Event and Subjectivity: The Question of Phenomenology in Claude Romano and Jean-luc Marion (Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology, 25) 9004689532, 9789004689534

Citation preview

26mm

studies in contempor a ry phenomenology — 25

At the same time, Event and Subjectivity is the first book on Claude Romano’s understanding of phenomenology in English. It also offers a fresh reading of the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion by highlighting the phenomenon of the event. Kadir Filiz completed his Ph.D. (2023) at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has published articles and translations into Turkish.

Event and Subjectivity Kadir Filiz

Event and Subjectivity presents a rich phenomenological analysis of the event in contemporary phenomenology by focussing on the work of Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion. Although the event is a major topic of contemporary philosophy, its centrality has not been acknowledged enough in the phenomenological movement. The book starts with the idea that the event cannot find a proper place in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology. It proposes a phenomenological version of the event that transforms the definition of phenomenon, subjectivity and phenomenology itself in order to do justice to the phenomenality of the event.

scp 25

studies in contempor a ry phenomenology — 25

Event and Subjectivity The Question of Phenomenology in Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion

Kadir Filiz

brill.com/scp issn 1875-2470

ISBN 978 90 04 68953 4

Event and Subjectivity

Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology Founding Editor Chris Bremmers (Radboud University, Nijmegen) Editorial Board Gert-Jan van der Heiden (Radboud University, Nijmegen) (Editor-in-chief) Antonio Cimino (Radboud University, Nijmegen) Advisory Board Arnaud Dewalque (University of Liège, Belgium) Theodore George (Texas A&M University, USA) Sophie Loidolt (Technical University Darmstadt, Germany) Jos de Mul (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) Peter Reynaert (University of Antwerp, Belgium) John Sallis (Boston College, USA) Hans-Rainer Sepp (Charles University, Prague) Tanja Staehler (University of Sussex, Brighton) Laszlo Tengelyi† (Bergische Universität, Wuppertal) Georgia Warnke (University of California, Riverside, USA) Sanem Yazıcıoğlu (Istanbul University, Turkey)

volume 25

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scp

Event and Subjectivity The Question of Phenomenology in Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion

By

Kadir Filiz

leiden | boston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Filiz, Kadir, author. Title: Event and subjectivity : the question of phenomenology in Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion / by Kadir Filiz. Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Brill, [2024] | Series: Studies in contemporary phenomenology, 1875-2470 ; volume 25 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Event and Subjectivity presents a rich phenomenological analysis of the event in contemporary phenomenology by focussing on the work of Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion. Although the event is a major topic of contemporary philosophy, its centrality has not been acknowledged enough in the phenomenological movement. The book starts with the idea that the event cannot find a proper place in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology. It proposes a phenomenological version of the event that transforms the definition of phenomenon, subjectivity and phenomenology itself in order to do justice to the phenomenality of the event. At the same time, Event and Subjectivity is the first book on Claude Romano’s understanding of phenomenology in English. It also offers a fresh reading of the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion by highlighting the phenomenon of the event”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023045359 (print) | LCCN 2023045360 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004689534 (hardback : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9789004689541 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Phenomenology. | Philosophy, French–20th century. | Romano, Claude, 1967- | Marion, Jean-Luc, 1946Classification: LCC B829.5 .F537 2024 (print) | LCC B829.5 (ebook) | DDC 142/.7–dc23/eng/20231130 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023045359 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023045360 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1875-2470 isbn 978-90-04-68953-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-68954-1 (e-book) doi 10.1163/9789004689541 Copyright 2024 by Kadir Filiz. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Series Editor’s Foreword viii



Introduction 1 1 The Event in Contemporary Phenomenology 6 2 Some Methodological and Hermeneutical Issues 15

Part 1 What Is the Event?

Introduction to Part 1 25

1 The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness 29 1.1 The Phenomenology of Givenness 30 1.1.1 The Phenomenological Reduction 33 1.1.2 The Determinations of Givenness: Given Phenomena 46 1.1.3 The Gift 49 1.1.4 The Saturated Phenomenon 53 1.2 Phenomenality: Objectness and Eventness 63 1.2.1 Two Uses of the Event: the Determination of a Given and a Saturated Phenomenon 64 1.2.2 The Event as a Pole of Phenomenality 68 1.2.3 Eventness or Objectness: The Role of Hermeneutics 77 1.3 Conclusion 82 2 The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics 84 2.1 The Heideggerian Shadow 87 2.1.1 The Methodological Paths of Heidegger and Romano 88 2.1.2 Romano’s Account of the Heideggerian Ereignis 96 2.2 The Four Distinctive Characteristics of Events 105 2.3 The Transformation of Phenomenological Notions by the Phenomenality of the Event 113 2.3.1 Possibility and the Problem of the World 113 2.3.2 Time and Temporality 120 2.3.3 The Experience of the Event 125 2.4 Conclusion 136

vi

Contents

PART 2 Who Experiences the Event?

Introduction to Part 2 145

3 The Adonné 151 3.1 Aporias of the Subject 158 3.1.1 The Four Aporias of Subjectivity 165 3.1.2 Dasein as an Heir of the Subject 171 3.2 The Replacement of the Subject by the Adonné 176 3.2.1 The Analytic of the Adonné 178 3.2.2 The Temporality of the Adonné 181 3.2.3 The Call and Response 185 3.2.4 Ego and Reduction 189 3.3 Conclusion 203 4 The Advenant 205 4.1 Before the Subject 211 4.1.1 Birth 212 4.1.2 The Subject and the Advenant 220 4.1.3 Dasein and the Advenant 224 4.1.4 The Selfhood of the Advenant 229 4.1.5 How does the Advenant Respond to Events? 236 4.1.6 The Temporality of the Adventure 240 4.2 Transcendentalism and the Advenant 247 4.2.1 The Transcendentalism of Dasein 248 4.2.2 Reduction as the Sceptical Problem 253 4.2.3 The Advenant in the “Real” World 256 4.3 Conclusion 265

Conclusion 273 1 Some General Remarks about the Event in Phenomenology 273 2 What Do the Event and Its “Subjectivities” Bring Forth? 277 2.1 A Realistic Conception of Phenomenality 277 2.2 A New Way of Phenomenological Rationality 280



Bibliography 289 Index 306

Acknowledgments This work was written as a Ph.D. thesis at Radboud University Nijmegen. First of all, my deepest thanks and gratitude goes to my supervisor Gert-Jan van der Heiden. His mentorship, support and friendship from the beginning have always accompanied me. I have always benefited from his guidance and our discussions. I am sincerely indebted to my co-supervisor Antonio Cimino for his careful reading of my work and comments. This book would not become possible without their efforts. I am also grateful to Philosophy Department and Graduate School at Radboud University which helped me to complete my work. Especially, I am thankful to the members of the manuscript committee: Claude Romano, Ruud Welten, Crina Gschwandtner, Herman Westerink and Simon Gusman. And also I would like to thank Boston College, Philosophy Department and its people who were always nice to me during my stay. There are many books, institutions, animals, seas, cities, libraries, things, friends, teachers, places, scholars, writers and people who in different ways contributed to this book, and also supported, assisted, influenced and encouraged me to conclude my work. They are many more than I can mention here. I am so glad to encounter them during my past years even if some of them are not aware that they did so. I would like to thank Jean-Luc Marion for his work which plays an important role in this book. My heartfelt gratitude is to Claude Romano, for not only his work but also his friendship, kindness and generosity. I also would like to express my gratitude to my family who always supported me in the best way. It is a great fortune to be the father of Azize and Niyazi. They are great events of my life. I don’t know how to express my thankfulness to my wife Esther. No doubt, without her support, love and patience this book would not become possible.

Series Editor’s Foreword Many recent publications in continental thought testify to the fact that philosophy today is marked by an ever-increasing interest in the notion of the event. The event is that which cannot be anticipated, that which surprises us, and that which confronts us with something utterly new for which we lack, in our first encounter, the vocabulary and the structure to think and to know it. The question of the event also has important repercussions for phenomenology and confronts us with two basic questions: What type of phenomenon or phenomenality, or which mode of appearance corresponds to the event? And what does it apply for the body or the agency for which the event appears thusly? The latter question shows that the question of the event intensifies and deepens some of the stakes in the hermeneutical turn in phenomenology as a turn from subject to self: which forms of selfhood are implied if there is something as an event that can appear to and affect us? Kadir Filiz engages directly with these important questions in his study Event and Subjectivity: The Question of Phenomenology in Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion. He shows how Marion’s rethinking of phenomenality along the lines of the phenomenon of the gift and of the saturated phenomenon, goes hand in hand with a rethinking of selfhood under the heading of adonné, the devoted or the gifted, as the English translations read. Filiz shows how and why these transformations of both the Husserlian and Heideggerian framework of phenomenology are necessary to do justice to the phenomenality with which the event confronts us. Moreover, Filiz argues convincingly Romano’s phenomenology of the event with his conception of the advenant, the one to whom happens and arrives the event, not only resonates with and deepens the developments made possible by Marion’s phenomenology, but also offers another way of thinking the importance of the event for phenomenology. As editors we are very happy to be able to include this monograph in our series Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology. It offers the first real, systematic and monograph-lengthy engagement with the highly original work of Claude Romano in the English language. Moreover, the book extends the questions of event and subjectivity or selfhood to other developments in recent philosophy such as the turn to realism. In his concluding chapter, Filiz demonstrates convincingly how especially Romano’s phenomenology does not only compel us to go into the direction of a phenomenological realism but also offers us the means to rethink the sense of reason that goes hand in hand with this form of realism. We are certain that this study contributes to the ongoing

Series Editor’s Foreword 

ix

­ henomenological reflections on event, subjectivity and selfhood and shows p their fertility for a further reflection on the basic philosophical themes of ­reason and reality. Gert-Jan van der Heiden Nijmegen, July 5th 2023

Introduction Wir handeln nicht von der Phänomenologie, sondern von dem, wovon sie selbst handelt. Heidegger1

∵ Events happen to us throughout our lives. Some of them shake us to the core. Some occur without being recognised, and it is only later that we come to acknowledge their significance. We can see events in history where an ­occurrence changes the destiny of an entire region. We see events in a film when a sudden transformation completely changes the anticipated trajectory of the plot. We see them in literature where the protagonist is transfigured after the event. They happen in a tragedy when an event thrusts the hero into an irreparable situation. That is to say, we all are familiar with the happening of events. Our lives bear constant witness to their power. Our lives commence with the event of birth. When we look back upon our lives, we tend to look to those events that gave them their particular shape. Events are the stuff of our ­memoires. We cannot doubt that our future will be marked by events. Some of these events change us, so that we are, in some important sense, not the same person anymore. Events play a most central role in our lives. Given all this, it should not be difficult to ask what events are, whether all the happenings we encounter can be characterised as events, how we experience these happenings and what it is that they do to us. Whereas literature has borne witness to the transformative power of events, the history of Western philosophy has not paid sufficient attention to it. It is only in the philosophy of the last century that the centrality of the event to human existence and thought has become recognised. In trying to do greater justice to the event, twentieth-century philosophy can be seen to be inspired by the Nietzschean awakening at the end of the nineteenth century.2 1 Martin Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 1. 2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Writings from Late Notebooks, trans. Kate Sturge (Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press, 2003), 75–76, 2 [84]. For the German text, see Friedrich Nietzsche,­

© Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_002

2

Introduction

The f­ollowing philosophers seem to be particularly discussing the event: Heidegger,3 Arendt,4 Gadamer,5 Deleuze,6 Maldiney,7 Levinas,8 Ricœur,9 Foucault,10 Derrida,11 Lyotard,12 Badiou,13 Richir, Dastur,14 Agamben,15

Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885–1887, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag & de Gruyter, 1999), 103–4, 2 [84]. 3 Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012); Beiträge Zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989). Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row Publishing, 1969); Identität und Differenz (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2006). Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972); Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007). 4 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998); “On Violence,” in Crises of the Republic (New York: Harcourt Brace Company, 1972), 105–98; On Revolution (London: Penguin Books, 1990). 5 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. ­Marshall (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). 6 Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester and Charles Stivale (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 7 Henri Maldiney, Penser l’homme et la folie (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2007). 8 Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2006). 9 Paul Ricœur, “Le retour de l’événement,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 104, no. 1 (1992): 29–35; “Événement et sens,” Raisons pratiques 2, no. 1 (1991): 41–56. 10 For a detailed investigation of the notion of the event in Foucault’s work, see Thomas R. Flynn “The Career of the Historical Event,” in Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason: A Poststructuralist Mapping of History (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 48–80. 11 Jacques Derrida, “A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event,” Critical Inquiry 33, no. 2 (2007): 441–61. For a detailed analysis of the event in Derrida’s work, see Thomas Khurana, “‘… besser, daß etwas geschieht’ Zum Ereignis bei Derrida,” in Ereignis auf Französisch: Von Bergson bis Deleuze, ed. Marc Rölli (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004), 235–56. 12 Jean-François Lyotard, Discourse, Figure, trans. Antony Hudek and Mary Lydon (­Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). For a reading of Lyotard’s thought in terms of the notion of the event, see Geoffrey Bennington, Lyotard: Writing the Event (New York: Manchester University Press and Columbia University Press, 1988). 13 Alain Badiou, Being and Event, trans. Oliver Feltham (London: Continuum, 2007); Logic of Worlds, trans. Alberto Toscano (London: Continuum, 2009); Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). 14 Françoise Dastur, “Phenomenology of the Event: Waiting and Surprise,” Hypatia 15, no. 4 (2000): 178–89. 15 For the messianic event in his reading of Paul, see Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, trans. Patricia Dailey (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).

