets up a kind of “structure of reception’ for a Call and a Gift which unquestionably constitutes the central perspective of its

plan of thought (“the ultimate possibility” not being a possibility among others). Clearly, the warning signs of the “Theological Turn” did not go unnoticed, since a phenomenological re-centering is visible from the very first pages of Beng Gwen —an effort maintained throughout the body of the work by a greater number of aesthetic and pictorial examples than in the author’s previous texts. It is our turn to admit it, as well as to acknowledge the second argument: the Revelation was only taken into consideration as the “paradox of paradoxes.” How&§ m Phenomenology ‘Wide Open”

ever, the question remains to know, on the one hand, if this “paradox of paradoxes’ can be imagined by totally placing “its theological pretension to truth” in parentheses, and if, correlatively, it is a specifically phenomenological task to rise up to that point. In both cases, my response is negative, for the reasons which shall be developed concerning the “saturated phenomenon” (in chapter 3, where I will also respond to the criticism directed at me on pages 104—107 of Being Given) and concerning the necessity of a hermeneutical “relaying” of

phenomenology (in chapter 4).

A Chance for Atheism? So, getting back to the question Jocelyn Benoist asked (not without humor) Jean-Luc Marion concerning his philosophical thought,*! we would like to elaborate and go deeper into the debate that has just begun by reversing the perspective: it will no longer be a matter of suspecting a return to the “theological” for the phenomenologists of the invisible (¢napparent), of the Other, of auto-revelation, or of pure givenness, but rather to ponder if phenomenology must not be radically atheistic in order to succeed in its project to attain, describe, and speak of the “thing itself.” Let us first make clear the suggestions of Jocelyn Benoist before determining in what sense the phenomenological project would have to assume atheism —the issue on which the next chapter is based. While declaring himself an atheist from the very beginning, Benoist gives Jean-Luc Marion credit for having brought doubt to the heart of atheism by asking the question: How is it possible to be an atheist without being a metaphysician? From as early on as this book with a most significant title (The Jdol and Distance),** Marion set out on a quest to find a non-metaphysical experience of the approach to God, and it was fair play on his part to return the preliminary question of metaphysical presuppositions to atheism. Nevertheless, no matter how skilled it may be, this type of argument remained apologetic?? and seemed to confine the question of God (or the refusal of God) within conceptual and even rather narrow intellectualistic limits; “idolatry” being used as a foil to more fully emphasize a negative theology avoiding the death of God (itself reduced to the death of the God of metaphysics).

One may object that the extent to which atheism is criticized thereby somehow leads us to forget the question of its eventual insertion into the core of phenomenology. That’s completely correct. If, at

From Controversy to Debate a 9

the time of The [dol and Distance, Marion was not yet cloaked in the array of a phenomenologist strict and pure, his project was already giving form to a non-metaphysical and supra-conceptual theological thinking (a path which should have led him to encounter the great Schelling in his Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation).* It should be recalled to mind (following Jocelyn Benoist in this direction**), both

to understand the unity of an already long-standing project and to assess how to such a great extent the metaphysical (and even religious) issue does not cease to narrowly entwine with the question of the phenomenological method. (We will bring this up again later.) If we now return to this question of atheism in the perspective of

the phenomenological method, the problem presents itself differently. We shall at least attempt to revive it on a surer footing in the next chapter,® starting with the following question: In going to the limit of the claim for a radicality freed from all belief and all metaphysical goals, do we not install a purifying atheism, allowing for a new availability with respect to the phenomena? We would have to take into consideration this possibility of an atheistic phenomenology, clearing away all residue of metaphysics or even its substitutes (meaning as such, the “originary’’). Is it a matter, in fact, of merely a possibility, or rather is it not an obligation, if it is true that the phenomenological project claims a complete autonomy and the suspension (epoké) of all doxic content and of all prejudice? The answer will depend on the meaning given to atheism; but it is not sure that these semantic precautions will succeed in lifting the ambivalence out of the phenomenological project, even if they are carried out through the meticulous exercise of a “minimalist”? phenomenology. Finally, our subject will be less of a search for giving atheism a chance than a reflection on whether the possibilities still remain for phenomenology, reinstalled within strict methodological limits, thanks to an atheism reconsidered.

The Phenomenological Project in Pieces? While our purpose here is surely not to give an extensive outline of contemporary French phenomenology, we cannot ignore the evergrowing diversity of the intellectual landscape before us. The last decade has been marked by a magnificent revival of research, which was inspired by the works of the later Merleau-Ponty and by Henry Maldiney” and stimulated by: a renewed effort for the translation and reflection upon the complexity of Husserlian thought;** an exploIO w« Phenomenology “Wide Open”

ration of the works of original phenomenologists like Fink,® Patocka,*? and Erwin Strauss‘*!; a reciprocal cross-fertilization between

the fields of phenomenology and hermeneutics,” logic,“* politics ,“ aesthetics a and psycho-pathology“; and even by the emergence of controversial or paradoxical uses of a phenomenological conceptualism devoid of connections with “First Philosophy” (including, remarkably, its proximity to religious inspiration).“” All this results in giving us the impression of an explosion, of work “on the edges,” which risks being unsettling, if not simply discouraging. Clearly, some will make themselves into the guardians of the phenomenological temple; others will prefer to tinker away in their own corner; others still will adapt themselves to this pleasant disorder. While keeping in mind the train of thought that leads back to the question of method, we will not limit ourselves to listing this diversity. In chapter 3, we will reflect upon the demand placed on the concept of phenomenology itself, which we believe to be at work in a subtle and delicate attempt to reinstate a first (or “last’’) philosophy, seizing in this effect phenomenology “as such.” Can one really succeed in thinking phenomenal unity in a strictly phenomenological manner by detaching an unconditioned principle —givenness — from the limits of every horizon, while persisting to realize the different degrees of phenomenality in these terms? Or are we not instead reintroducing a metaphysics of love, advancing under the odd masks of interlocution and “inter-givenness ? In order to respond to this, we will have to examine closely the displacements and translations that have made these ingenious models possible.

In chapter 4, on the other hand, we will return to a seemingly more classic position to the problem but one that can in no way be left out: namely, the question of the articulation (or disarticulation) between phenomenology and hermeneutics. This issue —~an object of

controversy (between Derrida and Gadamer) overlooked by some, or, on the contrary, placed at the heart of the debate by others (and, in particular, by Ricoeur) —covers certain crossover topics between theology and philosophy without restricting itself to them. It more widely encompasses the relationship between text and description, between writing (inscription) and intuition, and between interpretation and reduction. Will hermeneutics come to complete and extend phenomenology, or, as the naysayers would say, does it not simply confirm its own metaphysical presuppositions and its rhetorical aptitudes?

From Controversy to Debate a J//

After having thus drawn our attention to the most delicate points of current phenomenological research, in the final chapter we will be in a position to inquire whether the observed proliferation merely corresponds to some kind of open breeding ground of ideas —more literary than rigorous —or indeed if we should maintain it under the heading “Phenomenology’’—a well-defined, coherent, and sufficiently promising endeavor. To propose a “minimalist” method is not just acting out of simple modesty. It is first of all to raise several of the ambiguities stemming from the scientific and metaphysical overinvestment of phenomenology, starting with Husserl himself. It is next to accept the pluralism of methods and approaches within a vast domain, where it is not necessarily a bad thing to practice creativity mindful of a specific rigor. It is lastly to uncover more accurate and more precise paths, for which we will offer some examples. On the whole, does the wide shattering of phenomenology imply its impossibility? We know, by meditating on the shifting of the concept of (the) possible, from Kant to Bergson, that it is always risky to assert an impossibility in principle (according to the logic of noncontradiction), so swiftly refuted by the facts. If the “impossibility” detected by Eric Alliez*? is more subtle and refined, it isolates some symptoms that may not all be incurable.

As we go along, we see that it is contemporary thought, in its origins and in its most lively niches, that finds itself, directly or indirectly, put into question and involved in the debate. If phenomenol-

ogy, as a unified and imperial discipline, gets split wide open, phenomenology is reborn as an interrogation of its own projects, its possibilities, and its limits.

12 wu Phenomenology “Wide Open”

An Atheistic Phenomenology?

In a text entitled “Pour une philosophie non théologique,’! Mikel Dufrenne noted the profound ambiguity in Heideggerian thought with regard to the theological tradition. On the one hand, Heidegger is the pioneer of the “philosophies of absence,” and he separates the “appearing” from any transcendent or ontic principle. On the other hand (even though he denies it), his argumentation has crypto-theological accents to it: being, which conceals itself in its own names, like the unutterable God of negative theology, safeguarding its truth in a meditative and almost religious experience. Now, this remanence of onto-theology, which Derrida denounced, Dufrenne in turn per-

ceives in works from Derrida and even Blanchot: “When Derrida informed us that there is no name for this différance, one would think

he was hearing Damascius . . .’?* Certainly, Derrida bypasses the mystical experience, and the case seems to be the same with Blanchot as well. Yet, he maintains, ‘The enigma sacralizes. The sacred always allows itself to be suggested by its ambivalence.’’** In the same way that ‘“diftérance” keeps an original character despite Derrida’s denials, passion for the Outside (Dehors) falls back upon an initial nonmeaning (non sens) which maintains all the fertile ambiguity of the sacred, or at least of a sacred by default, as intangible as the experi-

ence of the Neutral (Neutre). Against these thoughts still aligned with negative theologies, at least in their means of expression, Dufrenne opposes a non-theological philosophy, without any expecta15

tion of revelation or parousia, open to the gift of presence alone, challenging all origin other than “the power of Nature.” In brief, this is a materialistic philosophy testifying to the joy of being in the world without closing oneself within a definitive body of knowledge (as sci-

ence still pretends to be), but extending itself thanks to art and thereby accomplishing the vocation of man.4

These analyses of Dufrenne appear confirmed and continued by the work carried out in The “Theological Turn,’> aiming at criticizing

certain contemporary French phenomenologists for their methodological displacements or even methodological drifting in favor of Transcendence, an Arch-Original, or of Givenness, which are phenomenological in name only. To what extent should the suggestions by Dufrenne be thus taken into account and confirmed? What is at stake is not only the status of phenomenology, but, as a result (and for the authors just cited, as much as for Dufrenne him-

self) what is at issue is a fundamental philosophical decision (although not always or necessarily admitted as such) concerning metaphysical or theological Transcendence. By excluding this, in a sense Dufrenne’s omission does nothing other than resurrect the materialist challenge of “special metaphysics,” for which Kant had ad-

mitted the status of an antithesis in his Transcendental Dialectic. However, Dufrenne’s point of view introduces a new element in relation to the classical position of the problem of the legitimacy of metaphysics: although Dufrenne speaks mainly about philosophy and not about phenomenology in the strict sense,° the contemporary authors

he criticizes are essentially located within the phenomenological movement. Above all, the dimension into which he intends to depart is that of presence alone as the “first moment of perception’: “Presence is given /ic et nunc. It is the gift itself, which does not imply a giver (donateur).’* The originality of Dutfrenne is that the phenome-

nological character of his endeavor, which is in no way limited to a strict obedience of Husselian inspiration, essentially applies to the aesthetic domain and even sees itself as poetic® in making of presence “the place and object of a joyous affirmation.” To what extent will our own research follow the direction indicated by Dufrenne? After having shown to what point we could follow it, we will re-examine the two terms before us —both “atheism” and “phenomenology, —so as to be able to expose our own position. Should all ambiguity be lifted out of a “theism” or “atheism” in phenomenology? To ask the question in full transparency will require 14 ww Phenomenology “Wide Open”

analyzing the denials of Heidegger in this matter and attempting to bring about a true catharsts in this light.

Atheism and Theism beyond the Phenomena First of all, an historiographic summation is necessary: the author of The “Theological Turn” must confess that he was not familiar with Dufrenne’s text when he wrote his essay. As for the basis of his writ-

ings, however, could he not have been connecting with Dufrenne without knowing it?!° Yes, to the extent that the same doubt affects all philosophies pre-

occupied with the origin and the originary. Are they free from all ulterior motives or all recurring theological themes? Can they let appearance appear, and can they think presence in its real immanence?

The response is negative. While they believe to have founded the phenomenon and to have enriched phenomenality, they either overload it or bar access to it. The Other, Pure Givenness, the ArchOriginal, etc., are just as much substitutes for the overwhelming presence-absence complex of divine Transcendence. On the other hand, we distance ourselves from Dufrenne insofar as we believe that it would be better to understand certain aspects of negative theology from the standpoint Derrida and Blanchot give in their analyses, rather than to consider them as “negative theologians ” in spite of themselves. (This, because negative theology is not com-

posed of a singular monolithic unity, whose meaning would be acquired once and for all, but rather it develops as new questions come along translating and displacing it into the terms of our deconsecrated era.) Apart from this and most especially, even if Dufrenne comes back to phenomenology at the end of his text and even if one may feel it is close to Merleau-Ponty, it is the destiny of philosophy that he is considering; whereas our present context, as well as The “Theological Turn,” is concerned with phenomenology. We must heighten upon this subtle and non-negligible nuance, whose significance it would be good to point out at this time. One could easily detenda non-theological conception of phenomenology, without necessarily having to accept a radical atheism from the point of view of “first philosophy.” On his behalf, Dufrenne, who places himself from

the outset in a radically non-theological perspective (avoiding the term “atheological”’ so dear to Bataille), has a complete right to see himself in a phenomenology of presence. The situation would be dif-

An Atheist Phenomenology? a J5

ferent if he proclaimed himself to be a phenomenologist above all, or as representing phenomenology as such. Having noted theses differences, one should be able to recognize

a hearty invitation in Dufrenne’s text to revive the question of the relationship between onto-theology and phenomenology. Furthermore, would this Gnasmuch as one could consolidate his project) be condemned to fill the role of a substitute — more or less begrudgingly admitted —to the most metaphysical of metaphysics (metaphysica spe-

clalts)? Or indeed, could the phenomenological momentum harbor within itself an initial vigor and radical nature which allows for the foundation of a truly new relationship to appearance? If, as one might have guessed, our position, upholds this second possibility, we must now clarify under which preliminary conditions

it is so with regard to the presuppositions of atheism or those of theism. A terminological clarification is needed here. Atheism can only be

understood in a negative sense, in conformity with its etymology; it is in this way, so it seems, that both Socrates and the Apostle Paul refer to it in their various contexts: “the atheos is without a god or God.”’!! On the other hand, common usage of the substantive has a dogmatic character which corresponds with the definition given by

Lalande: “a doctrine consisting in the denial of the existence of

God.’

In privileging the attribute “non-theological,” it seems that Dufrenne wanted to stay within the first sense: A philosophy of the ap-

pearing does not need to go beyond the horizon of phenomenal immanence; it merely states the absence of God in our sensible expe-

rience. If such is the case, then the phenomenological project must remain just there, meaning to be limited to challenging the pretensions of theism for which a classical expression is found in Descartes’s responses to the sixth group of objections. Let us pause a moment to reflect on the question raised by “‘various theologians and philosophers” concerning the possibility of a “science for an atheist.’ This “fourth difficulty” opposed to Descartes does not lack relevance in his resorting to the rule of evidence:

Are obvious mathematical operations no more than this, under the pretext that the one who conceives of them does not believe in God? The authors of this objection ask of this atheist: “He maintains that no reason for doubt can be presented to him which could shake him in the slightest or make him at all uncertain. What reason can you produce? That God, if he exists may deceive him? The atheist will 16 w= Phenomenology “Wide Open”

reply that he cannot be deceived about these truths even by a God who exercises all his omnipotence to this end.’ In his response, Descartes is careful to reuse the mathematical examples given by his questioners. With a certain nonchalance, he claims that, “As for the kind of knowledge possessed by the atheist, it is easy to demonstrate that it is not immutable and certain.’ Yet, he does not prove it in the least, limiting himself to establishing a rule of inverse proportionality between the degree of power of the author of being and the opportunity to doubt. Thus, by displacing the ques-

tion of a “science for an atheist” on a dogmatic and general level, Descartes is able to give the impression that he has answered the question, which is hardly the case. Based on his refusal of an absolute metaphysical foundation, one can only allow that the atheist would

have a greater opportunity to doubt the nature of things; yet in no way does that imply the extremely negative conclusion which Descartes wishes to put forth from the outset— meaning that the atheist “cannot know anything with certainty and assurance,” even the most obvious mathematical truths. This reference to the excessive pretensions of Cartesian theism in no way leads us away from the domain of phenomenology. Theistic phenomenologists follow the (poor) example of Descartes by subordinating access to phenomenal truth (either explicitly or implicitly) to the prior condition of a supreme truth or to a prior foundation. By automatically assuming this premise to be true, the phenomenon itself is caught up from the beginning in its supposed origin. Let us note that Husserl himself, even though he adopts the Cartesian ideal for an absolute science, is completely silent about an eventual divine guarantee of apodictic truth in his Cartesian Meditations, and even distances himself further from Descartes by stating: “But we know from

recent inquiries, in particular the fine and profound studies of Etienne Gilson and Alexander Koyré, how much scholasticism lies hidden, as unclarified prejudice, in Descartes’s Meditations.” Moreover, Husserl very clearly affirms in §58 of /deas that the transcendence of God must be placed beyond consideration. In recalling the arguments whereby religious consciousness posits an Absolute which is other than that of consciousness, Husserl concludes that this Absolute could not elude reduction: “It shall remain excluded from the new field of research which is to be provided, since this shall be a held of pure consciousness. ’!°

If it is therefore obvious that theism must be excluded from any serious phenomenological project worthy of its name, as a metaphysi-

An Atheist Phenomenology? a /7

cal position illegitimately going beyond the limits of phenomenality; similarly, dogmatic atheism should not avoid the same precautions: it should be suspended as well for the same reasons parallel to those which confront theism. Thus, we shall follow Dufrenne in adopting merely the attribute “non-theological”’ for the phenomenology we wish to express (meaning atheistic in the first or limited sense). However, as we had begun to elaborate, a properly phenomenological method holds to greater restrictions than philosophy in general —whether as complete exis-

tential expression or as speculative innovation. Dutrenne’s text presents a consequential materialism (which, as with the case of “dogmatic atheism when becoming dogmatic) may in turn introduce

a certain doubt upon our own methodological and terminological practice nevertheless. Is not methodological atheism merely a pretext or a first step toward introducing an actual atheism more easily? Is there a firm boundary between the two senses in which the word is used? The difficulty here goes considerably beyond the limits we are trying to maintain (most especially in the case of Heidegger, who was

ever so ambiguous concerning the question of God, as Dufrenne himself mentioned from the beginning of his text). We must thus bring up the problem anew as coming from the roots of all phenome-

nology, so as to be able to later confront the ambiguity which is at issue here.

The Two Sources of Phenomenology Having removed the stumbling blocks of theism and atheism, it is now time to remind ourselves of the specific nature of any phenomenological project: to suspend the natural or naively doxical attitude. Despite whatever liberties may have been taken or should be taken

with respect to any Husserlian demands, it will suffice for now to follow Husserl when he distinguishes between a phenomenological description and either an empirical or simply psychological description. The scientific endeavor of suspending all prejudice still does not go far enough. A phenomenological reduction will be more radical still than a gnoseological reduction; what it excludes is “the general positing which belongs to the essence of the natural attitude.”'!” The epoché thus defined and brought about in its radical transcendental form (radicalité transcendentale) is the bracketing of all worldly or doxical ‘transcendence.’ 18 wm Phenomenology “Wide Open”

Thus, even before we can consider the first results of this radical reduction being the acquisition of a “pure phenomenon” which reveals its immanent essence (taken individually) as an “absolute giv-

enness, !8 we attest to the abandonment of all former beliefs or axiological opinions susceptible of clouding our phenomenological vision. In this sense, the phenomenological project sees itself and strives to be totally neutral. It is precisely from this that phenomenology takes upon itself, at least in its initial momentum, a striving for

scientificity, which it shares with the Cartesian re-foundation of modern philosophy. Starting from this initial momentum which seems to animate every phenomenological project, in what ways can we talk about the two sources (or inspirations) for phenomenology? The initial inspiration goes back to Lambert, who coined the term phenomenology itself, which he defined as follows: eme Lehre vom Schein, to the extent that this study of appearances preceded an Aletheiolo-

gle, or doctrine of truth. It is clear that phenomenology takes on an infinitely heavier and deeper philosophical meaning when it becomes

for Hegel, a doctrine of the “apparent knowing” because it was no longer reducible to a listing of appearances or sensible illusions, but rather it becomes the methodical retrospection of the features that consciousness, self awareness, reason, etc. . . . must necessarily use. The Phenomenology of Spirit is the exposition of the process by which

the absolute truth comes into contact with itself from the different phases of its appearing. We shall emphasize that, with Husserl and his successors, phenomenology becomes an autonomous method which breaks with absolute idealism. This is without a doubt. Yet, it in no way means that the initial inspiration for phenomenology is lost

within contemporary phenomenology: in every phenomenological project a retrospection of the conditions of the appearing of the phenomenon and of phenomenality always remain.'° However, the Husserlian foundation of phenomenology as an autonomous method entails a different orientation, which requires us to establish whether it is divergent from or complementary to the initial

foundation of phenomenology. The phenomenological perspective becomes a purer vision into essences and this eidetic structure aims at constituting a complete and clear science of the mind. We do not dwell on the appearances and their illusions: rather the phenomenological method allows for the development of a truth which claims to be precise. An Atheist Phenomenology? a 19

An essential trait in the realization of Husserlian phenomenology is indeed to target the ‘thing itself” in the analysis of intentional lived experiences, ‘clarifying the essence of knowledge and the object of knowledge (known objectivity).’?° Such is the very ambitious task of

Husserlian phenomenology (at least as it is presented in Jdeav I, which includes the whole of noetic—noematic structures). Yet, this ambition is even greater, since the project of phenomenological constitution not only applies to “every intellectually ltved” experience but to “every lived experience in general,” given that every imaginative and perceptive experience becomes the object of “‘a pure seeing and a pure apprehension” which makes up the crux (nerf) of eidetic description.”!

We know that Husserl himself did not always remain completely faithful to this agenda (particularly in Experience and Judgment, where

he turns toward the anti-predicative) and that, like a Pandora’s box, phenomenology has splintered into groups of diverging orientation — divided among those who, like Sartre, had the tendency to reduce existence to ‘a series of appearances that manifest it;’?? those who, like Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty, set out to find a “possibility” in phenomenology, where the being of appearance is of greater concern than a series of appearances; and finally those who, following Lévinas, went on to exceed the limits of the intuition of the visible. Given this wide shattering, for which merely the most well-known trends have just been cited, one may rightly be both amazed with the creative richness present in the Husserlian intuition for a return to the “things themselves” by way of their mode of appearing, and, at the same time, clearly see that the dream for a new and rigorous discipline for philosophy as a science has truly failed. This as Husserl

himself seems to have recognized by noting that this dream has “given out’ (“est epulse). . . .?° This state of affairs is what justifies the return to our investigation: are the two sources of phenomenology determined by being radically divergent, or can they be proven to be compatible? We would surely

hold only to the first hypothesis, if Husserl himself had stuck to an eidetic analysis of the mathematical and noematic idealities. However, Husserl’s desire to master both ends of the intentional chain — the noetic and the noematic —as well as to return to the doxical and proto-doxical layers of knowledge, and his preoccupation with upholding the study of the objectifying lived experiences through those of their subjective, perceptive, and even anti-predicative roots, all this has proven that phenomenology truly remained for him a retro20 aw Phenomenology “Wide Open”

spection of the conditions of the appearing of the phenomena. Certainly, we must not be unaware of the tension which persisted in all phenomenology between the claim to intuitive purity and the reception of the originary, between the apprehension of appearing forms and the return to the conditions of the appearing itself. This tension

could become a new beginning, a dehiscence, as in the case of Merleau-Ponty, and especially in his later notes.24 However wide (open) this split may be, what seems to us to constitute the phenomenological field begun by Husserl is the establishment of a new mode of intersection between two spheres which were already overlapping in Plato—namely, philosophical questioning and the epistemological study of universals.”® Yet, this mode of intersection is phenomenological only, as Paul Ricoeur has most excellently suggested, when we “treat the way of appearing of things as an autonomous problem.’”°

From here, the metaphysical obstacles, and the doubts they bring along, center around this “autonomization of phenomenology, mean-

ing for Husserl and in the terms mentioned above, the second “source of phenomenology —the claim to a pure knowing and the attempt to unite it into a full and definitive science (which will itself in turn be placed under the heading of a rational teleology). Thus, in order to be able to resolve this debate, we must examine the resurgence of doubts stemming more directly from the seemingly inevitable character of a persistence of Meaning(Sens) and its idealis-

tic or metaphysical substitutes than from a phenomenological “crypto-theism. ”

The Return of Suspicions In accounting for suspicions, we do not intend to regress to an ideological or doxical level. It is obvious that a philosophical orientation, even one whose striving for methodological rigor is incontestable, will never be subject to universal acceptance. Moreover, even in the so-called “hard” sciences, a consensus would not be considered as an adequate criterion for being true but merely the result of having been

confirmed to a greater or lesser degree. On the other hand, within the limits of this present study, being exhaustive as to the nature and origin of the various criticisms of phenomenology is not an issue. So

numerous are these criticisms, and yet we admit the paradox that they have not in any way limited the proliferation of phenomenological research. Perhaps this is a revealing sign of our intense cultural development?

