What does it mean to listen to someone respectfully, that is, insofar as they are due recognition respect? This paper addresses that question and gives the following answer: it is to listen in such a way that you are open to being surprised. A specific interpretation of this openness to surprise is then defended.

This is a phenomenological description of what is happening when we experience the death of another that interprets surviving or living on after such death by employing the term event. This term of art from phenomenology and hermeneutics is used to describe a disruptive and transformative experience of singularity. I maintain that the death of the other is an experience of an event because such death is unpredictable or without a horizon of expectation, excessive or without any principle of sufficient (...) reason, and transformative or a death of the world itself. (shrink)

While one of the arguments against religious belief relates to its apparent irrationality, it can be shown phenomenologically that there is a different kind of rationality at work in religious knowledge, undermining the sharp distinction between sacred and secular that enables theology to be marginalised as irrational. Approaching Christianity through the category of revelation, that is, as a way of living and believing that draws not only on founding narratives of revelation but on the ongoing ‘experience’ of transcendence in unveiling (...) truth, I seek to examine how the possibility of truth itself can inspire hatred and so open onto violence. ‘Religious’ violence typically emerges from a hatred directed at otherness. Hatred of what truth reveals is a powerful motivation for violence, but it cannot be shown that this is specifically religious. Nevertheless, otherness is characterised by an excess that resists objectification and may be revelatory of truth. Violence may be religious precisely to the extent that it is directed against the otherness before which each person stands accused. (shrink)

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

For over 2000 years, the sublime has been a source of fascination for philosophers, artists, and even the general public at times. We have written hundreds of treatises on the subject, put forth innumerable definitions and explanations, and even tried to reproduce it in art and literature. But, despite our efforts, our understanding of the sublime remains elusive. In this paper, the sublime is explored as a potential human experience that can be evoked by an image. Drawing upon concrete experiences, (...) the phenomenon of sublimity suggests a compelling, embodied response to the visual object that can evoke a fundamental change of being. (shrink)

There are two seemingly opposed descriptions of the subject in Totality and Infinity : the separate and autonomous I and the self that is ready to respond to the Other’s suffering and need. This paper points out that there is in fact another way Levinas speaks of the subject, which reinforces and reconciles the other two accounts. Throughout his first major work, Levinas explains how the ego is allowed to emerge as such by the Other who constantly confronts it. At (...) certain points in that work Levinas comes to describe the self as a creature given to itself by another. The notion of the created ego allows for both freedom and responsibility as Levinas understands the creature as capable of thinking critically, becoming an independent individual, and turning to the Other in responsibility. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the significance of Derrida's work for an understanding of the basic tenets of phenomenology. Specifically, via an analysis of his understanding of the subject's relation to the future, we will see that Derrida enhances the phenomenological understanding of temporality and intentionality, thereby moving the project of phenomenology forward in a unique way. This, in turn, suggests that future phenomenological research will have to account for an essential (rather than merely a secondary) role for both linguistic (...) mediation and cultural and political factors within the phenomenological subject itself. (shrink)

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue that Jean-Luc Marion’s philosophical theology is an axio-meonto-Theo-logy which proposes a new way of approaching God. The traditional way of approaching God in theo-logy attained God by the predication and the predicate in the categories of being. However, Marion’s theology attempts to bring out the freedom of God from all categories of being. It provides a critique of the traditional way of approaching God and two arguments for Marion’s alternative approach. On the grounds of the (...) axiological argument and the meontological argument, I defend Marion’s theology from some recent criticisms. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The contemporary philosophical debate about "gift" brought into light above all by French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, brought about new and live discussions regarding what gift is and what is its nature. The present article analyses whether or not love can be regarded as a gift or, rather, follow the same problem showed by Derrida. According to him, every gift carries an internal contradiction and can never be and, therefore, will never be gift. A gift is impossible. (...) What is as gift to people, is, actually a commodity, an economical circle for Derrida. This article seeks to inquire whether can or cannot love follow the same gift pattern or if it, rather, builds his own path and follows its own internal logic. Is it possible to analyze love following on the footsteps of phenomenology? If love can be analyzed in a phenomenological fashion - reduction of love - then a new horizon will be opened. RESUMO O problema do debate filosófico contemporâneo acerca do dom, trazido à tona sobretudo pelos filósofos franceses Jacques Derrida e Jean-Luc Marion, trouxe novas e vivas discussõets sobre o que é e qual a sua natureza. O presente artigo analisa se o amor pode ser considerado como um dom ou se segue o mesmo problema sublinhado por Derrida. Segundo o autor, todo dom tem uma contradição interna e não pode ser considerado como tal. O que é dom para as pessoas, para Derrida é uma commodities, um círculo econômico. Em outras palavras, o dom é impossível. A análise que se faz neste artigo é se o amor segue este paradigma, portanto é impossível, ou se ele constrói um caminho próprio e segue sua própria lógica. É possível analisar o amor seguindo os passos da fenomenologia? Reduzindo o amor a fenômeno, então a análise se abre a novos horizontes. (shrink)