Introduction

3

Nancy,16 Marion, Barbaras, Virilio,17 Romano, Meillassoux,18 and Žižek.19 The list includes only some of the most prominent figures, it could no doubt be longer,20 and it could even include analytical philosophers such as Davidson.21 The abundance of such varied theoretical explorations of the theme of the event, forces us to confront its different conceptual uses and functions within different philosophical projects. What can be said to unite these different deployments of the concept is that in each case, the event is understood to have a particular irreducibility to other kinds of entities or phenomena. This provides some indication of why the event is a central theme in contemporary philosophy: it serves to challenge certain philosophical categories, fields and themes and, at least for some of the authors mentions, helps to thematise a radically alternative way of thinking about phenomena and its logos. The notion of the event is not one that allows for easy definition in the language of philosophical investigation. The fact that the history of philosophy has largely remained silent with regard to the event could be related to its exceptional status for any ontology. The event as such is singular, not a presentable thing. Its happening surprises us, it comes to us in an unforeseeable way, it sometimes invalidates our expectations and changes our usual ways of looking at the world, things and people. It is not something that can be easily conceived and conceptualised. Nevertheless, it is also something we are so familiar with. We face, experience and witness in our lives, and that we also express in different ways in our languages.22 Attempts to rationalise the event 16 17 18 19 20

21 22

Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, trans. Robert Richardson and Anne O’Byrne (­Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). Paul Virilio, A Landscape of Events, trans. Julie Rose (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000). Quentin Meillassoux, “Decision and Undecidability of the Event in Being and Event I and II,” trans. Alyosha Edlebi, Parrhesia 19, no. 1 (2014): 22–35; Quentin Meillassoux, “History and Event in Alain Badiou,” trans. Thomas Nail, Parrhesia 12, no. 1 (2011): 1–11. Slavoj Žižek, Event: A Philosophical Journey through a Concept (New York, NY and London: Melville House Publishing, 2014). For a detailed study on the “return” of the event in contemporary philosophy, see François Dosse, Renaissance de l’événement: Un défi pour l’historien: entre sphinx et phénix (Paris: PUF, 2010). For example, another approach to events in regard to history, see Hayden White, “The Historical Event,” Differences: A Journal of Critical Feminist Studies 19, no. 2 (2008): 9–34. Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Although hardly a complete survey, the languages with which I am familiar, viz. Turkish, English, German, French and Arabic, seem to each have many ways of articulating a happening or event. For example, there are at least four different words in my mother tongue, Turkish, for the event: vak’a, hadise, musibet, olay. There are also some other verbs used to express the happening of an event in Turkish, but I assume that this is not only specific

4

Introduction

mostly result in its subjection to something other than the event. The logos of philosophy has not been able to bring its peculiarity to the fore. In this regard, it differs from other phenomena. The event pushes the limits of rationality, so that any discourse on the event has a tendency to distort its peculiar and unique nature. For instance, explaining an event according to causality is an attempt to situate and ground it in reason. When it is put into a causal chain, its peculiar character dissolves into a cause-effect relation. On the other hand, if we attribute an event to a substance, if we make it an accident of the substance, then this reduces its distinctive and exceptional character to something we can easily grasp and understand. These examples of subordination illustrate some of the ways in which the event has been rationalised within the history of philosophy, and they also show how this process tends to nullify and neutralise that which the event brings forth. In the last century, philosophers sought to reject this discourse of the event and to instead locate it within a new way of thinking. It is perhaps this tendency that can serve to unify the philosophers of the event who emerged in the last century. Their variety of approaches to the event would seem to attest to the elusive character of the event itself. A need to consider the event in a new frame of thought comes from the idea that former discourses and rationalisations of the event could not take account of its peculiarity. The exceptional status of the event seems to lie at the heart of these ways of understanding it. At the same time, its exceptional character is what made it attractive to these philosophers in the first place: it moves philosophers to effect a radical departure from the concepts, discourses and ontologies that had previously constituted the main current of the philosophical tradition. This study aims to discuss the event phenomenologically. In doing so, it cannot hope to do justice to the breadth of the discourse already alluded to. It focuses instead on the event as it is articulated within the work of two contemporary philosophers: Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano. Both of these thinkers describe their work as phenomenology and can be seen to operate at the margins of this discourse. The choice of these two thinkers from the array of phenomenologists of the event was by no means arbitrary. Marion and Romano are particularly noteworthy because, as I wish to show, the event is of central importance to their respective understandings of phenomenology. to Turkish or the other languages with which I am familiar. The etymology of these verbs tend to indicate a kind of appearance from nothing, an unanticipated coming-to-be, unpresentable presence, etc. One might take the very plurality of the modes of expression for the event as being themselves expressive of the difficulty of defining or determining the notion itself.

Introduction

5

Furthermore, as shall be seen in more detail below, the existing secondary literature concerning the event has failed to do justice to Marion’s and, particularly, Romano’s thought on the topic.23 In spite of the vast panoply of approaches to the event from phenomenological and non-phenomenological philosophers, I wish to argue that these two philosophers offer distinct accounts of the fundamentally phenomenological status of the event. That is to say, the event determines their general understanding of phenomenality, subjectivity and, consequently, phenomenology itself. By focusing on the works of Marion and Romano, this study primarily seeks to answer two questions: “What is the event?” and “Who experiences the event?” The first question seeks to explore the phenomenality of the event, how the event shows itself, how it is distinguished from other modes of phenomenality. The second question investigates how the event shows itself to the human being and how it is experienced by him. Since the event has a different kind of phenomenality, I argue that the experience of the event necessitates a new understanding of subjectivity – or, more accurately, it necessitates an understanding of human being that is different from the idea of the subject typically associated with phenomenology. These questions serve as points of orientation that help to shape the content of this book. It has been claimed above that the event has a fundamental and paradigmatic status for Marion’s and Romano’s phenomenologies. Each of them deals with the phenomenon of the event in an original way, and this determines their understanding of phenomenology. In this regard, their accounts of the event present a novel and unique approach to the thinking of the event in contemporary phenomenology. This is the main reason why they are the central figures to be examined in this book. While every study must circumscribe the scope of its investigation, the focus on Marion and Romano is no mere arbitrary delimitation but one motivated by the significance of their specific phenomenologies of the event in the context of contemporary philosophy. In 23

For example, the book edited by Marc Rölli makes an important contribution to the question of the event in the work of a variety of thinkers both internal and external to the phenomenological tradition. I think that it is one of the most comprehensive studies of the event because it presents many different accounts of the event in the 20th century. Nevertheless, there is no discussion of either Marion’s or Romano’s approach to the event therein. See Marc Rölli, ed., Ereignis auf Französisch: Von Bergson bis Deleuze (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004). Something similar can be said of the following two books, which do not refer to Romano’s thinking on the event: Michael Staudigl and Jürgen Trinks, eds., Ereignis und Affektivität: Zur Phänomenologie sich bildenden Sinnes (Wien: Truia+Kant, 2007); Hans-Dieter Gondek, László Tengelyi, und Tobias Nikolaus Klass, eds., Phänomenologie der Sinnereignisse (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2011).

6

Introduction

order to justify this claim, I will first present a brief account of the status of the event within contemporary phenomenology. By means of a discussion of some key figures and sources, it will be possible to situate the issue of the event within the constellation of phenomenology. This will serve to provide a background context for Marion’s and Romano’s work on the event and for what I aim to achieve in this book. 1

The Event in Contemporary Phenomenology

I want to start with a personal story. While writing this book, I was often asked about my topic. When I answered that “I work on the event in phenomenology,” another question was often raised, by philosophers: “Is it the Heideggerian notion of the event (Ereignis)?” I would then usually have to spend some more time explaining that it was not the Heideggerian conception of the event. Of course, the people around me were not all so influenced by Heidegger that they related everything to his philosophy. It is, rather, that the prevailing opinion in continental philosophy is that the event is an essentially Heideggerian theme, even though it is one frequently discussed by most of the philosophers mentioned above in a completely different sense. Hence, it should be noted that although Heidegger’s conception of Ereignis seems to predominate in the general understanding of the topic, it is not this approach to the event that will be addressed in this study. This common misunderstanding was not only apparent in idle chatter about my book project, but is also evident in some sources. In the work of László Tengelyi and Hans-Dieter Gondek, for instance, the notion of Ereignis is deployed as a theme that purportedly unifies the new French phenomenology. Their important book, Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich (New Phenomenology in France), attempts to analyse the trajectory of the phenomenological movement in France from the eighties on. According to their analysis, the notion of “Sinnereignis” (meaning-event) plays a central role in the transformation of phenomenology from the eighties onward, particularly in the work of Richir, Marion, and Henry.24 By reading new developments in phenomenology in terms of the notion of the meaning-event we risk losing the qualitatively new and instead find ourselves, always already, on the topos of Husserl and

24

Hans-Dieter Gondek and László Tengelyi, Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011), 29 and 37–40.

Introduction

7

Heidegger. Tengelyi and Gondek also argue that the idea of the meaning-event can, ultimately, be traced back to Husserl and, especially, Heidegger.25 Just one year after the publication of this book, a workshop was organised in France with the participation of philosophers whose work was discussed in the book. Christian Sommer, the organiser of the conference and the editor of the subsequent volume of conference papers, states that “the new figure of phenomenology, in all its versions, proceeds from a change of paradigm, that is to say from the modification of the concept of phenomenon henceforth understood as event (Ereignis).”26 According to Sommer, Tengelyi and Gondek’s analysis of the “newness” in French phenomenology after the eighties can be summarised in terms of the transformation of phenomenality by the event. Tengelyi and Gondek’s reference to the concept of “Ereignis”27 and Sommer’s interpretation of the same concept no doubt reminds us that the prominence of the notion of the event (événement) in the new French phenomenology is related to the Heideggerian notion of “Ereignis.”28 25 26

27

28

Ibid., 39–40. Christian Sommer, “Transformations de la phénoménologie,” in Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, ed. Christian Sommer (Paris: Hermann, 2014), 10. In French, it is as follows: “… la nouvelle figure de la phénoménologie, dans toutes ses versions, procède d’un changement de paradigme, c’est-à-dire de la modification du concept de phénomène désormais entendu comme événement (Ereignis).” In the same edited volume, Tengelyi discusses his own book and refers to the Heideggerian theme of the ontotheological constitution and end of metaphysics without any comment on Ereignis. See László Tengelyi, “Le rôle de l’histoire de la philosophie dans la constitution de la nouvelle phénoménologie en France,” in Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, ed. Christian Sommer (Paris: Hermann, 2014), 35–42. For a detailed discussion on this topic, see Federico Viri, “Essai d’une cartographie de la notion d’‘événement’ dans la phénoménologie française contemporaine,” Methodos: savoirs et texte [online] 17, no. 1 (2017): e4776, https://doi.org/10.4000/methodos.4776. Viri claims that the Heideggerian conception of Ereignis is the “touchstone” and the source of inspiration for the new phenomenology in France as presented by Gondek and ­Tengelyi. In this respect, Federico Viri summarises Tengelyi and Gondek’s thoughts about the role of the Heideggerian Ereignis for the new French phenomenology as follows: “(a) that the notion of ‘event’ is in itself homogeneous among all authors who claim it; (b) that the event has a Heideggerian origin, unique, direct, natural and clear; and in particular (c) that the ‘event’ of the new phenomenology corresponds indeed to Heidegger’s ‘Ereignis’; (d) finally, that French phenomenology had only to take up this concept, as it is, and consider it as a starting point to redefine itself as ‘event phenomenology.’” Viri contests these suppositions of Tengelyi and Gondek, and he suggests that the notion of Geschehen, which connotes a more ordinary sense of happening in the German language, better describes the phenomenon of the event (événement) in the new French phenomenology than the concept of Ereignis. In my opinion, the account of Heidegger’s Ereignis that Tengelyi and Gondek provide in their book is not sufficiently detailed to convincingly argue their claim. Viri, on the other hand, provides a much more comprehensive

8

Introduction

Given the many accounts of the notion of the event, the task of identifying a unitary meaning for the use of the term within contemporary philosophy and phenomenology would, I think, be a complex and difficult one. At the outset, it should be clarified that this book does not attempt to accomplish such a task. It also does not discuss the relationship between the Heideggerian Ereignis and the notion of the event in the new French phenomenology. Nevertheless, one thing does become clear: it will be argued that the Heideggerian notion of Ereignis is not a cornerstone or an originating point for the account of the event articulated by the main figures of this work, Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano. The investigation of this book neither directly nor indirectly aims to explain the transformation phenomenology of the event in the wake of the Heideggerian Ereignis. Moreover, I think that narrating the emergence of new French phenomenology on the basis of Ereignis would be misleading and risks reducing the novelty of the phenomenology of the event to something already much studied. The Heideggerian meaning of Ereignis is highly circumscribed. It is an unhistorical understanding of the event as a “singulare tantum” through which history, being and time are given.29 The Heideggerian Ereignis makes sense only in the singular and there can be no plural form of Ereignis for Heidegger. However, the event is always plural, and this plurality of events is central to the accounts of Marion and Romano. If we were to read the event in terms of Ereignis (that is, in a Heideggerian fashion), our analysis of what is happening to us or to others in the world would be weighted down by the interpretative baggage of Heidegger’s approach. This is not to say that Heidegger’s conception of Ereignis does not offer a rich philosophical perspective. Nor is it to suggest that there could not be important comparisons made between the approach taken here and that of Heidegger. Nevertheless, it is important to stress that what this book means by the event is closer to the German meaning of “Geschehen” than to “Ereignis.” In other words, it deals with events that happen to finite human beings in their personal history. Concerning Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich, there is another important point that I need to discuss here. Although it attempts to draw a general picture of the new French phenomenology and to offer an analysis of this last phase of phenomenology in terms of the meaning-event, an account of Claude Romano’s phenomenology of the event is entirely absent from the account of the notion, and his arguments for the use of the notion of Geschehen, instead of Ereignis, seems better suited for what is called the new French phenomenology. Since Heidegger’s use of Ereignis has a highly circumscribed meaning within his philosophy, it can hardly be said to provide a sufficient point of departure for grasping what is at stake in the new French phenomenology. 29 Heidegger, Identity and Difference, 36; Identität und Differenz, 45. See Heidegger, On Time and Being, 20–21; Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens, 25–26.