An Atheist Phenomenology? a 2/

The philosophical emergence of suspicions targeting phenomenol-

ogy, even beyond the arguments presented in the “Theological Turn,’ are based on the principle claim of the phenomenological project itself: that of a unity of meaning. Does not this unifying semantic proposition —whether to qualify the thing, the idea, the subject, or being—pre-orient the analysis and the description? Vincent Descombes very lucidly isolated this assumption by calling attention

to §55 of Ideas where the title maintains that “all reality exists through ‘the dispensing of Meaning’ (Singebung).’?’ Is not this dispensing of meaning naively metaphysical? What is remarkable is that Husserl affirms this Siangebung over and above absolute subjective idealism. How should we understand this? Husserl’s denials are very revealing indeed: challenging subjective idealism, he also rejects the

idea of an “absolute reality” which “is the equivalent of a round square . And yet, he reintroduces this attribute of “absolute” on the level of pure consciousness: “The whole being of the world consists in a certain ‘meaning’ which presupposes absolute consciousness as the field from which the meaning is derived.’ Is not this Seuangebung some kind of roving reference being used to justify just about anything whenever we need to? Descombes goes

so far as to speak of the “disaster of Husserlian phenomenology’ concerning §131 of Jdeas where Husser! laboriously brings about the distinction between the “noematic sense’ and the “determinable object” when pointing to “the sense-bearer (as empty X) belonging to

the sense.” If Husserl here falls victim to the traditional concept of identity which may be used without “the least criteria of identification,’ * as Descombes maintains, then Husser! is all the more a victim of the over-determination of the word “meaning” (sens). But could

we not object that there would be no philosophy at all without the confrontation of certain overly determined word-signs (mols-vigneds)? Thus, must not Aristotle himself have already been a (willing) victim to the homonymy of the word “being?”

The question raised here is not unimportant: it is both that of the status of phenomenological description and that of the status of a metalanguage that any philosophy either allows or imposes upon itself. It is certain that, despite all his efforts, Husserl probably did not succeed in avoiding falling into a psychologistic philosophy, even when he firmly believed to be founding “first philosophy.” Further, the very fact of imagining phenomenology as first philosophy condemned it to being subject to presuppositions for which the ramifications were not as easily handled as he had thought. 22 su Phenomenology “Wide Open”

We must allow Descombes comments that phenomenology is overwhelmed by the very “meaning” (vens) to which it appeals. However, it is not completely justified for him to object that phenom-

enology allows for this application “beyond all conditions of language, °* for however laborious the Husserlian efforts at clarifying may be, they are not inexistent.* At least an “intention” for clarification finds its expression! Moreover, §55 of Jdeav specifies exactly in what way “meaning” (ven) is summoned up: namely, on the ultimate transcendental level, as the horizon of all possible meaning for pure transcendental consciousness. One can legitimately contest this appeal for falling back on the only confrontation between the empirical

and the logical; but the onus of “proof” or the initial justification would have to revert to a project of philosophical “grammar” avoiding the transcendental question. Notwithstanding, Descombes extends these suspicions to every epistemology or theory of knowledge

and even to every philosophy of experience since the seventeenth century.”! The necessary task of clarification therefore goes greatly beyond phenomenology! A doubt concerning “meaning” (vend) could have been, and could be, formulated on other levels in Husserlian phenomenology, where

certain other “residues” that deserve being brought to light can be deciphered —for example in regards to teleology, subjectivity, absolute presence, and metaphysics. Do the sedimented ambiguities present in the enormous body of Husserlian texts not serve to refuel a cross-fire of objections and suspicions, the very re-apparition of which shows how very much phenomenology has failed in its ambition or dream of scientificity? And do we not find coiled in the deepest, most secret heart of Husserl’s and Heidegger's thought (although each in his own way) this ambivalence of the Sacred that Dufrenne resolutely wants to throw out, but for which our attitude will be somewhat different?

An Inevitable Ambivalence? The Minimalist Track

“The life of man is nothing other than a road to God. I tried to achieve this goal without the help of either the method or proofs of theology; in other words, I wanted to reach God without God.”* These words of confidence which Husserl addressed to Edith Stein in December, 1935, are confirmed by a another passage in an unpublished manuscript from November 6, 1933, which states: “If such a

science (as phenomenology) indeed leads to God, its road to God would be a road toward an atheistic God.’’*?* An Atheist Phenomenology? sm 23

We should not appeal to these words made in confidence, even though they are quite revealing. As Jocelyn Benoist makes clear: “In the published works, the methodological atheism appears as self-sufficient, °° and the unpublished texts where the personal religious nature of Husserl comes out should only be used to suggest that, with

Husserl, there may already be a kind of first-degree “Theological Turn.” The very fact that we can only quote these unpublished texts to support the claim for a Husserlian “Turn,” on the contrary reinforces Husserl’s concern for a rigorously “atheistic” method (in the

first sense outlined earlier), including in the letter where we find these personal “confidences. However, the question comes up again on a more subtle level. In an infinitely respectable manner, but one that would not have surprised Mikel Dutrenne, this negative theology which seems to follow phenomenology like its shadow indeed reappeared in light of Descombes’s critical analyses of the ambiguities of “meaning” (ven) in phenomenology like a kind of sanction of these ambiguities and perhaps as their final reasoning. Having noted the existence of the unpublished works by Husserl

where God is defined in an Aristotelian manner, Jocelyn Benoist asks the decisive question in this matter: namely, “Does not the God of these unpublished texts, taken within the Aristotelian features of entelechy and principle, simply re-institute that which we term an onto-theology?’%°* The question is all the more delicate in that, this time, it forces a suspicion upon the Heideggerian origin of the complex architecture of Husserlian phenomenology to be raised. As Be-

noist does, we can show both that the Husserlian liberation of the appearing dismisses the concept of God in its traditional foundational role,*° and further: that it is transcendental subjectivity and perhaps even inter-subjectivity) that takes the place of God in what nevertheless remains a metaphysical structure. Having shown with difhculty the limits of every foundation, is Husserl thus offering us “the chance of an atheistic concept of the sacred (pensée athetste du sacré) which does

not sink or wane into glamorized or conceptual idolatry’’?*”* We are hesitant to follow Jocelyn Benoist on this ground to the very extent that, as he himself finely perceives, the very aporetic and particularly personal character of these unpublished texts, which are neither part of the phenomenological canon nor perhaps the most stimulating inspirations on an “atheistic concept of the sacred,” must be respected. The difficulties that we are going to take up in order to finish with Heidegger could be formulated thus: If this questioning went beyond

the strict limits of phenomenology, was it not in following Husserl 24 w Phenomenology “Wide Open”

that he was led there? Consequently, does it not seem that phenomenology, being carried away by its own project, would be incapable of confining itself to its own specific tasks? Does not the appearing of

the phenomenon reveal itself precisely in this excess? Heidegger gives us another illustration of this. We shall limit ourselves here to showing the extreme difficulty the Master of Fribourg experienced in respecting the initially prescribed phenomenological rules concerning the theological question. As early as the autumn of 1922, Heidegger formulates the position which, in principle, he will maintain throughout the rest of his work: “Tf philosophy is fundamentally atheistic (grundsdtzlich athetsttsch) —

and truly understands this—then it has deliberately chosen and re-

tained as its own object ‘factual life in regards to its factuality.’ “Factual” life is the human existence offered up to a phenomenologi-

cal gaze in this way liberated from all theological presuppositions. This distancing from faith and theology will be confirmed and reiterated against all “Christian philosophy,” qualified as “a wooden iron” or ‘a square circle.’*? Here, getting back to atheism in the first sense, without any sign of a militant atheism (in the second sense), we could only salute the

methodological coherence of this position and stop there if we had not otherwise discovered in the Heideggerian corpus of texts traces and evidence of another notion of the Sacred and of the Divine (pendée Ou sacré et du Divin) which in no way holds to the description of “factical life in regards to its facticity.”* After having distanced himself from the classical problem of the existence of God, and after having rejected all “indifferentism” in this respect, Heidegger writes in the Letter on Humantsm: “Only from the truth of being can the essence of the holy be thought. Only from the essence of the holy is the es-

sence of Divinity to be thought. Only in the light of the essence of divinity can it be thought or said what the word ‘God ' is to signify.’“° This series of prerequisites re-establishes de facto the intervention of thought at the very heart of a renewed theological concern.*! Heideg-

ger goes one step further, when the approach of the thing as such, from amid a four-dimensional unity, seems to call for the discovery of those thus qualified: “The Divinities are the beckoning messengers

of the Godhead. Out of the hidden sway of the divinities the god emerges as what he is, which removes him from any comparison with

beings that are present.’ In the Beitrdge, this god is called “the last god” and is to be thought beyond all “theistic” or “atheistic” positions as the most initial possibility reserved for our history.“ An Atheist Phenomenology? sm 25

If Heidegger’s vigilance applies unfailingly to theology and Christian dogmatics, his explicit rejection of atheism (in the second sense) is coupled with a total openness with regard to “the god who comes”

and of a Sacred reserving itself within the “lack of God” rendered obvious by the distress of the modern world. This theme (which clearly no longer either principally nor always presents itself as strictly phenomenological) has come to fill the exact Space that Christian theology and the procession of its philosophical variants, have been excluded from. It is this that formally confirms the thesis of Mikel Dufrenne, all the while leaving open the question of the possibility or impossibility of a non-theological phenomenology. Can we not at least sketch out what would be the conditions of such a phenomenology?

To begin with, we would have to abandon trying to identify the phenomenological project with that of a first philosophy, which at the same time would be a “rigorous science’ (this ambition, futureless in its Husserlian form, re-appears transformed into a more subtle

version which will be analyzed in the next chapter). Moreover, to accept a phenomenological plurality is to recognize the fact that there is not only one descriptive method but rather that there are as many

various and varying styles, as different from one another as the wealth of phenomenality itself. A great number of levels are also possible between the intention (vouct) of foundation and the eidetically lived experiences, as well as within the fields of study —from aesthet-

ics to hermeneutics, and from perceptive or imaginative density to logical idealities. This pluralism implies that there is not only one way

to phenomenologically remain within the “double insecurity” that Paul Ricoeur talks about, on the side of the investigation of appearances (or of the appearing) and on the side of “what is at stake in appearances or in the appearing.“ A coherent move, complementary to the first, consists in deliberately maintaining the phenomenological moment on the “threshold” of philosophy and away from ultimate metaphysical questions. Such is the orientation for which we intend to elucidate more completely the “possibilities.’“° But we must first be sure of the respect of a “methodological atheism,” for which Heidegger, and even Husserl, had already recognized the necessity. It is not enough here to make a concession for good measure and in passing.*” We must verify if the ambitions of phenomenology as first philosophy do not compromise the whole enterprise.

26 w= Phenomenology “Wide Open”

The Avatars of First Philosophy

That phenomenology is a fundamentally philosophical enterprise and that it is based on a decisive act of bracketing (mwe entre parenthésed) of the natural attitude —here are two essential elements of the Hus-

serlian legacy that any phenomenology worthy of its name would seem obliged to accept, even today. However, Husserl was even more ambitious: thanks to phenomenology, he was able to champion both the re-foundationof philosophy as a rigorous science and as a

first philosophy at the same time. Under what conditions can this ambition be reaffirmed or displaced? And to what extent? Within what limits?

Whatever the stated intentions may be, they must be checked against their achievements. The greatest phenomenologist is not necessarily the one who claims himself to be so; and if our investigation is not to be trapped within some ready-made phenomenological concept, it must not subtract such a concept from the critical examination within the implementation of our investigative process.

Which First Philosophy? It is obvious that first philosophy, according to Husserl, is not to be taken in the Aristotelian sense. When we pose the problem of the metaphysical status of phenomenology, we must be well aware of the extraordinary mutation that has taken place concerning this issue 27

under the influence of Nietzsche and especially the later Heidegger. For his part, Husserl is convinced of having left aside ancient metaphysics, and he has no intention of nourishing that which has become “obsolete” (tombé “en désuétude”’).' What he implements is a “science of original sources” or else a “science of transcendental subjectivity. This first (or last) * philosophy falls prey to the critical analyses the later Heidegger addresses to metaphysics, this even despite all of Husserl’s indications. In what sense does this phenomenology remain metaphysical? It is not because it maintains the ideas of reason (the

self, the world, and God) as direct and transcendental objects but rather because it continually aims at constituting a fundamental intelligibility of the real according to transcendental subjectivity. Therefore, Husserl is both correct in thinking that he has liberated himself from the “old metaphysics,’ and mistaken in believing that his project is free from metaphysical presuppositions (in a Heideg-

gerian sense that he could never admit or even conceive of). This analysis reveals that resorting to a metaphysical concept must be differentiated and, further, that the distinction between “general metaphysics” and “special metaphysics” (which may seem very artificial

and which must certainly not be applied in a mechanical manner) contributes to throwing a bit of light on the capital debate, whose very pertinent consequences we are now going to reconsider.

In order to approach Being Given, the latest book by Jean-Luc Marion, head-on and in the most positive way, it is essential for the point we are making to not lose track of the idea of a first philosophy, because it is this train of thought that will allow us to repeat the question of the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics on a firmer basis. To do this, let us pause briefly at a recent text by Marion,‘ where he clarifies, within this perspective, the status of a phenomenology of givenness (donation) .* After having inventoried the various ways in which first philosophy has traditionally appeared, Marion recalls that Husser! took this ambition upon himself on the basis of new foundations expressed in his class from 1923-24: Erste Philosophie. The metaphysical character of the Husserlian principles® is then indicated with a clear relevance,

despite being a bit rushed, in order to clear the way and show the value of an eventual fourth principle: “so much reduction, so much givenness. This thesis should not surprise us, since it was already elaborated by Michel Henry® and by Marion himself in Reduction and Givenness.’

What interests us here is to re-examine it in light of the status it will 28 mw Phenomenology “Wide Open”

allow to be attributed to phenomenology as first philosophy. A rather subtle operation, but eminently questionable, is then undertaken: it consists in claiming that the new principle could be considered as a “last” principle (because it always follows that which gives of itself). But is not an ultimate principle precisely first, not empirically, but by “dignity”? Marion tacitly agrees, since he admits that, in this form, “phenomenology universalizes the Cartesian result.’’* In fact, the displacement of the self-reflection of the cogttatio to the correlation of the given of consciousness in no way leaves the Cartesian horizon. (Incidentally this was formally revindicated by Husserl.) Neverthe-

less, this certainty is immediately taken back into consideration in these unambiguous terms: “Givenness is therefore set up, by its certainty and its universality, as an unconditional principle.’ This demonstration is in no way obvious. Certain “precautions '° are necessary, we must admit. The fact remains that, due to this reversal of the principle (the first becoming last) phenomenology truly finds itself re-established as “the other first philosophy’ —~a project which it “both assumes and destroys.’"!! A great deal of skill for such an ambiguous result! What could be

more commendable on the part of a phenomenologist than to give priority to the phenomenon? But does that authorize him to say that “phenomenology itself does not belong to metaphysics '?!? In that case, we would have to specify much more rigorously the terms thus

called into question, and, in particular, what we mean by metaphysics. This essential difficulty is to be found in Being Given. Your humble

servant has here been reproached for not having been sufficiently specific on his concept of metaphysics (or, more precisely, on “‘special metaphysics”) in sufficiently documented historical terms;!* but the “compliment” could be returned to sender. We are waiting to be shown how a last principle presented as universal and unconditional, as well as “without remainder” (‘vans reste”), is no longer metaphysical. What does it mean to say metaphysical here? Is it sufficient to leave out the transcendental privilege of the / as well as the aporias of oudsia and of substance, supposing that we could, just to be free of them? It truly is the enormous question of the relationship between phe-

nomenology and metaphysics which must be reconsidered on the clearest possible foundations, without merely being content in distinguishing “two regimes.” Can we pass from the domain of metaphysics to the domain of phenomenology at will, as if it was as simple as The Avatars of First Philosophy a= 29

shifting gears? Already in The “Theological Turn,’ this affirmation from an earlier work by Marion had been called into question: “Phenomenology does not introduce metaphysics. It comes out of meta-

physics.”'°* Has Being Given given us a clear answer to our questioning (which has nothing to do with a controversial/polemical

attack but rather is a call for an essential clarification on the very coherence of Marion's project)? Inasmuch as Being Given is verbose on the specific ambitions of a

phenomenology of givenness (frequently confused with simply phenomenology), this book remains just as elliptical on the question

of metaphysics and its status for a phenomenology revived. We have seen that this phenomenology claims a certain re-activation of a “first philosophy” as a “last philosophy.” Does it thus remain meta-

physical, or, on the contrary, does it break with this, as it seems to propose? Two connected formulas leave one perplexed: ‘Phenomenology does not break decisively with metaphysics until the moment and exactly in the degree (a degree that most often remains in flux) to which it names and thinks the phenomenon (a) neither as an object... (b) nor as a being. .. .”!© And the “Please Insert’ notice in the book includes the closely related, ever paradoxical, description: “Phenomenology only breaks with metaphysics to the exact and imprecise extent that it abandons describing the phenomena as objects or as beings in order to recognize them, through a final reduction, in their pure givenness. !”

Why, on such an important question whose difficulty no one would contest, should it be admitted that this extent be both “exact and imprecise’ or ‘exact and most often fluctuating’? One seems to be led to understand that the phenomenology of givenness claims to break with metaphysics, to the extent that it is all the more strictly devoted (adonnée)'*® to the pure and unconditioned form of givenness

itself: it “has finished radically . . . with the ‘subject’’’!’ and it dismisses the object-ness* (obyectivité) as well as the being-ness* (étantité) of the given. Here we have, evidently, a somewhat schematized return to a no-

tion which came up in the later Heidegger Yet an unusual reversal is simultaneously working against this: distortion of the approach to Eretgnts, untenably reduced to an ontic occurrence,” and complete silence besides on all of the texts for which an explanation would be enlightening — especially on the following point: Heidegger never claimed that it was sufficient to place oneself within “a phenomeno-

logical regime” in order to break with metaphysics. On the other 50 wa Phenomenology “Wide Open”

hand, his thesis, this time quite clear, is that meditation upon the evgence of metaphysics allows for an appropriation and a relative libera-

tion from the presuppositions and language of metaphysics.”! However, this “departure” from metaphysics could not proceed solely, or even principally, out of human goodwill; it recognizes dependence on a motion of destiny. One cannot claim to criticize Heidegger or to distance oneself with respect to him, without making oneself clear on this crucial point. Indeed, faced with the difficulty of the question of the “overcoming’ of metaphysics and taking into account the complexity of the work of deconstruction/reappropriation realized by the later Heidegger, a minimal amount of concern for clarity should impose a distinc-

tion between personal intuitions, on the one hand, and the actual situation of Western thought on the other. Evidently, it is not sufficient to want to overcome metaphysics in order to actually accomplish it. Also, the phenomenological initiative is extremely ambiguous in this respect: on the one side it abandons researching beyond the phenomena in favor of their appearing; on the other, it is not easily freed from every conceptual device inherited from Platonism, beginning with the e/dov, truth/adequation, etc., even supposing it aspires to do so—which is not the case for Husserl. To put “phenomenology” and “metaphysics” into relation and to oppose them a fortiort globally without any further due process thus leaves us wide open to the greatest of confusions. What’s more, Heidegger insisted upon an extraordinary difficulty

in the undertaking of a “clearing out” in relation to metaphysics: namely, the weight of our Western languages. He wrote: “That difhculty lies in language. Our Western languages are languages of metaphysical thinking, each in its own way. ?? Whether or not we agree with what is indicated here, we cannot refer to attributes like “pure,” “absolute,” and “unconditioned” (which Marion does abundantly), while pretending to ignore their metaphysical connotations on the pretense that we have decided to situate ourselves “within a phenomenological regime. ' In the same way, the final recourse to the “dignity of the concept”

should have led an already surprised reader to contemplate that it had been asserted, from the very beginning of the book, that metaphysics “demonstrates” while phenomenology “exhibits.” As if every great metaphysics should be conceptual from beginning to end and should “demonstrate”! Is this the case, for example, with the positive philosophy of Schelling? And, on the part of phenomenology, is the The Avatars of First Philosophy a J3/

situation as simple as this clarification from page thirteen of Being Gwen which proposes, that, “to show implies letting appearances appear in such a way that they accomplish their own apparition, so as to be received exactly as they give themselves’? This exact reception of a full appearance (pleine apparition) recedes, in its strictest terms, into a metaphysics of full presence, locked in by

a conception of truth as adequation. And this phenomenology — conceptual, adjusted, imperious —claims to break with metaphysics!

The entire Heideggerian meditation upon the essence of truth, as well as on the historicity of metaphysics, thus seems cancelled out in a single sweep (a few pen strokes and heavy silence). But one cannot erase Heidegger's thought like a poorly defined question on the blackboard, when elsewhere one draws inspiration so intimately from it. I do not in the least raise objections to this in

Jean-Luc Marion out of a concern for “orthodoxy” but rather to refer him back to his own presuppositions. What can “to break with metaphysics’ signify if we sidestep the two essential points that were just mentioned? At least he should attempt to explain them. As far as the question of knowing if we can disassociate the two aspects of the onto-theological structure goes,” it is totally relevant;

but it must be asked in depth and in assuming all of its consequences.”* From the very first pages of Being Given, it is asserted both

that “phenomenology makes itself an exception of metaphysics” and that this assertion could not be maintained “to the limit.” Why? Be-

cause ‘the border between metaphysics and phenomenology runs within phenomenology ~as its highest possibility.”’?° This elliptical clarification requires an explanation. What comes out of this is the acknowledgment (or admission) that the liberation from metaphysics is not as evident nor as simple as certain formulas lead us to believe. An entire part of phenomenology remains submerged within metaphysics. Marion recognized this concerning Husser! and Heidegger; and perhaps he should not make himself an exception to this group so easily. Consequently, if the two aspects of the onto-theological structure are indisassociable (according to Marion who claimed to follow Heidegger on this point), is it surprising that phenomenology (to the extent that it still remains metaphysical) keeps certain theological remanences? Moreover, if the phrase we quoted is to make any sense, it signifies that the highest possibility of phenomenology would be finally to attain the frontiers of metaphysics and to plot it as clearly as possible. This expectation is not fulfilled at all by Being 52 wa Phenomenology “Wide Open”

Given, where, in this respect, the previously lamented vagueness reigns. In any case, it is a true falsehood (une veritable contre-vérité) that credits me with a ‘‘causalist” interpretation of givenness, which can-

not be found anywhere in the “Theological Turn.” How did JeanLuc Marion, whose intellectual integrity I do not wish to question,

arrive at such a misinterpretation? From the tortuous trains of thought in the few pages of Being Given that claim to disprove me,”” we can at least glean a clear idea which consists in attributing a theological interpretation of givenness to me, which would therefore be

purely imaginary. Yet, we have already been able to note (and it should be emphasized) that at no time did the words causality or causa Jul flow from my pen in the writing of The “Theological Turn.” Precisely and literally, what did I write there? Not at all that Reduction and Givenness would be directly theological either in the sense of the vacra doctrina or in the sense of a rational theology. Once again, that would have been to make this affair lose all of its spice, which,

on the contrary comes from the fact that Marion claims the terms used to be strictly phenomenological, these terms whose ambiguity is

easily applicable in another context, namely a theological one. Indeed, in the first place, Marion exploits the ambiguity of the notion of givenness; and that he cannot really dispute. 78 Secondly, it is phe-

nomenologically debatable to attribute an actual auto-reference to givenness: the words that appear on page sixty-five of The “T heologtcal Turn” are “autosufficiency” and “‘autofoundation” (and it is most

especially this last one that seems to be dependent upon “‘special metaphysics’). I have been criticized that I had not understood that the givenness in question “refers to a single given” and that it is a question here of “the pure appearing of a phenomenon.” I ask nothing more than to admit this, but the arguments presented remain very unconvincing. On the one hand, the appeal to Husserl,” in order to be relevant, assumes we had been shown that it really is the notion of givenness (in Marion’s sense) which comes into play in the Gegebenheit; however, we shall establish that this is not the case. On the other hand, the very text of Being Gwen claims

to exploit the auto-reference of givenness to the fullest extent by thinking the “self” of the giving*! to the point of wanting, for exam-

ple, to return to “givenness the right it exercises over the given.” But how can “‘the pure appearing” exert the least amount of rights upon the given? Not only does Marion thereby unify the given, starting from the auto-reference of givenness, but he ascribes a juridical, The Avatars of First Philosophy am 33

quasi-personalized kind of authority to this givenness. (Either this is truly the case, or the notion of rights has no meaning here.) I would be happy to admit that it is not a question of theology; but then, what is it a question of? Will the continuation of the discussion, this time aimed at the heart of Being Given and concerning the “saturation” of the phenomena, allow us to answer this? Before we get to that point, and so that the question of the “‘theologicalization” of phenomenology may be asked again in full clarity —starting from its own prerequisites and assumptions —it is essential to point out that the whole phenomenological

theory of givenness relies upon the very personal translations and readings of Husserl and Heidegger that Marion gives.

