François Laruelle - The Call and the Phenomenon

Visnyk of the Lviv University. Series philosophical science, 2018

Who or what comes to light after the ‘beyond’ of Cartesian, Husserlian or Heideggerian post-intuitus philosophical attempts and receives a new souffle (breath) from otherwise JeanLuc Marion’s desire to opt conceptually a new context for phenomenological and theological researches? Granted the importance of René Descartes, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, it is, nevertheless, Jean-Luc Marion who has contributed to the question of overcoming of metaphysics’ possibility in order to disqualify a ground of being within a phenomenological reality of love. In the present article the author wishes to introduce an acquaintance of Jean-Luc Marion’s pensée (thinking) in reference to the inevitability of the leap through metaphysics aiming at doing justice to Ukrainian readers by putting Marion’s voice into the nuance of new approaches that have been resulted in recent contemporary French debates.

2016

Reprezentant de seamă al "turnurii teologice a fenomenologiei franceze", Jean-Luc Marion rămâne unul dintre cei mai fascinanți gânditori ai timpului nostru, prin originalitatea fenomenologiei donației și prin deschiderea unor noi direcții de dialog cu teologia. Din punct de vedere teologic, el practică o apologie postmetafizică, în care temele credinței creștine se regăsesc cu naturalețe alături de concepte fenomenologice precum icoana, fenomenul saturat, contra-experiența, darul, revelația, reducția erotică și adonatul. Separând riguros teologia și filosofia, el dovedește încă o dată că, după o modernitate antireligioasă și într-o postmodernitate nihilistă, a crede și a gândi pot merge încă împreună, chiar dacă numai până la un punct, dincolo de care gândirea filosofică lasă cuvântul teologiei revelate, singura în măsură să rostească adecvat în istorie chemarea Dumnezeului celui viu.

2021

The goal of the dissertation "Truth as revelation in Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology" is to critically analyze the new concept of truth, developed by Marion. The concept of revelation assumes, according to its etymology, the function of unveiling, and thus the question of truth. Revelation, therefore, is understood by Marion as the highest degree of truth. It is not only about the specific case of religious Revelation or "revealed truth," but rather about revelation as a universal form of truth. Marion opposes revelation, which he describes as "uncovering," to the notion of truth, which he describes as aletheia, "unconcealment." The concept of truth understood as revelation is the culmination of the phenomenology of donation developed by Marion. Therefore, the central motive of revelation-as well as of the phenomenology of donation-is the break with the transcendentality of the subject, which would impose conditions of possibility and range of phenomenality. Therefore, in order to present the truth as revelation, it is necessary to first examine the assumptions, principles, methods, and the path of the development of the phenomenology of donation itself, for which the concept of truth can be the guiding thread.

International Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Science, 2020

The article discusses the project of radicalization of phenomenology in Jean-Luc Marion. The very idea of radicalization has been associated with phenomenology since its origin and means a return to the main idea to study the appearance of phenomena, rethink it and draw the maximum consequences from it. Marion argues with Husserl and Heidegger, who, in his opinion, stopped halfway in the phenomenological path: the first reducing all phenomena to objects, the second reducing everything to being. Meanwhile, Marion is about freeing the phenomenon so that it appears on its own and as it is. In this purpose, he adopts the fundamental principle of phenomenology as "so much reduction, so much givenness", which shows that he bases his project on two concepts: reduction and givenness. The next step is to develop the issue of givenness and describe phenomena in its light. Marion's precious discovery is the saturated phenomena, which are characterized by an excess of visibility relative to the concept. Marion's project is completed with an analysis of the gift and the subject. It should be noted that, despite polemics, Marion's phenomenology is an interesting and successful attempt to radicalize phenomenology. Its valuable contribution is reflection on the fundamental principles of phenomenology, which gains value especially in the time of various "applied phenomenologies".

