En este texto Jean-Luc Marion ofrece una lectura crítica de la interpretación derridiana de Dionisio, aclarando su propia posición respecto de la teología mística. A partir de un análisis de cada una de las cuatro objeciones presentadas por Derrida, Marion presenta la tercera vía, la vía de la de-nominación; analiza el estatus de la alabanza y de la plegaria; distingue la mística de la metafísica de la presencia y de la ontoteología; y delinea los rasgos del fenómeno de la revelación.

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

Phenomenology is a basic philosophical movement belonging to what is called “continental philosophy.” Recently, a new phenomenology has emerged in France. In the period from Levinas and Henry to Marion and Richir, it has become evident that the phenomenon as such cannot be reduced to a mere constitution by intentional consciousness; rather, it must be considered as an event of appearing that establishes itself by itself. This fundamental insight entails important consequences: on the one hand, a new concept of the (...) subject has been elaborated; on the other hand, a new approach to effective reality and objectivity has been developed. Idealism is overcome, transcendentalism is revised and reinterpreted. These changes will certainly have an impact on the destiny of continental philosophy. (shrink)

Is it the task of legal semiotics or the legal philosophers to define legal semiotics? For the philosopher of law, the question recalls the distinction between philosophers’ philosophy of law and legal scholars’ philosophy of law. The thesis that the paper argues is that a semiotic legal perspective can also be sought from the analysis of anthropological knowledge on the origin of the social bond and society, implying a social and institutional theory of the mind. In the first paragraph, the (...) search for a different kind of rationality emerges from a semiotician, Jürgen Trabant, who analyses semiotically the thought of a rhetorician and philosopher of law, Giambattista Vico. In the second paragraph, the anthropological notion of social bond emerges from the debate on the relationship between the idea of the gift and that of exchange. In the third paragraph, the analysis of the legal notion of thirdness recognizes the central role of myth and fiction in the configuration of the civil world and sign, returning to Vico’s critical view of the philosophy of language as an institution of society. (shrink)

Traditionally, phenomenology has understood the self in light of intentionality and hence the world. However, contemporary French phenomenology—as represented here by Jean-Luc Marion—contends that this view of subjectivity is open to challenge: our mode of existence is not simply one of “being-in the-world.” I develop this claim by examining Marion’s reformulation of the reduction. Here, the phenomenon of vanity is key. I first present Husserl’s and Heidegger’s own formulations of the reduction. Following Marion, I show that the blow of vanity (...) neutralizes both, by undercutting the respective questions to which they respond. For, in response to vanity’s own question—“What’s the use?”—neither the transcendental nor ontological reductions have a reply. Vanity consequently renders the Heideggerian distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity existentially moot. To establish this, I evaluate how existing interpretations of authenticity overlook the phenomenon of vanity. Phenomenology, I urge in conclusion, should shift its attention to the horizons opened by Marion’s erotic reduction. (shrink)

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

Se hace presente la necesidad de una ontología relacional para la teología (Hemmerle, 1996, p. 26) y la fenomenología actual ayuda a dar piso a esa ontología en cuanto muestra el fondo de la existencia, de la realidad, de la forma de aquello que está en el origen como dato dado. La donación se convierte así en la nueva concepción del ser, no el ser como esse, sino como donación y relación, como llamado originario y como respuesta existencial, así se (...) puede pensar una ontología trinitaria cristiana pero también plenamente humana. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende mostrar cómo la descripción fenomenológica que el filósofo francés Jean-Luc Marion hace del fenómeno saturado encaja con precisión en la cristología característica del cuarto Evangelio. A partir del pensamiento de este autor, concluiremos que Jesucristo, como manifestación visible del Dios invisible, concentra en sí las cuatro paradojas fenoménicas, apareciendo también según el relato joánico como una “paradoja de paradojas” o como un “fenómeno saturado por excelencia”.

In this essay, Alain Caillé reconstructs the “singular history of the MAUSS (Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences)” from when in early 1980 a group of friends from different disciplines (sociologists, economists, philosophers, etc.) decided to found the “Bulletin du MAUSS” to counter the growing hegemony of utilitarianism and economism in the human sciences and in the philosophical disciplines themselves. The Bulletin would initially become the “Revue du MAUSS trimestrielle” from 1988 to 1992 and from 1993 to 2022 the “Revue (...) du MAUSS semestrielle” until its current anglophone extension “MAUSS International”. The author takes Marcel Mauss’ definition of the gift as a “total social fact” and explains that the gift paradigm is a “translation operator” in the sense that it is continuously enriched in interaction with existing discourses. The theoretical operation that Caillé proposes is to explicate Mauss’s discovery by moving from a simple gift paradigm, based on the perspective of simple reciprocity between giver and recipient, to an expanded gift paradigm. In this way, it can dialogue with other paradigms and other currents of thought (theory of recognition, theory of care, theory of human development, etc.). And from here to a conception of the gift as “adonnement”, i.e. the commitment of human subjects to bring something new and unprecedented into the world. (shrink)