From Translations to Interpretations Is to translate a disinterested act? If it is not already the case for a diplomat or a businessman, what can be said of the philosopher? The

difficulty seems much more pronounced with Heidegger than with Husserl. And yet the Husserlian translations that Jean-Luc Marion takes on are as revealing as they are questionable. Revealing, because they intend to demonstrate that the Husserlian definition of phenomenon ‘rests entirely on givenness. ** Questionable, simply because, far from being literal translations, they often evoke other words and contexts.

The key word for Marion is givenness (donation). In proper French, this is a legal transaction by which one person transfers goods to another person.*™ Of course, a philosopher has the right to vary the common usage of a word according to his personal inspiration. This is acceptable to the extent that he justifies this shifting of meaning sufficiently and that, having done this, he does not remain insensitive to his own language. (Even if, with “givenness,’’ Marion

made an abstraction of all legal procedure, he cannot prevent the word from maintaining an ontic and even personalized connotation.) What seems eminently questionable is thus in no way the reappropriation of the word “givenness’ and the principle of its philosophical

transplantation. Moreover, Marion recognized that I had set up a “fair condition for the approval of [his] project’’:*° “Questioning the notion of givenness and interrogating its phenomenological sense’’* seemed legitimate to me and still seems legitimate. Why, however, are we still unsatisfied with this claim as restated in Being Given? We

note, surely with regret, that the notion of givenness remains over54 w Phenomenology “Wide Open”

invested with meaning in that text in a manner that causes confusion particularly when it is projected retrospectively on the translations of Husserl and Heidegger. Indeed, even before examining the proper coherence of the phenomenology of givenness as Marion maintains it, the question arises of determining if certain texts by Husserl and Heidegger —upon which Marion claims to rely —really mean (vouloir dire) what it is intended to make them say (faire dire) and if the translations imposed upon them are justifiable. To systematically translate

the Husserlian Gegebenheit by “givenness” and the Heideggerian Geben by the same word is not only inexact, but moreover it leads to serious distortions. We shall be quick to produce a few examples. Gegebenheut literally refers to the fact of being given, but with a certain ambiguity —justly pointed out by A. Lowith and by Marion him-

self®” —between that which is given and the fact of its being given. In acknowledging this last paraphrase as being overburdened, those who translated Husserl (in particular, Ricoeur, Lowit, and Kelkel) usually prefer ‘the given” (“le donné”), (“la donnée”), or even “presence (‘la presence”). These translations have received their legiti-

macy from the particular context. Yet, is the unification of this semantic sphere under the term “givenness’ essential? “Donation” in German is eine Schenkung. It is not at all the same. Marion argues in favor of his translation by emphasizing that givenness as ‘‘the fold of the given” is a ‘consistent concept. ** Exactly! It is too much so: uniformalizing®” under its own polysemy its “pressure” and its “authority “° on appearing — oddly imposed as a fact without “the slight-

est leeway.’4! Decidedly, the “translation” of the Husserlian Gegebenhett has shifted horizons.

Without overwhelming the reader under the weight of too many references, let us quote examples of Marion's reading of a few decisive passages of The First Philosophie (Erste Philosophie) and especially The Idea of Phenomenology.

The reading of the thirty-third lesson of The Furst Philosophie offers

a good example of the subtle nudging in the right direction that is at work in the text. Husserl’s “‘strictly phenomenological mode” makes no reference to necessity.*” Yet, not only is this allegation literally contradicted on several occasions,** but it renders incomprehensible the very project of this thirty-third lesson, which is to show that the

factual existence of the world (to whatever extent it may be confirmed by the experience of my consciousness) remains burdened with an irreducible contingency (or non-necessity). The knowledge of this contingency is strangely qualified as “delivery’“ in Being The Avatars of First Philosophy m= 35

Gwen. Was it necessary to pick this “delivery” out of the affairs of the grocery store fruit stand in order to raise it to the dignity of a philosophical concept? We would have accepted it more easily if the Husserlian problematics it contains had been clarified. It is the opposite that happens. We read that “phenomenological contingency (un-

predictable landing) is posited together with givenness in person.’ Properly speaking, in Husserl, there was neither ‘‘delivery,” nor givenness “in person,’ nor the givenness of self “in body,’ nor even “composition.” Lesson thirty-three clarifies the state of affairs that Husserl makes from the outset concerning the ambivalence of the perception of the thing as “a mixture of its own autogivenness and co-intention’’: there is contemporaneity (and not composition) between my perceptive experience of the given itself and its constant epistemelogical contingency (Lrkenntiwskontingenz). It is necessary to

think at once of the intentional confirmation of the presence of the given and the knowledge (connawsance) that all of it (the world) could not be. This latter understanding (connatsance) —which has nothing

to do with a “delivery” —is formulated in a proposition: “the world is.” Husserl identifies a correlation for which the two terms are said to be “treatable” (vertrdglich) precisely because there is tension between them. Far from allowing for the introduction of a “superior contingency’ which would give a kind of “initiative’“° to the phenomenon in separating it out of necessity, in this passage we are dealing with the co-presence of the intentional certitude of the given and the knowledge (connaissance) of its irreducible contingency. The richness or fullness of the given does not make for necessity at all. If we now turn to The Idea of Phenomenology, we notice that Husserl

writes about the second level of phenomenological reflection, stating that, “the psychological phenomenon in psychological apperception and objectification is not really an absolute givenness, rather, only the pure phenomenon —the reduced phenomenon.” The meaning is clear: it is the reduction which “purifies” the phenomenon to give it the status of a pure given. Only the reduced phenomenon (and not the psychological phenomenon) is an absolute given. Concerning the same passage, and thanks to the redirection of the translation of Gegebenheit by ““givenness,’ Marion has come so far as to state that “only the reduction grants access to absolute givenness, and it has no other goal but this.’“® Two ideas have been introduced to both the spirit and the letter of the Husserlian text: the very notion of givenness endowed with an ipseity (which is signed Michel Henry and not Husserl, as the note on the same page admits) ; and the idea 56 w= Phenomenology “Wide Open”

that givenness would be the “goal” of the reduction, whereas for Husserl, it is the status of the given which is modified by the reduction.

On the same page, the second stage of the demonstration once again appeals to the Husserlian text. While Husserl affirms that the phenomenological reduction, in putting aside the question of the existence of the transcendent, excludes all that is not “an absolute given

of pure seeing,’ Marion sees in it a definition of the transcendent governed by “that givenness which the reduction hereby maintains.” In fact, here Husserl is no longer concerned with a factual givenness (Jonation factuelle); he imagines the (absolutized) status of the given delivered up to a “pure seeing.” Not having anything to object to in the third stage of the demonstration, let us move on to the fourth. According to Being Gwen, Husserl would have written, “The givenness of a reduced phenomenon in general is an absolute and indubitable [givenness].’“? Yet, Husserl’s complete sentence is more complex and even literally opposed to this: “In the case of a singular cogttatio that lies before us, say a feeling that we are experiencing, we could perhaps say: it is given. But we could by no means dare to state the most universal proposition: the givenness of any reduced phenomenon is an absolute and indubitable givenness. °° Husser! does not say, as Marion proposes, that “it is up to givenness alone to establish a common factor” between the reduced phenomenon and its indubitability. He only says (at least in this sen-

tence) that a particular given (an emotion) does not allow for the passage to the character of “absolute and indubitable”’ of the reduced

phenomenon. The text and context are clear in Husserl. Reduction is in no way limited to the “singular phenomenological data of the cogttatio.”’ As tor the privilege of “givenness alone,” there is nothing to be said here.

Now, in what concerns Heidegger, the Geen, for once, does not harbor any kind of “trap.” It really is a question of “giving” in its full verbal force; but certainly not one of the substantive —givenness. When we translate the verb Geben by the substantive “givenness, ” this verbal force of the geben becomes overshadowed, as well as the difference between this “giving” and the gift (Gade). Yet this questionable translation is just part of a larger systematic unity, and the interpretive devices it allows for also rely on the treatments imposed upon the word Ereignis and on the expression Ly gibt. To translate Ereignis by “coming” (avénement) —without any other form of due process nor warning or other precautions —amounts to erasing the essential part of what Heidegger wishes to convey (veut The Avatars of First Philosophy m= 37

fatre entendre) in this touchstone of his final journey into thought.*! In

proper French, an advent or coming is always determined and has an object: it is the arrival (or the action of arriving) of the Redeemer, of a new era, of a king.*? Such is precisely the opposite with Ereigny, still less tied to a being or to beings in general than to the being (of beings). An ontic reading of Freignis goes completely against the most formal intentions of Heidegger —namely, to think, starting from Freigntd, Being without beings.** To this argument, which can hardly be ignored, let us add another objection, which may seem more techni-

cal yet not any less serious. The translation as “advent or coming” completely loses track of the play on words, ever so essential for Heidegger, between Eretgnis and Eigen/Etgnens, with all their derivatives. This is to say with all the problematics of “being one’s own” (“‘propre’) and of appropriation™ (which will prove to be particularly damaging to the understanding (intelligence) of the conference on ‘Time and Being” where the emergence of Ereignis is only understandable when one begins by attempting to think the “belonging” of being and of time).°° The translation of Ereignis by “coming or advent” over-

shadows the force of Heidegger's thought to such an extent that it would not be an exaggeration to conclude from all this that it is this translation, not the Ereignis, which is “a covering over’ !5°* As far as the systematic translation of Fu gibt by “that gives” (“cela

donne’) goes, it is meant to be more faithful to “the precision of the

concept. However, this is to neglect the fact that Ev gibt is not a concept but rather a detached expression used in order to convey that which no concept could grasp, and also that this expression is one of the most common expressions in the German language. Certain instances where Heidegger takes up this common usage* become literally incomprehensible when we fiddle around with the language of “that gives.” Not that it is either absurd or insignificant to convey that which the usage masks*® and that which Heidegger himself points out (in capitalizing the “es” of Zu gibt), but a clarifica-

tion would not have allowed this to stand out as the one and only translation. In fact, to render Es gibt more active and determined than it is, folds it back onto the ontic (as was just the case with Ereignws). To claim to avoid this better than Heidegger is truly a high-wire act,

to say the least, since it consists in remaking the Fy into an active subject (which we translate by ‘it’ or ‘that’), whereas Heidegger detects in it the “time proper to” the Ereignis. Who pointed out the danger that Being Given claims to avert, if not Heidegger himself? To have the ambition to do better than Heidegger without seriously con58 wm Phenomenology “Wide Open”

sidering the question of time and by using a word which is itself heavily ontically connoted (givenness) is a barely defensible challenge.

Where do all these forced and over-interpreted translations finally lead? A twisted mind would say, to put in place a new post-Heideggerian jargon. This is only the most superficial outcome of the operation. More profoundly, these translations fall within the framework of an interpretive device designed to “neutralize” an extremely cumbersome object —namely, the very thought of Heidegger. The thesis is brilliant: Heidegger truly discovered “certain properties of givenness, but he was afraid “to acknowledge the pre-eminence of givenness” by privileging Ereignis. Having shrunk back from this essential discovery, “he hides more than he shows —hiding especially that he hides.’”°°

When we return to the text, meaning to “Time and Being,” this extraordinarily dense conference, we notice that it really is otherwise. Let us take a very precise and utterly essential example (because it is the pivot point of the lecture on Ereignis as “covering over). Heidegger writes, “The Gift of Presence is Property of the Happening” (“Dre Gabe von Anwesen wt Etgentum des Eretgnis’’). What is the translation in Being Given? “The gift of the presence comes back

to the coming or advent.’* (“Le don de la présence revient a Cavénement.’’)°° The reduction of “Ereignis” to the ontic is thus perfected by the unbearable schematization of “ist Eigentum” which completely levels the relationship with the “returning to.’°! The semantic correspondance between “eigentum’’ and “Ereignis’’ is repressed mercilessly

and without any regard for what Heidegger means to Say. Not that the gift of presence is somehow subordinated to some kind of coming, but this: “The gift of the present is property of the appropriation that comes (advient).’ Far from the “giving” of time being hidden by Ereignws, here is its most intimate deployment. As for being, which

is at issue in the short phrase that follows and where Marion detects a “confession” by Heidegger, it is paradoxical to see the author of God Without Being criticize Heidegger for having made it (being) ‘‘disappear’ in the ““coming/advent.’ In fact, there is neither abolition nor

disappearance of being. The translation by Francois Fédier is more accurate: “Being vanishes (faints) ( évanoutt) in Eretgnis.”" Being as presence is no longer first; it is to be understood as coming from the temporal appropriation in its deployment (which remains a “giving’). At the end of the conference, we indeed read in plain black and white that “time as well as being can only be thought from apThe Avatars of First Philosophy m= 39

propriation as the gifts of appropriation.’ The said appropriation, far from canceling out these gifts, preserves them and deploys them. One would have to reread the wonderful conference by Heidegger almost word for word in order to show the close intricacy between

the theme of “giving” and that of time itself. Thereby, we would see — but we can already distinguish somewhat —that the Heidegger-

ian movement never consisted in “abolishing the givenness in the coming/advent’®* (for him, properly speaking, these words are not adequate) ; and that, moreover, he refuses to elevate Ereignts itself into a “principle”: “reigns is not the supreme concept which encompasses everything.’°°* Because, to elevate into a principle would re-

main a metaphysical approach.” In “Time and Being,’ Heidegger did not claim to found the principles of a general phenomenology but rather to have cleared a route for (giving to) thinking time in what it has (or gives) of its deepest specificity. Surely, he was not maximalist in phenomenology.

A Strange “Saturation” We must continue the work of an attentive reading by now addressing a text by Jean-Luc Marion, integrated within Being Given and which presents itself as “strictly phenomenological.” (This text, significantly later than The “Theological Turn,” claims to be deeply concerned with methodological rigor.) I believe myself already to be in a position to raise an objection of a semantic character concerning the very title of the text The Saturated Phenomenon.® Descartes’s idea of infinity will be cited, along with the Kantian sublime, as an example of a saturated phenomenon already “described” within the metaphysical tradition.® And yet, as Marion himself mentions, the idea of

infinity goes beyond the framework of quantity, of quality, of relation, and of modality. “It is in the nature of infinity that my nature, which is finite and limited, cannot understand it’ writes Descartes in his Meditation ITI.’° What, therefore, characterizes the idea of infinity

is that it infinitely exceeds my understanding (entendement) which is finite, and which, as such, is accustomed to accounting for the phenomena of ‘“common law.” Far from being thus “saturated” (meaning sated, full, satishled) my understanding is forced to surpass itself, my

knowledge increases “without in so much joining with this infinity whose objective reality is infinitely richer than the vision (vwée) I have of it. Although God may be this infinity ‘actually and in effect,’ my knowledge “will never attain as high a degree of perfection.”’”! Is 40 wu Phenomenology “Wide Open”

God “saturated,” under the pretext that he is in act? Let us clarify the meaning of “saturation.” According to the Dictionnatre Robert, it is a chemical term. The verb

“to saturate’ has a perfectly clear etymology (vaturare, satis) which defines its semantic sphere precisely: “to render such that a supplement of the thing added would be impossible or useless.””?* Not only

does Marion not justify the choice of the attribute “saturated” to characterize the richest possible kind of phenomenon (infinity, the sublime, etc.), but it very well seems that his choice goes against the stated intention. I am not satisfied with either infinity nor the sub-

lime; on the contrary, they are in excess over all saturation. Even admitting that we follow the line of reasoning which seeks to overturn the conditions of possibility of the phenomenon, such as they are defined by Kant and Husserl, in no way results from this that we are dealing with “saturations in these limit cases. This term seems to go against the author's intentions. Although the philosophical context of this “saturation” is the Husserlian “fulfillment,” this reference does not alleviate all of the difhculty. What is eventually filled in Husserl is an intentional unity (vwée intenttonnelle), a noése; it is not the phenomenon itself. Or rather, the modality of the fulfillment will depend on the type of phenomenon imagined: in this case, the geometrical object is the best example. The

idea of a triangle lets itself be directly intuited (or constructed, as Kant has already seen). Far from being poor in intuition, as Marion writes, mathematical ideas, on the contrary, constitute the archetypical references of Husserlian intuitionism.

Does arranging the various types of fulfillment as different as those which are supposed to modify the idea of infinity, the sublime, the “pure historical events,’ the “phenomena of revelation,” (idol, icon, theophany”) all under the single banner of the “saturated phenomenon’ (and wanting to make a “classification” out of it) amount to an amazing phenomenological feat? Or is it a great conceptual accomplishment? In our opinion, it is a masterful stroke! The mere fact of unifying phenomenality conceptually, under the pretext that the phenomenon

offers itself up “out of itself”; and this according to Heidegger! Whereas it must be made clear that according to §7 of Being and Time, the withdrawal is no less essential to the phenomenon than its posit-

ing (monstration).”4 The amalgam between the Husserlian horizon and the analytics of Dasein here are operating with the help of an imperious conceptuality (quite un-Heideggerian really) using the The Avatars of First Philosophy sa 4/

Kantian categorical framework only to overthrow it (a negative phenomenology which does not thus admit to being one). In examining this process of reversal, we shall once again encounter the denied “theologization.” Indeed, it consists in seeming to con-

cede to Husserl on one side and to Kant on the other that the

givenness of the phenomenon is subjected to the conditions of horizon, from which it obtains its fundamental duality (between the ap-

pearance and the appearing) from the former’ and its categorical determinations from the latter.”° “Some limits remain, in principle, irrefutable and undoubtedly indispensable.’”” Undoubtedly! Up to that point, how could we disagree with this re-evaluation of the limits of experience; a domain where Husserl finds himself largely in agreement with Kant? Everything changes suddenly with the idea that it would be consistent with the profound vocation of phenomenology (its ““‘possible’’) to reverse the conditions of phenomenal experience (presented as restrictive of the phenomenon) in order to liberate an absolute given-

ness, unconditioned, freed from the limited horizon of the phenomenon of “common law.” Any reader, however unfamiliar with Kant he may be, would be surprised that Marion wishes to reduce the categories to the restrictions of experience, when, for Kant, they are obviously the fixing point of a correlation between transcendental subjectivity and the conditions of objectivity of all objects. In particular, the categories of modality (possible, real, necessary) are in no way formed in function of the demands of a single /. Besides, it is at least surprising to seem to ignore the status and the role of reflecting judgment, by acting as if Kant could only access this “‘satu-

rated phenomenon” that is the sublime by the pure and simple reversal of the conditions of the determining judgment. Beyond the interpretation of Kant’s texts, even beyond the rhetorical tactics of the introduction of the reversal which was just the case, the basic problem is the following: what is the status of the complete reversal of the conditions of phenomenal experience? Marion himself admits, as if to soften up the reader, that it is a question of an “imagi-

nary variation. ”® Be that as it may, this operation must still not change its status surreptitiously, like a fish that suddenly becomes a rabbit. There is an enormous difference between reversing a horizon and liberating oneself from the conditions of all horizons, between making the top into the bottom (or vice-versa) and eliminating all local reference. From the fact that within phenomenality the “excess” or “overflow” of the conditions analyzed by determining judgment 42 wu Phenomenology ‘Wide Open”

are produced (which Kant recognized perfectly and studied in his Third Critique) does it necessarily follow that we have the right to liberate ourselves from the “conditions of a horizon’? The excess of the sublime, for example, is itself conditioned—unconditioned: it is not at

all produced outside of any horizon. To confuse this type of excess with an “intuitive givenness (donation) . . . that was absolutely unconditioned’” is to annihilate all critical work in a single stroke and to reintroduce under the heading of the “saturated phenomenon” the noumenon! An essential question was overlooked in this hyperbolic “reversal’’: namely, does a phenomenon which excepts itself out of all the conditions of phenomenality still deserve the name “phenomenon”? Through what first admits to be a simple imaginary variation, then with great agility passes itself off as the liberation of the phenomenality of the phenomenon in its “saturation,” Marion dismisses all the conditions which do not correspond to this phenomenon “par excellence” that is meant to be the “saturated phenomenon” in one fell SWOop.

Wasn't it precisely metaphysics that largely practiced this operation of the passage “par excellence’? Is it surprising then that Marion rediscovers the Cartesian idea of infinity in the front row of the saturated phenomena? Thus, here we have metaphysics coming back in through the big front door of a “phenomenology” which culminates in exactly the opposite results of the methodological and critical demands that seemed to constitute experience. Another major ambiguity thrives within this “saturated phenomenon.” First presented as a “‘religious” phenomenon, it seems to have regrouped the attributes of God, as well as the different aspects of the visual arts, under its general unity. This unity seems to include “pure historical events’ ®° as well. But is there even the least amount of “purity” in an historic event, whatever it may be, that is forever burdened with the shadow of circumstances and human affairs. Finally, this “‘strict’”” phenomenology seems to accept, and even to call for, passage to a hermeneutics,®*! all the while annexing this (hermeneutics) within its vast empire.*’That’s a great leap to take and would normally demand some justification. Here again, nothing is more obvious (for Marion). In no way will we conclude that Jean-Luc Marion theologizes everything that he touches (or conceptualizes). Certainly, a theological outcome 1s by no means absent from the saturation of the phenomenon. It is even significant that the text ends (as we have noted earlier)

The Avatars of First Philosophy a 4%

with a reference to the phenomenon par excellence of revelation, explicitly theological (and topping two other revelations, with equally theological or religious connotations —idol and icon): “Finally, there is the theophany, where the surfeit of intuition leads to the paradox that an invisible gaze visibly envisages and loves me,’ *’ and where the conclusion invites us ‘‘to think seriously aliguid quo majud cogttarl negutt,’ that is to say, the infinity of God once again. More decisively, here more than ever, what is at issue is the disparity between the stated intention of a wholly rigorous phenomeno-

logical project and the enormity of the phenomenal field that he claims to master but which seeps away from all sides. Wanting at all costs to establish a single concept of a “saturated phenomenon’ in

order to cover the extremely heterogeneous phenomenal realities seems to be like cashing in on Husserl’s most fragile speculative bet to establish phenomenology as both a rigorous science and a first philosophy at the same time. Let us remark that it is not always sufficient to appeal to, and to take on, the ultra-paradoxical character of a (certain) thesis in order to succeed in transforming a set of imaginative (or imaginary) variations into an acceptable phenomenological theory. How can we not remain perplexed before the very definition of revelation? “Let us repeat that, by revelation, we here intend a strictly phenomenological concept: an appearance that is purely of itself and starting from itself,

that does not subject its possibility to any preliminary determination. *4 Here we truly have it in “simple’® terms! Yet, it would be clearer and surely truer to recognize on the one hand that these terms —deeply steeped in the Cartesian tradition of evidence —are literally metaphysical (only the absolute being thus defineable) and on the other hand that they constitute an excessively abstract blueprint in relation to the empirical and symbolic depth of actual historic, aesthetic, and religious revelations. As for knowing if such a “simple” conception can suit the Revelation, without a reference to either the contingency of circumstances and their incarnation, or to some kind of retreat, or to mystery, or to writings (with or without capitalization), I leave it up to the theologians to decide. Far from having been retracted by the author, The Saturated Phenomenon is for the most part repeated in Being Given. The conception of phenomenology which emerges from all of these texts is “maximalist, in the sense that it endeavors to sum up the tasks of first philosophy, all the while aiming at a disengagement from metaphysics. This is an eminently delicate enterprise and one that makes the validity of 44 uw Phenomenology “Wide Open”

its paradoxes the thread on which it tries to balance its risky maneuvers. Is this an acceptable phenomenology, since it proclaims to having clarified its difference with regards to all theology?*®* Despite our

desire to note all that leads in a strictly phenomenological direction, we are under the obligation to indicate the re-appearance of discrepancies which, this time, are for the most part situated over and above the debate on The “Theological Turn” but which do not allow the author to tie up the loose ends. For instance, on the same page where

the distinctive nature of phenomenology is upheld, we read that, “The manifestation of Christ counts as paradigm of the phenomenon of revelation according to the paradox’s four modes of saturation.’*” Despite the formally stated difference between revelation and Revelation, we have here a paradigmatic proximity which is not at all un-

important, especially when we confront the continually professed phenomenological neutrality with a real re-evaluation of givenness according to ‘the call and the responsal,” “the nameless voice,” “the abandon,’’®8 and finally love, whose connotations are not unimportant as well. In being so strongly disclaimed, has The “Theological Turn” become indiscernible? Rather than re-drawing all of the baselines, we have preferred to bring the debate upon the question which influenced it —namely the philosophical status of phenomenology.* Couldn't the “possible” of phenomenology be completely ditterent? That is what an inquiry into the delicate articulations (and dis-

articulations) between phenomenology and hermeneutics, and ultimately into the different orientations of a minimalist phenomenology, will allow us to verify.

