Jean-Luc Marion (; born 3 July 1946) is a French philosopher and Catholic theologian. His work is informed by patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy.Horner 2005.
Much of his academic work has dealt with Descartes and phenomenologists like Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl, but also religion. God Without Being, for example, is concerned predominantly with an analysis of idolatry, a theme strongly linked in Marion's work with love and the gift, which is a concept also explored at length by Derrida.
Biography
Early years
Marion was born in Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, on 3 July 1946.
He studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris from 1967 to 1971, where he was taught by Jacques Derrida, Louis Althusser and Gilles Deleuze.Horner 2005, p. 3. At the same time, Marion's deep interest in theology was privately cultivated under the personal influence of theologians such as Louis Bouyer, Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
He then studied at the University of Nanterre and earned a doctorate from the University of Paris IV in 1974.
From 1972 to 1980 he studied for his doctorate and worked as an assistant lecturer at the Sorbonne. After receiving his doctorate in 1980, he began teaching at the University of Poitiers.
Career From there he moved to become the Director of Philosophy at the University of Paris X – Nanterre, and in 1991 also took up the role of professeur invité at the Institut Catholique de Paris.Horner 2005, p. 5. In 1996 he became Director of Philosophy at the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne), where he taught until 2012.
Marion became a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1994. He was then appointed the John Nuveen Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Theology there in 2004, a position he held until 2010.Horner, Robyn. Jean-Luc Marion: a Theo-Logical Introduction. Burlington: Ashgate, 2005. That year, he was appointed the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Professor of Catholic Studies at the Divinity School, a position that had been vacated by the retirement of theologian David Tracy.University of Chicago 2010. He retired from Chicago in 2022.
He continues to serve on the Editorial Advisory Panel of the journal Quaestio. He has also been director of the collection Épiméthée at Presses Universitaires de France (PUF) since 1981.
On 6 November 2008, Marion was elected as an immortel by the Académie Française. Marion now occupies seat 4, an office previously held by Cardinal Lustiger.Académie française, 2008.L’Agence France-Presse 2008. In 2014, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on Givenness and Revelation at the University of Glasgow. In both 2023 and 2024, he both gave the Gadamer lectures and led seminars at Boston College.
Awards
2020: Premio Joseph Ratzinger of the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI (initially 2020 but received in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) 2018: Prix de la Principauté for his lifetime of achievements & entire body of work - jointly presented by Les Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco and the Prince Pierre Foundation. 2008: Karl Jaspers Prize of the city and University of HeidelbergUniversity of Chicago Divinity School 2015. 1992: Grand Prix de philosophie de l'Académie française, for his entire oeuvre 1977: Prix Charles Lambert de l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques
Philosophy
Marion's phenomenological work is set out in three volumes which together form a triptychMarion 2002a, p.ix. or trilogy.Marion 2002b, p.ix. Réduction et donation: Etudes sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phénoménologie (1989) is an historical study of the phenomenological method followed by Husserl and Heidegger, with a view towards suggesting future directions for phenomenological research. The unexpected reaction that Réduction et donation provoked called for clarification and full development. This was addressed in Étant donné: Essai d'une phénoménologie de la donation (1997), a more conceptual work investigating phenomenological givenness, the saturated phenomenon and the gifted—a rethinking of the subject. Du surcroît (2001) provides an in-depth description of saturated phenomena.Marion 2002a, pp.ix-x.
Givenness Marion claims that he has attempted to "radically reduce the whole phenomenological project beginning with the primacy in it of givenness".Marion 2002b, p.xxi. What he describes as his one and only theme is the givenness that is required before phenomena can show themselves in consciousness—"what shows itself first gives itself.Marion 2002a, p.5. This is based on the argument that any and all attempts to lead phenomena back to immanence in consciousness, that is, to exercise the phenomenological reduction, necessarily results in showing that givenness is the "sole horizon of phenomena"Robyn Horner, translator, in Marion 2002b, p.ix.
Marion radicalizes this argument in the formulation, "As much reduction, as much givenness",Marion 1998, p.203; Marion 2002a, p.16; Marion 2002b, p.17-19; see Marion 2002b, p.x, note 4 for translator's note. and offers this as a new first principle of phenomenology, building on and challenging prior formulae of Husserl and Heidegger.Marion 1998, p.203; Marion 2002a, p.14-19; Marion 2002b, p.16-19. The formulation common to both, Marion argues, "So much appearance, so much Being", adopted from Johann Friedrich Herbart,Marion 2002a, p.329, note 4. erroneously elevates appearing to the status of the "sole face of Being". In doing so, it leaves appearing itself undetermined, not subject to the reduction, and thus in a "typically metaphysical situation".Marion 2002a, p.11.
