Phenomenon Be Given Of The Main Transformation

Jean-Luc Marion is one of the most important philosophers of the younger generations working in France today, and one of the three or four most important historians of modern philosophy. Among all the phenomenologists after Derrida, he is the most significant one. His first phenomenological works Reduction and Givenness is an excellent research on the method used by Husserl and Heidegger, and he also proposes in the book the fourth formulation of the principles of phenomenology: "so much reduction, so much givenness." The formulation resettles the givenness in the center of the phenomenology. The second volume of his phenomenological trilogy, Being Given, clarifies the meaning of the givenness and broadens the phenomenology by four types of "the saturated phenomenon". In the third volume of the trilogy, In Excess, the author renders clearer the idea of the saturated phenomenon and confer on it sufficient credibility for its reception into phenomenology.In classical phenomenology, the phenomenological method is different from the metaphysical method. The later always strives to prove a proposition (about a fact or an event) is true or not,.and to prove (démontrer) consists in grounding apparences in order to know with certainty, leading them back to the ground in order to lead them to certainty. On the contrary, the phenomenological method concentrates on " showing (montrant) ", that is to say, even when it constitutes phenomena, it is still limited to letting them to manifest themselves. Constituting does not mean constructing or synthesizing, but rather giving-a-meaning (Sinngebung). But, according to Marion, a radicalized phenomenological method means the primacy of the givenness, which is the proper character of all the phenomena. In Marion's thoughts, the phenomenological method does nothing but to clear away the obstacles that cumber the phenomena to show themselves by themselves (se montrer)In the phenomenology before Marion, there are three principles: i). So much appearing, so much Being; ii). Toward the things themselves! iii)." Principle of all the principles". Only the last one frees clearly phenomenality from the metaphysical requirement of the grounding, for no other right besides intuition is necessary for the phenomena to appear. But the problem is, henceforth, the intuition itself becomes the limit or horizon of the phenomenality, that is to say, the phenomena can't yet show themselves by its own donation. In order to attain the primacy of the donation, the principle of the phenomenology must be radicalized to the fourth one: So much reduction, so much givenness.The concept of givenness (donation) is not invented by Marion, for it has been used by Husserl, Heiddegger and others. Furthermore, the fundamental significance of givenness has been discovered by the latter two. But they also blunder away the discovery. By assuming the equivalence between the phenomenality and the unquestioned paradigm of the objectness, Husserl is frozed before his own breakthrough, for the equivalence makes givenness dependent on the constitution of the'I'. In his description of es gibt (it gives or cela donne)', Heidegger has asserted the primacy of the donation, but he subsequently identifies the 'es' of 'Es gibt' with Ereignis, hence the givenness is still an opening unseized.In Marion's thinking, it is necessary to apprehend the fundamental significance of donation from the ambiguity of the given (le donné). That is to say, givenness opens as the fold of the given: the gift (le don) given in so far as it gives itself in terms of its own event. Thus the givenness means the essential phenomenality of the phenomenon: the phenomenon gives itself (se donner). Not only can this proposition justify the ambiguity of the essential correlation between the appearing and that which appears, but echoes Heidegger's classic proposition: the phenomenon signifies what shows itself from itself.The phenomenon can or indeed must be reduced to the pure given in order to appear absolutely. Just like a painting gives only as its own effect (but not its substance or usefulness), a phenomenon shows itself gives nothing more than its own apparition, namely, it doesn't give anything, neither object nor being. There is no phenomenon could escape from the donation, including the phenomena of nothing, death or the other inconcussum. Therefore, before whatever might be or not be, the difficulty does not reside in the decision to know if this is indeed a matter of givenness, but simply in deciding its modes of givenness.Talking about or not the subject of the god or the religionary experience is not the divide water shed between the philosophy and the theology. For Marion, the saturated phenomena are just some kind of 'possibility' which can broaden the phenomenology to its extreme. A philosophy of givenness is not an onto-theo-logy but a breakthrough of it reposing on the phenomenological principles "so much reduction, so much givenness." One can even say that whereas Levinas can be considered as post-phenomenological, Marion wants to return to true husserlian for the