The Avatars of First Philosophy a #5

Articulations / Disarticulations

Having noted and analyzed the main aporias and the non-negligible misunderstandings which flow from the will to institute (or to reinstate) phenomenology as first philosophy, it is now time to adopt a more positive point of view by addressing the inevitable question: “Is the phenomenological project amendable?” It is obviously possible to respond negatively to this question and to abandon phenomenology to its historically dated role. This option, however negative as it may be, is both understandable and respectable. That is, as long as this kind of refusal of phenomenology does not schematize the discipline excessively. While not wanting to make an extensive listing of these refusals here, we Can propose that many of them hold to a restrictive or limited conception of phenomenology, which belittles its possibilities. Thus, Deleuze restricts phenomenology (of a “popular” style) to the intentional sphere [the intentional seeing (i#ée) of the thing by a consciousness that signifies itself in the world’'], thereby preparing for his assimulation of it to a soothing and bland spiritualism. However, it is a question of knowing if he was right in diminishing the research of the later Merleau- Ponty to a classical project of the refoundation of visibility; whereas for Merleau-Ponty, it is much more an issue of understanding how the visible comes into its visibility, “this pregnancy of the invisible within the visible, this flesh of the imaginary,” the emergence of our vision stemming from our bodies.? Must we absolutely think of “epistemol46

ogy against phenomenology? Is the distance so great between Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze if it is confirmed that the first liberates himself from a “popular” phenomenology — exclusively intentional —

and the second exploits (certain) virtualities that ultimately may not seem incompatible with the demonstration of minimalist phenomenological perspectives.

Along another route (this time a positive one) that requires rethinking the philosophical status of the phenomenological project, the appeal to hermeneutics presents itself almost naturally and even seems to be necessary. Does not this appeal maintain both a certain autonomy of the phenomenological procedures and their overcoming (or their relaying) within open and complex interpretative authority? Therefore, we must re-examine phenomenology and hermeneutics —

first in their respective histories, then in the junctions and disjunctions, the crossings and divergences between them. This question is not at all reduced to that of the relationship be-

tween two ‘disciplines.’ It has already crept into our reflections upon the philosophical status of phenomenology. Is this status from the outset hermeneutical through and through? Or, thanks to the reduction and its descriptive seeing, must it retain a full distinctive na-

ture and complete autonomy? The desire to pick out the best articulation may go hand in hand with the fact that disarticulations —

even up to extremes —are unavoidable. What does it mean to say here “to articulate” and “to disarticulate”? And to what extent can we recognize the clash of their antagonism? Since Plato, philosophy has been conceived of as an activity capable of composing and decomposing, of analyzing and synthesizing. In the Phaedrus, Socrates argues that the dialectic does not limit itself

to the art of synopsis but that it also requires a dexterity in cutting: “to be able, contrariwise, to cut apart by forms, according to where joints have naturally grown (articulations naturelles), and not to endeavor to shatter any part, in the manner of a bad butcher.’ To assemble and to disassemble, and to construct and to deconstruct are useful and sometimes difficult operations. But to articulate and to disarticulate comes out of an even more subtle art, since we must “follow the natural articulations’® without limiting ourselves to the mechanical interlockings (emboitements) or mechanical disyunctions.

What counts for a question, a definition (the definition of “love” for example) applies all the more so to the articulations and to the limbs of philosophical knowledge (avoir) itself. The metaphor of corpus circulates throughout the history of this knowledge as if it were Articulations/Disarticulations m= 47

charged with balancing the books. Yet, it supposes, like the metaphor of a tree, that philosophy would have natural joints (attaches naturelles) that would only be a question of redefining. If such is the case,

phenomenology and hermeneutics must find or recover the stable status and normalized relations that a harmonious development of knowledge imposes. However, between phenomenology and hermeneutics, do “natural articulations’ exist? The least we could say is that current philosoph-

ical knowledge does not organize itself into a harmonious whole. If there is a harmony, it is even better hidden than the “invisible har-

mony that Heraclitus speaks of! An agreement is even harder to drag out considering how very different the projects and styles of thought that come together under the banners of phenomenology and hermeneutics are from one another, making the question of their articulation even more complex.

The Legacy of History Before imagining the current situation in all its complexity, it is essential to look back into history so as to establish how much we owe it in this matter. The inheritance is not merely made up of a common Hellenic origin of the terms of presence. It also implies two separate histories that we could not retrace here in all their richness, but for which we can already perceive the absence of parallels. Between two inspirations, which are not yet disciplines, the reading of Plato already reveals a dissymmetry that modern history will in no way reequilibrate. Phenomenology and hermeneutics remain, as much in their origin as in their relatively recent autonomisation, more disjointed than jointed, without being foreign to one another. Articulations and disarticulations are both at work and “in play” but at what levels and in what sense? If we had to give an award for seniority, it’s hermeneutics that would take the prize. Not only does the /on celebrate the poets as the “interpreters of the gods” (4erménés ton thebn),° but, on many other occasions,’ the ferméneutitke emerge in an autonomous fashion. And this is in a sense which seems, as Jean Grondin® notes, particularly religious or sacred (vacral). Again this, even though the explanation of the words (parole) or of an oracle still remain merely preparatory in relation to the philosophical grasping of truth. For phenomenology, the situation is the opposite. The word comes from a modern construction (which only dates back to the eighteenth 48 aw Phenomenology ‘Wide Open”

century) but the inspiration remains resolutely platonic and maybe in a sense more essentially philosophical than that of hermeneutics, at least if we imagine the eidetic seeing (vwée edétique) of the phenom-

enological method. However, are we not thereby falling back into a retrospective illusion? To speak of a phenomenology in Plato himself would literally be an anachronism. However, how can we not recognize the platonic origin of the vision into essences, even if we must ask ourselves if the platonic dialectic truly “saves” the phenomena by transcending them hyperbollically. This dissymmetry, which arises from their very origins, does not prevent the two inspirations from sharing a common source, without the slightest guarantee of organic or systemic junction. Indeed, when each (much closer to us since the eighteenth century) will begin to claim a disciplinary autonomy, it is once again the disjunctions which are going to seem to win out over the convergences. While Lambert makes of phenomenology, conceived of as a critical inventory of appearance, a simple preparatory phase of his doctrine of truth, hermeneutics maps out a new trail both more singular and more promising. His ary imterpretandt justihes itself by an exegetic tradition which is firmly grounded in the works of Luther and which extends within the Protestant exegetic tradition up to the point of claiming, with the works of Schleiermacher, the status of a new discipline. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the simultaneous presence

in Berlin of two masters who hold firmly to their respective positions — Hegel and Schleiermacher—symbolizes the divergence between the knowledge of the appearing (avoir de lapparaitre) and the interpretation of the Word. Is it a closing of the concept against the

unending renewal of the attention paid? It would be all the riskier to limit ourselves to schematizing the misunderstanding between the founder of hermeneutics as a discipline and the analyst of the System in this way, especially considering that, in writing the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel exposed the science of the “appearing knowledge’ (“savoir apparalssant’’), whose role within the system remains problematic, but did not present himself above all else (avant tout) as a phenomenologist. Although in principle the situation may have been clarified since then, to an extent all phenomenology today more or less accepts a reevaluation of the pro) ect formulated by Husserl to make a tabula rasa of psychologism and naturalism in order to establish a specific seeing into (vivée) the “things themselves.’’ And this from different orientaArticulations/Disarticulations m= 49

tions all under the same banner! The destiny of the word phenomenol-

ogy (and the projects it leads to) should not be misleading. The tension between the principle concern of refounding a first philosophy and the quest for a method of rigorous description of the phenomena in their immanent phenomenality, already obvious within Husserl’s own works, finds itself in the research and debates that make up the vitality of current day phenomenologies. Let us acknowledge right here that the historical legacy between the two is more conflictual than ironical. If it is true that phenomenology and hermeneutics share a concern for meaning and both tie their destinies to the heart of philosophical wonder, their past histories are nevertheless different and even contrasting. (Hermeneutics, working on texts, especially the sacred texts, seems almost always secondary in relation to a phenomenology which has linked itself in part toa renewed radical methodology). Therefore, their eventual al-

liance has nothing of the natural and peaceful character of two streams flowing down the same slope. Starting from this renewed perspective, how are we to understand

the junctions and disjunctions between the two that reveal themselves in the contemporary landscape? First of all, two articulations of very different styles present themselves: there is the hermeneutical phenomenology such as Heidegger presents it in Sein und Zeit and its meticulous re-equilibration in the works of Paul Ricoeur.

The Delicate Equilibrium of Hermeneutical Phenomenology It is worth the effort to return to the emergence of a “hermeneutical

phenomenology” in §7 of Sein und Zeit. Two points merit being brought to light, one negative and the other positive. Heidegger frees himself from all unconditional allegiance to Husser! as well as to Dilthey by challenging from the outset a disciplinary approach to ontology, then to phenomenology (and implicitly to hermeneutics). He affirms that the expression “Phenomenology” indicates (fait signe verd) a “concept of method,” and he resolutely orients himself toward “the possible of phenomenology, ” that is to say toward new tasks in relation to the Husserlian accomplishments (acquis). This return to

the “thing itself” applied to phenomenology is rapidly and almost surreptitiously paired with just as radical a revival of the word “hermeneutics. To the extent that the method of phenomenological de-

scription is not eidetic, that is a vision into essences, but rather 50 wu Phenomenology “Wide Open”

Auslegung. The translators, for once unanimous, translate this word as “making explicit” (“explicitation”’), which is not incorrect, but tends to reduce somewhat the ambiguity of the Auwslegung on the side of a clarification. Auwslegen signihes unfolding, spreading out, and, in

the figurative sense, to explain, to make explicit, to interpret. (Die Audlegeret means “the mania of interpreting everything.) The Awslegung is really a making explicit, but it is not necessarily simple or definitive, since the enigmatic being that it is a question of examining, the Dasein, conceals itself as much as it shows itself. “The phenomenology of Dasein (the Existant) is a ermeneutic in the primordial sig-

nification of this word, where it designates this business of interpreting. !°In qualifying the analytic of Dasein (the Existant) in this way, Heidegger almost seems to evoke as evident that the Dasein, not offering itself up either as a thing nor as an essence, calls for the specific and demanding attention that will elevate its ordinary comprehension to the point of a “specific meaning of being” (‘ven propre de létre’) (etgentliche Sinn von Sein).

However, the evaluation concerning this hermeneutic dimension remains particularly elliptical on page thirty-seven of Sein und Zeit and contains several significations which Heidegger limits himself to listing in a tri-fold classification: first, the original sense of Auslegung; second, the making explicit of the conditions of possibility of all ontological research” in general; and the third part, the making explicit of the existential-ness of the existence of Dasein which emerges. This sense is philosophically first, Heidegger points out, in which the derived sense (vend dérivé) of hermeneutics as the “methodology of the historical sciences of the mind” takes root.

If we look closer at it, the enumeration made by Heidegger is incomplete. There are not three significations of hermeneutics, but (according to his own logic) five: the three senses explicitly distinguished by Heidegger, plus the original philosophical sense (which perhaps does not completely mesh with the primary linguistic sense), and finally the most recent sense, this one “derived,” that is to say coming out of the works of Dilthey. Curiously, in this crucial passage Heidegger does not clarify anything—neither the original sense of hermeneuien, nor the intrications of other significations. He even leaves out all that concerns the exegesis of the sacred texts, applying a kind of fait accompli tactic.

What is the goal of this tactic? Let us be a little hermeneutical to find out. Immediately after the very densely packed paragraph that we have just treated, Heidegger returns to “being as a basic theme of Articulations/Disarticulations sm 45/

philosophy.”!! Expressing ourselves in figurative terms, let us say that Heidegger ties the alliance between phenomenology and hermeneutics thanks to the ring of ontology! In fact, the whole of Sei und Zelt could be understood in the light of the explanation of the “und” which ties being and time: being as such reveals itself as time through

an endeavor which presents itself as analytic, interpretation, and clarification all at the same time (the words mlerpretation, auslegung, analyse, analyttk, and explikation all stand together under Heidegger's pen). 1!”

The hermeneutics of this hermeneutics, the making specific of this clarification, required more extensive developments. Let us emphasize, as far as the essential part goes, to what extent the Heideggerian articulation of phenomenology and hermeneutics centers around the conjunction of coordination “and,” just like hermeneutics itself as interpretation of being and time. Yet, it is done in such a way that this

conjunction does not have a principally additive nor distributive meaning (vens) but rather an expletive impact that almost makes it into the equivalent of an aly (as such). Thus, does the Heideggerian articulation between phenomenology and hermeneutics reveal itself to be much more encrypted than the

elliptical presentation in Sein und Zeit leads us to suppose at first glance. The discovery of this articulation cannot be separated from the task of “destruction” (or deconstruction) of the whole of ontology.

With Ricoeur, the situation presents itself in a noticeably different manner, more clearly distributed along the lines of an architectonic logic. Certainly, when Ricoeur exposes the Heideggerian conception, at times he writes that, “Phenomenology can only be a hermeneutics because the closest to us is also the most hidden (tssimulé).”’ However, when he takes up the problem on his own account, Ricoeur no

longer conceives of a narrow intrication between phenomenology and hermeneutics under the sign of ontology, but instead a passing of the baton, a relay, a ‘graft,’ a “conversion” between two methodological phases to their clearly delimited and ultimately complementary roles. We see this in Time and Narrative, where phenomenology sets up the aporetic description of intentional seeing (des visées intenttonnelled) of temporal consciousness, whereas the hermeneutics of narration comes to collect and to transpose the said apories to another level in order to enrich intelligibility. However, this schema does not work in a single direction, since Ricoeur also held to emphasizing that phenomenology would not be thinkable without herme52 wu Phenomenology “Wide Open”

neutics, and, more precisely, “the great hermeneutics of the four senses [vens] of Scripture.’!® If phenomenology and hermeneutics cross their presuppositions in this way in a “great debate, which has also been a long journey (cheminement) side by side,’'® it is because they share a common presupposition or a common explicit or implicit option in favor of significance —‘‘the choice for sense’ (“le cholx pour le sens”) .\7

This complicity between phenomenology and hermeneutics is compensated for by the fact that elsewhere Ricoeur strongly emphasizes the limits of phenomenology, and thus leaves a vast domain open to another type of method. Ricoeur makes clear that these limits of phenomenology are ‘those of its eidetic style.’ In several other passages of Time and Narrative, another limit presents itself as well: namely, the fact that, in neglecting cosmological or natural time, phenomenology holds to the time of subjectivity, to the time of intentionality. Precisely the discovery of these limits allows for explicitly attaining the hermeneutical dimension which was already presupposed by

the circularity between comprehension and pre-comprehension: “For, it is when the phenomenology of time reaches those aspects of temporality that are most deeply hidden, even though they are closest to us, that it discovers its external limit.”!? The hermeneutics and poetics of the narrative will not dissolve the apories of time: they will offer a “reply” which will go deeper into them. We note that, on the question of the articulation between phenomenology and hermeneutics, Ricoeur has a clearly greater methodolog-

ical and systematic vision than Heidegger. In the Heideggerian works, the emphasis is displaced in rhythm with his advancement in order to ultimately erase all general method and all “distribution of

roles’ in front of “that which is to be thought.” But we must ask ourselves if Ricoeur’s methodological gains are not paid at too high a price: that is, the very postulation of a unified meaning (ven), discretely re-instating a metaphysical nucleus common to both hermeneutics and phenomenology. As for Heidegger, even though he tried to reunite the fibers of his thought with phenomenology” as well as with hermeneutics”! near the end, we can ask ourselves if he did not also contribute to disarticulate these two orientations, which were originally complementary and worthy of his challenge of metaphysics. In fact, in his “Dialogue

with the J apanese, when Heidegger makes reference to a sense (vend) of the hermeneuten even more originary than all interpretaArticulations/Disarticulations m= 573

tion —to announce and make known (faire connattre) (das Bringen von Botschaft und Kunde) —he opposes this sense (veny) to the “manner of

metaphysics. Furthermore, he signals toward the hermeneutical bezug, a dimension where language decisively and even more origi-

nally calls to us than in the representation of the “hermeneutical circle. ’’2?

Heidegger certainly made clear that he preferred that his path for thinking (chemin de pensée) remain “nameless, * thereby leaving open

the question of the articulation between his “phenomenology of the invisible” and the ultimate hermeneutical dimension of his thought. But he never thought that phenomenology, not more than every philosophical approach worthy of its name, could eliminate a questioning of its foundations and a debate with its own language. This is to say, the necessity of a hermeneutics, be it 2 nuce and whatever its level of thematic or methodological elaboration may be. How can we not acknowledge him and not be amazed that, even today, one could refuse all hermeneutics, all the while claiming to be a philosopher? As surprising as that may seem to all those who do not disassociate philosophy with the unending labor of interpretation, there indeed exist certain radical refusals of hermeneutics. Let us examine two kinds of disjunctions: those who, working phenomenology and hermeneutics from the inside out, call into question their respective presuppositions; as well as those who attack them from the outside, namely coming from traditions or projects which contest the two traditions in principle.

Disarticulation and Deconstruction Can we conceive of a phenomenology without hermeneutics? Or a deconstruction of metaphysics which eliminates it at the same time? What should we think of these denials of hermeneutics? Do they wall

themselves within a purely verbal quarrel that hides their true hermeneutical implications? At first glance, it seems surprising that the practice of deconstruc-

tion leads to contesting hermeneutics. If dogmatic metaphysics is dead, and if there are nothing more than interpretations, as Nietzsche had suggested, does it not still remain to understand the internal logic of the constituent concepts of philosophy, as well as the com-

plexity of their textual sedimentations better? Shouldn't a wellunderstood deconstruction see itself as hermeneutical, without throwing suspicion on the word and its connotations? Indeed, it is 54 w= Phenomenology “Wide Open”

more a question of suspicions than of a frontal attack. When Derrida encounters Gadamer, he asks him if the call to goodwill (4a bonne volonté), presented as an “unconditional axiom,’ does not presuppose “that the will (volonté) remains the form of this unconditionality, the absolute appeal, the determination of final authority.’*4 Thus, it is the whole hermeneutical horizon as space of dialogue, possibility of the appropriation of the speech (parole) of others, hope for intersubjective harmony (enfente), which is challenged (or at least suspended since it is suspected of remaining metaphysical). All this under the pretext that maintains for itself a project of reconciliation and a kind of return to the platonic SYNOPSIS, perhaps even a gentle version of Hegelian reconciliation. We imagine that the same type of objection would be raised against Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, since it intends to preserve the same presuppositions of dialogical and practical intersubjectivity as Gadamer, and to the extent that Ricoeur boldly assumes a revitalization of the “meta-function” within the metaphysical project —all the while refusing the “Hegelian temptation” and freeing itself from a thematic onto-theology.” If deconstruction in this way challenges comprehension as the ultimate horizon of hermeneutics as well as the unity of a phenomenological corpus, does it not disarticulate all recourse to meaning (venv) in favor of the text and textuality? Does it not displace the hermeneutical endeavor in function of the presupposition of the “death of God” so as to hunt down all suspected remanences of metaphysics

and even of religiosity in their final entrenchments? Even if these questions are worth asking, that does not necessarily justify their condescending application. Gadamer answered serenely, whereas Derrida shot back with a suspicion in the form of a strangely accusing title —“Bonnes volontés de putssance’’ —as if belonging to metaphys-

ics was always an affair of others and as if the challenging of this “bonne volonté’ of comprehension was sufficient to settle the score with hermeneutics. Certainly, not only could the “donne volonté’ seem a bit briet?® or

shortsighted, but it is susceptible of hiding its presuppositions (in particular the linguistic ones) as well as its intentions (which are not always explicit). However, returning once again to his ever so disap-

pointing encounter in Paris with Jacques Derrida, Gadamer did make some pertinent remarks” which will allow us to go a bit deeper in the debate. He detects the main bone of contention: namely, the

critique of logocentrism coming out of the deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. Does hermeneutics remain a prisoner of lo-

Articulations/Disarticulations m 55

gocentrism and of a metaphysics of presence? Gadamer contests this

by emphasizing on the one hand that he accepts the Heideggerian critique of the privilege of sight for the Greeks and even a certain kind of Heideggerian ‘deconstruction’ of metaphysics, not as an end in itself but instead as an opening to the living dialogue, to the continuities as to the ruptures of all linguistic exchange.

The stakes are huge. Beginning with questioning an attitude deemed overly directed at harmony and agreement (by Derrida), it is the entire question of the “overcoming” of metaphysics which is brought up again. While Derrida practices the deconstruction tirelessly, hunting down all metaphysical remanences, Gadamer is un-

afraid to question the constant and obsessive reference to the “language of metaphysics.’ ?°

Gadamer was literally correct in his interpretation of the Heideggerian Destruktion which was effectively different from that which the

Derridian exercise made of it: it only aimed at departure from the paralyzed tradition in order to render his experiences of thought “alive once again.’ *° But his concept of metaphysics seems insufficient if we compare it to the entire critical journey realized by the later Heidegger, beginning with his lectures on Nietzsche. Gadamer has a restrictive conception of metaphysics, which limits it to an “ontology of subsisting being,’*! that is to say, to the nucleus of ontotheology. In the end, it is a classical conception, and, moreover, perfectly respectful of the problem. In contrast, Derrida follows Heideg-

ger all the way to the last entrenchments and right up to the final consequences of a much more radical dispute of metaphysics, which he returns against Heidegger himself, and over what Nietzsche identified as our “belief in grammar’ (a calling into question that Derrida will go so far as to apply to the “politics of the proper name’ ).*” How can such a debate be settled?**> Must it even be? Whatever his interests may be, would not our reader also be justified in making us retrace our steps: What is the relationship with phenomenology? In the meantime, has not this been somewhat forgotten? In fact, it had been less forgotten than exposed to the disarticulations of meaning (vens) by deconstruction, because this ultimately renders all logocentrism untenable, and therefore it is the same for all stabilization of phenomeno-logie. If it seems to go differently for hermeneutics, it is due to a certain tolerant and open practice of the discipline by Gadamer and Ricoeur. Yet, we did see that the ontological hermeneutics of the early Heidegger was accompanied by a “‘de-

struction” of the paralyzed tradition and called into question the 56 wm Phenomenology “Wide Open”

privilege of the presence of the present. The campaign led by Sein und Ze truly split wide open the phenomenological project in the Husserlian sense. Thus, in principle, nothing forces hermeneutics to jus-

tify phenomenology nor even to seek a mode of articulation with it Gif not precisely the Gadamerian “donne volonté” that Derrida so con-

tested). In the end, the stakes in the debate between Gadamer and Derrida are less concerned with phenomenology’s past than with its possibilities. The radicalization by Derrida of the Heideggerian calling into question of metaphysics can be more or less opposed to one hermeneutical style or another. But is the essential to be found there? Don't both Gadamer and Derrida share the same Heideggerian heri-

tage of departure from the privilege of the presence of the present (even if the latter would perhaps be reluctant to admit it)? From that moment on, neither one nor the other can any longer be phenomenologists véricto sensu in the Husserlian sense.

Is the distance that separates hermeneutics and deconstruction insurmountable? As if he tacitly agreed that this was not the case, Derrida recently was able to admit (and certainly without speaking in his own name alone): ‘Is it a coincidence if all of us, one day, have been tempted both by a certain dissidence with respect to Husserlian phenomenology and by a hermeneutics whose discipline owes so much to the exegesis of religious texts’ ?* In fact, if no heritage is unequivocal, we have seen to what great extent the Heideggerian legacy ofa “hermeneutical phenomenology’ is overdetermined. This is why Derrida cannot honestly cut himself off from this complex network from which and upon which his thought has affixed itself and has labored. This is perhaps also why hermeneutics, an inspiration that is more secretive and less strictly limited to the constraints of the call to evidence than phenomenology, does not cease to reappear in Derrida, perhaps even in the form of a subtle sacralization of the text as such (regardless that, at the same time, deconstruction does not put limits on its disappropriations). Ultimately, what difterenciates and reciprocally situates phenomenology and hermeneutics (without articulating them properly speaking) is the delimitation of the former within a horizon of elucidation or an horizon of upgradation (muwe a sour) (a stabilization of a horizon of realization of presence /absence),*° and the illimitation of the latter

in the twists and turns of the reading and of the interpretation of reference texts (for which the link to the sacred is perhaps never totally inexistent). In this respect, the tributes paid to Emmanuel Lévinas are very revealing, especially taking into account the still recent Articulations/Disarticulations m= 57

date of the death of this eminent hgure of French thought. However comprehensible and legitimate they may be, they hardly leave room to perceive an insurmountable difference between the style of deconstruction and that of hermeneutics. Paul Ricoeur mentions nothing more than some “difficulties” in an infinitely esteemed text.* Jacques Derrida ~— giving his adieu the form of an “d-dteu’”*” — ultimately

formulates nothing more than a ‘“‘question-prayer ** in saluting a body of work endowed with the privilege of satisfying us with a “light and mnocent debt,” thus set apart as sacred and ethically consecrated (especially in comparison with Heidegger). Is there not a discrete return there (which is certainly very respectable but worthy of question) to the religious, to the moral (and to the “theiologtque’’)

within the very heart of a philosophical gesture that is in principle always critical, but is (in fact) won over by reverence to the altruism and the highness of vision of a consecrated body of work? Clearly adleu, an address pronounced at the funeral of Emmanuel Lévinas, offers a character of contemplation particular to the circumstances, but its publication gives it a more definitive range. And this, without ‘Le Mot d’Accuetl,” a conference given one year later, coming in to break this “contemplation” and split with the train of thought of the “a-dlteu. °° If we wanted to revive the critical point of view of The “Theological Turn,” we could even, call into question the displacement of the intentional thematisation toward an ethical —if not religious — reception in terms of /oupitality.“°

Therefore, even if the divergence of style is established, deconstruction and hermeneutics share a common link to the text and textuality, to the tradition, to its forms, its traces, and its stratifications. Whether they be suspended or unlimited, interpretive disarticulations and rearticulations correspond to the articulations and re-articulations of texts. Then, is there still room left for a phenomenological horizon of the realization of presence/absence?