Introduction

9

book.30 Moreover, as has been noted by some critics, while the book’s central notion of the meaning-event is well suited to Marc Richir’s understanding of phenomenology, it is not particularly easy to summarise Marion’s or Henry’s projects in terms of this notion because of the role played by hermeneutics with regard to meaning in their phenomenologies.31 Apart from the question of whether the notion of meaning-event is a valid interpretative key for new French phenomenology,32 my concern is that Romano’s work is not considered in this book.33 With regard to the scope of my study, another book deserves to be mentioned. François Raffoul’s Thinking the Event is an important contribution to the issue of the event in continental philosophy and makes reference to a variety of thinkers.34 Thinking the Event presents the event in a multifaceted way by emphasising its exceptional character vis-à-vis reason, thought, phenomenology, etc. as a result of the suspension of the principle of sufficient reason. This book also highlights the Heideggerian Ereignis as a source of inspiration 30 31

32

33

34

Tengelyi also mentions the name of Romano in the list of absent phenomenological thinkers in the book, see László Tengelyi, “Le rôle de l’histoire de la philosophie dans la constitution de la nouvelle phénoménologie en France,” 35. Claudia Serban, “La ‘nouvelle phenomenologie en France’ et les événements de sens (­Sinnereigmisse): Un prolongement de la lecture de Lâszló Tengelyi,” in L’événement et la raison: Autour de Claude Romano, ed. Philippe Cabestan (Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016), 31. I also think that Richir’s thought on the formation of meaning in phenomenology and its relation to hermeneutics does not present a phenomenology of the event in an adequate manner. Although, as presented in the book, the notion of meaning-event seems to suit his thinking more than it does that of Henry or Marion, I would argue that Richir’s phenomenology does not offer a radical interpretation of the event as such. It focuses instead on the problem of meaning in phenomenology. See Tengelyi and Gondek, Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich, 41–113. Jean-François Courtine argues that Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich cannot succeed with what it attempts to do. For Courtine, Tengelyi and Gondek’s account mainly focuses on a misguided division “between Marc Richir on one side and Jean-Luc Marion on the other” in order to describe contemporary phenomenology. Because of this, the book “does not give an adequate account of the French situation in the eighties or nineties.” See JeanFrançois Courtine, “French Phenomenology in Historical Context,” in Quiet Powers of the Possible Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 27. In the conference which was organised to discuss Gondek and Telgelyi’s Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich, Jean-Luc Marion also states that the question of the eventness of phenomenality is directly related to Romano’s work, noting that “[Romano] is not with us at the moment and … c​ ould have held a central place in your book.” See Jean-Luc ­Marion, “Quelques précisions sur la réduction, le donné, l’herméneutique et la donation,” in N ­ ouvelle phénoménologie en France, ed. Christian Sommer (Paris: Hermann, 2014), 217. François Raffoul, Thinking the Event (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2020). I should note that I could not properly discuss this book in my study. When it appeared in 2020, I had already completed some chapters of the book.

10

Introduction

for any discussion on the event. It develops many aspects of the event in considerable detail and articulates its phenomenological usage by referring to some thinkers. Apart from a brief and sharp critique of Romano’s reading of Heidegger, however, Raffoul completely disregards Romano’s work.35 This is a missed opportunity, as the general thematic account of the event provided by Raffoul seems well suited to Romano’s conception of it. In what follows, I will argue that Romano’s work on the event is one of the most important contributions to this theme in continental philosophy.36 In this regard, I want to acknowledge a book that is an essential contribution to the notion of the event in contemporary philosophy: Gert-Jan van der Heiden’s Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event, and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy.37 With the aim of discussing the place of ontology after the critique of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy, this book reveals the event as a source of contingency that creates the possibility for a post-metaphysical ontology. Van der Heiden’s original reading of contemporary philosophers such as Badiou, Meillassoux, Agamben, Nancy, Marion and Romano offers us a profound insight into what ontology can mean in the wake of Heidegger in respect to the event, plurality and contingency. It is important to note that this book, as far as I can see, is the first study to give a proper place to Marion and Romano in the context of the notion of the event, and it does so, moreover, without reducing their understanding of the event to the Heideggerian notion of Ereignis. Although it focuses on the event within a larger spectrum than the field of phenomenology alone and relates it to a new way of ontological thought beyond ontotheology, Ontology after Ontotheology is especially noteworthy for its treatment of Romano and Marion as contemporary 35 36

37

Raffoul, Thinking the Event, 118. Although Romano’s books on the event have been translated into English, such silence about his thought, especially in the English-speaking world, is not unique to Raffoul’s book. One of the exceptions to this rule is Steven DeLay’s detailed chapter on Romano, see Steven DeLay, Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction (London: Routledge, 2019), 145–74. On the other hand, for example, Santiago Zabala does not mention Romano’s approach, which is called “evential hermeneutics”, even though he claims that there are few philosophers who relate the event to hermeneutics. He claims that “philosophers from different traditions have begun to acknowledge the ontological nature of the event either deconstructively (Jacques Derrida), analytically (Donald Davidson), or mathematically (Alain Badiou), but few have related it to hermeneutics”, see Santiago Zabala, “Being at Large: The Only Emergency Is the Lack of Events,” Being Shaken: Ontology and the Event, ed. Michael Marder and Santiago Zabala (London: ­Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 77. Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event, and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014).

Introduction

11

thinkers of the event. Both in its approach and in its content, this book serves as a major inspiration and guide for the phenomenological elaboration of the event that follows in this work. It is also necessary to draw attention to another significant study on the event: Lasma Pirktina’s Das Ereignis: Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion.38 This large volume provides a detailed introduction to the event-thinking (Ereignisdenken) of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Deleuze, Derrida, Badiou, Marion and Romano, whom it refers to as “the most central thinkers of events.”39 The first part of the book offers the main tenets of event-thinking by focusing on the particular uses of the notion within the work of these figures. In the second part, the author claims to choose three philosophers “arbitrarily” – Heidegger, Levinas, Marion, though each is intended to be representative of one of the “three generations of the event thinking.”40 In the last chapter of the book, Pirktina suggests a critical summary of the accounts of the three philosophers and also presents “the event as an encounter with the other in a philosophical-systematic manner.”41 Nevertheless, she also ­disagrees with any suggestion that Heidegger’s philosophy of the event has little to do with French event thinking and claims, to the contrary, that “we have to speak of Heidegger as a sole ‘source of inspiration.’ We would like to show, however, that Heidegger’s philosophy of the event has an unbelievable systematic similarity to the efforts in France and should be included in today’s debates on the topic of the event.”42 Pirktina treats Heidegger’s notion of the event as the 38

Lasma Pirktina, Das Ereignis: Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion (Freiburg and Munich: Karl Alber Verlag, 2019). 39 Pirktina, Das Ereignis, 34. “Der erste Teil widmet sich den zentralsten Denkern des Ereignisses als Begegnung mit dem Anderen … ​Die in diesem Teil behandelten Autoren sind: Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Marion und Claude Romano.” 40 Ibid., 35. “Der zweite –der größte– Teil behandelt drei großartige Ereignisdenker: Heidegger, Levinas und Marion. In gewisser Hinsicht könnte man sagen, dass die Auswahl genau dieser Autoren willkürlich ist und keine besondere Begründung hat. In einer anderen Hinsicht haben wir es hier mit drei Generationen des Ereignisdenkens zu tun.” 41 Ibid., 36. “Der dritte Teil der vorliegenden Arbeit fasst zuerst die wichtigsten Ergebnisse des zweiten Teiles zusammen. [ … ​] Schließlich stellt er [Der dritte Teil] einen kleinen Versuch dar, das Ereignis als eine Begegnung mit dem Anderen philosophisch-systematisch zu befragen.” 42 Ibid., 35. “Der zweite Teil soll auch der Meinung entgegentreten, dass Heideggers Ereignisphilosophie nur wenig mit dem französischen Ereignisdenken zu tun hat und dass wir von Heidegger als von einer bloßen ‘Inspirationsquelle’ sprechen müssen. Wir möchten dagegen zeigen, dass Heideggers Philosophie des Ereignisses eine unglaubliche systhematische Ähnlichkeit mit den Anstrengungen in Frankreich aufweist und in die heutigen Auseinandersetzungen mit der Ereignisthematik einbezogen werden sollte.”

12

Introduction

primary source of inspiration for the subsequent philosophy of the event. Nevertheless, I think that this assessment of the role of the Heideggerian Ereignis is not valid in the case of Romano and Marion at least, the latter of whom she acknowledges as “the main proponent of the current phenomenology of the event.”43 Although she offers a detailed and deep discussion about what can be termed an “event” and the variety of uses of the notion in various philosophers, the reliance of her general account on Heideggerian Ereignis does not do justice to Marion’s and Romano’s articulations of the event.44 As I have already indicated, in their respective uses of the word “événement”, neither Marion nor Romano intend by it an unhistorical event related to some conception of ontology. Thus, examining their thought on the event through the lens of Heideggerian Ereignis would seriously misguide any attempt to understand them and also distort the idea of the phenomenality of the event. While I have sought to put a distance between Marion’s and Romano’s accounts of the phenomenality of the event, on the one hand, and Heidegger’s conception of Ereignis, on the other, this is not a principal theme of this study and will not be dealt with explicitly. It is mentioned here merely to exclude it from the scope of the inquiry. Excluding it avoids reducing the distinctive and original contributions of Marion and Romano on the phenomenology of the event to a series of footnotes to Heidegger’s concept of Ereignis. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Heidegger is not relevant to their understanding of the phenomenality of the event. On the contrary, Heidegger’s philosophy plays a vital role in the formation of Marion’s and Romano’s accounts of phenomenality and their understanding of subjectivity, but this influence is chiefly to be found in Heidegger’s work prior to his Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), that is, it does not derive from the Heideggerian notion of Ereignis.45 Marion and Romano both deal with the Heideggerian definition of the phenomenon in their conceptions of the event.46 In parallel with Heidegger’s use of Dasein as a new term for human beings, Marion suggests the adonné and Romano proposes the advenant for the human being. This reception is no doubt not a complete appropriation of Heideggerian thought, but their 43 44 45 46

Ibid., 35. “Marion ist der Hauptvertreter der aktuellen Phänomenologie des Ereignisses.” I could no doubt extend such a criticism to Pirktina’s treatment of some of the other ­philosophers discussed in her book. In other words, if we consider the turn (Kehre) in Heidegger’s thought as a sign of him putting Ereignis at the centre of his philosophy, then it can be said that his thinking before the turn is much more important for Romano’s and Marion’s conceptions of the event. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 27; Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), 28.

Introduction

13

understanding of the phenomenality of the event and conceptions of the subject can be described as being both “with and against Heidegger.” In this respect, this study will engage with the Heideggerian legacy and its reception by Marion and Romano in detail, though it will do so without appealing to his idea of Ereignis at all. Before discussing the specificities of the work of Marion and that of Romano on the event, I wish to mention some approaches to the event by two figures from contemporary phenomenology. One of these figures is Françoise Dastur, specifically the position she develops in her article, “Phenomenology of the Event: Waiting and Surprise.”47 In this important article, she asks “What then in the Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenologies make a ‘phenomenology of the event’ possible?”,48 and she goes on to discuss the distinctive characteristics of the phenomenality of the event for Husserl and Heidegger. Ultimately, she argues that, “there is no possible thought of the event that is not also at the same time in principle the thought of phenomenality.”49 Although she arrives at this point through an elaborate discussion of the tension between expectation and surprise in both the intentional analysis of Husserl and the existential analysis of Heidegger, she prefers to consider the phenomenality of the event from within these Husserlian and Heideggerian models of phenomenology rather than endeavouring to go beyond them. I wish to argue, however, that Marion and Romano seek the phenomenality of the event outside of the aforementioned versions of phenomenology and thereby offer alternative accounts of phenomenology. By doing so, they aim to make phenomenology capable of providing a unique way of understanding the phenomenality of the event, which lies at the heart of their thinking. The way in which their understanding of the event interacts with and reshapes their understanding of 47

Françoise Dastur, “Pour une phénoménologie de l’événement: l’attente et la surprise,” Études phénoménologiques, 25, no. 1 (1997): 59–75. A slightly different version of this article was subsequently published in a book, see Françoise Dastur, La phénoménologie en questions (Paris: Vrin, 2004). Both the article and the book were translated into English, see Françoise Dastur, “Phenomenology of the Event: Waiting and Surprise,” Hypatia 15, no. 4 (2000): 178–89; Françoise Dastur, Questions of Phenomenology, trans. Robert Vallier (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 116–26. In a footnote, Dastur refers to an early article by Romano, which forms the core of his subsequent books on the event, as one “from which I have drawn much inspiration”, see Dastur, Questions of Phenomenology, 216. For Romano’s article which was published in two pieces, see Claude Romano, “Le possible et l’évènement,” Philosophie 40 (December 1993): 68–95 and “Le possible et l’évènement,” Philosophie 41 (March 1994): 60–86. 48 Dastur, Questions of Phenomenology, 120. 49 Ibid., 126. She also relates the phenomenality of the event to the Heideggerian Ereignis.

14

Introduction

phenomenology itself seems to me to set them apart from other phenomenological thinkers. Another significant approach to the event is adopted by Renaud Barbaras. An important figure within contemporary French phenomenology, Barbaras deals with the notion of the event in terms of the correlation between a subject and the world. The mode of existence of a subject, for Barbaras, can be defined as movement, and this movement comes from the role of the world in the correlation. Barbaras ascribes a primary movement to the world. It is called archimovement of the world as the foundation of manifestation of phenomena, and moreover it makes the movement of a subject possible. Since his determination of the correlation between the world and a subject relies on movement, he calls phenomenology a “dynamics of the manifestation.” In this regard, he puts forward the notion of the “archi-event,” which is the source of manifestation and subjectivation.50 The archi-event proceeds from the arche-movement of the world and the subject is born from the archi-event.51 Thus he defines the correlation between the world and a subject in the light of the archi-event. Although he comes to conceptualise the archi-event phenomenologically, he states that “with the archi-event, we cross the threshold of metaphysics.”52 Barbaras’s conceptualisation of the archi-event is meant to entail a new version of “metaphysics” because, according to this account, the archi-event does not appear in the correlation but makes every phenomenological correlation possible.53 Insofar as the archi-event is beyond the phenomenological correlation, it stands beyond phenomenology as such, which means that “the genesis of meaning [must be] described by a metaphysical mode of discourse” and that such a metaphysics provides an account of “a genetic passage between the process of the world and the subject.”54 Even if the radicality of his thought of 50 51

Renaud Barbaras, Dynamique de la manifestation (Paris: Vrin, 2013). Renaud Barbaras, “De L’Introduction à une phenomenologie de la vie a la Dynamique de la manifestation,” in Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, ed. Christian Sommer (Paris: ­Hermann, 2014), 127–36. In the same volume, see: Renaud Barbaras, “Reponses aux ­questions d’Etienne Bimbenet,” in Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, 145–48. For another article on the archi-event in English, see Renaud Barbaras, “The Event of ­Finitude,” G ­ raduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 37, no. 1 (2016): 3–13. 52 Barbaras, “The Event of Finitude,” 11. 53 Barbaras, “Reponses aux questions d’Etienne Bimbenet,” 147; Renaud Barbaras, “The Phenomenology of Life,” in Quiet Powers of the Possible Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 171. 54 Emre Şan, “La réhabilitation de la rationalité phénoménologique du monde: Jean-Luc Marion et Renaud Barbaras,” in Considérations phénoménologiques sur le monde, ed. Jean Leclercq and Paula Lorelle (Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2020), 113–14.