latter always try to surmount the phenomenological method not by 'refusing' but 'repetition'.According to Jacque Derrida, a pure gift is impossible; Marion insists that it is possible. In Marion's rereading, Derrida's writing is firstly a construction of an economics on the gift and then dissolves the gift in this economics. Doing by the most rigid phenomenological process, Marion attests that not only the giver and the given but the presence (or the subsistance) of the gift could be suspend. It is not an object or being which makes a gift a gift, but the donability (the character of something must be given) and the acceptability (the character of something must be accepted). The former impel the giver to give, and the latter impel the receiver to receive, in a word, it is the gift who shows itself for it to commit itself.By four characteristics a phenomenon which gives itself could be confirmed as the one which shows itself for it to give itself. The first one is its anamorphosis, by which it appears from 'elsewhere', while the 'elsewhere' does not necessarily indicate an origin, cause or agent of exchange, for it can make itself felt without them. One must expose oneself to its arriving for him to receive it as a blow, a shock or an affection. Thus the phenomenon suspends the giver in the lexicon of givenness. Second, by the characteristics as the event, a phenomenon ascends to its apparition without dependence on any other term, it gives itself without recall and irrevocably, thus from the point of the giver, it brackets the given. Thirdly, the characteristics as an incident ( especially by it's unpredictable landing) determines a phenomenon in that it arrives to me only by affecting me, thus describes the acceptability of the phenomenon. And finally, the phenomenon renders itself appear by itself, to the point that it only shows itself insofar as it makes itself. It always takes the initiative in the process of appearing to me. The initiative of appearing can transpose into terms of phenomenality what the reduction of the gift to its own givability. Thus the phenomenon as a fait accompli makes me undergo it as weighing down on me. The fait accompli thus dispels the conditions of possibility set for the phenomenal arising. And those are the breakthrough from which the saturated phenomena become receivable in phenomenology. Besides, according to the several determinations of the phenomena, Marion subverts successfully the metaphysical opposition between the substance and the (eventual) attribute.Being diametrically opposed to Kant's four groups of categories of understanding, which are conditions of possibility of the phenomenon, four typical saturated phenomena are described by Jean-Luc Marion: the event, which can't be anticipated; the idol, which is insupportable; the flesh, which is absolute, free from all the analogies of the experience and the icon, which can't be regarded. These four types of phenomena have inversed not only Kant's four groups of categories of understanding but Husserl's 'horizon' and constituting 'I', and maintained the priority of the manifestation of the phenomenon to the perception of the subject. Both Levinas and Marion want to reconstitute the western philosophy, but the two thinkers take different ways. According to several essential points of Marion' s thinking, the influence of Levinas is undeniable. The determination of the 'visage' by Levinas is one of the most important theoretical conditions of Marion's phenomenology. Although, Marion believes that when it comes to the relation of the Other, the 'visage' is still questionable, especially it must be radicalized to the 'icon'. The most significant difference between the visage and the icon is mainly not what kind of call they have uttered, but the effect they have caused. The 'moi' who received the imperative of the visage is accusative while the 'moi' who entendre the call of the icon is dative.This witness is the one who or what comes after the subject to whom givenness is given, namely, l'adonné. It is neither a new transcendental I nor another one of the avatars of the subject prescribed during the contemporary enterprise of overcoming the subjectivity. With a brilliant analysis, Marion argues that the given elicits a call which is received by and thus constitutes l'adonné. This analysis does not transform the given into God, being, or a subject. The given is and remains anonymous because its goal is only that of arousing l'adonné. In fact, the call could only manifest itself in the event of it's apparition to l'adonné, that is to say, it could only be phenomenalized by the response of l'adonné. On the other hand, during the reception or the response of the call, l'adonnémust devote itself to what he receives. This relation means that the call which gives itself shows itself only to and through l'adonnédoes not mean that givenness is dependent upon l'adonné. Admitting limits, givenness does not limit itself, because l'adonnéshould also be received by what he receives. Givenness's immanence is thus thoroughly respected and able to open an access to the Other in his proper individuation: love.