Phenomenology of religion is among the oldest branches of the discipline founded by Husserl. It has always been difficult to define its outlines: from the very first essays of Scheler, Reinach and Heidegger to the so-called “theological turn” of French phenomenology, one has always feared the transformation of the phenomenology of religion in a religious philosophy that would give up the sacred principle of neutrality. This situation is perhaps behind us thanks to the recent endeavors to renew the field of (...) research. French and American specialists of Husserl’s thought Natalie Depraz and Anthony J. Steinbock try to push back the limits of and to explore new ways in genetic phenomenology by describing religious attitudes by mean of a philosophical-existential methodology especially designed for this task. This paper introduces what might open of a new era of the phenomenology of religion. (shrink)

En discrepancia con la afirmación de Jean-Luc Marion de que la fenomenología existencial de Martin Heidegger carece de un pensamiento del amor, este artículo sostiene que un pensamiento del amor —el cual es directamente deudor de San Agustín— es de hecho fundamental para la crítica de Heidegger a la metafísica moderna y su culminación en el dominio de la tecnología. La diferencia entre Marion y Heidegger en la cuestión del amor, según el artículo, reside en otra parte: para Marion, la (...) intencionalidad extra-mundana del amor aspira a lo eterno, mientras que para Heidegger la intencionalidad del amor atiende en el fondo a nuestro ineludiblemente temporal y mortal estar-en-el-mundo. (shrink)

Three of the most recent developments of the “theological turn” in French phenomenology deal explicitly with the question of the form of phenomena. Dealing with the works of Emmanuel Gabellieri, Emmanuel Falque and Jean-Luc Marion, this essay engages into a dialogue with and through French phenomenologists while discussing their philosophical stances – while also incorporating some ideas from authors of the Italian tradition (Sofia Vanni Rovighi, Virgilio Melchiorre and Enzo Melandri). The first part discusses the question of “barriers” and “limits” (...) of phenomenology, followed by a closer examination of how this change in the conception of phenomena (“phenomenomorphosis”) is enacted by the three authors. Considering how the three of them exhibit the signs of what Gabellieri calls a “Christological turn,” the final part before the conclusions addresses the theoretical problem of a theological legitimation of phenomenology. (shrink)

¿En qué sentido se relacionan el don, tal como lo entiende Jean-Luc Marion, y el resto, en el sentido que a este da Jacques Derrida? ¿Podemos afirmar que el don, en sus tres reducciones, opera como resto frente a la metafísica de la presencia? Y también, ¿es el resultado de esta operación un acercamiento del don hacia la donación misma? Este artículo quiere responder a estas preguntas a través de una lectura hermenéutica de la reducción que Marion ejecuta sobre el (...) don en Étant donné, cuyo resultado (o uno de ellos) es la posibilidad de entender al don como un “presente sin presencia” que resiste a la metafísica y obra como resto. (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)

El presente artículo quiere contribuir al debate suscitado en torno al papel que juega en la fenomenología de Jean-Luc Marion el “adonado” en la experiencia del fenómeno saturado, considerado a partir del fenómeno de amor. Pensar si la función del “adonado” es activa ya en la “donación” o solamente en el paso a la “manifestación” tiene consecuencias fundamentales para comprender mejor la pretensión de Marion de superar la metafísica y su más devastadora consecuencia: el nihilismo que nos obliga a seguir (...) nuestra sola voluntad y nos impide una decisión en favor de lo otro. Lo que Marion llama la “revolución del don” requiere ya, según nos parece a nosotros, visto desde la pura fenomenología, de un protagonismo activo claro del “adonado” en la “donación” misma. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende establecer, desde un estudio fenomenológico de la religión, las patologías o enfermedades socio-culturales que atentan contra el lenguaje de la religión donde prima el poder institucional, la corrupción de sus líderes, el exceso de subjetividad que propicia una religión personal sentimental y los remasterizados fundamentalismos religiosos que se imponen en el escenario de los conflictos violentos. A partir de este ejercicio interpretativo-hermenéutico de la fenomenología y la sociología se describen posibles causales y dilemas a los que está (...) sometida la religión como sistema de credo y que ocultan su papel en la comprensión integral de lo humano. Conviene vislumbrar una acción de deconstrucción y desinstitucionalización de lo religioso para resignificar a Dios como experiencia, la belleza de la llamada y la construcción comunitaria de la fe. (shrink)