Introduction

15

the event provides some parallels with that of Romano,55 his conception of the event is beyond phenomenology by his own admission. Given this fact, his notion of the event will be taken to lie outside the scope of the phenomenological inquiry presented here. 2

Some Methodological and Hermeneutical Issues

This book is not focussed on the event in the most general sense of the term. I aim to offer a phenomenological understanding of the event and to consider the event as a phenomenon. It addresses the events that happen to a finite human being in the world. These are events such as being born, dying, falling in love, falling ill, having an accident, and losing a friend. It deals with the specific notions of the event that are developed in the works of Marion and Romano. The question might arise, however, as to why these two contemporary phenomenologists matter for this book and what purpose might be served by bringing them together here. The first reason why these authors matter for this study is that both propose a phenomenological version of the event that does not transgress the boundaries of phenomenology but rather expands phenomenology itself in order to do justice to the phenomenality of the event. In other words, they both consider the event as a phenomenon. Second, they strictly and systematically distinguish the phenomenality of the event from other modes of phenomenality. This means that not every occurrence can be identified as an event for these philosophers.56 Moreover, the phenomenality of the event gains a 55 56

Serban provides a detailed comparative reading of the event in Romano and ­Barbaras, see Serban, “La ‘nouvelle phenomenologie en France’ et les événements de sens (­Sinnereigmisse): Un prolongement de la lecture de László Tengelyi,” 40–45. Jean Grondin is critical of “the recent fascination with the notion of event” because of the use of the term without any specification. In this respect, he investigates reasons for “the infatuation with” the notion of the event. For example, he claims that while “it has its roots in what is happening (and thus sounds thoroughly ‘phenomenological’) but transcends it in a way by demonstrating (!) that not everything is understandable, rational, or explicable. ‘Event’ thus becomes the buzzword of a replacement theology of sorts: we cannot speak of Gods or spirits, but we invest all our faith in the possibility of ‘events,’ which in the case of many event-philosophers (such as Jean-Luc Marion) can and do have distinct theological consequences.” In short, Grondin proposes using the notion of event not as such but as the event of something, for instance the event of being or the event of understanding. See Jean Grondin, “In Any Event? Critical Remarks on the Recent Fascination with the Notion of Event,” in Being Shaken: Ontology and the Event, ed. Michael Marder and Santiago Zabala (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 63–69.

16

Introduction

primary status in regard to other kinds of phenomena for both philosophers. Third, their engagement with the phenomenon of the event is not something accidental to their phenomenological projects. It lies at the heart of their understanding of phenomenology. While the phenomenon of the event is the paradigm for phenomenality in Jean-Luc Marion, the case is even more radical for Romano, for whom the event is the source of all phenomenalisation.57 Fourth, both philosophers reconsider subjectivity – that is, the philosophical understanding of human beings – in light of the event. Their proposals by new names for the subject furnish philosophical discourse with a new conception of human beings, and these new modes of “subjectivities” are able to experience events in a phenomenological sense without reducing the phenomenality of the event to any other levels of phenomenality such as objects and facts. Both philosophers also think that “subjectivation” becomes possible through the event. As a consequence of these points, I argue that these two approaches to the phenomenology of the event provide the most radical elaboration of the event in the phenomenological movement. This is the main reason why this study focuses on the thought of the event in these two thinkers. This narrowing of the scope of this book does not mean that other figures do not contribute to event-thinking in their own way. Although it limits itself to two thinkers in the phenomenological movement, one cannot assume sharp demarcation lines between phenomenology or phenomenological thinking and other ways of doing philosophy related to phenomenology, as is the case for thinkers such Gadamer, Levinas, and Derrida. Within the limits of this book, I prefer to

57

I do not agree with Grondin’s criticism about the use of the notion of event. His criticism of the “infatuation” with the event signally fails, with the exception of Marion, to refer to any specific philosophers of the event. In general, the target of his criticism is not made explicit. While he does specify Marion, it should be stressed that Marion proposes a very particular account of the notion of the event in a phenomenological sense. What’s more, Grondin’s proposed alternative use of the term, sits very well with how Marion uses the concept, as can be seen with the notion of givenness. The issue of the event becomes increasingly central to Marion’s thinking as his career develops. His first engagement with the event is in Étant donné; Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation, which was published in 1997. In his later works, Certitudes négatives (2010), La Rigueur des choses (2012) and Reprise du donné (2016), the event becomes increasingly fundamental for his conception of phenomenology. The trajectory of Romano’s work is quite the opposite. His first books on the event, L’evénement et le monde (1998) and L’événement et le temps (1999), deal radically with the phenomenon of the event, whereas his later books – for example, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie (2010) and Être soi-même: Une autre histoire de la philosophie (2019) – do not have the event as their central focus.

Introduction

17

adhere to the notion that only those thinkers that self-identify with the phenomenological tradition warrant being treated as such. To study the event as a phenomenon in the phenomenologies of Marion and Romano is not to presume that their distinctive contributions to the field can be unified. Rather than developing a comparative approach to their themes in each of the chapters, I shall discuss each author’s understanding of phenomenality and subjectivity separately. It is worth noting that Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion proposed different ways of dealing with the event in phenomenology at roughly the same time. Although some analogies are possible between them, I think that their projects cannot be reduced to one another.58 In a self-interpretation of his philosophical journey, Romano seems to dispel any confusion concerning a direct influence from Marion: “[M]y phenomenology of the event is not without some analogies with the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion in Being Given, but these two undertakings were conceived independently of each other. Jean-Luc Marion, who I did not know well at the time I was writing my PhD, took part in my Defence Committee in 1995, but Being Given would be published only two years later, in 1997, when I was about to complete the rewriting of my PhD that would be published the year after, in 1998. So, these similarities (which do not exclude great differences) are more a testimony of what could be called the ‘spirit of the time’ than the result of any influence.”59 One might wish to refer, as Romano does, to a common “spirit of the time” to explain their respective contemporaneous engagements with the phenomenon of the event. The current study does not explicitly engage in a comparison of their individual approaches. The work of these two phenomenologists of the event will, rather, be dealt with separately so that a fair account can be given of their thought. Nevertheless, I also do not aim to present them as thinkers that are completely isolated from one another. There will be some 58

59

For instance, an article on the suspension of the principle of sufficient reason for the phenomenon of the event in Marion and Romano supposes that Jean-Luc Marion’s Being Given prepared the ground for Romano’s phenomenology of the event. The author claims: “By clearing the way towards a phenomenality freed from the principle of sufficient reason and from any condition imposed by the metaphysical tradition, the phenomenology of givenness of Jean-Luc Marion has most certainly prepared the ground for a phenomenology of the event like that of Claude Romano.” See Marc-Antoine Vallée, “Par-delà le principe de raison: la phénoménologie de l’événement chez Jean-Luc Marion et Claude Romano,” in L’événement et la raison: Autour de Claude Romano, ed. Philippe Cabestan (Paris: Le Cercle Hermeneutique, 2016), 19. Claude Romano, “From Event to Selfhood: An Intellectual Journey,” Academia, accessed April 1, 2021, https://www.academia.edu/41990694/From_Event_to_Selfhood_an_Intel lectual_Journey_1. It was presented by Romano in the 2020 Opening Lecture of G ­ adamer Chair of Boston College in 10 February 2020.

18

Introduction

comparative moments when the occasion arises, such as when they refer to each other’s work.60 I have not sought to discuss what phenomenology is or how these figures understand it within this introduction. That is because the book as a whole is all about these issues and the following pages contain detailed discussions of them. In order to address some methodological concerns, I want to clarify some basic points regarding the nature of phenomenology as it is understood in this study. Phenomenology is arguably one of the most vibrant traditions of thought to emerge in the twentieth century. Its vitality does not only come from the description of new phenomena that it offers, but also the novel methodological approaches it takes in how phenomena are to be described. Husserl as the founder of phenomenology also dealt with renewing its methodological aspects in his successive works. In this sense, the methodological transformations of phenomenology have their foundation within the works of Husserl himself. Phenomenology has been marked by an openness to transformation from its inception, and it is precisely this openness that accounts for its lively quality. What is called “the new French phenomenology” is also the outcome of such transformations.61 As Heidegger remarks, “[H]igher than actuality stands 60

61

I should note that there are not many comparative studies between these thinkers in English. Indeed, as already mentioned, there is very little Anglophone scholarship of any kind on Romano’s work. For some comparative studies, see Shane Mackinlay, “Phenomenality in the Middle: Marion, Romano, and the Hermeneutics of the Event,” in Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion, eds. Ian Leask and Eoin Cassidy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 167–81. This article also appeared in his book, see Shane Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess: Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomena, and Hermeneutics (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 41–56. For some of other works, see Shane Mackinlay, “Alterity and Relationship in Recent French Phenomenology,” in Being Human: Groundwork for a Theological Anthropology for the 21st Century, eds. David G. Kirchhoffer, Robyn Horner and Patrick Joseph McArdle (Melbourne: Mosaic Press, 2013), 123–39; ­Marlène Zarader, “The Event – between Phenomenology and History,” in The Past’s Presence: Essays on the Historicity of Philosophical Thinking, eds. Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback and Hans Ruin (Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2005), 25–54; Claudia Serban, “La méthode phénoménologique, entre réduction et herméneutique,” Les études philosophiques 100, no. 1 (2012): 81–100; Jean Greisch, “Ce que l’événement donne à penser,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 102, no. 1 (2014): 39–62; Vallée, “Par-delà le principe de raison: la phénoménologie de l’événement chez Jean-Luc Marion et Claude Romano.” It is worth mentioning some works which attempt to characterise and identify the new French phenomenology, see Jean-Luc Marion, “Un moment français de la phénoménologie,” Rue Descartes 35, no. 1 (2002): 9–13; Gondek and Tengelyi, Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich; Sommer, ed., Nouvelle phénoménologie en France; Courtine, “French Phenomenology in Historical Context”; DeLay, Phenomenology in France; J. Aaron Simmons and Bruce Ellis Benson, The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett, “Introduction: Phenomenology

Introduction

19

possibility. We can understand phenomenology solely by seizing upon it as a possibility.”62 Phenomenologies of the event can be thought of as being born from this possibility. Marion’s and Romano’s philosophical encounter with the event brings about a radical transformation of phenomenology itself. In this regard, their works serve as a testament to the continued dynamism of the phenomenological movement. My understanding of phenomenology draws upon the Heideggerian definition of it as possibility rather than its already actualised absolute, pure and original version.63 This work consists of two main parts and each part has two chapters. The first and second parts each address, respectively, one of the following two questions: “What is the event?” and “Who experiences the event?” In the first chapter, I seek an answer to the question of what the event is in Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. Marion brings the notion of givenness to the fore and offers a new understanding of phenomenology. After giving a brief account of the contours of the phenomenology of givenness, I discuss the role and place of the event in his phenomenology. For Marion, the event is not only a phenomenon among others but is also paradigmatic for phenomena as such. Its paradigmatic role sets up a pole of phenomenality against the other pole, objectness. By doing so, he distinguishes the phenomenality of the event (eventness) from the phenomenality of object (objectness). This chapter reveals how Marion broadens and changes the criteria of phenomenality relative to how these are articulated in the work of Husserl and Heidegger. Furthermore, the two modes of phenomenality that are offered by Marion bring into focus the critical role of hermeneutics for making a decision about whether the mode of eventness or the mode of objectness is applicable. The second chapter in the first part deals with the phenomenality of the event in the work of Claude Romano. I begin with Romano’s departure from Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and explain how he turns fundamental ontology into evential hermeneutics. This methodological discussion serves and the Concept of Reason,” in Quiet Powers of the Possible Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016); François-David Sebbah, Testing the Limit: Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the Phenomenological Tradition, trans. Stephen Barker (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). 62 Heidegger, Being and Time, 36; Sein und Zeit, 38. 63 In this respect, the phenomenological analysis of the event in this book does not aim to adhere to any version of “pure” phenomenology. As will become clear, a phenomenology of the event does not fit to the intentional analysis of Husserl or the existential analysis of Heidegger. Thinking the event in a phenomenological way brings forth its own way of thinking and a new logos of phenomena.

20

Introduction

to clarify the centrality of the event as a source of meaning. Romano distinguishes events from facts by describing the characteristics of the event. In this regard, the phenomenality of the event leads us to reconsider some of the problems of phenomenology from a new perspective. Romano elaborates the world, possibility, temporality, and experience in light of the phenomenality of the event. The two chapters comprising the first part of the book portray the phenomenality of the event and its unique mode of appearing. The transformation of the phenomenality brings forth reformulations of subjectivity. Insofar as earlier conceptions of subjectivity were determined in terms of objects and facts, the event, which is irreducible to either object or fact, requires the emergence of a new understanding of the “subject.” Furthermore, the phenomenality of the event is also the source of “subjectivation.” In this regard, in the second part of the book, I investigate the question of “Who experiences the event?” In the third chapter, I try to address this question by focusing on Marion’s notion of the adonné, which is used instead of the subject. I first deal with Marion’s critique of earlier conceptions of subjectivity and then focus on the “subjectivation” of the adonné by the event. The adonné aims to provide a non-transcendental account of the subject, which, for Marion, only becomes itself through its reception of the event. I will then discuss Marion’s account of reduction with regard to the task of overcoming transcendentalism in phenomenology. Since the role of reduction in Marion’s phenomenology refers to an actual debate between Romano and Marion, this section also articulates Romano’s criticism of the method of reduction in the phenomenology of givenness. The fourth chapter engages with the term Romano coins to speak of human being, the advenant. Romano’s endeavour to abandon the transcendental perspective informs his conception of the advenant. He also critically engages with other models of the subject, in particular Heidegger’s Dasein, because they do not allow events to show themselves. After discussing the critical aspect of Romano’s approach, I then focus on the “subjectivation” of the advenant by the event. Romano puts the event of birth at the centre of his configuration of the advenant. Moreover, he uses another notion, selfhood, in order to indicate how the advenant is transformed in the face of the event. This then leads to a discussion of how the advenant should be seen as a radical replacement of the phenomenological subject and, consequently, how Romano can be said to develop a phenomenological realism by offering a non-transcendental approach in his account of the advenant. At this point, I need to discuss the use of the concepts of the subject and subjectivity in this study. Both philosophers explicitly propose new names (adonné, advenant) to replace the notion of the subject. This is no mere

Introduction

21

rebranding exercise, but results from a critique of the very formation of subjectivity in phenomenology and the consequent need to transform the role and function of what was previously termed “the subject” in the experience of events. In this sense, the advenant and the adonné are by no means subjects and no longer include any form of subjectivity anymore. Rather they might also be called as post-subjectivities. One might propose that the advenant and the adonné serve as Romano’s and Marion’s respective answers to Nancy’s question, “Who comes after the subject?”64 On the one hand, these new terms are to take the place of the subject: they attempt to overcome and decentre the subject and subjectivity, and to offer a new way of thinking about the role of human beings phenomenologically. On the other hand, they come after the traditional discourse of the subject and subjectivity. In this sense, I suppose that they are not totally outside of the tradition of the subject, although they try to overcome the very roots of subjectivity in phenomenology. To a certain extent, phenomenology as a first-person perspective remains part of the history of the subject, even in all its attempts to rethink and reformulate it. In this regard, my use of the terms “subject” and “subjectivity” mostly refers to these notions as they emerged and were reshaped in the tradition of modern philosophy and, later, Husserlian phenomenology. This book will provide a detailed discussion of the subject and subjectivity as particular concepts within the history of philosophy and metaphysics. Nevertheless, asides from the specific lineages of their historico-philosophical baggage, at a general level these terms also reflect a philosophically articulated understanding of human beings. For example, when I speak of “the reconfiguration of the subject as the adonné” or “the subjectivation of the advenant” in this study, I do not mean that the adonné simply takes over those features once ascribed to the subject or subjectivity within the tradition of modern philosophy. What is meant instead is that these terms describe what follows in the wake of the subject – are who comes after the subject – and serve to allow us to rethink the human being in a new way that aims to move away from the former understandings of the subjectivity in phenomenology. It is also worth mentioning another pair of terms used as designations for human beings in philosophy and the phenomenological tradition. These are the terms “self” and “selfhood.” Although the word “self” forms part of everyday linguistic usage, its philosophical deployment can be traced to a particular understanding of the role of human beings within the Cartesian tradition. In this context, it is used as an equivalent to “ego.” Nevertheless, the notion of 64

Jean-Luc Nancy, “Introduction” in Who Comes After the Subject?, eds. Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor, and Jean-Luc Nancy (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 1–8.