In this article I explore how a philosophical conception of love may be used to draw debate on the death of God beyond the binary opposition between theology and philosophy through a comparative study of the work of Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Luc Nancy. Although Marion’s reading of love—in both its theological and phenomenological guises—proposes an innovative phrasing of a non-metaphysical notion of divinity, I argue that it is ultimately unable to maintain its coherence in nominal discourse due to Marion’s insistence (...) on keeping love and being separate. In contrast, through his unique thinking on ontology, Nancy’s philosophy allows us to reposition love at the heart of being, from whence it may serve as a means of disrupting the very principle governing the atheist and theist world-views. Far from dismantling Marion’s core proposition, I conclude that the two thinkers may in fact be more closely aligned than previous scholarship has acknowledged, coming together in the need to affirm an experience of the impossible that takes place in the present rather than in any eschatological fulfillment to come. At this intersection between two nominally very different thinkers, love forms an ontological limit-point for thought that poses a challenge to both theology and philosophy alike as they continue to grapple with the question of religion in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

During the last few decades, many thinkers have advocated for the importance of the phenomenological approach in developing the understanding of the lived experience of illness. In their attempts, they have referred to ideas found in the history of phenomenology, most notably, in the works of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre. The aim of this paper is to sketch out an interpretation of illness based on a yet unexplored conceptual framework of the phenomenology of French thinker (...) Jean-Luc Marion. Focusing on concepts of the saturated phenomenon and flesh, the paper develops an interpretation of illness as the saturated phenomenon, which highlights a variety of dimensions of illness already elaborated within the phenomenology of medicine, such as the affective dimension of illness, the disruptive dimension of illness, the transformed perception of the self in illness, mineness of flesh in illness and the inexpressible and hermeneutical dimension of illness. In addition to that, the paper explores some of the consequences the proposed interpretation of illness offers regarding the nature of illness and health. It is argued that illness in its essence is very similar to the experience of other saturated phenomena, suggesting that the difference between them does not lie within the character of the affective givenness, but rather within the dynamic relationship between the affective givenness and its conceptualization. It is also shown that the experience of health is compatible with the experience of saturation and thus is not limited to the tacit and harmonious background state. (shrink)

After reviewing the status of the concept of the phenomenon in Husserl’s phenomenology and the aim of successive attempts to reform, de-formalize, and to widen it, we show the difficulties of a method that, following the example of Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology, intends to connect the phenomenon directly to the revelation of an exteriority. We argue that, on the contrary, Marc Richir’s phenomenology, which strives to grasp the phenomenon as nothing-but-phenomenon, is more likely to capture the “meaning” of the phenomenological , (...) and hence to help us orient in the field of problems that phenomenology encounters without always knowing how to tackle them. Yet, this extension of the phenomenon’s domain does not thereby encompass everything: there may well be certain issues that require a phenomenology without phenomenon ; but the meaning of this cannot be determined before the complete reenvisioning of transcendental phenomenology. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we need to analyze ‘religious violence’ in the ‘post-secular context’ in a twofold way: rather than simply viewing it in terms of mere irrationality, senselessness, atavism, or monstrosity – terms which, as we witness today on an immense scale, are strongly endorsed by the contemporary theater of cruelty committed in the name of religion – we also need to understand it in terms of an ‘originary supplement’ of ‘disengaged reason’. In order to confront its (...) specificity beyond traditional explanations of violence, I propose an integrated phenomenological account of religion that traces the phenomenality of religion in terms of a correlation between the originary givenness of transcendence and capable man’s creative capacities to respond to it. Following Ricœur, I discuss ‘religious violence’ in terms of a monopolizing appropriation of the originary source of givenness that conflates man’s freedom to poetically respond to the appeal of the foundational with the surreptitiously claimed sovereignty to make it happen in a practical transfiguration of the everyday. (shrink)

In this article, the differences between Jean-Luc Marion, Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Heidegger’s approaches to ontotheology are discussed. Whereas Marion argues for a historical approach to this question, i.e., testing whether ontotheology can be detected in this or that thinker in this history of philosophy, this article aims, with Levinas and Heidegger, for an ontological approach to the question concerning ontotheology. In this regard, this text expresses wonder about Marion’s claim that Medieval theology would not have succumbed to ontotheology whereas (...) ancient and modern did. It is shown that ontotheology, for Levinas as well as Heidegger, might not be overcome with a simple command but rather belongs to the very structure of thought. The article concludes with offering some corrections to the Levinasian ‘God outside of onto-theology’ by a more phenomenological account of being-in-the world. (shrink)

This essay links Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of fine art to his description of Christian love. It does so by carefully showing how Marion's overall project is closely related to Kant's well-known account of the relationship between aesthetics and morality. While Kant and Marion both believe that aesthetic experience can lay the groundwork for moral action, their contrasting views of morality lead them to very different articulations of such a relationship. While Kant sees encounters with fine art as preparing individuals for (...) the particular kinds of disinterested judgments characteristic of moral decision-making, Marion sees artwork as preparing the subject for the openness toward intuitive excess that is necessary for love. (shrink)