A New Disarticulation The return to a raw elucidation, to a descriptive vigor, to the opening of perspectives clearly split along the framework of immanence, etc., excludes all complicity with hermeneutics (or even with deconstruction). Breaking with the reverent reference to the text, we return to the things themselves in the brutality of their appearance —yet not 58 wm Phenomenology “Wide Open”

necessarily in their eidetic features — but rather in their process, their evolutions, their escape routes. In this sense, if he had to succumb to the dangerous temptation of reconciliation at all costs, Deleuze himself would be more of a phenomenologist than a hermeneutic. With the flair of provocation, he does not mince his words in taking on what he considers as crypto-

religious and moralistic reinstitutions under the guise of interpretation. But he similarly attacks psycho-analysis just as much, and undoubtedly even more, than hermeneutics: “Signifiance and interpretosis are the two diseases of the earth, the pair of despot and priest.’ “1 However extravagant it may be, this controversial assessment has its own logic, which is to be found in the wake of Nietzshe’s Antichrist. It intends to push atheism well beyond a methodological neutrality, up to the point of hunting down all judgment of God and every theological system functioning on these three great levels — organism, signifiance, and subjectivation.*? But even the becoming as “rhizome “* exposes itself, and justifies itself, even the book-of-roots (livre-racine) remains a book, even the body without organs is the opposite of the organism and must explain itself against the recurrent

dualisms, despite its escapes and breaches. Even nomadology remains an “ology.” From this fact, are we not always dealing with (a) meaning (ven) [but not the unified “meaning” (“sense”) chosen by Ricoeur], and with interpretation (without “interpretose’)? And did we not begin by suggesting that Deleuze himself—through an odd boomerang effect—could be qualified as a phenomenologist under

certain conditions? While not being an insult, this could take on a certain pertinence under an angle of attack which has yet to be clarified.

It would obviously be ridiculous to want “to annex” the work of Deleuze to the phenomenological movement like we add an extension to the family table on Sundays. On the contrary, it is a question of understanding better why it is that a certain incompatibility (both with phenomenology and hermeneutics) has come to the forefront. Is it a mutual incompatibility or a radical divergence of presuppositions? The question is worth asking precisely because we are now working on the boundaries of a “phenomenology wide open.” While Deleuze links the figure of the priest to “interpretosis,’ it is the one

of the despot that he thinks of in relation to phenomenology. A strange over-dramatization, which nevertheless becomes clear if one reflects upon the tyrannical and paranoid character that this individArticulations/Disarticulations m= 59

ual is cloaked in (revét le visage) tor Deleuze, as well as the narrow intrication between evdov, figure, and the bringing to light. How does the appearing offer itself up without signifiance nor in-

terpretosis? Along its escape routes. Not being able to enter into all the details here, let us choose one example —one plattorm among thousands —and here it is: the aspect-ness, the aspect, this machine

“to be undone.’ The aspect emerges in the encounter at the axis of signifiance and subjectivation: it is the system “white wall-black hole.””Deleuze excludes every field and every phenomenological position (as well as any “‘structurizing integration’) in order to justify the emergence of the aspect and, even more, to announce its dissolution. All the same, what he does in his captivating or eye-catching manner (depending upon the moment and one’s tastes) is really a typological description

of an invariant, a system of the aspect-ness of the aspect. And, in presenting it as essentially Christian, in isolating the Christ as the aspect par excellence, is 1t not thrown out in full interpretation? Phenomenology is banished (because, as with Sartre, it is steeped in intentionality). Hermeneutics is shamed because of its sanctimonious side; yet, do they not still haunt the platform of aspect-ness and more so than others? Clearly, nothing is more uniquely eidetic. Everything

is dynamized into schemes of intensity; but in order to measure a typical variance, one needs a specific type, and the concepts are still the main reference points of the “rhyzomatic’’ method. If this journey into corporality “without organs” seems to lead us away from our subject, it does allow for re-examining the question of the disarticulations between appearance and textuality, between the emergence of the aspect (or of the eos) and its re-evaluation, its critique, or its dissolution. To what extent must the act of coming face-to-face (d envisager), so very essential to all phenomenology, balance itself within a horizon

of signifiance, or, on the contrary, can it appear in a perspectivist dynamic? Thus carried to the extreme, the disarticulations between phenomenology and hermeneutics will go so far as to cloud their limits, but they force us to renew the acuity of our vision and the keenness of our hearing within a renewed philosophical amazement: the

one of the Nietzschian solitary man detecting that “behind every cave in him there is not, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave —an ampler stranger, a richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every foundation” !*° 60 mw Phenomenology “Wide Open”

Epilogue After having seen the extent to which a “hermeneutical phenomenology represents a delicate equilibrium to maintain, while the brutal rejection of all phenomenology and all hermeneutics does not exclude the eventuality of an unexpected and anarchical return to one and/or

to the other, it remains for us to return to a point which, up until now, has partially escaped us, having somewhat slipped through our fingers or behind our lines. It has to do with this divergence that radically separates Deleuze and Ricoeur, centering around what Ricoeur had the credit of identifying as ‘the choice for meaning (ven). It is obvious that this “choice” has a much more decisive range

than simply to know what the disarticulation or, on the contrary, what the distribution of roles between two quasi-disciplines (or methodological references), such as phenomenology and hermeneutics, will be. It is the entire conception of philosophical thought that simultaneously comes into play (and which does not fail to implicate the challenging or the reinstating of the metaphysical project at the same time). In this domain, we must admit a double dissatisfaction. If the Deleuzian disarticulations permitted the pulverizing of an overly mild unity of signifiance and the multiplication of perspectives

(or plattorms) on the phenomenalities of becoming, they did also leave behind the questioning on the metaphysical status of a conceptual affirmation of chance. Deleuze actively demands the respect of a “metaphysician,” but he holds well back from seriously entering

into dialogue with Heideggerian thought on the question of the “overcoming and the appropriation of metaphysics—a question which apparently remained foreign to him.*° Conversely, Ricoeur clearly and decidedly takes on a reappropriation of the “meta-function” in its double strategy of hierarchization and differentiation.” This, in such a way that his “choice for meaning’ (vend) rearticulates itself inspite everything according to the fold

of the onto-theological structure, with phenomenology coming to take the place of ontology (in the form of an ontology of action), and hermeneutics coming to settle into the space corresponding to theol-

ogy. Respect for the “meta” dimension as the region of essential questioning, however, does not lead us to approve of this endeavor for the reinstating of metaphysics nor for an overly symmetric and disciplinary sharing of the roles between phenomenology and hermeneutics.“8

Must a phenomenology choose “the meaning” (“/e gens”) once and

for all Gn an obviously metaphysical acceptance)? Up to now, this Articulations/Disarticulations ms 6/

was the nearly unavoidable slope of all unified phenomenology; but perhaps it is not the inevitable constraint of a minimalist style in phenomenology. It is in this way that our divergence with the position of Ricoeur begins to take form. By contrast, did the unexpected and bothersome intrusion of the Deleuzian contesting have any other goal than to reintroduce a spirit of contradiction and to undermine all attempts at reinstating spiritualistic metaphysics under the cover of phenomenology and/or herme-

neutics? It just happened to be an all too brief “experience of thinking” to the limits and whose very provisional conclusion seems to be the following: it is decidedly not easy to get rid of all meaning, of all interpretation, and/or of all metaphysics. And besides, must we do this? The Deleuzian response is very clever, since it goes in the direction of inventiveness and of an exploration forever pushing further toward the potential, maintains a certain confusion, and remains unsatisfactory in the domain which interests us here —namely, that of method. If it is phenomenological, it is not at all because it reinStates an ontology but rather because it attempts the challenge of a

“nomadisation” of descriptions. A paradoxical phenomenology, which is perhaps not incompatible with the minimalism we are looking for, provided that we allow for a plurality of styles within it. The next chapter will make these perspectives clear. There, on the adjoining front of hermeneutics, we will see to what extent our investigation doesn't really place us in disagreement with what perhaps may not be out of line to call a “hermeneutical minimalism.’”? According to this, the Heideggerian concept of comprehension (very-

fehen), proclaimed as an “existential” underlying all acts of explicitation, is itself still subjected to ambiguities and therefore must pass the Caudine Forks®® of a grammatical and linguistic reworking. The hermeneutics of the history of efficiency proves to be dependent upon a hermeneutics of language games.”! Thus, we have fewer prob-

lems within its heuristic sense than with its historicist versions and its eventual propensity to fall back upon an “auto-interpretation, dispensing with a clarification of its concepts and of its syntax.

In a kind of salutary contrast, all these contestations and these evaluations could force us to reflect upon the minimal presuppositions and the limits that phenomenology and hermeneutics must assume in order to find a modus vivendt et cognoscendt. Or else we must accept working in the region of their disarticulation and in the “without name.” 62 m Phenomenology “Wide Open’

In any case, there still remains a lot to do in order to clarify the possible and real modes of articulation or disarticulation between phenomenology and hermeneutics. We'll pause here in adopting the words of Wittgenstein, “When I interpret, I step from one level of

thought to another.”

Articulations/Disarticulations m= 63

Toward a “Minimalist” Phenomenology: The End of Overbidding

By setting itself up as first philosophy, claiming that it alone occupies

the position of a “real” philosophy to come, a certain kind of phenomenology seems to us to have overestimated its capacities. Its presumption consists in seeking to reinstitute the ancient, royal privilege of philosophy over the particular sciences, in speculating excessively upon its very own “possible,” and even in engaging in a tactic of hyperbole in order to win the attention and recognition of the vast majority of nonpositivist philosophers. Whether this is a deliberate plan, a genuine faith in the mission of philosophy, or an illusion sincerely

maintained in order to stimulate research, the risk that this kind of phenomenology runs is clear. The risk shows up immediately in its ambition (more or less loudly proclaimed) to be the only one to perfect the real phenomenology! This could lead it to erase both the fra-

gility and the pluralism that are indissociable from any inquiry concerning phenomenal appearing. From the angle of first philosophy, as well as in relation to hermeneutics, phenomenology has shown that it cannot maintain a dominant and imperious position without paying a high price: the further its ambitions extend, the less its specificity is ensured. The phenome-

non is sacrificed in its transcendental or even transcendent condi-

tions. The reinstitution of both the foundational and ultimate character of philosophy requires the unification of its object par excel-

lence. (In this way, will givenness be considered the key to all phe64

nomenality from now on?) As a result, this phenomenology fails to clarify its relations with metaphysics. Rather, if finds itself ensnared by metaphysics, constrained to maintain the vagueness concerning the gap between its intended —purely phenomenological — project and its ambiguous results. Concerning hermeneutics as well, phenomenology doesn't really gain anything by seeking to be dominant and omnipresent. For, if phenomenology annexes hermeneutics as yet another territory in its vast empire, it deprives the latter of its own realm of meaning and its specific role. From the outset, the space of interpretation is entirely subordinated to the establishment of intentions (vwées) upon the phenomena and phenomenality. If, on the other hand, phenomenology takes itself to be hermeneutical through and through, it finds its conceptions of phenomena and of phenomenality continually called into question. Does the solution lie, as Ricoeur suggests, in a clear distribution of roles, with phenomenology —understood as the reception or collection of phenomena ~— passing the baton to hermeneutics? We

have noted the interest of this perspective, as well as the difficulties that it brings along with it. In line with our attempts to reorient phenomenology, now is the time to sketch out a “minimalism” and spell out its meaning. The “end of overbidding” is not reducible to a kind of prudent modesty. We should learn from the experience of a whole tradition of research, from Husserl and Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty and his emulators. We should also listen to the critics, often perfectly justihed and armed with good arguments, who have addressed phenomenological discourse from the outside. More positively, we should allow for the development of the virtualities, incitements, and suggestions the phenomenological movement has carried along within it. Let us not forget that, since Husserl, the phenomenological tradi-

tion has been burdened with a constitutive and apparently insurmountable ambiguity between its scientific ideal and its philosophical questioning. The reorientation sketched out at the end of The “Theological Turn” began from an analysis of this largely conflictual situa-

tion.' Though he remained fascinated by the geometrical model, Husserl! sought a scientificity for phenomenology that would be sui generts, but this search relied on the platonic presupposition that the more radical and unified rationality is, the more genuine it is. For this reason, despite the practice of the epoché and the rejection or deferral of fundamental metaphysical questions, phenomenology finds itself driven back towards a constantly idealized coherence. This sublimaToward a “Minimalist’”’ Phenomenology m 65

tion is forever being reactivated due to a programmatic enthusiasm less concerned with articulating sure results than with intensifying its own research. While the exact sciences have gone beyond their most difficult challenges through a critical and experimental functionality that is ever more determinate and specialized, Husserlian phenomenology pursues the dream of a teleology of reason, which explains why the theme of its own “scientificity” remains largely rhetorical.

Even if Heidegger does not, in retrospect, seem best placed to teach Husser! something in this area, one might recall the damning criticisms of Husserl he addressed to Jaspers in 1923, in light of what

has just been said: “Husserl is completely falling to pieces —if the pieces were ever together in the first place, which has lately become more and more questionable to me. He swings back and forth and talks trivialities, so that 1t would move one to pity. He lives with the mission of being the founder of phenomenology. No one knows what that is. 7

Despite the excessive side of this moody disposition, which is directed more at the man than at his work (and here, less at his properly phenomenological insight than at its doctrinal sedimentations), is there not some truth in this criticism of the ambiguities, or even confusions, of Husserl’s project? It is not surprising that this tension exploded into divergent tendencies: some took Husserl at his word in order to try to lend some consistency to regional phenomenologies backed up by methodological research, while others only used the theme of phenomenological rigor in favor of a more or less explicit reinstitution of metaphysics. Must we decide amid the chaos? Or should our reorientation instead capitalize on the lessons of the more or less successful, more or less inspired, experiments that now make up the rich post-Husserlian tradition? In order to give a more precise content to this salutary reorientation, let us articulate the “minimal” character of certain studies that have already been made, reserving the term “minimalism” for the type of phenomenology we are recommending. The choice of this term deserves some explanation or justification. Let us first grant an apparently formal terminological distinction: minimalism, at least as we use the term, is not equivalent to a factual minimum. This risks collapsing into a systematic limitation of goals

and a principled resignation to the paucity of results: keep costs down, do as little as possible, take no risks. Insofar as the minimalism 66 m Phenomenology “Wide Open”

we are advocating concerns the phenomenological movement alone, it is intended neither to limit nor to dominate philosophical inquiry as such. It should instead be understood as a re-centering, a re-delimitation that is both terminological (in order not to speak a lot of hot air) and methodological (in order to allow the phenomenological phase to take its place better in a philosophical division of labor). Another issue to consider is whether we should retain an analogy with minimalism in art. Although this only occurred to me after I saw how a kind of minimalism makes sense methodologically, the connection was already made by Allan Leepa, who locates its source of inspiration in phenomenology and not vice versa: “The minimal artist tries in a confused way to realize in a visual form what philosophers

and writers have already put into words: the study of phenomena (phenomenology) is the basis of experience.’* Whatever the validity of such a judgment, it has the merit of drawing attention to the formal lack of ornamentation and the return to basic objects that both seem

characteristic of a concern with the “things themselves.” But the analogy stops there; it cannot be pushed further either historically or methodologically. Minimalist art began in the United States around 1965 and came to France in the 1970s in the form of the “supportsurface’ movement, and is thus neither as venerable nor as continuous as the phenomenological tradition. Above all, neither its domain, nor its projects, nor its methods are comparable term-for-term with those of the phenomenological movement, however diverse the latter may be. Does minimalist art represent a positivist blockage of picto-

rial and plastic abstraction? Even if Marcelin Pleynet’s judgment seems harsh, it nonetheless reminds us that this aesthetic movement is only intelligible as one rather limited portion of a larger movement of abstract art that is in the process of reflecting upon its own material and formal conditions at the risk of passing over (like other relatively recent tendencies) into “non-art”’ or “‘anti-art.”” Minimalism in

phenomenology has nothing to do with definitively coming to rest upon the image or the object but aims to stimulate research through a return to the origins of wonder before the appearing. Once the phenomenological enterprise gives up defining itself as first philosophy or at least as bearer of the mission of “true” philosophy, it returns to the conditions of its own reception of phenomenality. This renunciation is not at all the product of feigned modesty but of a concern to recover what is specific to philosophy, and this proves

to be irreplaceable. It is namely an attitude of neutrality that has eliminated doxic prejudices, allowing the description of a certain type Toward a “Minimalist”? Phenomenology sm 67

of phenomena, seeking characteristic variants in them. The minimalist doesn t even raise this question. It is enough for him to be certain of advancing within the terrain of phenomenology by treating “the way of appearing of things as an autonomous problem’“ (even within psychism). Despite all of its good intentions and rigor (decidedly taking on the limited character of a phenomenology of finitude), a minimalist phenomenology, because of the very constraints it intends to respect, will nonetheless be in no position to boast of increased scientificity nor to seize upon all of the virtues of philosophical questioning. Minimalism does not escape the tension between the two poles that condition all phenomenology. It limits itself to taking up this tension with the greatest possible clarity and without prejudging other moments. As for the absence of overbidding, it could have appeared in other circumstances and in different contexts, once the phenomenological project got rid of all metaphysical or ultimately systematic pretensions. But more than being an actual final report on the said overbidding, our title expresses a certain hope, especially in function, of an all-too-French and overly ideological situation. The touchstones have already been laid. Now, some distinctions about them are required. Outside or against the Husserlian tradition, going beyond its pre-

scriptions (deliberately or not), some attempts have already been made, even if they have not carried the name “minimalist.” Among these phenomenological attempts, we will examine, in turn, those that claim to be positive, experimental, or limited (and that appear to be essentially heuristic) and then examine the search for a “phenom-

enology of the inapparent’ that, in its most innovative breakthroughs, stems from a minimal phenomenology whose specificity has not yet been sufficiently recognized. These initial differentiations will allow us to illustrate and specify the type of phenomenological minimalism we intend to advocate and practice.

First Differentiation: Heuristic Phenomenology In the broad sense, we may call heuristic any phenomenological undertaking that gives up on the idea of presenting itself as an end in itself or as a systematic unity but rather presents itself as one constituting a phase of research in an eventually larger project which tests a working hypothesis by means of methodical descriptions. The risk here is that the specificity of phenomenology will dissolve into a kind of empiricism of “all-terrain” description. This is why a distinction 68 m Phenomenology “Wide Open”

can be drawn between literary descriptions (which may, incidentally,

be fascinating and quite aesthetically or psychologically valuable) and descriptions governed by a morphological ideal. In the latter case, the description does not function by chance or inspiration but through the study of a pregnant and significant form. The description

generates the form, which may perfectly well have a mathematical structure. Thus we see a differentiation coming to light, thanks to the proliferation of the possible with regard to evocative descriptions. These descriptions themselves may be structured methodically, as in chemistry, where the phenomenological phase of research enumerates the characteristics of the physical appearance of a body (which already supposes that this body has been identified and that the project of isolating its constant properties over against its visible and sensible transformations has emerged). If the progression in the morphological sense obviously corresponds with progress in formalism, one could ask oneself if a description does not become phenomenological from the moment when an isolatable consistency emerges out of the game of what appears. In Husser! himself, looking into essences (/a visée Jed essences) through imaginative variations already has a phenomenological character, although it does not yet possess the radicality of the transcendental epoché. This first reduction must, in its turn,

be reduced, but it has begun to evolve. In this regard, it initiates a heuristic phenomenology. It is, however, necessary to recognize the impossibility of isolating a purely heuristic stage of phenomenology, which would not intro-

duce any preconceived idea—any prior hypothesis—even if it is entirely implicit. Here we reencounter the hermeneutic and epistemological circle of Newton’s famous claim: “ypotheses non fingo.” However legitimate it may be to want to stem the anarchic tide of hypotheses, it is equally inevitable that this project itself literally be hypothetical, since it conditions the rigorous advance of the scientific project. René Thom analyzes this reciprocal conditioning of description and explanation in the work of the scientist, offering the example of the extraordinary operativity provided by Newton’s law of gravity. He rightly shows that “the essential goal of the scientist's theoret-

ical activity’ is none other than “to reduce the arbitrariness of descriptions.’ But, ipo facto, since no description is “innocent,” that is, free of preconceptions, is it legitimate to claim, as Thom does, that “all science is the study of a phenomenology,’ as if the antecedence of phenomenology were a brute fact? Indeed, in this sense, phenomeToward a “Minimalist”? Phenomenology m= 69

nology is, from the outset, a search for a morphology and perhaps even for a hermeneutics. If we could now mark a distinction between the classical reductionist attitude, which Thom tells us “breaks open the black box,” and the phenomenological attitude which describes the clouds of points “such as they appear,’” it nevertheless remains that this appeal to phenomenology [reactivating the meaning (venv) of description] supposes a morphological project; in this case being a certain kind of mathematical formalization of phenomena.

There is no reason to deny a phenomenological character to this type of approach. However, it is impossible to grant that it is free from all preconception or that this is the only possible approach. We will find another, methodologically more sophisticated, variant of this in the heterophenomenology of Daniel Dennett. Voyage in Heterophenomenology

Daniel Dennett is a wit. He has a sense of humor that is often directed at his own research. Thus, in order to explain his conception of phenomenology, he presents the following theoretical fiction: Let us imagine a tribe that worships a god called Feenoman. The members of this tribe, called Feenomanists, attribute all sorts of qualities to their god, most of them contradictory.® Faced with their beliefs, what will scientists do? They will bracket their own beliefs and behave like “agnostic scientists.” They will collect the natives’ descrip-

tion of their beliefs, compare, contrast, order, and analyze them thoroughly. Feenoman, now an “intentional object,” is for them (the Feenomanologists) one construction among others. This is, of course,

not the case for the believers who think they know all there is to know about their god, but they realize they can learn more about him by talking with the Feenomanologists. All belief is ambiguous, but a native who adopted the Feenomanologists’ attitude of “distance and neutrality’ toward his god would clearly have lost his faith. Dennett

concluded that “the heterophenomenological method neither challenges nor entirely accepts as true the assertions of the subjects but maintains a constructive and sympathetic neutrality, in the hopes of compiling a definitive description of the world according to the subjyects.”° And this description will itself be a stage in the constitution of a theory that explains all the facts in question. Here, we are quite far from first philosophy! Does the reference to phenomenology result from a pure and simple homonymy? Dennett’s theoretical fiction could not, however, completely surprise and 70 aw Phenomenology “Wide Open”

destabilize a phenomenologist trained in the Husserlian and “‘continental” school. Such a phenomenologist would recognize in it a cri-

tique of first-person psychology, which Comte made classic and which was picked up by the behaviorist school. Not only does this critique have its legitimacy in the context of a search for the greatest possible objectivity in this sensitive sector of the social sciences, but it can also be taken up from a Husserlian point of view. In fact, Husserl always wanted to surpass both introspection and particular subjective points of view in approaching the “thing itself.”