22

Introduction

“selfhood”, which is the translation of the German “Selbstheit” and the French “ipséité,” acquires philosophical significance in the twentieth century, particularly due to the work of Heidegger. The term “selfhood” is used so as to offer an alternative way of thinking about the human being, one which stands in contrast to the terms “subject” and “subjectivity.” I will deal with these notions in detail in what follows. In the concluding chapter, I begin by addressing some commonalities between Marion’s and Romano’s conceptions of the phenomenality of the event and the terms they use in place of the “subject.” I then discuss two important points about how the phenomenology of the event changes our understanding of phenomenology. First, I argue that phenomenologies of the event allow us to articulate a more realistic conception of the phenomenon. The decentring the subject that results from the phenomenality of the event withdraws the subject’s constitutive role vis-à-vis phenomenon. The phenomenality of the event cannot be regulated and ruled by anything other than the phenomenon itself. The happening of the event does not depend on the subject. This paves the way for encountering a realistic understanding of the phenomenon. Second, the phenomenology of the event broadens our conception of rationality in phenomenology. Since phenomenological reason is shaped by the understanding of phenomenality and subjectivity, thematising events at the borders of phenomenology leads to the transformation of phenomenological reason. The event re-establishes the logos of phenomena and brings forth a new logos. For this new conception of reason in phenomenology, events are no longer excluded from thought and the subject is no longer understood as a central and autarchic force in the constitution of the world. In sum, this book attempts to contribute to discussions on the phenomenality of the event and its post-“subjectivities” in the new French phenomenology by focusing on two fecund philosophers. Phenomenological accounts of the event are certainly not limited to the works of Marion and Romano, but these authors provide an approach to the event that should be compelling for phenomenology. They attempt to broaden the logos of phenomena and to draw a new way of understanding the human being in light of the event. Needless to say, my discussion is not able to present all the nuances and deep reflections of these philosophers. Every philosophical narration needs, in one way or another, to stabilise and substantialise its subject matter by appealing to some generalisations, in spite of the fact that thinking the event suggests just the opposite. I am aware that this study, too, cannot evade these inevitable tensions.

Part 1 What Is the Event?

∵

Introduction to Part 1 What exactly do we mean by the notions of phenomenon and phenomenology? Phenomenologists have repeatedly asked this question ever since ­Husserl’s inauguration of the phenomenological tradition, and they have offered different, often conflicting, accounts of phenomenology and phenomenality. Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano, two leading contemporary phenomenologists, have also dealt extensively with the notions of phenomenology and phenomenality. They have proposed radical transformations of these notions throughout their works. A common feature of both authors’ approaches is that the reconsideration of the notion of the “event” is deemed crucial to this transformation. Yet what do they mean by the event, and how have they transformed phenomenology and phenomenality with it? In this part of the book, I will explain how Marion and Romano transform the notions of phenomenology and phenomenality by thinking of the event as a new mode of phenomenality. Phenomenology, according to Marion, has always privileged the object and thereby taken the phenomenality of objects to be the single paradigm for all phenomena. Romano, likewise, thinks that ­phenomenology has not done justice to events and their phenomenality, because it has seen events simply as facts. Both philosophers argue, however, that the event cannot be considered as a mere object or fact among others, because its appearing demands another sort of phenomenology and a different understanding of phenomenality. They claim that the phenomenality of events is irreducible to the phenomenality of objects or facts because an understanding of objects or facts is not capable of providing a proper account of the appearing of events. I will discuss how Marion and Romano attempt to renovate the notion of phenomenality by distinguishing the phenomenality of events from other kinds of phenomenality. This first part of the book will consist of two chapters. The first chapter will examine the notion of the event and its irreducibility to objects in the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion. It has two main sections. In the first section I will provide a brief account of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness and discuss its two main elements, namely, the saturated phenomenon and the gift. Marion assigns central importance to the notion of Gegebenheit (givenness, donation) in phenomenology because all phenomena, according to him, are given by virtue of givenness. Marion’s main criticism of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s accounts of givenness and reduction focuses on their understandings of phenomenality, which he thinks constrain the range of phenomenality. This is why he proposes a new kind of phenomenon, namely, the saturated phenomenon. © Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_003

26

Introduction to Part 1

For Marion, saturated phenomena appear to us in an overwhelming way: they cannot be grasped or conceptualised by the subject, nor can they be merely thought of as an object. The event provides the principal example of the phenomenality of the saturated phenomenon. After having first shed light on the main notions and features of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, I will then discuss his conception of eventness (événementialité) and objectness (Gegenständlichkeit, objectité) in the second section.1 Marion differentiates two modes of phenomenality, eventness and objectness. Thus, the event is not only a saturated phenomenon, but also one of the fundamental modes of phenomenality. This point leads us to ask what determines the condition of appearing of a phenomenon as an event or an object. At the end of the chapter, Marion’s idea of phenomenality, which locates it between objectness and eventness, will enable us to discuss this central question: what is the role of hermeneutics in the appearing of phenomena? The second chapter will deal with the notion of the event in Claude Romano’s project. First I will analyse his understanding of phenomenology. I claim that his project is the renovation of the Heideggerian understanding of phenomenology in terms of the event; to this end, the Heideggerian background of his project of “evential hermeneutics” (herméneutique événementiale) will be discussed.2 Romano aims to clarify how phenomenology can be capable of providing an account of the phenomenality of events. In this way, just as Marion differentiates between events and objects, Romano introduces a distinction between events and innerworldly facts and provides an account of these two different modes of phenomenality. I will then explain how events differ from facts and explicate the characteristics of the event according to Romano’s evential hermeneutics. Furthermore, as a new mode of phenomenality, the event shapes the contours of a new phenomenology by renewing the notions of world, time, possibility, horizon and experience. His reinterpretation of these notions allows him to transform phenomenology in the light 1 Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes négatives (Paris: Éditions Grasset, 2010), 269–80. For the E ­ nglish translation, see Jean-Luc Marion, Negative Certainties, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 173–81. I will follow the decision of the translator of ­Negative Certainties on the translation of the concepts “événementialité” and “objectité” as “eventness” and “objectness.” 2 Claude Romano, L’événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, 1998), 34. For the English translation, see Claude Romano, Event and World, trans. Shane Mackinlay (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 21. The English term used here, “evential” is a neologism coined by the translator, Shane Mackinlay. In his note at the beginning of the book, Mackinlay says that he uses this term to translate Romano’s term “événemential,” which is itself a French neologism. See Romano, Event and World, ix.

Introduction to Part 1

27

of the phenomenality of events. Therefore, Romano appropriates traditional phenomenological approaches and recalibrates them so as to open up new horizons for phenomenological research. In a nutshell, this first part will discuss and describe the notion of the event and its phenomenality in the work of Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano. This explication of the event and its phenomenality puts us on the path to the central theme of the book: the transformation of phenomenological “subjectivity.” In order to understand the way in which the experience of the event shapes the subject, it is first necessary to understand the phenomenality of the event. I argue that the phenomenality of the event determines how the subject experiences the phenomenon. Both Marion and Romano propose a new understanding of phenomenality according to the event. These new approaches to phenomenality bring forth a transformation of phenomenological subjectivity. Thus, this first part, “What Is the Event?”, aims to provide the necessary ground for the second part, “Who Experiences the Event?”

Chapter 1

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness In general terms, the most frequent themes to be encountered in scholarship on the work of Jean-Luc Marion are the gift, givenness, theology, and Descartes. There is an abundance of works on Marion within which these themes predominate, yet the idea of the event is rarely treated as a central issue.1 Nevertheless, his contribution to discussions of the event in the context of contemporary phenomenology has not been entirely overlooked.2 However, it can be said that his understanding of phenomenology is not analysed in light of the phenomenon of the event. Marion’s renovation of phenomenology from the perspective of the event brings forth a new category of phenomenality under the name of “eventness” (événementialité).3 This chapter will focus on the concept of the event and the phenomenality of the event in the corpus of Jean-Luc Marion by giving a central status to the phenomenon of the event in his version of phenomenology. Jean-Luc Marion has continued to develop his understanding of the notion of the “event” since the publication of his magnum opus, Being Given, in 1997. As Kevin Hart, the editor of Marion’s Essential Writings in English, poetically expresses it, as a living and still productive philosopher, “Marion is still a bird in flight.”4 The concepts he introduces in his philosophy are developed and 1 For some of the main secondary literature, see Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001); Jean-Luc Marion: A Theo-logical Introduction (­Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); Jason W. Alwis, Marion and Derrida on The Gift and Desire: Debating the Generosity of Things (Cham: Springer, 2016); Christina M. Gschwandtner, Reading Jean-Luc Marion: Exceeding Metaphysics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007); Kevin Hart, ed., Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008); Tamsin Jones, A Genealogy of Marion’s Philosophy of Religion: Apparent Darkness (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011); Philosophie de JeanLuc Marion: Phénoménologie, théologie, métaphysique, ed. Philippe Capelle-Dumont (Paris: ­Hermann, 2015). 2 With respect to his conception of the event, some secondary sources are: László Tengelyi and Hans-Dieter Gondek, Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011); ­Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event, and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014); Lasma Pirktina, Das Ereignis: Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion (Munich: Karl Alber Verlag, 2019); François Raffoul, Thinking the Event (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2020). 3 Marion, Negative Certainties, 173–81; Certitudes négatives, 269–80. 4 Kevin Hart, “Introduction,” in The Essential Writings, ed. Kevin Hart (New York: Fordham ­University Press, 2013), 38. © Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_004

30

CHAPTER 1

become more sophisticated throughout his subsequent work. For example, the term “saturated phenomena” is first articulated in general terms in an article of the same name, but it is then later developed into a more nuanced theory in Being Given and In Excess.5 In the same way, the account of the event can be understood to gradually develop in his thought, from his early works to the present day.6 In what follows, I will consider his earlier accounts of the event and then, with regard to his later work, largely focus on Negative Certainties, from which a fully developed account of the event can be drawn. Before examining Marion’s notion of the event, it seems worthwhile to first provide a brief overview of the development of his phenomenology over the last three decades. 1.1

The Phenomenology of Givenness

If the metaphor of “bird” is at all apt to describe Marion, it can be said that the main goal of his flight is to liberate phenomenality from other conditions which do not come from the phenomenon itself. For Marion, the appearing of phenomena should not be governed by any external rules. This means that the measure of phenomenality cannot depend on any other thing than the phenomenon itself. In order to free phenomenality from other conditions, he emphasises the primacy of givenness (Gegebenheit, donation) in phenomenology. According to Marion, a phenomenon is first and foremost given. The given character of the phenomenon precedes its definition as a constituted object or a being (Seiende). Before it is an object or a being, its givenness means that “the phenomenon comes forward without any other principle besides itself.”7 Such a claim makes givenness the ultimate point for the determination of phenomenality. Heidegger defines the phenomenon as “what shows itself, selfshowing, the manifest.”8 In addition to this definition, Marion says that “what shows itself first gives itself [Ce qui se montre, d’abord se donne] – this is my one 5 Jean-Luc Marion, “Le phénomène saturé,” in Phénoménologie et théologie, ed. Jean-François Courtine and Jean-Louis Chrétien (Paris: Critérion, 1992), 79–128. For English translation, see Jean-Luc Marion, “The Saturated Phenomenon,” trans. Thomas A. Carlson, in The Visible and the Revealed (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 176–216. 6 Jean-Luc Marion, Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2017). 7 Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 18. For the French original, see Jean-Luc ­Marion, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1998), 29. 8 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), 28. For the English translation, see Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 27.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

31

and only theme.”9 According to this definition, in order to show itself, that is, in order to be a “phenomenon” it must first be given. The condition of being a phenomenon presupposes its given character. In this sense, Marion’s definition of the phenomenon claims precedence over that of Heidegger. While, for ­Heidegger, a phenomenon is what is shown, for Marion it must be given in order to show itself. According to Marion’s new definition, then, the selfshowing of phenomena entails and refers to a prior givenness. His entire ­phenomenological project, from Reduction and Givenness to Reprise du donné, develops from this insight. The concept of givenness is also very fundamental in Husserl’s phenomenology. Marion rediscovers its centrality in phenomenology, and he draws his own modified account of the concept. By following Husserl, Marion aims to establish givenness as a new basis for the appearing and appearance of phenomena. In The Idea of Phenomenology, after listing many modes of givenness, Husserl concludes as follows: “In general, givenness whether it manifests itself in connection with something merely represented or truly existing, real or ideal, possible or impossible is a givenness in the phenomenon of knowing, in the phenomenon of thought in the widest sense of the word, and in each case this initially miraculous correlation is to be investigated in terms of its essence.”10 In Husserl’s account, there is givenness in every mode of the appearing of phenomena. This means that every phenomenon is given. There is no exception; no appearing outside of givenness. For Husserl the phenomenological method must give access “to things themselves” (die Sachen selbst).11 9 10