La pretensión de este artículo consiste en mostrar cómo el nihilismo que subyace bajo los diferentes modos en los que se presenta la secularización posmoderna no sólo conduce a la desnuclearización de lo religioso precisamente por el vaciamiento de sus contenidos específicos, sino, además, relega toda experiencia religiosa al ámbito privado de la conciencia individual. Este contexto nihilista propio de la posmodernidad impondría el tiempo de la religión sin religión, que consiste en vivir aparentemente como si fuésemos sujetos religiosos cuando, (...) en realidad, no lo somos. Sin duda, este nuevo horizonte posmoderno supone un reto para el cristianismo. Por ello, trataremos de indicar los tres mayores desafíos que debe afrontar el cristianismo, para que la lógica nihilista de la secularización posmoderna no termine contagiando también la lógica de lo religioso, y vislumbrar qué oportunidades prometedoras se le presentan hoy al cristianismo, para pensar su propia esencia y mostrar su praxis fundada en la caridad en este tiempo en el que nos toca vivir. (shrink)

El concepto de los fenómenos saturados y su posterior desarrollo y evolución en la obra de Marion han suscitado la discusión por el problema de la hermenéutica. En esta discusión surge la necesidad de un discernimiento hermenéutico de los fenómenos y la posibilidad de clarificar criterios para este, abriendo el debate a una ética de la fenomenalidad. Para esto proponemos revisar la obra de Marion para encontrar los elementos que nos puedan ayudar en este camino.

La superación de la metafísica es el objetivo de las primeras obras de Marion. Este es emprendido a partir de diferentes vías: la teológica, la histórica y la fenomenológica. El presente artículo busca mostrar que la reducción fenomenológica es el método que Marion utiliza para superar la metafísica en la totalidad de los caminos y no solamente en los textos fenomenológicos. Con este fin, se analiza el método con el que Marion propone superar el horizonte del ser en las obras (...) teológicas (L’idole et la distance y Dieu sans l’Être) e históricas (Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes) y se las compara con los desarrollos de la reducción en Réduction et donation para demostrar que, aún no nombrada como tal, la reducción es el método que Marion utiliza para superar la metafísica. A su vez, estos análisis permiten establecer la génesis de la reducción en el pensamiento marioniano. (shrink)

El presente artículo gira en torno a un problema capital en la fenomenología de Jean-Luc Marion: cómo un sujeto pasivo, a posteriori, que es dado en la recepción misma del fenómeno, puede a su vez ser considerado como el sujeto a priori que lleva a cabo (activamente) la reducción a la donación. Eso nos lleva a precisar el surgir del ‶nuevo sujeto″ encargado de esa reducción (el adonado), ‶sujeto″ que es dado como el ‶responsable″ de la visibilidad de todos los (...) otros fenómenos dados. La ‶entrega″ del adonado a lo que aparece supone para nosotros que el adonado forma ya parte de la donación. Si la donación del fenómeno consiste en la vida simple y espontánea del mismo, aquellos fenómenos dados que más de cerca nos conciernen abren la paradójica formalidad de lo que llamamos la ‶coincidencia de lo dado con el modo de darse″. Es en esta coincidencia, en el gesto del ‶don puro″, en el ‶estado de gracia″ del acontecimiento, que podemos salir ya de la metafísica: el ‶don puro″ acontece, con el ‶adonado″, al advenir sin medida, no idéntico a sí mismo y sin razón previa, quebrando los dos principios de la metafísica: el principio de identidad y de razón suficiente. (shrink)

El propósito de este trabajo apunta, en primer lugar, a dilucidar en la _Fenomenología de la percepción_, el marco a partir del cual el autor comprende la historia y, en particular, el acontecimiento histórico. Según mi opinión, la descripción de este marco, de fuerte carácter existencialista, nos permitirá, en un segundo momento, avanzar hacia los rasgos específicos del acontecimiento histórico: singularidad, generalidad y contingencia, que ofrecen la clave para comprender en qué medida el acontecimiento es, desde la mirada merleau-pontyana, enigma (...) y huella. Finalmente, una mirada prospectiva de la obra del autor nos permitirá ubicar la posición merleau-pontyana en el contexto de la discusión actual. (shrink)