Let us suppose that we provisionally accept the distinction that Dennett makes between autophenomenology and heterophenomenology. Then, how can we characterize this difference without mak-

ing a caricature of their individual positions? It proves to be impossible to hold onto the point of view Dennett himself takes over what he calls “autophenomenology.’ He reduces it to a first-person

psychology (albeit in the first-person plural).'° This constitutes a major misinterpretation (contresens) of Husserlian phenomenology, which, in any case, in no way limits itself to striving to give descrip-

tions of intentional objects that are as objective as possible. It is therefore really evident that the quality and the properly philosophical scope of Husserlian phenomenology truly elude Dennett, who, furthermore, never claimed to be any more expert in this field than he is.!! However, things get more complicated, and thereby become more interesting, when we imagine Dennett's calling the Cartesian

theater into question, that is to say, questioning the fundamental character of the role of the subject. From this perspective — by philosophically exploiting this slight glimpse (apergu) further than Dennett could or wanted to —it seems permissable to contend that the maintenance of Husserlian phenomenology within the horizon of transcen-

dental subjectivity [coupled with its contempt or its negligence of empirical givens (données) | prohibits it from going beyond a subjective point of view, even one somewhat sublimated. In any case, there is an auto-reference which itself forbids the “autophenomenologist’’ from ever truly leaving the citadel of the Cartesian theater. However, this objection, inspired by the richness of a critical en-

deavor, led “in exteriority,” could be reversed: Dennett remains caught in a rigid distinction between the “hetero” and the “auto” that prevents him from re-examining —at the end of his heterophenomenological journey —the philosophical question of the subject.!? The result of this is that his concept of phenomenology is less interesting

than his ingenious research in the field, which leads to a theory of Toward a “Minimalist’”’ Phenomenology sm 7/

human consciousness as a ‘virtual machine.” Heterophenomenology has an essentially critical interest and remains, in this regard, within the horizon of heuristic phenomenology.

Heidegger, for his part, invented an altogether different kind of approach, which was absolutely inconceivable, either coming from the Husserlian project or within the horizon and in the terms of an extension of scientific knowledge.

Second Differentiation: Tautological Phenomenology In more than one regard, the phenomenology that Heidegger practiced in the later years of his life is unusual. One might even wonder

whether the Master named it so in order to answer the repeated questions of disciples and friends who were disconcerted by his break with any methodical phenomenology and, at the same time, get

the “last word in” over Husserl by retracing, in his always singular manner, his “way into phenomenology.’ Whatever the case may be, this “phenomenology of the inapparent !4 deserves to be considered minimal, in the sense that it re-

nounces everything that adds to Husserl’s highest or maximal ambition: namely, in his own way, to make phenomenology a rigorous science and a discipline which could be formulated as first philosophy. We have just established that Heidegger’s phenomenology also gives up on the project of falling in line within a scientific enterprise in the role of a preliminary research whose aporetic character would clear the way for a morphology or a study that “aims at” apodicticity (a visée apodictique). Even in the unschetnbar,(this inapparent in the sense Heidegger relates it in his final“phenomenological” exercises), there is to be found a hint of discretion, of modesty, of imperceptibility, which sees itself as belonging to the thing in that which is most proper to it: “Only that which emerges [entupringt] from the ring of the world without appearance becomes a thing.’'!° To detach oneself

from the thing as object in order to really watch a rose or a jug in their emergence, this is truly a commonly neglected manner of approaching these “things” and of resituating them within their world, inasmuch as this world gives itself as such. And it is out of this space where the earth, the sky, the gods, and the mortals stand, reflect, and

shine together, that this strange word, having the appearance of a tautology, must be heard: “The world presences by worlding.”’!° Concerning language, as well as with regard to space and time, the same attempt at restitution is at work, implying a conversion of one’s 72 wu Phenomenology “Wide Open”

attention to a “simplicity” foreign to representative rationality: “Simple as these relations are, they remain wholly inaccessible to calculative thinking. Where they are held up to us nonetheless, our current notions resist the insight.”’!” Whether it is a matter of the temporalization of time (to which we shall return) or of the spatialization of space, both intimately linked

with this play of the world, what is shown in this way to be most worthy of being thought arises from the most essential and the most originary unfolding of the saying (de vage). Once what this vage means has been made explicit, we come to understand that it is truly

a question of a “phenomenological” showing (in the tautological sense): "To say means to show, to make appear, the lighting-concealing-releasing offer of world.”’!®

One will surely object: what is left that is phenomenological in this undertaking once the whole framework of the project of consitution

has been sacrificed? The answer could not be separated from that which concerns philosophy itself for the later Heidegger: namely, it is now thought (denken) which is called for and no longer a philosophical activity in the reflective sense. The “step back” (echritt zurtick) im relation to philosophical knowledge and metaphysics retains only a minimal grouping from the Jogos, although it is thoroughly attentive to what in the appearing does not appear. Does this “phenomenology of the inapparent” point to an oxymo-

ron, a supreme paradox, and a frustrating impossibility? Did the Master maliciously throw his disciples a bone to occupy and distract them? Formally, we understand how it concerns the Same and deserves to be called “‘tautological”; it consists in returning to the first self-evident insight of phenomenal appearing: time temporalizes, saying speaks, the world worlds. Can this be serious? Here, is there some kind of analogue in a fit of mockery, a das kuinzige, to what the normaltens of the Rue d’'Ulm call a hoax (canular), practiced to the east and south of Ulm by mischievious old Swabians? At best, it might be a “Black Forest’’ version of Socratic irony. At worst, it is an involuntary admission of the

pathetic failure of philosophical thought. It would be enough to laugh about it, as Gabriel Marcel invites us to do in a little-known comedy La Dimension Florestan where the Master (Heidegger as anx-

iously awaited as Tartuffe) plays a nearly mute oracle until the moment when his greatest admirer cites the definitive thought: “The pear pears.” Toward a “Minimalist”? Phenomenology m= 73

Laughter is fair enough. Socratic irony itself was not spared Aristophanes’s crude wit. Nevertheless, a question remains: namely, in the present case, is the recourse to tautology the positing of a pure and simple formal identity not “wanting to say anything at all” (ve “voulant rien dire’)? Or is it a gesture of clearly not wanting to say anything more about time, speech, and the world than the countless discourses about them? Does “tautological”’ phenomenology not try to say (or rather to let be seen and heard) precisely what every Saying transgresses? From that point on, the Same that it tries to grasp (or inhabit) most closely is none other than the very gift of time, of

language, and of the world. Receiving not only all that appears in time, language, and the world, but the way of being (4a mantére 0 étre) —

which is imperious and discrete at the same time —of the appearing and of that which it reserves. And, in fact, in regard to time, the conference “Time and Being’ clearly specifies that it is not a question of determining what time is, but of bringing to view that which is most proper to it, its way of giving itself.

Husserlian phenomenology, claiming to return to the “things themselves,” carried out this return through a reduction of transcendental subjectivity, purifying its relation to the essences of the things in question. The unusual phenomenology of the late Heidegger invites us to do without the correlation between transcendental subjec-

tivity and essences, in order to return to the very emergence of appearing that makes the relation to things possible. In Heidegger, there remains a link with the “thinghood” of the thing: authentic phenomenology is supposed to obtain a view that “safeguards” the ‘‘as

such” of phenomenality. Abiding with, hearkening, looking with a

different eye .. . all this, like Buddhist Enlightenment (although surely the analogy goes no further), requires time, patience, and endurance. If this is not a simple attitude corresponding to a sharpwitted formula, then what is it? It is almost more like wisdom than knowledge. To learn to dwell

soberly alongside the very emergence of time, language, and the world is a “program” that no longer has anything to do with the progress of science or even with the enrichment of knowledge. Instead, it is an ethic of the not-known, gained through a hermeneutical-critical survey of the epistemological and metaphysical project (visée) in its will to objectification. Is it a farewell to this will to know?

Neither a revolution nor a paradigm shift, this discrete innovation is falsely modest; as Heidegger himself suggested, it is intended to initiate a departure from Western history.”° 74 w Phenomenology “Wide Open”

Is this hubris or an extraordinarily exact premonition of our possibilities? Whatever the answer, we can now judge that the minimal character of this project (in phenomenological terms) has a considerable ambition underlying it. And even if this ambition is criticized as inordinate or misplaced, one must recognize that what it means to say or show is not nothing. This “phenomenology of the inapparent’”’ is not reducible to a mere appendix to the thought of the later Heidegger. If it means something, and if Heidegger was not simply toy-

ing with his audience, it is in fact the inauguration of a new meditative form of thought. The “practical studies” of the later Heidegger (like the exercises in Davseinanalyse from the Zollikoner seminar) are undertaken in this vein. To call this unusual phenomenology “minimal” is not to belittle it. Rather, it is to give the fullest sense to this very difhcult attempt to train sight and hearing to get as close as possible to phenomenality. The “phenomenology of the inapparent’’

is a phenomenology of proximity. If the analogy with pictorial art was illuminating, we should think less of minimal art than of Cézanne's obstinate sobriety before the Mont Saint-Victoire or the rocks of Bibémus. The “phenomenologist of the inapparent”’ is no longer an ideal spectator of the truth of the world and of its essences: he learns to inhabit the world “at arm’s length” from the withdrawal of things. In this sense, Heidegger truly expanded the “possible” of phenomenology ina way that was utterly unforeseeable from the Husserlian

perspective but that is also far removed from the ambition to reinstate first philosophy. Everything in Heidegger holds together. There is no reason to separate this tautological and minimal phenomenology from the deconstruction of metaphysics; it is the same task that is being pursued, certainly more positively in the direction we were just examining. However, to what extent are we justified in making a third differ-

entiation in order explain further what we mean by “minimalist”? Is there only one phenomenological style possible, even when it is necessary to recognize the incompleteness and complexity of the deconstruction of metaphysical thought? This is what must now be clarified.

Which Minimalism? Having established that there is not merely one way to relieve phenomenological research of its recurrent foundational and/or totalizToward a “Minimalist”? Phenomenology m= 75

ing ambitions, let us now attempt to sketch out a few significant orientations of the minimalism that we would like to put into practice. It is less a general method armed with new dictates than a style which, while appropriating the acquisitions of the attempts just mentioned, would extend their teachings according to an orientation that is more perspectivist (in the Nietzschean sense) than solely heuristic. While the eidetic “seeing into” intends to yield the quiddity of the thing, in unfolding the essential through the inspection of the mind,

and while it witnesses its own ambition become generalized by a project of universal consitution, a minimalist approach to phenomena, in contrast, will gather the frail signs of their emergences and will attempt to avoid smothering their unconcealments and their singularities under the methodical investigation of invariants. A word ~a gleam,”! a flight, a spark, A thrust of flames, a stellar trace — And then again —immense — the dark

Round world and I in empty space.”

Before (and under) the concept’s grasp occurs the linguistic vibration that Gottfried Benn speaks of in a brief poem, which cannot but inspire a phenomenology of the inapparent. Must this be only a tautology? When this is the case, we have seen the will to know suspended in favor of a “listening for a sameness” (“‘écoule d'une mémeté’)

stuck in the heart of temporality and of its linguistic offering. By suspending the play of differences, tautology radicalizes the epoché, but also petrifies it: a giving that only gives, a time that temporalizes, a speaking that speaks .. . Can the inapparent be reduced to this original purity of the Same? Is it not also necessary to distinguish and to listen to the play of differences in all their gradations —the articulations of time, of language, of perception, and of imagination? Must the inspiration for a phenomenology of the inapparent lead one right into a corner, where the only alternative is ‘‘take it or leave it’? Is it possible to practice such a phenomenology in a non-tautological sense, one more determinated, more articulated, and for this reason, able to renew its ties with intelligibility and knowledge? This possibility does not exist only in principle; this kind of minimalism seems to have been initiated and practiced already by Merleau- Ponty and perhaps, in a more obscure sense, by Wittgenstein.”° Merleau-Ponty’s opening move in this direction is this break with a phenomenology of the ideal and total Spectacle of the world. In one sense, this break runs throughout and conditions all his work; but his 76 w= Phenomenology “Wide Open”

presuppositions are made more and more explicit in his last writings. In Phenomenology of Perception, the fecundity of this break is burdened

by the establishment of a general concept of perception and by an essentialism which, despite Merleau-Ponty’s efforts to recover the opacity of the world, still weighs down the descriptions of spatiality, of the body, and of the human world. ‘“The world is there before any possible analysis of mine.’ This telling remark is supposed to compensate for the failings of an excessively intellectualist phenomenology by means of a return to the constitutive, concrete, and embodied projections (rwées) of being-in-the-world: “My field of perception is constantly filled with a play of glints, cracklings, and fleeting tactile sensations which I cannot relate precisely to the context of my clearly

perceived world, yet which I immediately ‘place’ in the world.’ How can we remain attentive to these “glints,” these “cracklings,”’ without crushing them under the weight and clarity of the noemata? Here, there is a concern for the significant “inappearances’ to which

phenomenological thought seems to be able to do justice. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty’s last studies are open to the visible’s dimension of invisibility and its fleshly emergences. Sight is not reducible to the apprehension of simple elements and of qualities that show on its surface.”° Against this Cartesian conception, Merleau-Ponty sets a reappropriation of fleshly, moving invisibility. This incessant and concrete search for “‘source-forms’’ (formesméred)”’ and for the cipher of the visible must be carried out through the grasp of bodily overlappings and of social rumblings, which are other “inappearances’ (in this case, cultural). What is thus sketched

out is surely a program for a renewed, indirect phenomenology” whose constant and vital inspiration will be less the mental power of inspection or of deduction than the intensity of an attention that is sensitive to the initially inaccessible proximities that constitute the richness of our being-in-the-world. It is a style of listening and “‘clairvoyance’ that takes shape through stippling, though a dialogue with

painters (Leonardo, Cézanne) with poets (Breton, Michaux), and writers (Proust, Simon), company that Husserl surely never kept. In what sense is this a minimalist style of phenomenology? Far from wishing to crown or close upon itself the project of a universal constitution (or even to unify the horizon on the basis of a “sourcenotion’ taken to be the key to phenomenality), it re-interrogates experience in its too often unnoticed sensory and linguistic emergences (concealed as much by everyday banality as by conceptual transparency). It is minimalist, not at all in the sense that it limits itself to a Toward a “Minimalist”? Phenomenology sm 77

sort of indispensable and definitive minimum relative to phenomenology but instead because it recognizes that a study of this kind can no

more present itself as definitive than can a work of art, which, far from exhausting or reducing the inapparent, franslates it. As Cézanne said to Gasquet: ‘“What I am trying to translate for you is more mysterious and is entangled with the very roots of being, with the intangible source of sensations.’ ?°

It is a matter of some importance that Heidegger and MerleauPonty were great admirers of Cézanne. But when the artist speaks to Gasquet of his “infinite sense for nuances,’ of his reading of Lucretius, of his obsession with “geological strata,’*° he does not seem to have withdrawn into a Heideggerian sort of “tautology.” Since no one has a monopoly on profound inspiration, let us simply acknowIedge that a renewed phenomenology can learn from a sensory and a pictorial experience as exceptional as Cézanne's. It is not at all by chance that this reference was necessary and that such close connections were maintained between aesthetics and the minimalist orientations of phenomenology. Can there be a stabilization of the phenomenological moment without a “picture, ‘even if this

is to be taken in a transcendental sense? This term should not be enclosed within representational limits that are too narrow (and which, furthermore, have been very much deconstructed by contemporary pictorial art).*! Here, “picture” means bringing to presence/ absence, opening perspectives or seeing (de viséed) or variations, of which the eidetic is but one form. But this does not mean that a minimalist method should not also turn toward the ideal or cultural invisible, which, like the “little phrase” from Vinteuil’s sonata, does not offer itself up without bodily experience and even flees if we seek to

isolate it from that experience. Ideas, in this sense, do not form a hinterwelt; they ofter the the limbs and articulations of this world.” Were the emergence, delimitation, and deft handling of such a horizon already essential to the Husserlain project of constitution?® In his project, the core of transcendental subjectivity was put into per-

spective (though the noetico-noematic correlation), all the while leaving room —from Jdeas IT on —for the sensible conditions of their presentification (sensible layers, ‘‘aistheta” in their relation to one’s own body).*™ Did the deconstruction of the reflective core of subjectivity (suspected of idealism), carried out by the early Heidegger, by

Merleau-Ponty’s proto-phenomenology, and then by the critical work of the early Derrida, definitively destabilize the phenomenolog-

ical project itself and even make it unthinkable? Drawing from the 78 wm Phenomenology “Wide Open”

lessons of these assessments and displacements, the minimalist orientation preserves the possibility (which, in addition, is diversified) of phenomenological moments, the autonomy of whose method should not compromise the concern with for hermeneutical-critical articulations. We have tried to contribute to this with regard to temporality® by criticizing the presumption of a “pure” or directly “ek-static” time. This critique works by collecting temporalizations at the very level

of their emergences (traces, gestures, showings), extricating from them the transcendental “‘chrono-fiction” that is constitutive of them, and finally leaving the phenomenological gaze open to the limits of temporal appearing, lest we lose sight of the questions through which

the enigma of being takes shape but without transgressing this delimitation.

How is this research to be pursued? Rather than seeking to draw

up a program—which would be both presumptuous and overly rigid —let us point out one more path of research into a domain that would seem to have to constitute one of the preferred terrains for a minimalist phenomenology. This is the tight intricacy between the perceptual field and affective field. No thing, and a fortiorl no person, is given to us in a state of pure affective neutrality. No phenomenolOgy of the given should be content with a conceptual drought. Furthermore, while Husser] is more attentive to the general structures of perceptual receptivity than to affectivity itself ,*° neither Heidegger nor Levinas was ignorant of this emotive coloration of all access to phenomena.*” But there still remains matter for investigation in this held, as much in attention to the dimension of “pathos” and to the helds of tension of emotions,** as in the understanding (utelligence) of the “chiaroscuri” (clairs-obscurs) of the aftect where a grasping of values takes shape.*? The minimalist style could be assisted in the first case by a clinical and speculative elaboration of psycho-pathology and in the second case by a reflection on the respective roles of the formal and the “material’’ Gan Scheler’s sense) in ethical life.“ Does the minimalist path, too hastily sketched here,*! call up the specter of that more or less negative theology (or “theiology’’)* that seemed to us to accompany phenomenology like its shadow or its

fate? Does this definitively remove the stumbling blocks? In any case, it initiates a return to the sources of all phenomenology worthy of its name, which is the rediscovery and questioning of appearing in all its guises and all its degrees.“ Toward a “Minimalist”? Phenomenology sm 79

If it is true that, by imposing the strictest phenomenal constraints on itself, the work of art brings the human being to its highest possibilities, must not renewed phenomenological research make itself into art? According to this orientation and on the condition that this “art” not cut itself off from intellectual research or speculative intelligence, it would be no small constraint that such a minimalism would thus set for itself, as Hélderlin did at the beginning of his Hyperion, by taking over Ignatius Loyola’s epitaph: “Not to be imprisoned by the greatest of things but to be limited by the smallest.”

A Fortunate Shattering? The perspective that this essay has tried to present is that a minimal-

ist phenomenology may be possible under the various forms and styles that have just been outlined (and which do not rule out other possible forms and styles). It is still necessary that suthcient vigilance be exercised so that the minimalist project does not get compromised by a temptation whose persistance within phenomenology we have already noted: namely,

the reunification of the field of study in function of transcendental subjectivity. How can we prevent immanence from becoming reduced to a mere pretext ora detour of transcendence, of the finite transcendental subject, of a more or less “theological” infinite? We should pay heed to a warning that unexpectedly serves to sharpen the criticism already levied*’ against the “principle of principles”: “When immanence becomes immanent ‘‘to” a transcendental subjec-

tivity, it is at the heart of its own field that the hallmark or figure (chiffre) of a transcendence must appear as action now referring to another self, to another consciousness (communication). This is what happens in Husserl and many of his successors who discover in the

Other or in the Flesh, the mode of the transcendent within immanence itself.4° The main threads of the debate begun in The “Theologtcal Turn” and continued in this essay converge and are resolved here:

it is a question of imagining that phenomenology may finally and truly escape this unifying and foundational tendency (a new version of the transcendental illusion?) that has driven it to overburden immanence with a transcendence that is none other than that of subjectivity in its various guises and at its various levels. Is this slipping away — surreptitious or explicit, yet tenacious —of the immanent to the transcendant (and to Transcendance), from meaning to Meaning (Ju sens au Send), and from revelation to Revelation, is this the inevi80 wu Phenomenology “Wide Open”

table destiny of phenomenology? If so, the “real turn” would be less the theological detour of an existential phenomenology than the turning of phenomenological immanence in upon its “most fully realized possibility,’ “’primordial transcendance (the subject, I and/or God, as absolute). The “impossibility” of phenomenology would be the admission of its highest possibility: the completion of intentionality in the absolute seeing (vwée) that destroys it. This is an ingenious view, but it presupposes the definitive acquisition and exclusive establishment of that “idea of phenomenology” that (however incompletely)**

Sartre and Merleau-Ponty helped disrupt, displace, and reopen to question: namely, the monumental unity of phenomenology itself, which is constitutively condemned to restore idealism in a more or less explicit, more or less recognizable form. Maintaining this unique “idea of phenomenology’ suits both those who hold that phenomenology is first philosophy and their neopositivist or “analytic” rivals (who prefer not to look too closely into this

philosophy they consider “impossible,” that is, fantastical and absurd). Whether real or possible, phenomenology will never conform to an ideal or to counter-model (and this is a good thing). Those who

might be tempted to forget or sublimate the phenomenal limits should be reminded of Kant’s warning: “Trying to realize the ideal in an example (i.e., in appearance —as, for example, to realize the wise person in a novel) is unfeasible.’*? Split wide open, phenomenology has neither the unity nor the ideality that anyone has attributed to it. But if phenomenology is less an ideal than a practice, less a school than an inspiration, if this inspiration is cloaked in a rich and perhaps

inexhaustible plurality, then there is not only one phenomenology possible. Let us not gauge its future in the light of our dea of what is possible, which has so often been challenged by experience! If the failure of a minimalist renewal of phenomenology is no more

fatal than the obstinate continuation of the avatars of first philosophy, one may hope that phenomenological inspiration will still have a rich future. The actual shattering of the various and unpublished new possibilities has only supported our initial hypothesis further and encouraged us to maintain that a phenomenology wide open is a living phenomenology in its singular styles. The minimalist orientation claims to be nothing more than one furrow in this still open field.

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Notes

Translator’s Preface 1. Dominique Janicaud, Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn”: The French Debate (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000). (Throughout this book, I will refer to The “Theological Turn” both in reference to the book and to the philosophical situation which the book describes. — Trans.) 2. Ibid., Phenomenology “Wide Open”: After the French Debate,” Translated

and with an introduction by Charles N. Cabral (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), chap. 3, 34. 3. Ibid., chap. 3, 35. 4. Ibid., chap. 1, 4. 5. Ibid., 10. 6. Ibid., 12. 7. Ibid., chap. 5, 80. 8. Dominique Janicaud, La putwsance du rationnel (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1985); Powers of the Rational: Science, Technology, and the Future of

Thought, translated by Peg Birmingham and Elizabeth Birmingham (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).

Chapter 1 1. From Gilbert Ryle to, more recently, Vincent Descombes, no one has missed an opportunity to highlight both the ambiguity of the key concepts in phenomenology and the vagueness within its work agenda, opening the way for several shifts and drifts. Descombes’s critical remarks will be examined in chapter 2. As for Ryle’s position, which is much more complex than certain formulas taken out of context make it appear, we will refer to the SF

excellent work found in Recherches Husserliennes, vol. 7 (Brussels: Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, 1997).

2. Dominique Janicaud, “The ‘Theological Turn’ of French Phenomenology,’ translated by Bernard G. Prusak in The “Theological Turn,” 1-103. 3. ————, ““Rendre a nouveau raison?” La philosophie en Europe, under

the direction of Raymond Klibansky and David Pears (Paris: Gallimard, collection Folio-Essais, #218, 1993), 156-93. It should be noted that this report, made in response to a request by the Institut International De Philosophie, was written three years before its publication. Furthermore, it was restricted to analyzing French philosophical production in the ten years between 1979-1989. Phenomenology was addressed in this work in pages 175-181, under the title “A Theological Phenomenology?’’*

4. In objecting to my position and by stating “I don’t know anything about theology” during the discussion on April 4, 1992, at the College Inter-

national De Philosophie, Michel Henry turned attention away from the heart of the debate, a diversion which allowed him to avoid taking under serious consideration the arguments which had been made against him. 5. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 98. 6. As was suggested by Raymond Klibansky and David Pears in La Phrlosophte en Europe, 12-13.

7. See Emmanuel Lévinas, Nine Talmudic Readings, translated by Annette Aronowicz, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). Since the present essay mainly concerns the most recent developments of the phenomenological movement, we will not return to the methodological objections which were presented in chapter 2 of The “Theological Turn,” and which,

regardless, in no way intended to minimize the philosophical stature of an authentic thinker. Lévinas himself pointed out: “I always make a clear distinction in what I write between the texts about faith and the philosophical texts. I do not deny that ultimately they may have a common inspirational source. * (“De la Phenomenologie a |’Ethique. Entretien avec E. Lévinas,” Esprit [July 1997]: 126). 8. In this respect, we would most particularly recall the poetic phenomenology of corporality that J. L. Chrétien paradoxically extracts best in the fine pages where he confronts Nietzsche (see De La Fatigue [Paris: Editions De Minuit, 1996], 134—52).

9. To once again uphold the French-speaking realm as essential here is not in any way to minimize the vitality and the diversity of the phenomenological movement beyond these linguistic limits, especially in Germany, Italy, the United States, and even in Great Britain. 10. Clearly, it was not appropriate to go so far as to use the following expression, which is unquestionably too controversial and consequently unjust: “the speculations, or dreams, of its new visionaries.” See Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 93.