11

Marion, Being Given, 5; Étant donné, 10. Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, trans. Lee Hardy (Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999), 54. For the original, see Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phänomenologie: Fünf Vorlesungen, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 74. In the sentences that directly precede this quotation, Husserl lists almost every possible mode of givenness: “This will be a matter of exhibiting the different modes of genuine givenness, and, in this regard, the constitution of the different modes of objectivity and their relation to each other: the givenness of the cogitatio, the givenness of the cogitatio re-lived in a fresh memory, the givenness of the unity of appearances persisting in the phenomenal stream, the givenness of the change in such a unity, the givenness of the thing in ‘outer’ perception, the givenness of the different forms of imagination and recollection, as well as the givenness of manifold perceptions and other kinds of representations that are synthetically unified in corresponding connections. And of course there is also logical givenness, the givenness of universality, of predicates, of states of affairs, etc., and the givenness of absurdity, contradiction, of a non-existent object, etc.” Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983), 35. For the German original, see Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und

32

CHAPTER 1

The relation of consciousness to something, and intentionally being conscious “of” this thing, describe what givenness can be in a general sense. In Husserlian terms, the concept of givenness is used in order to express the intentional relation of the cogito to something.12 As the previous citation from Husserl makes clear, every mode of appearing occurs in one way or another through givenness. A phenomenon is by definition given, and for phenomenology this is therefore the most fundamental characteristic of phenomena in any kind of experience.13 The centrality of givenness in Husserl is also obviously evident in his “principle of principles.” It determines the given character of phenomena: “Every originarily giving intuition is a source of right for cognition – that everything that offers itself originarily to us in intuition (in its fleshly actuality, so to speak) must simply be received for what it gives itself but without passing beyond the limits in which it gives itself.”14 Nevertheless, the function of givenness is assigned to “intuition” in this principle. Husserl broadens the idea of intuition in such a way that a phenomenon is given only in and through intuition. ­Marion claims that the fundamental discovery of phenomenology does not lie in its contribution to intuition, “nor in the autonomy of signification, but solely in the unconditional primacy of the givenness of the phenomenon.”15 For Marion, the idea of givenness must precede (in the Husserlian language) the

phänomenologischen Philosophie I: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 41. 12 Husserl, Ideas I, 73; Ideen I, 74. “All mental processes having these essential properties in common are also called ‘intentive mental processes’ (acts in the broadest sense of the Logische Untersuchungen); in so far as they are consciousness of something...” 13 Claude Romano also expresses the point that a phenomenon is given to us in experience: “That which is thus given to us in an experience, that which is experienced in it, is also consequently, that which appears, that which is a phenomenon. One can rightly wonder whether or not it is appropriate to say that the experience itself is “given,” whether or not it is appropriate to say that phenomena “show themselves” or “appear,” but in all experience something appears, is given according to a certain mode of givenness, and hence grasped without the least reasoning or inference.” See Claude Romano, At the Heart of Reason, trans. Claude Romano and Michael B. Smith (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2015), 260–61. For the original French, see Claude Romano, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), 489. 14 Husserl, Ideas I, 44 (translation modified); Ideen I, 51. “… alles, was sich uns in der ‚Intuition’ originär, (sozusagen in seiner leibhaften Wirklichkeit) darbietet, einfach hinzunehmen sei, als was es sich gibt, aber auch nur in den Schranken, in denen es sich da gibt …” 15 Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 32.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

33

fulfilment of intention by intuition because givenness is more primordial.16 It determines the essential correlation between appearing (Erscheinen) and that which appears (Erscheinendem).17 Marion states that “by givenness, let what appears appear” and “therefore the very definition of the phenomenon, rests entirely on givenness.”18 In this sense, its primary character makes it central for the modes of appearing of phenomena: “They [intuition and intention] make sense only for and through an appearance, which counts as the appearing of something that appears (a phenomenon being) only by virtue of the principle of correlation and therefore of givenness.”19 As has already been stated, according to the phenomenology of givenness, “what shows itself first gives itself.” 1.1.1 The Phenomenological Reduction Marion proposes givenness as that which “governs phenomena universally.”20 By emphasising the fundamental status of givenness in his phenomenology, he asserts that there is no exception to givenness. When emphasising the givenness of the phenomenon, phenomenological reduction changes accordingly in his project. Marion defines reduction as “the operative of givenness” because “reduction allows the phenomenon to appear in itself.”21 For him, through reduction a phenomenon can be given so it can show itself. Since “givenness is accomplished by the reduction,”22 Marion sets up a new principle and also the “last principle” for phenomenology: “autant de réduction, autant de donation,” that is, “so much reduction, so much givenness.”23 The transcendental-phenomenological reduction is “the fundamental phenomenological method” according to Husserl.24 The ­phenomenological 16

For Marion, Husserl’s usage of the concepts of intuition and intention is a continuation of the Kantian structure of intuition and understanding. In the following part of this ­chapter, I will deal extensively with Marion’s approach to Kant via Husserl. 17 Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 69; Die Idee der Phänomenologie, 14: “The word ‘phenomenon’ is ambiguous in virtue of the essential correlation between appearing and that which appears. Phenomenon in its proper sense means that which appears, and yet it is by preference used for the appearing itself, for the subjective phenomenon.” 18 Marion, Being Given, 21; Étant donné, 34. 19 Marion, Reduction and Givenness, 32. 20 Marion, Being Given, 118; Étant donné, 168. 21 Marion, Reprise du donne, 31. For the English translation of the article in the book, see Jean-Luc Marion, “The Reduction and ‘The Fourth Principle,’” Analecta Hermeneutica 8, no. 1 (2016): 47. The French expression for “the operative of givenness” is “l’ouvrière de la donation.” 22 Marion, Being Given, 17; Étant donné, 28–29. 23 Marion, Being Given, 3; Étant donné, 7. 24 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), 21. For the German text, see Edmund Husserl,

34

CHAPTER 1

reduction helps the philosopher to identify the field of investigation of phenomenology, in that it allows the philosopher to reflect upon, and to thematise explicitly, the correlation between consciousness and the world. Nevertheless, by reduction, the subject focuses directly on the phenomenological given in the pure immanence of consciousness, rather than targeting the exteriority of the world. Reduction is the suspension of the naïve belief that presupposes that the world exists as it is. It brackets this natural attitude in order to observe consciousness itself in its pure immanence. As a fundamental phenomenological apparatus, reduction seeks to describe the intentional structure of the ego by the bracketing of the world.25 In spite of its general function, however, the operation of reduction has been modified in different ways by a number of phenomenologists. In this regard, Marion produces his own modification of reduction, which he calls the “third reduction.”26 He examines and criticises the phenomenological projects of Husserl and Heidegger according to their uses of reduction. In this respect, he defines his own way of reduction as the third reduction because it comes after Husserl’s and Heidegger’s respective understandings of the notion of reduction.27 Marion’s insistence on the necessity of reduction for phenomenology comes from the idea of the impossibility of something called phenomenology without reduction. By following Husserl, he sees reduction as the foundation of phenomenology. Reformulating Ricœur’s claim that “[p]henomenology is the sum of misinterpretations of Husserl’s doctrine,” Marion describes phenomenology as “the sum of discussions and disagreements about the doctrine and the practices of reduction.”28 According to Marion’s understanding of the history of phenomenology, the last principle of phenomenology, “so much reduction, so much givenness” overcomes the three former principles, which are now deemed inadequate. Their inadequacy stems from their apparent failure to provide the authority Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. S. Strasser (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1973), 61. 25 Husserl, Ideas I, 113; Ideen I, 106. 26 Marion, Reduction and Givenness, 215. 27 Marion, Being Given, 3–4; Étant donné, 9. 28 Marion, Reprise du donné, 31; “The Reduction and ‘The Fourth Principle,’” 47. In this context, one can mention that the difference between Marion’s and Romano’s approaches to phenomenology and the event stems from their different assessments of reduction. As opposed to Marion, Romano rejects reduction in his hermeneutical-phenomenological project. The use of reduction is also a decisive element in any consideration of phenomenological subjectivity. In the second part of this study, the difference between Marion and Romano in relation to their respective understanding of subjectivity will be explicated in detail. See Chapter 3 (section 2.4) and Chapter 4 (section 3.2).

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

35

of the phenomenon, which is the phenomenon’s giving and showing itself from itself. Phenomenology’s three principles, as used by Husserl, are as follows: “as much appearing, as much being,” “Return to the things themselves” and “the principle of principles,”29 which says that “[e]very originarily giving intuition is a source of right for cognition – that everything that offers itself originarily to us in intuition (in its fleshly actuality, so to speak) must simply be received for what it gives itself but without passing beyond the limits in which it gives itself.”30 For Marion, these principles of phenomenology do not ensure the phenomenon’s right to appear from itself as given. This is because the first principle maintains the metaphysical duality of appearing and being, equating appearing with the rank of being; it does not explain how reduction makes this transformation.31 The second principle also misses the reduction: by approaching “things” in a realist manner, “the primacy of being [être] over appearing lowers the latter to the metaphysical rank of a mere mode of access, which always shows less than it should since ‘things’ precede it and display themselves without it.”32 While the third principle, “the principle of principles,” does seem to liberate phenomenality in Marion’s sense, it is here intuition rather than givenness that becomes the requisite condition for the appearance of a phenomenon. This condition of “intuition restricts phenomenality to a limited sense – transcendence, ecstasy, and the intentionality of the object.”33 In addition to this point, in this principle, the phrases “to us” and “without passing beyond the limits” signify, according to Marion, two restrictions on givenness in Husserl. By using the expression “to us,” Husserl is maintaining that a phenomenon has to appear to an ego. The ego becomes a condition for the appearing of phenomena. Whereas in saying “without passing beyond the limits,” Husserl is referring to the horizon, and for Marion this draws a limit that sets rules according to which a phenomenon must appear. Taken together, 29

Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, trans. Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 16–17. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, De Surcoit: Études sur les phénomènes saturés (Paris: PUF, 2010), 18–19. 30 Husserl, Ideas I, 44 (translation modified); Ideen I, 51. For the English rendering, I adopt Marion’s modification of the translation. Marion translated it into French as follows: “… toute intuition donatrice originaire es une source de droit pour la connaissance, que tout ce qui s’offre originairement à nous dans l’intuition (dans son effectivité charnelle, pour ainsi dire) doit être simplement reçu pour ce qu’il se donne, mais sans non plus outrepasser les limites dans lesquelles il se donne.” See Marion, Étant donné, 20–21. Marion’s rendering is translated into English by Jeffrey Kosky, see Marion, Being Given, 12. 31 Marion, In Excess, 16; De Surcoit, 18. 32 Marion, Being Given, 12; Étant donné, 20. 33 Marion, Being Given, 13; Étant donné, 21.

36

CHAPTER 1

these two characteristics of the principle of principles presupposes “that every givenness must admit the I as transcendental and as horizon”34 Marion aims to assign a new role to both reduction and givenness by overcoming the principles of phenomenology established by Husserl. While he rejects the first two principles completely, he partly endorses the third one. Marion accepts Husserl’s principle of principles insofar as it emphasises the givenness of phenomena, but he is critical of the way it defines “the source of right” of the appearing of phenomena in terms of intuition and limits the appearing of phenomena by means of the ego and horizon. Since the principle of principles constrains the given character of phenomena, Marion states that it only offers a limited approach to givenness.35 For Marion, then, none of the three principles is capable of presenting the phenomenological primacy of givenness. His final principle of phenomenology, “so much reduction, so much givenness,” thus deploys the reduction to givenness or the “pure given” in order to give primacy to the phenomenon itself.36 The principle set up by givenness is precisely that nothing precedes the phenomenon, except its own apparition on its own basis.37 With this last principle, Marion aims to show that the appearing of phenomena comes from their own initiative and does not depend on any exterior conditions or determinations. As he puts it: “What gives itself, insofar as given in and through reduced givenness, by definition gives itself absolutely.”38 Thus, a phenomenon can be a given by reduction. His new understanding of reduction makes this claim possible because it does not posit any rule to govern the self-givenness of phenomena. Marion’s reduction to givenness, the “third reduction” as he calls it, is preceded by two earlier models of reduction: Husserl’s transcendental reduction, which is the reduction to the object, and Heidegger’s reduction to being. Two fundamental points distinguish Marion’s model of reduction from the earlier phenomenological projects of Husserl and Heidegger. Firstly, these projects cannot offer a proper account that fits with the definition of ­phenomenon, because they limit phenomenality to a certain horizon: objectness (Gegenständlichkeit, objectité) and beingness (étantité, Seiendheit).39 Secondly, 34 Marion, Being Given, 188; Étant donné, 264. 35 Marion, Being Given, 17; Étant donné, 28. 36 Marion, Being Given, 16; Étant donné, 27. 37 Marion, Being Given, 18; Étant donné, 29. 38 Marion, Being Given, 17; Étant donné, 28. 39 The concept of “horizon” in Husserl is used as an analogy with the meaning of the word in ordinary language. In everyday usage, it denotes “the range of one’s vision and includes everything that can be seen from a particular standpoint. Horizon, then, is a context of our experience which acts as an apparent unsurpassable limit (the Greek horos means