The Husserlian formulation, "To the things themselves!", is criticized on the basis that the things in question would remain what they are even without appearing to a subject—again circumventing the reduction or even without becoming phenomena. Appearing becomes merely a mode of access to objects, rendering the formulation inadequate as a first principle of phenomenology.Marion 2002a, p.12. A third formulation, Husserl's "Principle of all Principles", states "that every primordial dator Intuition is a source of authority (Rechtsquelle) for knowledge, that whatever presents itself in intuition...is simply to be accepted as it gives itself out to be, though only within the limits in which it then presents itself."Husserl 1969, p.92. Marion argues that while the Principle of all Principles places givenness as phenomenality's criterion and achievement, givenness still remains uninterrogated.Marion 2002b, p.17. Whereas it admits limits to intuition ("as it gives itself..., though only within the limits in which it presents itself"), "givenness alone is absolute, free and without condition" Cited in Marion 1998, p.33 and Marion 2002b p.17-18.
Givenness then is not reducible except to itself, and so is freed from the limits of any other authority, including intuition; a reduced given is either given or not given. "As much reduction, as much givenness" states that givenness is what the reduction accomplishes, and any reduced given is reduced to givenness.Marion 2002a, p.17. The more a phenomenon is reduced, the more it is given. Marion calls the formulation the last principle, equal to the first, that of the appearing itself.Marion 2002b, p.26.
+ Phenomenological reductions of Husserl, Heidegger and MarionMarion 1998, pp.204–205. To whom are the things in question led back by the reduction? What is given by the reduction? How are the things in question given; what is the horizon? How far does the reduction go, what is excluded? First reductiontranscendental (Husserl) The intentional and constituting I Constituted objects Through regional ontologies. Through formal ontology, regional ontologies fall within the horizon of objectivity Excludes everything that does not let itself be led back to objectivity Second reductionexistential (Heidegger) Dasein: an intentionality broadened to Being-in-the-world and led back to its transcendence of beings through anxiety The different ways of Being; the "phenomenon of Being" According to Being as the original and ultimate phenomenon. According to the horizon of time Excludes that which does not have to be, especially the preliminary conditions of the phenomenon of Being, e.g. boredom, the claim Third reductionto givenness (Marion) The interloqué: that which is called by the claim of the phenomenonMarion 1998, pp. 200–202. The gift itself; the gift of rendering oneself to or of eluding the claim of the call According to the horizon of the absolutely unconditional call and of the absolutely unconstrained response Absence of conditions and determinations of the claim. Gives all that can call and be called
By describing the structures of phenomena from the basis of givenness, Marion claims to have succeeded in describing certain phenomena that previous metaphysical and phenomenological approaches either ignore or exclude—givens that show themselves but which a thinking that does not go back to the given is powerless to receive.Marion 2002a, pp.3–4. In all, three types of phenomena can be shown, according to the proportionality between what is given in intuition and what is intended:
Phenomena where little or nothing is given in intuition.Marion 2002a, pp.222, 308. Examples include the Nothing and death,Marion 2002a, pp.53–59. mathematics and logic.Marion 2002a, pp.191–196. Marion claims that metaphysics, in particular Kant (but also Husserl), privileges this type of phenomenon.Marion 2002a, pp.194, 226. Phenomena where there is adequation between what is given in intuition and what is intended. This includes any objective phenomena.Marion 2002a, pp.222–225. Phenomena where what is given in intuition fills or surpasses intentionality. These are named saturated phenomena.Marion 2002a, pp.196–221, 225–247 and Marion 2002b.
Saturated phenomena The main concept Marion radically introduces to phenomenology is "saturated phenomenon." Marion defines "saturated phenomena," which contradicts the Kantian claim that phenomena can only occur if they are congruent with the a priori knowledge upon which an observer's cognitive function is founded. For example, Kant would claim that the phenomenon "three years is a longer period of time than four years" cannot occur.
According to Marion, "saturated phenomena" (such as divine revelation) overwhelm the observer with their complete and perfect givenness, such that they are not shaped by the particulars of the observer's cognition at all. These phenomena may be conventionally impossible, and still occur because their givenness saturates the cognitive architecture innate to the observer.Caputo 2007 p. 164.
"The Intentionality of Love"