11. The word here is “penve-menu.” The cleverness of Dominique Janicaud is, at times, untranslatable; yet, we should notice the tongue-in-cheek

84 mu Notes to Pages 1-4

remark which aligns “a small idea” with “an idea on the menu” at the philosophers banquet. — Trans.

12. We refer to the morning with Jacques Colléony, Jean Greisch, Michel Haar, Michel Henry, and Elisabeth Rigal organized at the College International De Philosophie on April 4, 1992, as well as to the debate with Emmanuel Gabellieri, Xavier Lacroix, and René Virgoulay on April 7, 1993, at the Université Catholique de Lyon. See also the article by Emmanuel Gabellieri, “De La Metaphysique A La Phenomenologie: Une Releve?” Revue Philosophique de Louvain (Nov., 1996): 625-645. And Jacques Colette, “Phénoménologie et Métaphysique,” Critique (Jan., 1993): 56-76. On page

63 of this article, Colette writes that “D. Janicaud, ‘perplexed reader’ of Lévinas, could have felt the same perplexity with respect to Husserl himself.” An acceptable comment on the condition that we not forget, on the one hand, that in my essay the notion of a “Turn” was rooted in a very precise situation; namely that of French phenomenology. Furthermore, we must keep in mind that whatever inevitable and legitimate philosophical perplexity may exist in my essay, it could not be exactly the same with regards to Husserl and to Levinas. Levinas explicitly displaces the phenomeno-

logical method within a metaphysical sense or a metaphysical framework, whereas a Husserlian “theology’’—insamuch as the concept can make sense —would be to decipher (décrypter) absolute subjectivity within the very

reversal of immanence. God remains a limit-concept for Husserlian phenomenology (including the unpublished texts when the word appears). This is a phenomenology at the heart of which the suspension (muwe entre parantheses) of all transcendence and the “neutralization” of one’s point of view have been practiced with extreme rigor. 13. “Phenomenology and Theology,” edited by Jean-Francois Courtine and translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky and Thomas A. Carlson, in The “Theologtcal Turn,” 105-241.

14. Except in one brief allusion, in the form of a denegation, made by Jean-Luc Marion to which we will return later (see Janicaud, “Phenomenology and Theology,’ 211). 15. Jocelyn Benoist, ‘“Vingt ans de phénoménoloige francaise,’ ’Philosoplite Contemporaine en France (Paris: Ministére des Affaires Etrangéres, 1994), 47.

16. Without omitting Jean-Louis Chrétien, whose text “The Wounded Word” upholds its subtitle: “The Phenomenology of Prayer” (see Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” \47—75).

17. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 215.

18. Ibid, 239. 19. Ibid., 127-46. 20. Michel Henry, / Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christiantty, translated by Susan Emanuel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). 21. Ibid., 69.

Notes to Pages 4-6 mg 85

22. Ibid., 27. 23. Ibid., 91. 24. Ibid., 125. 25. Ibid., 270. 26. “The saturated phenomenon must not be understood as a limited case, exceptional or vaguely irrational, in short, a ‘mystical’ case of phenom-

enality. On the contrary, it indicates the coherent and conceptual completion of the most operative definition of the phenomenon . . .” (see Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,”’212). This concern for arguementation also shows itself in the choice of the title of Jean-Luc Marion’s book, Being Gwen (trans-

lated by Jeffrey L. Kosky [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997]). Even if the “Preliminary Answers’ do not rely on this return to demonstration, it is significant that the author's style most often remains more demonstrative than “monstrative,’ —that is to say, in the very terms used on pages 7 and 8, more metaphysical than phenomenological. 27. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 211. 28. See Marion, Being Given, 61, where a comment from The “Theological Turn” is addressed concerning “the ambiguity of the notion of givenness.”’ More significantly, after several pages of discussion on my critical remarks (Etant donné, 104-107), the misinterpretation that I am credited with (bid., 108) is attributed to a “real difficulty,” namely: is there not a risk that the term donation itself may lead us back to the “metaphysical” model of production, of efficiency, and of causality? 29. Marion, Being Gwen, 3, n. 8. 30. In this regard, a strange objection is raised against “classical metaphysics from Spinoza to Nietzsche: namely, to have the pretense to forbid phenomenality to what claimed it” (Marion, Being Given, 5). Beyond the fact that Spinoza paid the utmost attention to the phenomenon of revelation in his Theologtco-Polttical Treatise, it is bewildering that Nietzsche is so expeditiously included within “classical metaphysics,” given the still controversial status of metaphysics in his thought. 31. During a debate on “Phenomenology and Theology,” organized in Paris at the Centre Sevres, June 10, 1994. I thank Jocelyn Benoist for having sent me this most exciting text which, amazingly, has yet to be published.

32. Jean-Luc Marion, The [dol and Distance, translated by Thomas A. Carlson (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001). 33. Benoist, unpublished text cited above, 5. “Ainsi déterminez-vous votre apologétique dans sa nature ambigué de ‘phénoménologie.’”’ (“Thus, would you consider that your apologetics come from within the ambiguous nature of ‘phenomenology.’ ”’) 34. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 1. More direct than a single allusion to Schelling.

86 m Notes to Pages 6-10

35. Benoist, unpublished text cited above, 5. Masterfully underlines the “paradoxical primacy of the concept (or of the ‘noetic’) (for Marion) in its

very negation. ..." 36. An initial version of this chapter was designed for a special edition of the Revue 0’Esthetique, under the direction of Nicolas Tertulian. Since that publication was postponed to a later date, Nicolas Tertulian most graciously agreed that the text could be incorporated within this essay. I do thank him wholeheartedly for that.

37. In particular with Renaud Barbaras, Jacques Garelli, and Marc Richir. 38. The journals Etudes Phénoménologigues, Epokhe, and Alter have actively contributed to this, as well as the collection Arww, directed by Marc Richir

for Million, and Phaenomenologica directed by Rudolf Bernet for Kluwer (Dordrecht). We should also mention the journal Philosophie, initially run by Didier Franck, and more recently by Claude Romano. 39. See the translation of the Sexvth Cartestan Meditation by Nathalie Depraz (Grenoble: Millon, 1994). 40. See, in particular, Jan Patocka, An Introduction to Husserl’s Phenomenology, translated by Erazim Kohak (Chicago: Open Court, 1996). 41. See Erwin Strauss, Du Sens des Sens, translated by G. Thines and J.P. Legrand (Grenoble: Million, 1989).

42. We will return to this point in chapter 4. 43. See Denis Fisette, Lecture frégéene de la phénoménologie (Combas: Editions de l’éclat, 1994). 44. See Phénoménologie et politque. Mélanges offerts & Jacques Taminiaux, (Brussels: Ousia, 1989). 45. This domain, superbly opened by Merleau-Ponty in “Eye and Mind” (an The Primacy of Perception, [Evanston: Northwestern University Press,

1964]), and in his works on Cézanne, has been greatly enriched by Henri Maldiney and by the works of Eliane Escoubas and Michel Haar. Among other texts, see E. Escoubas and B. Giner, Lart au regard de la phénoménologte

(Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1994). We would also like to mention a remarkable essay by Edouard Pontremoli, Lrexcés du visible. Une approche phénoménologtque de la photogénie (Grenoble: Millon, 1996).

46. We refer to the work of the Ecole Francaise de Daseinanalyse in particular. 47. See Jean-Yves Lacoste, Expérience et absolu (Paris: P.U.F., 1994).

48. See the excellent collection of essays by R. Cobb-Stevens. J. Taminiaux, G. Granel, E. Rigal, Za phénoménologie aux confins (Mauvezin: T.E.R., 1992). 49. Eric Allez, De limposstbilité de la phénoménologte (Paris: Vrin, 1995).

Chapter 2 1. Mikel Dufrenne, Le Poétigue (Paris: P.U.F., 1973), 7—57.

2. Ibid., 24.

Notes to Pages 10-13 um 87

3. Ibid., 35. 4. See the conclusion of Dufrenne, Le Poetique, 56—57. 5. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn.” 6. In Le Poétique (page12), Dufrenne nevertheless signals that ‘‘the reference to phenomenology must . . . also be subject to ‘erasure.’ ” 7. Dufrenne, Le Poétique, 56.

8. Ibid., 38: “One can only be a materialist poetically.” 9. Ibid., 56.

10. It was Daniel Charles who attracted our attention to this text. In spite of all this, Dufrenne’s name was cited on page 17 of The “Theological Turn.”

11. See Plato, The Apology, 26c, translated by Benjamin Jowett (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). See also St. Paul, Letter to the Ephesians, 2:11. In the first example, facing his accuser Mélétos, Socrates has to defend himself for being atheov on the pretense that he does not teach belief

in only the true gods of the cité. In the second example, Paul reminds his brothers from Ephesus that, without Christ, they were atheoi. 12. André Lalande, “Atheism,” Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philoso-

phie (Paris: P.U.F., 1956). 13. Descartes, René,““Sixth Set of Objections,” The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. II, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 279. 14. Ibid., “Sixth Set of Replies,” The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol.

IT, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 289. [And the quote continues: “As I have stated previously, the less power the atheist attributes to

the author of his being, the more reason he will have to suspect that his nature may be so imperfect as to allow him to be deceived even in matters which seem utterly evident to him. And he will never be able to be free of this doubt until he recognizes that he has been created by a true God who cannot be a deceiver.’’— Trans. ]

15. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, translated by Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Niyhoff, 1960), 23-24. 16. Ibid., “Considerations Fundamental to Phenomenology: Transcendency, God, Excluded,” General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (Ideas I), Collected Works IT, translated by F. Kersten (Hingham: Kluwer, 1982), Chap-

ter Four, $58: 134. 17. Ibid., chapter 1, §32: “The Phenomenological Hpoche,” 110. 18. Edmund Husserl, Ze Idea of Phenomenology, Collected Works VITI, translated and introduced by Lee Hardy (Hingham: Kluwer, 1999). 19. This point was made in Dominique Janicaud, Chronos: Pour Uintelltgence du partage temporel (Paris: Grasset, 1997), 142. 20. Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 19.

88 m Notes to Pages 13-20

21. Ibid., 24: “Every intellectual experience, indeed every experience whatsoever, can be made into an object of pure seeing and apprehension while tt ts occurring. And in this act of seeing it is an absolute givenness.”’

22. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, translated by Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 3: “(Modern thought has realized considerable progress the existent to) the series of appearances which manifest it.” 23. Edmund Husserl, La philosophie comme sctence rigoureuse (Paris,

1954)7. “Philosopie als strenge Wissenschaft . . . der traum ist ausgetrdumt.” In quoting this famous phrase, Quentin Lauer points out that, for Husserl, this never meant a refusal of “the ideal of rigorously scientific understanding as such, but of the ambition to complete the totality of science.” 24. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Notes de cours 1959-1961 (Paris: Gallimard, 1996). 25. See the comments in Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 93-96. 26. Paul Ricoeur, A [ecole de la phénoménologte (Paris: Vrin, 1987), 77.

27. Vincent Descombes, Odyects of All Sorts, translated by Lorna Scott-

Fox and Jeremy Harding (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 50. 28. Edmund Husserl, “The Region of Pure Consciousness, ’/deas I, chapter 35, §55, 129. 29. Vincent Descombes, Objects of All Sorts, 50.

30. We could also add that, even if the “extraordinary broadening” of the concept of “meaning” given by Husserl on page 129 of Jdeas J is a fact, Husserl stipulates that it is a rarity in the footnote which accompanies the text. See /deas, 129, n. 105, and Objects of All Sorts, 50-51. 31. See Vincent Descombes, Objects of All Sorts, 55—56.

32. These two texts are quoted in the fine article by Jocelyn Benoist, “Husserl au-dela de l’onto-théologie?” Les Etudes Philosophiques (Oct.—Dec.

1991): 433. The second quote continues in mentioning an “atheist road toward an absolutely universal authentic humanity.’* 33. Ibid., 434.

34. Ibid., 439. See in particular, manuscript F 24 “Formale Ethik und Probleme der praktischen Vernunft.” 35. Ibid., 436. 36. Ibid., 435. 37. Ibid., 437. 38. Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, translated by Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001). 39. Ibid., An Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 7.

40. Ibid., “Letter on Humanism,” translated by Frank A. Capuzzi, in Pathmarks (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 267. 41. “vouct théologique renouvelé’ —Trans.

Notes to Pages 20-25 am 8&9

42. Heidegger, Martin, “The Thing,” translated by Albert Hofstadter, in Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 178. 43. Ibid., Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowntng), translated by Parvis

Mead and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 288-89. 44. Paul Ricoeur, A lécole de la phénoménologte, 144.

45. Ibid., 159. 46. Ibid., chapter 5. 47. Even though Jean-Luc Marion is correct in recalling the Husserlian reduction of God the creator and the Heideggerian demands for an “atheism of method” (cf. Marion, Being Given, 36 and the reference to Husserl, $58 of Jdeas I, as well as to Heidegger, Gesvamtausgabe, 20, 177, and 211). We

shall see in the next chapter why there remains room for doubting that these methodological “good intentions” were effectively followed through.

Chapter 3 1. Edmund Husserl, Philosophie premiére, vol. I, translated into French by A. Kelkel (Paris: P.U.F., 1972), 3, and the translator’s introduction in Vol. II, xvi.

2. Ibid., vol. II, 4. 3. Ibid., vol. II, xlwvi.

4. Jean-Luc Marion, “The Other First Philosophy and the Question of Givenness,’ translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky in Critical Inquiry 25 (Summer 1999): 784-800. 5. These principles are: “so much appearing,” “so much giveness,” “return to the things themselves,” and lastly “the privilege of originary intuition.” 6. See Michel Henry, “Quatre principes de la phenomenology,” Revue de Metaphystque et de Morale \ (1991): 3-26.

7. Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Gwenness, translated by Thomas A. Carlson (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998). 8. Ibid., “The Other First Philosophy,”793. 9. Ibid., 795. 10. Ibid., 796. 11. Ibid., 800. 12. Ibid., 790. 13. See Marion, Being Gwen, 73, n. 5. Thus Marion cites a passage from Powers of the Rational (page 237) where I maintain a certain aspect of general metaphysics in the form of a “desire for intelligibility.” Yet, on the one hand it is odd to criticize that I did not give a “definition” of special metaphysics in a context that has nothing to do with a study of the history of philosophy; and moreover [| had no intention of trying to “prove my innocence.” On the

contrary, what is at issue is to recognize the extreme difficulty of freeing oneself from all metaphysical presuppositions (in the sense of “giving mean-

90 au Notes to Pages 25-29

ing, such as Heidegger analyzes potentialities, especially in Der Satz vom Grund), including within a genealogical critique of rationality. Notwithstanding, I never believed nor claimed that the “desire for intelligibility” is “simple.” 14. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 52-53. 15. Phénoménologte et métaphystque, directed by Jean-Luc Marion and G.

Planty-Bonjour (Paris: P.U.F., 1984), 10-11. 16. Marion, Being Gwen, 320. 17. Marion, Etant Donné (Paris: P.U.F., 1997), cover 4.

18. We would remark that the word used in French “adonnée’’ is adequately translated as ““devoted;” however, in English it loses the semantic proximity with “donation” as givenness. — Trans. 19. Marion, Being Gwen, 322.

20. Ibid., 34ff. 21. Heidegger, Martin, Basic Writings, translated by David Farrell Krell; ibid., “Introduction” to “What is Metaphysics?” translated by Walter Kaufmann, Pathmarks, 278-9. 22. Ibid., “The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics,” /dentity ano Difference, translated by Joan Stambaugh (Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, 1969), 73. 23. Marion, Being Gwen, 73-74. 24. Without claiming to have definitively answered to this demand, Powers of the Rational does ask the question if, despite its de-theologicalization, an unavoidable auto-reference (called the Nouveau Sens) does maintain a certain persistance or vestige of the absolute at the heart of contemporary sci-

entific-technical development, thereby rendering the onto-theological structure unrecongnizeable, nevertheless without invalidating it (see the discussion “Rationality as Partage,” Powers of the Rational, 198-205). According to Heidegger, if the onto-theological structure is detectable in Nietzshe’s metaphysics, it does not seem to be so obviously identifiable within the fechnictzed world marked by the Entgétterung.

25. Ibid., 4. 26. We read on page 78 of Being Given, “The gift amounts to the effect of an efficient cause (Janicaud).” There is absolutely no precise quotation to support this allegation, naturally, which was already present in “The Other First Philosophy ...” 795, n. 14. 27. Marion, Being Gwen, 71-74.

28. Ibid., 61, n. 112. While taking my comments into consideration, he quibbles over the verb “to exploit,” claiming that he only recognized this ambivalence as a “fact.’” However, any current-day epistemologist knows that pure facts do not exist. And why deny that givenness allows a certain “room for interpretation” since he otherwise endeavors to use it to exhibit the fold? 29. Marion, Being Gwen, 74.

Notes to Pages 29-335 a 9/

30. Ibid., 73. 31. Ibid., 70. 32. Ibid., 71. 33. Ibid., 21. 34. More exactly, Robert’s Dictionnaire frangawse defines it as a “solemn contract by which the giver (or benefactor) (dtspovant) really and irrevocably relinquishes the thing given in favor of the recipient (donataire) who accepts it.” 55. Marion, Being Gwen, 39, n. 80. 36. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 65—66. “Questioning the notion of givenness and interrogating its phenomenological sense.” 57. Marion, Being Given, 66.

38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. Recognized and avowed uniformization: “My decision to translate this term uniformly by donation . . .”

40. Ibid., 61, n. 112. This conception of the semantic ambivalence as a “fact” excluding all “room for interpretation” suddenly seems strangely positivist (and further, the idea, that donation could be “the French equivalent”’ of the Gegebenhett (see also page 66) as if a philosophical translation was nothing more than a device for giving equivalences). 41. These expressions are found on page 70 of Marion, Being Gwen. 42. Which is affirmed on page 136 of Being Given.

43. Both in Husserl’s text, “Erste Philosophie (1923/24),” Husserliana VITT, vol. IT (The Hague: Martinus Nihoff, 1959, 44, 49) and for Marion himself (Being Gwen, 137 and 138: “What, in metaphysical terms, is called a contingency’). 44. The word used by Marion in French is “arrivage” —which is why it is translated by “delivery” and thus compared to a term taken from a commercial vocabulary. In the following quote, the same term has been rendered as “unpredictable landing” in Being Given. It seems to this translator that there

is very little in common between an “unpredictable landing” and arrivage, which is defined by the Dictionnaire Robert as “the action of arriving in a port,

to touch ground, or concerning the arrival of merchandise — particularly fruits, vegetables, or fish.” An unpredictable landing seems less precise. — Trans. 45. Marion, Being Given, 136. 46. Both of these expressions are found on page 138 of Being Given. 47. Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 64 (Die Idee der Phéinomenologie, Husserliana IT [The Hague: Martinus Nihoff, 1958], 7): “Nicht das psychologische Phanomen in der psychologischen Apperzeption und objektivation

ist wirklich eine absolute Gegebenheit, sondern nur das reine Phanomen, das reduzierte.”’ On page 14 of Being Gwen, “wirklich” (“really”) is left untranslated. 48. Marion, Being Gwen, 14.

92 au Notes to Pages 33-36

49. Ibid., 15. 50. Edmund Husserl, 74e [dea of Phenomenology, 38 (Dte Idee der Phiinomeno-

logte, 50): ““Namlich ftir den singular vorliegenden Fall einer cogitatiwo, etwa

eines Gefiihls, das wir gerade erleben, diirften wir vielleichet sagen: das ist gegeben, aber beileibe diirften wir nicht den allgemeinsten Satz wagen: die Gegebenheit eines reduziertes Phanomens tiberhaupt ist eine absolute und zweifellose.”’

51. On this point, I will be criticized that the “poor example” had been given by Roéls and Lauxerois who had already adopted this translation in Questions IV (Paris: Gallimard, 1976; 55 sq.). But I want to note that within this volume, the well-advised Francois Fédier already prefers not to translate Eretgnis (see his note on page 51 of the same text). Having stated very explicitly that he removes the Ereignis from the sphere of common usage —as a vingulare tantum —in order to respect Heidegger’s intention of thought, we

must either not translate this singular connotation or adopt a translation which emphasizes the aspect of an appropriation (as Reiner Schurmann did by proposing “‘l’événement d’appropriation’/“the occurrence or event of appropriation’’) while signaling the tension that shadows this translation itself (see Des hégémontes brisées |Mauvezin: T.E.R., 1996], 697, 727). 52. See Paul Robert, “avénement’” (“advent” or “coming’’) Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue frangatwe.

53. Heidegger, “Time and Being,” On Time and Being, translated by Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 24. 54. Not to mention that we must also hear resounding within this “rendering visible” of the old-German Eréugen to which Heidegger also explicitly connects the singular meaning which he intends to give to the Ereignw. See Heidegger, “The Principle of Identity, J0entity and Difference, 36 dentttat und Differenz [Pfullingen: Neske, 1957], 28-29). 55. Heidegger, “Time and Being,’ 5, 14, 16, 20. 56. See Marion, Being Gwen, 34. [Kosky’s translation of recouvrement as

“recovery. This, however, does not seem to preserve the force of Janicaud’s usage. — Trans. |

57. This is particularly the case for the quotations from Beimg and Time given in note 65, page 34, of Being Given: Heidegger places “ev gibt’ in parentheses because he is referring to the common usage of the expression, which

is obviously not worthy of properly ontological questioning. Cf. Being and Time, 255, 272, 364. 58. Besides, Francois Fédier does not claim this in his notes (see Heidegger, Questions IV, A9).

59. Marion, Being Gwen, 38.

60. Ibid., 37: “The gift of presence is the property of the Advent [Zugentum des Eretgnens|.”

61. Even in taking the ambiguity of the verb “revenir” (“to return to’’) into account. Notes to Pages 56-359 mg 95

62. Francois Fédier prefers not to translate Ereignen: “La donation de présence est propriété de |’Hreignen.” (“The givenness of presence ‘belongs’ to the Eretgnen.”’*).

63. Heidegger, Questions IV, 44; “Zeit und Sein,” Zur Sache des Denkens

(Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1969), 22. Cf. “Time and Being:” “Sein verschwindet im Ereignis.” Cf. “Time and Being,” 22.

64. Heidegger, “Time and Being,” 23; “Zeit und Sein,” 24: “Insofern Zeit sowohl wie Sein als Gaben des Ereignens nur aus diesem her zu den-

ken sind...” 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., 21: “Zeit und Sein,” 22: “Ereignis ist nicht der umgreifende Oberbegriff. .. .” and on page 66, “Appropriation is not the encompassing

general concept...” 67. On page 38 of Being Given, Heidegger is criticized for not recognizing the “phenomenological function as principle” of givenness. 68. Initially published as pages in “Phenomenology and Theology,” this text was reworked and amended in Being Gwen (without the author signaling this to his readers). Each time a passage that is quoted appears in both texts, we will give the references from both versions. 69. “Phenomenology and Theology,” 213-14; Being Given, 219-20. 70. Descartes, René, Aeditationes de Prima Philosophia, edited by G. Lewis (Paris: Vrin, 1960, 47).

71. “Est enim de ratione infiniti, ut a me, qui sum finites, non comprehendatur.”’ 72. Paul Robert, “vaturer” (‘to saturate’), Dictionnatre alphabétique et analogique de la langue frangauwse.

73. See the summary in The “Theological Turn,” 214-15.

74. Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1962), 60. 75. Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 69: “the meaning of the word ‘phenomenon’ is two-fold because of the essential correlation between appearing and that which appears.’ Cf. The “Theological Turn,” 185, n. 10.

76. The determinations following quantity, quality, relation, and modal-

ity are reviewed and analyzed “in a negative mode’ by Marion (in The “Theologwal Turn,” 197 sq; in Being Gwen, 199 sq). 77. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 184.

78. Ibid. 79. These are the very terms Marion uses, in particular on page 184 of The “Theologtcal Turn.”

80. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 215.

81. Ibid. 82. See Marion, Being Gwen, 322. 83. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn”, 215.

84. Ibid. 94 uw Notes to Pages 39-44

85. Ibid. 86. This is particulary true in the heading of n. 90, page 236, of Being Given.

87. Marion, Being Gwen, 236. 88. The titles of paragraphs 28, 29, and 30 of Being Gwen.

89. In this regard, we can only lament the absence throughout Marion's work of Heideggerian critique of the “principle of principles” formulated by Husserl in §24 of Jdeas J (“every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition .. .”). See Heidegger, On Time and Being, 63; also §20 of the Prolegomena (Gesamtausgabe, 20), where Heidegger proposes a

“situational critique’ of the four Husserlian determinations of “pure consciousness.” Is it sufficient to prochaim that we are finished with this subject (Marion, Being Gwen, 322)? To establish givenness as a “phenomenological principle” (Marion, Being Given, 538), wouldn't this be a redirectioning of at least some of the presuppositions, if not of the totality of Husserlian intuitionism? Marion could then emphasize that he had meticulously discussed the famous “principle of principles” (Marion, Being Given, 12 sz., 184-89) in pointing out the limits of intuition (as well as of the I and of the principle

of a horizon) in relation to his “saturation” by the given, so as to finally arrive at recognizing givenness without intuition (time, life and death, speech, the gaze of the icon). If this were the case, why has he persisted in naming these ultimate paradoxes of the “phenomena saturated with intuition” (Marion, Being Given, 4)? We cannot be satisfied with any response whose argument follows that the excess of givenness renders the relationship to intuition “undecidable,” because the new correlation established by the principle “so much reduction, so much givenness’’ reinstates an unconditional methodological privilege (which really seems to be that of absolute subjectivity). Pure and self-referenced givenness would also subtly reinstate this subjectivity into the metaphysical and principle roles which Heidegger was able to call into question.