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

37

since givenness is, for Marion, the most comprehensive understanding of ­phenomenality, the earlier methods of reduction asserted by Husserl and Heidegger can also be understood as modes of givenness, albeit constraining ones. As has been discussed above, according to Marion, what shows itself in any mode of appearing must “first” give itself. Givenness is at work before any mode of appearing under the horizon of objects or beings.40 The other modes of givenness, by their own reductions, make the phenomena appear either as objects or as beings rather than as given. For Marion, these two particular ways of manifestation impose conditions of possibility on the given.41 Thus, by going beyond these two reductions, Marion aims to release givenness from the conditions of objectness and beingness. 1.1.1.1 Husserl’s Reduction Husserl’s reduction to the object (transcendental reduction) aims to grasp the object constituted by consciousness. Since Husserl’s project tends to establish an “indubitable science” that grounds all other sciences, he aims to put the method of reduction into service of constituting objectness (Gegenständlichkeit, objectité). For Marion, Husserl interprets all modes of givenness in terms of objectness because of his emphasis on consciousness. “Consciousness therefore determines phenomenality by reducing every phenomenon to the certitude of an actual presence, far from phenomenality requiring that consciousness be itself determined by the conditions and the modes of givenness.”42 ‘boundary’).” See Dermot Moran and Joseph Cohen, The Husserl Dictionary (London and New York: Continuum, 2012), 147. In his book The Origins of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology, Saulius Geniusas provides the broadest definition of the term in its phenomenological sense: “[It] can be characterized as what consciousness co-intends in such a way that what is co-intended determines the sense of appearing objectivities … T ​ he horizon is a structure of determination that predelineates the purview within which each and every phenomenon appears. The horizon belongs to appearances, yet it does not (at least directly) derive from appearances. Rather, it is the intuitive emptiness, which is nonetheless given, and given as inseparable from the intuitive fullness. It is a peculiar selfgivenness of consciousness, which proves to be indispensable for the self-givenness of appearances as objectivities.” See Saulius Geniusas, The Origin of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012), 7–8. 40 Marion avoids using the notion of “ground” in his account of givenness because of the metaphysical heritage of this word. For him, givenness does not have a grounding function in a metaphysical sense. Indeed, he even goes so far as to use the term “nongrounding” to describe givenness. See Marion, Being Given, 18; Étant donné, 29. 41 Marion, Being Given, 38; Étant donné, 59. 42 Marion, Reduction and Givenness, 51. Here it is worth recalling Husserl’s non-present modes of givenness, such as imagination and memory. Marion’s criticism of Husserl in some way follows Derrida’s reading of Husserl in Voice and Phenomenon insofar as he

38

CHAPTER 1

Marion defines this reduction as an operation of the ­transcendental ego that has ultimate power over phenomena by constituting them.43 What appears to consciousness is constituted according to “the privilege of primordial objectness,” that is to say, it is formed according to the measure of objectness. In this reduction, “[i]ntentionality renders what appears immanent to consciousness, based on the simple fact that appearance (genuinely immanent to be sure) never appears except as always already ordered to its object by intentionality.”44 Husserl almost equates givenness and objectness: “This will be a matter of exhibiting the different modes of genuine givenness, and, in this regard, the constitution of the different modes of objectivity and their relation to each other [...]”45 In Husserlian phenomenology, one cannot suggest the apriority of givenness, because the reduction to the object is always at work so as to render all phenomena as objects. In short, for Marion there is a strong contrast between objectness and givenness and this stands in contrast to Husserl’s equation of the two terms. Givenness is more than objectness: “Assuming their equivalence, he [Husserl] never questions their essential contrast: a phenomenality of givenness can permit the phenomenon to show itself in itself and by itself because it gives itself but a phenomenality of objectness can only constitute the phenomenon on the basis of the ego of a consciousness that intends it as its noema.”46 Marion considers this reduction as an inadequate operation because it is not able to articulate the modes of givenness for the full range of phenomenality. As we will see in the following pages, Marion challenges the privilege given to objectness as the very paradigm of phenomenality by replacing objectness with eventness.

claims that all modes of givenness are the actual presence, that is to say the “metaphysics of presence.” See Jacques Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology, trans. Leonard Lawlor (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010). Marion sees that these modes of givenness (memory, imagination) are also subject to objectness in Husserl. In Reduction and Givenness, he claims: “The reduction of the phenomenon to a phenomenality of objectivity is indicated and fully operative in the Husserlian impossibility of considering the nonpresent.” See Marion, Reduction and Givenness, 56. Marion tries to prove his claim with a quotation from Husserl’s Ideas I: “The perception of a physical thing does not presentiate something non-present, as though it were a memory or a phantasy; perception makes present, seizes upon an it-itself in its presence ‘in person’ [leibhaftiges].” See Husserl, Ideas I, 93; Ideen I, 90. 43 In Chapter 3, I will discuss the role of the transcendental ego in reduction in detail. 44 Marion, Being Given, 24; Étant donné, 38. 45 Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 54; Der Idee der Phänomenologie, 74. 46 Marion, Being Given, 32; Étant donné, 50.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

39

1.1.1.2 Heidegger’s Reduction Marion identifies another mode of givenness that constrains phenomenality in Heidegger’s project of fundamental ontology, where Dasein can be seen to perform the reduction to beingness (étantité, Seiendheit). Heidegger rarely uses the concept of reduction to describe his own approach to phenomenology. As far as I see, the most explicit reference to this concept is in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology.47 After defining the role of reduction in Husserl, Heidegger explains the operation of reduction in his own project: “For us phenomenological reduction means leading phenomenological vision back from the apprehension of a being, whatever may be the character of that apprehension, to the understanding of the being of this being (projecting upon the way it is unconcealed).”48 Despite the fact that Heidegger almost never uses the concept of reduction explicitly, Marion claims that reduction in Heidegger serves an ontological function through which beings are disclosed. This reduction is performed in the horizon of being (Sein), or beingness (Seiendheit). Heidegger’s reduction can be seen to share the same traits of subjectivity that Husserl’s reduction has because Dasein is also reduced from its natural attitudes to the sole being for whom beings are disclosed. As Marion puts it: “Dasein is accomplished as such and therefore appropriates its unique manner of being and rids itself of an inappropriate way of being (that of the ‘They’ who claim to understand themselves as if they were intra-worldly beings). Dasein must thus be itself reduced to itself – to its status of being [étant] transcending all the intra-worldly beings by virtue of Being [être] itself, that which the challenge of anxiety accomplishes in it.”49 Marion claims that phenomenality is rooted in a horizon in which a kind of transcendental subjectivity of Dasein performs reduction in the fundamental ontology. Heidegger defines Dasein as a privileged being among other beings 47

It is important to note here that Heidegger mentions his own use of reduction and its difference from Husserl’s only once in his works. This may then easily lead one to ask whether Heidegger’s phenomenological project should be read in terms of the method of reduction at all. A similar challenge to Marion was made by Claude Romano in his review of Being Given. See Claude Romano, “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné de Jean-Luc Marion,” Annales de philosophie (Beirut) 21, no. 1 (2000): 6–14. Moreover, for Romano, this explanation of Heidegger in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology was made in the “pedagogical context” of the classroom. It does not reflect ­Heidegger’s whole project of fundamental ontology. 48 Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hoftstadter (­Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), 21. For the German text, see M ­ artin Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio ­Klostermann, 1989), 29. 49 Marion, In Excess, 47; De surcroît, 56.

40

CHAPTER 1

because “in its being [Sein] this being [Seiende] is concerned about its very being.”50 Since it is the privileged being among other beings – “An understanding of being belongs to the being of Dasein”51 – phenomena appear or are disclosed in terms of the subjective horizon of Dasein. Dasein’s being becomes a condition for beings. This is because innerworldly beings are understood in reference to Dasein. Dasein’s status in this regard parallels the conception of the transcendental ego as articulated in Husserl’s thought. Heidegger states this quite clearly: “Dasein is the ontic condition of the possibility of the discovery of beings with the kind of being of relevance.”52 In other words, Marion claims that Heidegger’s ontological model of reduction presents phenomenality as being conditioned by Dasein. Thus, the second reduction is only a particular way of manifestation, and it constrains givenness and the given insofar as it determines the conditions of possibility of the phenomenon’s right to appear from itself. Phenomenality must be broadened beyond the question of the being of Dasein by placing emphasis on the primacy of givenness. Here one may ask about the importance of “es gibt” (“there is”, literally “it gives”) in the later Heidegger’s thought. Does Heidegger’s later emphasis on “es gibt” not suggest an approach to phenomenology that gives exactly what Marion wants? In his 1962 lecture, On Time and Being, Heidegger draws ­attention to the German expression “es gibt” in order to show that being (Sein) and time cannot be thought of in the same way as beings (Seiende). According to this account, we cannot say that “being is” or that “time is,” but only that there is being (es gibt Sein), that there is time (es gibt Zeit).53 Heidegger’s account of the given character of being and time, that is, his explanation of “es gibt,” becomes much more sophisticated and explicit in his later writings. Even if Heidegger determines being with the “gibt/gives” of “es gibt,” he prefers not to use the concept of givenness (Gegebenheit) in On Time and Being. The Husserlian concept of givenness does not find a place within Heidegger’s explanation of “es gibt.” Nevertheless, Marion interprets Heidegger’s discussion of “es gibt” as an unfulfilled attempt to ascribe givenness primacy. For Marion, the aim of Heidegger’s interpretation of “there is being/es gibt Sein” and “there is time/es gibt Zeit” is to attain a new horizon for being (Sein) 50 Heidegger, Being and Time, 11; Sein und Zeit, 12. 51 Heidegger, Being and Time, 84; Sein und Zeit, 85. 52 Heidegger, Being and Time, 85; Sein und Zeit, 87. 53 Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972), 19. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007), 23.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

41

and time. This horizon is an understanding of givenness drawn from the “gibt/ gives” of “es gibt.”54 Nevertheless, Marion argues that this attempt of Heidegger’s is not enough, because Heidegger also claims that the “es/it” of “es gibt” can be interpreted as Ereignis. That is to say, Ereignis becomes more primordial than givenness because Ereignis makes givenness possible by giving time and being. According to Marion, Heidegger, on the one hand, takes being and time as given but, on the other hand, attributes this giving character to Ereignis: “He certainly does use its properties, but without admitting that they arise from givenness. Above all, this denial frees him from having to think givenness as such.”55 Marion explicitly wants to reach the point where givenness is the sole authority of phenomenality prior to being (Sein) or Ereignis. In my view, Marion’s analysis of “es gibt” as a new horizon for thinking being and time parallels what Heidegger’s later thought aims at. Nevertheless, Heidegger does not highlight the concept of givenness (Gegebenheit) in his account. I think that Marion’s explanation of “es gibt” as related to the concept of givenness in Heidegger is an overinterpretation.56 Not every usage of given (gegeben) or gift (Gabe) refers to the concept of givenness in the Husserlian sense. Moreover, Heidegger presents an intense and sophisticated understanding of giving which is related to concepts of destiny (Schicksal), the event (Ereignis), sending (schicken), history (Geschichte) in On Time and Being. At the same time, Heidegger attempts to interpret “es gibt” for his ontology in a general sense. By saying “there is time” and “there is being,” Heidegger proposes an alternative way of thinking being.57 In this sense, Marion’s criticism of Heidegger is necessary for the phenomenology of givenness insofar as Marion claims that his concept of givenness goes beyond any idea of ontology.

54 Marion, Being Given, 36; Étant donné, 56. 55 Marion, Being Given, 38; Étant donné, 58. 56 Here one can mention Derrida’s criticism of Jean-Luc Marion on their discussion of the gift. For Derrida, there cannot be a “semantic continuity” between gift (Gabe) and givenness (Gegebenheit) and givenness completely lacks “intelligible relationship to the gift, to being given as a gift.” See Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, “On the Gift,” in God, Gift, Postmodernism, eds. John Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), 58. 57 Heidegger, On Time and Being, 6; Zur Sache des Denkens, 10. “To think Being itself explicitly requires disregarding Being to the extent that it is only grounded and interpreted in terms of beings and for beings as their ground, as in all metaphysics. To think Being explicitly requires us to relinquish Being as the ground of beings in favor of the giving which prevails concealed in unconcealment, that is, in favor of the It gives. As the gift of this It gives, Being belongs to giving.”

42

CHAPTER 1

The gesture of Marion here is similar to what he tries to do in God Without Being.58 Just as Marion there aims to retrieve God from the horizon of beingness, so he attempts to save all phenomena from the horizon of beingness in his Being Given. Marion’s claim is that whatever appears on the horizon of beingness is reduced to a being. Thus, the horizon of beingness is a delimitation over phenomenality because it diminishes the given character of phenomena. In this regard, both Husserl’s reduction and Heidegger’s reduction offer a limited account of the central function of givenness. Rather than assigning a horizon to phenomena by these reductions, Marion seeks to unfold the horizon of givenness for phenomena according to his last principle of phenomenology, “so much reduction, so much givenness.” It is this third reduction that unfolds givenness in its own horizon. It means that a phenomenon shows itself without any condition. In this way, Marion defines all phenomena as given: “Showing itself and giving itself play in the same field – the fold of givenness, which is unfolded in the given.”59 By his reduction, Marion proposes to show that a phenomenon should not be reduced to any particular horizon, because limitation within a particular horizon would abolish the given character of phenomena. For him, rather than a unitary horizon, phenomenality is broader than either Husserl’s objectness or Heidegger’s beingness (meaning of being). The third reduction allows the givenness of phenomena to appear in their own horizons, one might say, in the plurality of their horizons. It does not impose any conditions on the self-showing of phenomena. Givenness affords many horizons to phenomena. If one takes the example of the phenomenon of a painting, then a better understanding of these different horizons can be gained. Such an example can also help to explain the relation between the painting’s givenness and reduction. A painting is first of all visible. One can say that its main characteristic is its visibility because it is more obviously visible than many other phenomena. According to the reduction of Husserl, a painting should appear as an object. For example, a student of art writes a paper about a particular painting. She goes to a museum to see it. In the way that she gazes at it, the painting becomes nothing more than an object of her study. She writes in her notebook: the painting is made from this or that material; this technique is used; the canvas is made in a special way; the artist uses certain pigments to achieve certain tones; the painting includes certain particular elements; it was made at a given 58

Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being: Hors-Texte, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 1991); Jean-Luc Marion, Dieu sans l’être: Hors-Texte (Paris: Communio/Fayard, 1982). 59 Marion, Being Given, 70; Étant donné, 102.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

43

time by a particular artist, and so on. All of these descriptions are related to an understanding of the painting as an object. As a spectator, her gaze only sees particular aspects of the painting. The experience of the painting does not give any overwhelming effect to the viewer. Such an approach to the painting can be understood as an example of Husserl’s reduction. To understand the second reduction (reduction to being), it might be useful to recall Heidegger’s account of the work of art in “The Origin of the Work of Art.”60 For Heidegger, the work of art aims to show the truth of being. He states that, “[i]n the work of art, the truth of the being has set itself to work. ‘Set’ means here: to bring to stand.”61 Later in the text, Heidegger claims that “the essential nature of art is [ … ]​ the setting-itself-to-work of truth.”62 By giving a phenomenological description of the work of art, he explains how the truth of art is related to the “unconcealment of beings.”63 Heidegger’s thought on art falls into line with his ontology. Seeing the work of art is related to understanding the truth of being.64 Marion maintains that Heidegger’s approach is problematic because the phenomenon is put to another aim: “The work manifests itself in terms of its own beauty (therefore its phenomenality) in view of beings, that is to say by organising itself in terms of an end other than itself – the truth, therefore the phenomenality, of being in general.”65 For Marion this reduction to being does not do justice to the self-showing of the phenomenon of the beautiful. The work of art as a phenomenon appears within the horizon of beingness for Heidegger. It shows itself as a being through which an understanding of the truth of being can be attained. Within such a horizon, “the phenomenon of the beautiful does not make beauty appear, nor does it refer to beauty.”66 According to Marion’s model of reduction, a work of art appears within its own horizon, as a given. It is seen not by “the imperial initiative of the gaze of consciousness,” but gives 60

Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Off the Beaten Track, trans. and ed. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1–56. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” in Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), 1–74. 61 Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” 16; Heidegger, “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” 21. 62 Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” 44; “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” 59. 63 Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” 35; “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” 47. Here Heidegger uses the term “unconcealment” (Hervorbringen) to translate the Greek word “Aletheia,” which means truth. 64 Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” 37–38; “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” 50–51. 65 Marion, Being Given, 45; Étant donné, 68. 66 Jean-Luc Marion, “The Phenomenon of Beauty,” trans. Gerald Cipriani, Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology 5:2 (2018), 88.