Forum Philosophicum, 2022

In this article, we analyse the relation of philosophy and theology in the work of Jean‑Luc Marion in order to be able to see not only how the phenomenology of givenness can serve as a “new apologetics” for theology, but also how Marion’s phenomenology itself, in its historical development and in its core principle and method, is influenced and changed by theological phenomena. We present three ways of describing the relation, tension, mutual influence and separation of philosophy and theology: firstly, in line with Pascal’s distinction between the orders of reason and of the heart; secondly, in phenomenology, in terms of indications to the effect that there can be a phenomenon of revelation in the mode of possibility that is distinguished from the phenomenon of Revelation in theology in the mode of historicity; and thirdly, by analogy with Christian apologetics. In particular, we analyse this third dimension, putting forward the thesis that Marion’s phenomenology itself has some characteristics of the Christian apologetics he describes. We try to demonstrate this interpretation of his phenomenology in its key dimensions, such as the counter-method and descriptions of the phenomena of love and revelation, which constitute the culmination of the phenomenology of givenness, although at the same time, as it were, its limit, crossing over into the theological order.

In this book, Christopher Macann guides the student through the major texts of the four great figures of the phenomenological tradition-Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Each chapter is devoted to one of the four thinkers. Since studying phenomenological philosophy under Ricoeur, Christopher Macann has published Kant and the Foundations of Metaphysics, Presence and Coincidence and a translation of Theunissen's Der Andere. His most recent work is Martin Heidegger in the Routledge series Critical Assessments of the Leading Philosophers. He has taught at the universities of Paris, California and Pennsylvania; he is a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and is currently Professor of Philosophy at Regent's College in London.

Chapter 4 of Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction

Phenomenological Reviews, 2020

We can think of the Husserlian phenomenological project and the history that surrounds it as the passage "from visible graces to secret graces", borrowing the expression with which Alain Mérot (2015) describes Poussin's artistic work. In Mérot's words, the visible graces are those of rigour (diligentia), order and visual eloquence with which Poussin always sought to show the clarity he was voluntarily seeking in all things. These visible graces make possible, in Pousin's work, the realization of "secret graces", which are those inexplicable and never totally expressed graces that support the deep and dark unity of the world, inseparable from the delectation that his work offers. It is because of the transmission of hidden graces that Poussin, according to Mérot, is accessible only to those who are both intelligent and sensible. Moreover, it is precisely because of the transmission of these secret graces that his work needs, in order to exist in all its fullness, a community of chosen people to whom it can be addressed. Like Poussin's work, facing the path of making grace visible by combining various techniques from the history of painting, Husserl's work is a work in progress, a work that is always preparatory: "Everything I have written so far is only preparatory work; it is only the setting down of methods" (Husserl, 2001a). We can say in this sense that, insofar as the contemplation of a painting by Poussin makes us participants in the grace made visible and not sufficiently expressed (secret), the methods of the phenomenological vision are put into practice by every reader of Husserl. In this way, everyone who sees through Husserl, irremediably leaves aside, in her or his reading, something that cannot be said. It is for this reason, perhaps, that phenomenology continues creating interpretative divergences even so many years after the method's foundation. Nevertheless, this is the same reason why phenomenology must confront other traditions of thought (from positivism to structuralism, among others) in front of which it still has something to say. This book presents us with the panorama of these divergences, establishing the center of the discussion in the semantic richness of the notion of “subject(s)”. Thus, we can understand this book as the discussion of the subject(s) as the main theme, or main themes, of phenomenology. But we can also understand this book as the discussion of whether the main theme of phenomenology – expressed in the imperative to go back to the “things themselves” – revolves around the notion of subjectivity (subject), although transcendental, or of the multiplicity of subjectivities (subjects). Moreover, the main interest of this book is that it is situated in the field of the most recent of Husserl's readers, which allows us to question the relevance of the phenomenological method in front of the themes of contemporary philosophical debate.

Phänomenologische Forschungen, 2022