Chapter 4 Note: There are moments when every attempt at translation fails to bring out the compound meaning of a text. Here again we are faced with a major problem. “Articulations” are both the joints or regions of union between parts of a whole —like a body —and also the pronouncement of facts, or simply

pronouncing. In this chapter, Dominique Janicaud explores all of the relations between phenomenology and hermeneutics as being joined and sepa-

rated, with junctions, disyunctions, overlappings or crossings, and divergences. When it comes to hermeneutics, we can truly say every word counts! We have tried to stay as close as possible to the French text, often transposing the terms beyond their common English usage; at times leaving them open to a wider interpretation. — Trans.

Notes to Pages 44-46 mg 95

1. To understand the particular nature of Foucault’s work better, see Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, translated by SeAn Hand (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 108. 2. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Notes de cours (1959-1961) (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 173. 3. The initial nucleus of this chapter was presented in a European Erasmus Colloquium held in Nice, May 10-11, 1996, on the theme: “Phenomenology and Hermeneutics: How should their articulation be thought?”

4. Plato, Phaedrus, translated by James H. Nichols, Jr. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 74.

5. Something is lost in the difference between the translations .. . In French, Plato is translated as having “natural articulations’. This seems to further the ideas of Dominique Janicaud on “articulations” and “disarticulations.” The translation as “natural joints” loses the semantic proximity which is present in French. — Trans.

6. Plato, Jon, translated by Trevor. J. Saunders (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 56. 7. Plato, Statesman, 260d; Epinomis, 975c; Definitions, 4\Ad. 8. Jean Grondin, L’Unwersaltté de Uherméneutigue (Paris: P.U.F., 1993), 8. 9. See Heidegger, Being and Time, 50: “The expression ‘phenomenology’ signifies primarily a methodological conception;’’ and 63: “We can understand phenomenology only by seizing upon it as a possibility.” 10. Ibid., 62; “Ph&nomenologie des Daseins ist Hermeneutik in der ursprtinglichen Bedeutung des Wortes, wonach es das Geschaft der Auslegung bezeichnet,” Sein und Zeit (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1960), 37. 11. Ibid.; “Das Sein als Grundthema der Philosophie . . .”Sein und Zett, 38.

12. Ibid., 65-67. 13. Paul Ricoeur, “The Intellectual Autobiography of Paul Ricoeur,” translated by Kathleen Blamey in The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 36: “I have used the expression ‘the graft of hermeneutics onto phenomenology,’ not without observing, however, that one could, in another sense, speak of the graft of phenomenology upon hermeneutics.” 14. Ibid., Time and Narrative, vol. 3, translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 91. 15. Ibid., “Intellectual Autobiography, 36. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., Time and Narrative, 3, 141. 19. Ibid., 91. 20. Martin Heidegger, “My Way to Phenomenology,” On Time and Being, 74-82. 21. Ibid., On the Way to Language, translated by Peter Hertz (New York:

Harper and Row, 1971), 95-98, 120-28, 150. 96 uw Notes to Pages 46—53

22. Ibid., 51. 23. Ibid., 29. 24. See Jacques Derrida, “Three Questions to Hans-Georg Gadamer,’”’ translated by Diane Michelfelder and Richard Palmer in Dialogue and Deconstruction: the Gadamer-Derrioa Encounter (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989). Cf. Jean Grondin, L’Unwversalité de Vherméneutiqgue, 218.

25. See Paul Ricoeur, “De la métaphysique a la morale,” Réflexton faite (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1995), 88. 26. The words here refer to Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac

(1897). A viscount makes a feeble attempt at an insult by stammering, “Your nose is—eh—eh—very —eh~— big,” and Cyrano replies, “It’s a bit short, young man.” (““C’est un peu court, jeune homme.”) The expression is used as a critique of a weak and disappointing verbal performance (“brief”’ = a bit short, short-sighted). — Trans. 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Letter to Dallmayr,” in Dialogue and Deconstruction, 95-101.

28. Ibid., 97. 29. Ibid., 98. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 99. 32. See Jacques Derrida, “Otobiographies: The Teaching of Nietzsche and the Politics of the Proper Name,” translated by Christie McDonald in The Ear of the Other: Otobwography, Transference, Translation (Lincoln: Univer-

sity of Nebraska Press, 1988). Within the collection Zext und Interpretation ,

edited by P. Forget (Munich: Fink Verlag, 1984), despite its title (“Guter Wille zur Macht II”), the contribution by Jacques Derrida does not continue the discussion with Gadamer directly but rather presents two objec-

tions against the Heideggerian interpretation of Nietzsche. The first concerns the unifying nomination of Nietzsche, and the other concerns the concept of totality which Heidegger wrongly applies to the multi-faceted thought on life. As for the collection Dialogue and Deconstruction, it contains

several other interesting precisions by H. G. Gadamer and more than a dozen essays on “the encounter” apart from the translation of the collection by Forget. 33. The word used here is “tranché’ which means: “distinct,” “clear,”

“sharply contrasted,” “unequivocal,” “clear-cut”; but also “drain” or “trench.” There is an echo of the “final entrenchments” just mentioned in reference to Derrida. “Trancher” is also” to cut,” “to slice,” “to settle,” “to decide,” and “‘to judge.” — Trans.

34. Jacques Derrida, “Faith and Knowledge, The Two Sources of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Reason Alone,” translated by Samuel Weber, in Acts of Religion, edited by Gil Anidjar (New York: Routledge Press, 2002), 47. 35. Ibid., 46—47. 56. Paul Ricoeur, Autrement (Paris: P.U.F., 1997).

Notes to Pages 54-58 a 97

37. “A-Dieu.”” We must explain a bit here. Adieu, as “goodbye” is part of the idea expressed by Derrida, but he is also saying someting else by this. We could say, “his ‘goodbye’ takes the form of a ‘go with God’, or even a ‘to God.’” We should not second-guess Derrida or try to pinpoint what he is aiming at; the semantics here are very important. — Trans.

38. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 13. 39. Ibid., 17, 61, 101. 40. Ibid., 22; as an echo of this passage in Totality and Infinity, 276. It (intentionality, consciousness-of) is mindful of speech (parole) or the acceptance of aspect, bospitality and not thematization.

41. Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues, translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 47. 42. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans-

lated by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 159. 43. (deventr-rhizome) —Trans.

44. Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, “7. Year Zero— Faciality,”’ Dialogues, 167-91. 45. Frederick Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 8289. Here, Janicaud follows the translation of Michel Haar: Metzche et la metaphystque (Paris: Galli-

mard, 1993), 77-78. 46. Gilles Deleuze, Husays Critical and Clinical, translated by Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) 91—98.Was Deleuze trying to make Alfred Jarry appear ridiculous in presenting him as “an unrecognized precursor to Heidegger”? That would be to misinterpret his enormous affinity for any kind of “ubuesque” exercise, as well as his complicity toward Heidegger as a poet (ibid., 123). What

remains to be considered is the “serious” part that is at stake in this

game.... 47. Paul Ricoeur, “De la métaphysique a la morale,” 88. 48. Concerning the “knowledge” of the “meta” and the divergence of our position and that of Paul Ricoeur, see Chronos, 266, and the article “Métaphysique et histoire,’ Revue de synthéese 2 (1993): 248-53.

49. A position which seems to have been well supported by Jacques Bouveresse in Herméneutique et lingutstigque (Combas: Editions de |’Eclat, 1991), even if it does not appear in exactly the same terms.

50. “Pass the Caudine Forks” refers to a narrow pass in the shape of a fork where, in 321BC, the Romans had to wear yokes as a sign of their surrender to the Samnites. It has entered into the common language as an expression meaning to be subjected to harsh or humiliating conditions. — Trans.

51. Ibid., 53.

9§ mu Notes to Pages 58-62

52. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher, 1981). The whole quote, #234, is: “What happens is not that this symbol cannot be further interpreted, but: I do not interpret because I feel at home in the present picture. When I interpret, I step from one level of thought to another.” It is another, maybe deeper, idea that is expressed in French. The quote mentions moving along the pathway of thought, “sur le chemin de la pensée’’—which are also terms used most often in reference to Heidegger. — Trans.

Chapter 5 1. Janicaud, The “Theological Turn,” 93. “Now there is no sidestepping the fact that phenomenology came into its own, with Husserl, only by in-

venting a new mode of interaction between two domains that have not ceased, since the Greeks got such things going, not only to overlap, but also to redefine one another’s topology conflictually: philosophical questioning and the scientific quest for invariants.” 2. Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, The Hetoegger-Jaspers Correspondence (1920-1965), edited by Walter Biemel and Hans Saner and translated by Gary E. Aylesworth (Amherst: Humanity Books, 2003), 47. 3. Cited by Marcelin Pleynet in “Art minimal,” Encyclopaedia Universalis (1985), 15: 321. 4. Paul Ricoeur, A lécole de la phénoménologte, 77. See The “Theological Turn,” 98. 5. René Thom, Modeles mathématiques de la morphogenése (Paris: Union

générale d’éditions, 1974), 20. (There is an abridged translation by W. M. Brooks, D.R. Chichester and E. Horwood, under the title H/athematical Mooels of Morphogenesis [| NY: Halsted, 1983]) — Trans. |

6. Ibid., 7. 7. See Alain Boutot, L’invention des formes (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1993), 63, and the presentation of catastrophe theory as a “phenomenological hermeneutics,” 60. 8. Daniel Dennett, Consctousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1991), 82-83.

9. Ibid., 83. 10. Ibid., 66—70.

11. Itis significant that Husserl does not appear at all in the copious bibhography of Consctousness Explained and furthermore that the only precise reference in this direction cited in Brainstorms (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978), 233, is an article by Richard Schacht, “Husserlian and Heideggerian Phenomenology,’ Philosophical Studtes 23 (1972): 293-314, which, even if we

do not challenge its merit, is a bit thin. 12. We might wonder whether he does not continue to treat those who participate in his studies as subjects, even if not in a substantialist or absolute sense.

Notes to Pages 63-71 am 99

13. See the late pééce 0 occasion (a hommage to the editor Niemeyer on his

eightieth birthday, April 16, 1963) that bears the title “Mein Weg in der Phdnomenologie” in Zur Sache des Denkens (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1969), 81—90, translated by Joan Stambaugh under the title “My Way to Phenomenology.”’

14. On the three senses of this expression, see my discussion in Chronos, 159. There, I characterize the inapparent, in the most essential sense, as that “phenomenality par excellence, which, while neither immediate nor ontic, also cannot be reduced to an eidetic intention.” 15. “Nur was aus der Ring der Welt unscheinbar entspringt wird einmal ein Ding,” Hssais et Conférences (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), 218, cited by the French translator André Préau with the following remark of Heidegger’s: “Without appearance’ (unuchetnbar) designates that which, since it is simple, does not attract attention and yet is not mere illusion.” [These quotes are Heidegger’s glosses on the last sentence of “The Thing,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, 186, which appear only in the French translation. — Trans. | 16. “Welt west, indem sie weltet,” Vortrage und Aufsdétze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1959), 213; Poetry, Language, Thought, 179. 17. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, 105. 18. Ibid., 107.

19. “Wie es Zeit gibt” (“Zeit und Sein,” in Zur Sache des Denkens, 5; “Time and Being,” On Tune and Being, 5). We can also see that the project is to “bring properly into view” and, in this sense, remains phenomenological (“Time and Being,’3). 20. On Time and Being, 50. 21. The French word here is “éclat,’”’as in “la phénoménologte éclatée.” — Trans.

22. Gottfried Benn, “Das Wort,” (second stanza) translated by R. Exner under the title “A Word,” in Benn, Primal Vision, edited by E. B. Ashton (New York: New Directions, 1960), 251. Cited in Heidegger, On the Way to Language, 75.

23. At least if one accepts a minimalist phenomenological version of his philosophical grammar. See the suggestions in this direction made by Gérard Guest in his essay “L’image dans le tapis: de l’ockhamisme subtil des Dictées a la ‘phénoménologie’ de Wittgenstein,” in Vol. I of Dictées de Wittgenstein &@ Watsmann et pour Schlick, edited by A. Soulez (Paris: P.U.F., 1997),

127-210.

24. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 1962), vii [translation modified].

25. Ibid. 26. See Merleau-Ponty, Notes de cours (1954-1961) (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 219.

27. See Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting, translated by A. Philip McMahon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 158—59. 28. See Claude Lefort, preface to Merleau-Ponty, Notes de cours, 7. L100 wu Notes to Pages 72-77

29. Joachim Gasquet, Cézanne (Grenoble: Cynara, 1988), 134. Cited by Merleau-Ponty, Notes de cours, 167.

50. Ibid., 135-36. 31. The modern (and hypermodern) era is indeed the era of representation but a representation that is constantly displaced, “mobilized” (Gn the double sense of mobility and mobilization), constantly revived by the research of plastic artists no less than by technological mutations (e.g., the screen in its new multimedia functions). 32. Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, translated by Alphonso

Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern, University Press, 1968), 149. See the beautiful passages inspired by Proust in “The Intertwining— The Chiasm,” 33: “Literature, music, the passions, but also the experience of the visible world are —no less than is the science of Lavoisier and Ampére — the exploration of an invisible and the disclosure of a universe of ideas.” In French: “Simplement, cet invisible-la, ces idées-l4 ne se laissent pas comme les leurs détacher des apparences sensibles, et eriger en seconde positivité.” Le visthle et [invwsthle (Paris, Gallimard, MM-P, 1964), 196. 33. Merleau-Ponty analyzed the paradoxical character of this project in his Notes de cours, 69. 34. See Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consctousness of Internal Time,

Collected Works IV (Norwell: Kluwer, 1991), particularly the first section. 35. In Chronos.

36. Husserl, Edmund, Expertence and Judgment, translated by James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks (Evanston,: Northwestern University Press, 1973), §1. Also see the study of kinestheses in the 1907 course, Thing and Space, Collected Works VII, translated by Richard Rojcewicz (Hingham: Kluwer, 1997), §4. On the body and “somatology,” see Phenomenology and the Foundations of the Sctences (Ideas ITT), Collected Works I, translated by Ted

E. Klein and William E. Pohl (Hingham: Kluwer, 1980), §2. 37. Among other texts, see, for Heidegger, §29 of Being and Time and Befindlichkett and, for Levinas, the pages on sensibility from ZJotality and Infinity, translated by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 117-21. 38. In this direction, see Henri Maldiney, Penser homme et la folte (Grenoble: Millon, 1991). 39. Here I am alluding to a very fine and suggestive article by Jean-Yves Lacoste, “Du phénoméne de la valeur au discours de la norme,” Fretburger Leltschrift fiir Philosophie und Theologte 44, 1-2 (1997): 87-103. It is certainly

not without importance that the same author pays a particular phenomenological attention to “minimal man” (“Uhomme minimal,” Expértence et absolu,

ibid., §69), stripping away the humanity of man, and maintaining “the gap in relation to the initial (state) as a hermeneutic principle” (ibid., 123). 40. Max Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values, trans-

lated by Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973); and The Nature of Sympathy, translated by Peter

Notes to Pages 78-79 a J0/

Heath (Hamden: Archon Books, 1970), especially the chapter on the phenomenology of love and hate. 41. We should also note the convergence of this articulation with Marc Richir’s studies on the inchoate character of phenomenological language found in its symbolizing temporalizations. As he writes Gn Lexpérience du penser [Grenoble, Million, 1996], 13): “Reopening times and tight corners for apperception is thus possible only because their incipient apperceptions (entre-aperceptiond) are at once incipient apperceptions of language (/angage), offering as a resource new transpositions or new passages into new linkages of apperceptions of language (langue).”* Nonetheless, it seems doubtful that a general architectonic of symbolic institution could entirely escape metaphysics. 42. The difference between the two terms—suggested by Jacques Der-

rida in “Faith and Knowledge” (page 53) —separates a discourse about “God, faith or revelation” from a study of “being-divine, the essence and the divinity of the divine.” 43. See Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between a “phenomenology of the first degree (body and embodiment, Finfthlung)” and a phenomenology “of the second degree (reduction to the immanence of the mind),” in Notes de cours, 7). Though the minimalist orientation clearly intersects with the phenomenology of the first degree, it cannot be extended into the ideal sphere without calling up—as Merleau-Ponty’ suggests —the “naivete” of a philosophy of the ideal spectator. 44. The last sentence of Loyola’s epitaph is in fact the following: “Non coercerl maximo, contineri minimo, divinum est.” 45. By Heidegger, On Time ano Being, 63: The History of the Concept of Time,

translated by Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), §20. 46. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What ws Philosophy? translated by

H. Tomlinson and G. Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 46. 47. See Eric Alliez, De (imposstbilité de la phénoménologte, 63.

48. Although Sartre refuses to allow phenomenology to become a “doctrine of refuge,” he nonetheless remained bound to a conception of consciousness that is of course not solipsistic, but he presents it as “the first condition and ... absolute source of existence” (Zhe Transcendence of the Ego,

translated by F. Williams and R. Kirkpatrick [New York: Noonday, 1957], 105-6). Merleau-Ponty, as we have seen, renews the possibilities of phenomenology more profoundly. My only reservations concern his preservation of an ontological unification (cf. the “deflagration of being” in “Eye and Mind,” translated by C. Dallery, in The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays,

edited by J. Edie [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964], 180, the “depths of being” in The Visible and the Invisible, 149, and a “contact with being” in Notes de cours, 69). 49. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by W. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), A570/B598.

102 ua Notes to Pages 79-81

Index

adieu, 58, 97 consciousness, religious, 17 aesthetics, 78 “crypto-theism’, 13, 21 Alliez, Eric, 12

appearance, 19, 25, 26, 32, 60 Dasein, 51 appearing, knowledge of the, 49 Deleuze, Gilles, 46-47, 59-61

Arch-Original, 14, 15 Dennett, Daniel, 70-71

Arch-Revelation, 6 Derrida, Jacques, 13, 14—15, 55-58, 78,

art, minimalist, 67 96

aspect, 60 Descartes, René, 16-17, 40 atheism, 14, 16, 18, 25 Descombes, Vincent, 22—23

in Husserl, 24 descriptions, 18, 22, 62, 69, 70 metaphysics and, 9-10 “Dialogue with the Japanese”

methodological, 3 (Heidegger), 53-54 Auslegung, 51 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 50, 51 autophenomenology, 71 Divine, notion of the, 25 auto-revelation, 9 Divine Love, 7

Dutrenne, Mikel, 13-18, 24, 25 being, 51-52 Being Gwen (Marion), 7, 8, 27-30, 44 Ereignts, 30, 37—A0, 92

Benn, Gottfried, 76 Es gibt, 38-39, 93 Benoist, Jocelyn, 5, 9, 24 essentialism, 77 Blanchot, Maurice, 15

“bonne volonté”, 55-57 Fédier, Francois, 39, 93 Feenoman, 70

Cartestan Meditations, \7 The First Philosophie (Husserl), 35

Cézanne, Paul, 78 first philosophy, 22, 25, 27, 44, 64, 81

Chrétien, Jean-Louis, 5 fulfillment, 41

105

Gasquet, 78 / 1-76 Geben, 35, 37 incompatibility, 59

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 55, 97 inapparent, phenomenology of the,

Gegebenhett, 35 infinity, 40, 43

givenness, 7-11, 14-15, 29-30, 32-37, intentional sphere, 46

94 inter-givenness, | 1

God, 6, 9, 13, 16-17, 23-24 interlocution, 11

Grondin, Jean, 48 interpretosis, 59 intuition, 94

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 19, 49 visible, the, 9 Heidegger, Martin, 56, 78, 79

atheism and, 24—26 Jesus, teachings of, 6 critique of Husserlian

determinations, 95 Kant, Immanuel, 14, 42—43 Dufrenne on, 13

on hermeneutical phenomenology, Lambert, Johann Heinrich, 19, 49

50-535 language, 22, 31, 34, 72

on Husserl, 66 Lauer, Quentin, 89 Marion’s translation of, 37—40 Leepa, Allan, 67

on metaphysics, 30-32 Letter on Humanism, 25

phenomenology of the inapparent, Lévinas, Emmanuel, 3, 20, 57, 79

72-76 life, phenomenology of, 6

Henry, Michel, 3, 5, 6, 28, 85 logocentrism, 55—56 hermeneutics, 11, 43

deconstruction and, 57—58 Maldiney, Henry, 10 phenomenology and, 47-57, 65 Marion, Jean-Luc, 5-10, 39, 43, 94

heterophenomenology, 70 on Husserl, 28-29

heuristic phenomenology, 68—72 Reduction and Givennesd, 3, 28 Husserl, Edmund, 16, 23, 42, 49-50, 65, translation of Heidegger by, 37—40

79 translation of Husserl by, 52-37

on Descarte’s Meditations, 17 maximalism, 44

descriptions and, 18 meaning (sens), 21-24, 55, 56, 61, 90-91 first philosophy and, 27-28 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 10, 46—47,

Marion’s translation of, 34—37 76-77, 8&1 meaning and, 22, 90-91 metaphysics, 9-10, 61, 90-91

objectivity and, 71 atheism and, 9-10

phenomenology and, 19-21 Dufrenne and, 14 “Theological Turn” and, | first philosophy and, 27—29

theology and, 24 Gadamer on, 56

phenomenology and, 29-32, 44,

I Am the Truth (Henry), 3, 6 64—65 The Idea of Phenomenology (Husser]), 35, “Theological Turn” and, 3

36, 99 minimalism, 23, 66—67, 76 ideal, 76 Tdeas, 17, 20, 22 necessity, 35-36

The Idol and Distance (Marion), 9-10 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 86, 97

immanence, 3, 8, 15, 80-81 noetic-noematic structures, 20 104 «a Index

objectivity, 71 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 81, 102

onto-theology, 13, 16, 24, 56 saturated phenomenon, 5, 9, 40-44, 86,

Other, the, 9, 15 95 Outside, the, 13 The Saturated Phenomenon (Marion), 40, 44

PENIC-TNEML, “ Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 49

perception, science, 16-17, 21, 69-70

Phaedrus (Socrates), 47ae98 henomenology, 14, 15 P eas dae Sein und Zeit (Heidegger), 50-52, 57 Christian, 6 Sinnaeb 99 and Divine Love, 7 S, ‘ _ 7 as a first philosophy, 6, 22 ee hermeneutics and, 47—57, 59, 65 Space, ;

historical background, 48—50 SP mOzA, Baruch, 86 metaphysics and, 29-32, 44, 64—65 Stein, Edith, 235

sources for, 18-21 subjectivity, 74, 78, 80 tautological, 72—75 suspicions, 21-23 Phenomenology of Perception, 77

The Phenomenology of Spirit, 19, 49 tautological phenomenology, 72—75

phenomenon textuality, 60

pure, 56 theism, 14, 16, 17, 18 saturated, 5, 9, 40-44, 86, 95 “Theological Turn”, 1-8, 29-30, 33, 65

philosophical questioning, 21 theologism, 6 La Philosophie en Europe, \ theology, 2, 6, 7, 13

philosophy, 15, 47 negative, 14-15, 24 first, 6, 22, 25, 27, 44, 64, h dll le of controversy in,814hileee more OF CON 9798 ym Thom, René, 69-70

eo O£Y and, “re . ” .

es science, 27-2 time, 72-74, 79

Powers of the Rational, 91 Time and Being (Heidegger), 59-40 presence, 14

Tune and Narrative (Ricoeur), 52—53

hol f; transcendence, 14, 15, 18 psychology, first-person, 71 translations, 34 Reduction and Gwvenness, 28 truth, 17, 19 religion, phenomenology of, 5, 6, 8

revelation, 8, 44, 45 universals, epistemological study of, 21 Ricoeur, Paul, 5-6, 21, 25, 55, 61, 65

on hermeneutical phenomenology, pay

59-53, 58 visibility, 46, 77

Sacred, the, 13, 23, 25, 26 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 76

Same, the, 74, 76 Word, interpretation of the, 49

Index a 105

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by Jeffrey Bloechl. 27. Don Cupitt, Js Nothing Sacred? The Non-Realtst Philosophy of Religton: Selected Essays.

28. Jean-Luc Marion, /n Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena. Translated by Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud. 29. Phillip Goodchild, ed., Rethinking Philosophy of Religion: Approaches from Continental Philosophy.

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