This paper raises the question – based on the works of Marc Richir and Dominique Pradelle – if and how phenomenology deals with an “anti-Copernican” revolution, considering that the motif of a “Copernican” revolution seems to have gone through some modifications that reflect a certain deposition of the constitutive role of the subject. Its fundamental thesis is that a certain dimension “beyond” the Copernican revolution does not reestablish a “Ptolemaic” realism but rather opens a dimension “beneath”: beneath the subject and (...) the object where can take place a mutual relationship between an a-subjective constitutive power and a pre-empirical foundational being. This dimension “beneath” means that the alternative does not concern a “pre-Copernican” realism on the one hand and an “idealism” leaving in the shadows the relationship between the transcendental method and an ontological perspective on the other, but rather puts forward a constructive circularity between the transcendental constitution and an ontological foundation. It follows that “normativity” is not achieved on the basis of pre-given objectivity – because it would mean a petition principia – but draws upon the “pre-immanent generativity”. (shrink)

In reading Father Dumitru Stăniloae, it is obvious that love and divine-human communion have a prominent role in his theology. This text aims to approach this topic from a phenomenological point of view: it analyzes the implicit reductions working in Stăniloae’s texts, the presence of the intentionality, the role of the ego and its limits, as well as the problem of the reciprocity of love. We will try to argue not only that there are phenomenological influences in Stăniloae’s understanding of (...) love, but also that such a topic requires a phenomenology that synthesizes the phenomenology of the world and the phenomenology of life. Because love, in its perfection, is a gift of the Holy Spirit, both types of phenomenology must be complemented with a dialogical and paradoxical one, a theo-phenomenology of love, where the Given can be invisible, living, eternally saturated, and never reducible to an object or to a concept. Keywords: Dumitru Stăniloae, Jean-Luc Marion, love, erotic reduction, theological counter-reduction, reciprocity of love, spiritual life, phenomenology. (shrink)

Recent developments in music as well as in the debate on present-day transformations of religion, call for a renewal of the question of ‘sacred music.’ This article poses the question, and suggests a direction in which theory could move in order to understand the ways in which the ancient idea of sacred music remains important for present-day music and for religious reflection. Starting from the observation that theological thinkers tend to have a preference for the music of Mozart, the question (...) is raised how they theoretically substantiate the theological privilege of a music like Mozart’s. As it turns out, the key figure relating music to the sacred is the figure of form, often exemplified by musical melody. The music theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, who has had a significant influence on Jean-Luc Marion, is a case in point. However, as is shown with reference to the musical aesthetics of the early 19th century, this figure is also central to the diametrical opposites of sacred music, being the musically sublime and the ‘religion of music.’ This observation leads to the question how, on a theoretical level, one could distinguish between sacred music and its obverse. As is shown, Marion suggests a new way of understanding the possibility of sacred music, starting from the ideas of the gift and the ‘saturated phenomenon.’ Analysing a key passage from Etant donné, it is argued that the implied shift the from form to the gift does not entirely annul the undecidability of sacred music. But also, it is argues that is does indeed show the importance and challenge that the notion of sacred music implies for both theological-philosophical and musical reflection. (shrink)

Focusing on Joyce’s use of Aristotle’s De Anima, and on Aquinas’s response to Aristotle, this essay takes, as its starting point, the recourse to two areas of enquiry in recent work on modernism: animal studies and phenomenology. In this essay we examine the intersection within Ulysses of the concept of the soul in Aristotle and Aquinas, show how this relates to questions of animality, and open the way to asking what implication the theological reflection on the soul at the centre (...) of Ulysses might have for a process of uncovering theological contents in the concept of “life” in modernist studies more generally. (shrink)

The emergence of complexity as an epistemological property of certain phenomena changed our idea of phenomenality. But, except from very technical approaches to epistemology, it has not been adopted by philosophical research. In any case, the large revolution the idea and the method of investigation of complex systems have lead to in science does not have an influence on the contemporary debate about realism in philosophy. In my paper I give a quick definition of the mutual relations between the philosophical (...) problem of reality on the one side and the scientific issues of complexity theory on the other side. Further, I develop a realistic approach to complexity by the idea of meta-ontological modeling grounded upon a realistic background. That is to say that an approach to complexity of phenomena as such does never deny its basic strong certitude of reality. In this way a philosophical approach to complexity can provide a synthesis between constructivism and realism. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of the limits of phenomenality in the phenomenology of E. Le­vinas and J.-L. Marion. D. Janicaud attributes their positions to a “theological turn” in French phenomenology. Without polemicizing directly with Janicaud, the article does not treat that turn as a distortion or neglect of the phenomenological method and its principles. On the contrary, the author sees it as focusing on those aspects of experience that do not fit into the scope of Husserlian phenomenology, decentering (...) the experiencing subject and forcing us to rethink the very question of phenomenality and its limits. The article aims to show that, despite quite radical and controversial transformations in phenomenology, Levinas and Marion base their phenomenological projects by analysing not a special or “mystical” but accessible to all, in a sense, a banal experience. (shrink)