44

CHAPTER 1

itself as “an event whose happening stems … ​from an upsurging, a coming-up, an arising.”67 Marion, who has discussed painting in a number of his works over the years,68 describes this kind of experience of a painting as an “effect.” In using this term, he refers to several senses of the word: “effect as the shock that the visible provokes, effect as the emotion that invades the one gazing, effect also as the indescribable combination of the tones and the lines that irreducibly individualise the spectacle.”69 One can obviously see the passivity of the subject and the excess of phenomenality in his descriptions. This excessive character will be examined extensively when I later discuss his account of the saturated phenomenon. Marion’s third reduction brings forth another way of experiencing phenomena. 1.1.1.3 Marion’s Reduction In the phenomenology of givenness, the third reduction accomplishes the main task of phenomenology: by means of this reduction, givenness can be seen to determine the phenomenological correlation of appearing and that which appears. Marion explains that “the reduction, by leading apparition back to the conscious I and to appearing itself, leads [the apparition] back to its pure given.” This pure given, then, “is defined without necessarily having recourse to any intermediary whatsoever that would be different from it [and] in particular the pure given giving itself depends, once reduced, only on itself.”70 By “any intermediary,” Marion here means any subjective role in the appearing of phenomena – that is, any constitution of the object by consciousness. In Husserl’s terminology, intentionality makes the appearance of the object possible as immanent to consciousness because it reduces “­intuition to the fulfilment of objective intentionality.” And while for Husserl, “intuition always has as its function to fulfil an aim or an intentionality directed at an object,” for Marion giving intuition is more than an object-constituting function of intentionality.71 In this sense, the third reduction operates on the basis of givenness where consciousness becomes a “screen of appearing,” “the place

67 Marion, Being Given, 49; Étant donné, 73. 68 See Jean-Luc Marion, The Crossing of the Visible, trans. James K. A. Smith (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003); Jean-Luc Marion, “The Idol or the Radiance of Painting” in In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, trans. Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002); Jean-Luc Marion, Courbet ou la peinture à l’oeil (Paris: Éditions Flammarion, 2014). 69 Marion, Being Given, 49; Étant donné, 73–74. 70 Marion, Being Given, 16–17; Étant donné, 27. 71 Marion, Being Given, 13; Étant donné, 22.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

45

of givenness,” an arrival point for, rather than an origin of, lived e­ xperiences.72 On the basis of givenness, the origin of the phenomenon is not consciousness but the phenomenon itself. Marion understands consciousness as a screen which does not have any role other than manifesting its encounter with phenomena.73 In this way, it could be said that intentionality becomes receptivity in Marion’s work.74 Rather than the constitution of the object by an intentional act of the subject, the third reduction claims to reduce the given to itself, not to the object or being. The given does not appear in the horizon of objectness and intentionality does not have a constitutive role for the apparition of phenomenon in Marion’s version of the reduction. The third reduction “does nothing; it lets manifestation manifest itself; it takes the initiative (of considering seriously what is lived by consciousness) only in order to offer it to what manifests itself.”75 The manifestation of the phenomenon does not come from an exterior element but only from its own “initiative.” It occurs because it “intervenes after the manifestation of appearing which is displayed freely without any other principle.” In this way, the third reduction does not appeal to the constitution of the phenomenon in an a priori fashion, rather it is at work after the fact, namely, in the reception of the phenomenon after that phenomenon appears by itself.76 Thus Marion’s reduction only leads back to the givenness of phenomena. In the reduction to givenness, the phenomenon is not constituted. Nor does intentionality play an objectifying role. Consciousness instead becomes 72 Marion, Being Given, 20; Étant donné, 32. 73 Marion frequently makes use of the metaphor of the “screen” for consciousness and the “subject” in Being Given. With it, he aims to emphasise the passivity of the subject in receiving phenomena, especially saturated phenomena. For example, he describes the “adonné” in terms of the filtering function of a screen: “The filter is deployed first as a screen. Before the not yet phenomenalised given gives itself, no filter awaits it. Only the impact of what gives itself brings about the arising, with one and the same shock, of the flash with which its first visibility bursts and the very screen on which it crashes. Thought arises from pre-phenomenal indistinctness, like a transparent screen is coloured by the impact of a ray of light heretofore uncoloured in the translucent ether that suddenly explodes on it. It is itself received in the exact instant when it receives what gives itself in order to, thanks to its own reception, finally show itself.” See Marion, Being Given, 265; Étant donné, 365–6. Shane Mackinlay criticises this passivity of the “adonné” as described by the screen metaphor, see Shane Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess: Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomena and Hermeneutics (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 30. 74 Christina Gschwandtner, “Turn to Excess: The Development of Phenomenology in Late Twentieth-Century French Thought,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology, ed. Dan Zahavi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 456. 75 Marion, Being Given, 10; Étant donné, 17. 76 Marion, Being Given, 18; Étant donné, 29.

46

CHAPTER 1

a recipient. “Such a consciousness, which undergoes the lived experience of a given phenomenon, is no longer stable, ever-present a priori of a transcendental I; rather it assumes the position of one that is forced into receiving the experience of that which gives itself of itself.”77 Marion here offers a new way of experiencing phenomena together with a new kind of subjectivity. What he proposes here is a “counter-experience.”78 For this kind of intentionality, the conditions of the appearing of an object are not valid. The a priori conditions of the experience of an object come from the idea of a transcendental “I” that imposes rules on the appearance of phenomena. Yet Marion inverts the role of the subject from the constitution of phenomena to the reception of phenomena. He does so by giving new meaning to reduction and intentionality in the light of givenness. The “I” is not a condition for phenomenality, it does not have an a priori function for the appearing of phenomena but instead receives itself in an a posteriori way by receiving phenomena. In Marion’s words, “it loses its anteriority as egoic pole (polar I)” by receiving the given.79 Within the framework of this renovated understanding of reduction, a new understanding of subjectivity – what Marion calls the adonné – becomes possible. It is this new “subject” of the phenomenology of givenness, the adonné, who is able to experience the event.80 1.1.2 The Determinations of Givenness: Given Phenomena But how then is a phenomenon given? Marion illustrates the giving of a phenomenon in terms of what he calls “the determinations of given phenomenon.” These determinations explicate the very character of givenness in the appearing of a phenomenon. They are as follows: anamorphosis, unpredictable landing (arrivage),81 fait accompli, incident, event, and being given. They show how 77

Joeri Schrijvers, Ontotheological Turnings? The Decentering of the Modern Subject in Recent French Phenomenology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012), 62. 78 Marion, Being Given, 215; Étant donné, 300. 79 Marion, Being Given, 217; Étant donné, 302. 80 There will be an entire chapter on the adonné in the second part of this study, “Who ­Experiences the Event?” (see Chapter 3). 81 Although “unpredictable landing” does not seem a proper translation of “arrivage”, I follow the decision of the translator of Being Given, Jeffrey L. Kosky in this book. He explains his translation of “arrivage” as “unpredictable landing” as follows: “‘Unpredictable landing’ here translates the French ‘arrivage,’ a term from everyday, colloquial usage. This French term appears in everyday life when one dines at a restaurant featuring fresh fish. A literal translation would be something like ‘catch of the day’ or ‘according to the market,’ which lose too much of the meaning Marion here intends. The unpredictability and uncertainty of what will arrive to market each day is, as any traveller knows, mirrored in the guesswork that surrounds the landing of a jet at any major airport. I have therefore

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

47

a phenomenon is received by a subject. All these characterisations of givenness emphasise that it marks a new way of receiving phenomena. This novelty stems from the fact that these determinations do not arise through any subjective authority over or conditioning of phenomena. They are determinations belonging to phenomena, originating in their givenness. They are the phenomena’s ways of showing or manifesting themselves. While a “subject”, which in Marion’s terms is the adonné, is receiving a phenomenon, he is obligated to receive it according to these determinations of the given phenomenon. Anamorphosis is a term used in aesthetics in order to define “a distorted projection or drawing which appears normal when viewed from a particular point.”82 The word “anamorphosis” comes from Greek. In this context, the prefix “ana” can mean both “back” and “again,” whereas “morphosis” here signifies the change of form of a specified thing. The technique of anamorphosis means that the image of the subject in a painting can only be properly seen from a particular point of view. From other perspectives, the viewer can only see a distorted image, which means that the conditions of its appearing do not stem from the viewer but from the painting itself. By using this analogy, Marion aims to highlight how the reception of a given phenomenon comes from a “distance (an elsewhere)”83 that serves to orient the receiver towards what is received. Here the “elsewhere” of its coming refers to its non-subjective way of appearing. A phenomenon is received by consciousness, it is given to consciousness, it comes from elsewhere – in other words, it is not constituted by consciousness. Marion says that “what gives itself to us without depending on or referring to us, indeed by coming upon us despite us.… ​[It] renounce[s] organizing visibility on the basis of free choice or the proper site of a disengaged spectator, in favour of letting visibility be dictated by the phenomenon itself, in itself.”84 The second determination listed above is the unpredictable landing (­arrivage). It refers to the sudden arrival of a phenomenon; its appearance in an unexpected or unforeseen way. This underlines the contingent character of the given phenomenon, which “shows itself necessarily as non-necessity of showing itself.”85 Since the contingent arriving of a phenomenon is the “­unforeseen, spastic, and discontinuous arising of appearing,” it constitutes the phenomenon’s chosen to shift the register from dining out to air travel and render arrivage as unpredictable landing – intending no slight, or homage, to the airline industry.” See Marion, Being Given, 351 (fn. 13). 82 Angus Stevenson, ed., “anamorphosis,” Oxford Dictionary of English (Oxford: Oxford ­University Press, 2010), 56. 83 Marion, Being Given, 123; Étant donné, 174. 84 Marion, Being Given, 124; Étant donné, 175. 85 Marion, Being Given, 138; Étant donné, 196.

48

CHAPTER 1

unique, singular individuation in its self-showing. The unforeseen quality of the given phenomenon makes it unpredictable in relation to other predictable phenomena. This characteristic shows how a phenomenon is not mediated by the horizon of objectivity or that of the sense of being. Its sudden arrival to the receiver makes it different from other predictable phenomena. The fait accompli is the third determination of given phenomena, and it emphasises the facticity of phenomena. Marion states that “it [the phenomenon] appears as a fait accompli before which we are always found ‘already in’ it – preceded, determined, ‘facts’. The phenomenality of all beings, namely insofar as they are given, factically imposes their finalities on me.”86 Rather than following Heidegger in limiting facticity to Dasein, Marion expands it intrinsically to all phenomena by linking it to givenness. According to Marion, this factical character of the given phenomenon makes clear its independence from any cause. In the course of his analysis of the friendship between Montaigne and Étienne La Boétie in In Excess, Marion uses the expression fait accompli in order to show the phenomenal character of their friendship. He says that “we cannot assign to it a single cause or any reason, or rather, none other than itself,”87 because its unique happening cannot be reduced to any cause.88 In addition to the other determinations of the given phenomenon, its characterisation as “incident” denotes a happening in the receiving of a phenomenon.89 In a way, Marion describes this happening as the coming of the given onto the screen of a consciousness that is able to receive it. This coming of the phenomenon happens without any prior determination: “Consisting in its pure arising, in the fact of its bursting forth, the incident remains unforeseeable, exceeds all antecedent, and rests on no ousia. As a consequence, it remains unconstructable, unconstitutable, and therefore unavailable.”90 Marion’s definition of incident here accords with the medieval conception of “accident,” which ultimately derives from Aristotle. Indeed, he claims that the Greek term “symbebēkós” should be translated as “incident.”91 Accidents are not ­necessary in respect to substance (ousia), because a substance can exist 86 Marion, Being Given, 150; Étant donné, 212. 87 Marion, In Excess, 37–38; De surcroît, 44. 88 In the second part of this chapter, I will deal extensively with this understanding of the event. 89 Marion, Being Given, 151; Étant donné, 213. 90 Marion, Being Given, 158; Étant donné, 224. 91 Marion, Being Given, 355 (fn. 49); Étant donné, 214. Marion also thinks that the translation of “symbebēkós” as incident corresponds to its German translation of the word “Zufälligkeit, zufällig,” which would literally suggest “that which falls and arrives upon.” The translation of this term is a controversial issue among Aristotle scholars. It is t­ ranslated

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

49

without its accidents. From Descartes’s claim that substance can be known through the manifestation of its accidents, Marion concludes that the accident as incident can be phenomenalised.92 In this sense, this determination of givenness takes the phenomenon out of the regime of ousia. Before its accidental coming to the receiver, there is nothing to show. It does not depend on any prior determination. The last determination of the given phenomenon is its characterisation as event. Since I will deal with the event as a determination of givenness in a subsequent section (1.2.2), I can limit myself to saying that what matters here is its privilege of gathering all the aforementioned determinations into the event. In brief, in Marion’s phenomenology, all phenomena must appear as given, so phenomenality and givenness become different articulations of the same thing. What Marion’s determinations of givenness make clear is that the phenomenon is given by showing itself from itself. A phenomenon is given and its given characteristics are revealed as happening, contingency, singular individuation, facticity, coming without cause, and incident without any relation to substance. All of these determinations are also valid in the appearing of the event. In this sense, the notion of the event serves the function of gathering together all the previously articulated determinations of givenness. 1.1.3 The Gift The notion of the gift has elicited the interest of many philosophers in the twentieth century. As a philosopher of givenness, Marion also deals with the problem of the gift as a privileged example of givenness. The etymological connections of don and Gabe to donation and Gegebenheit are also highly relevant. Marion’s famous debate with Jacques Derrida on the possibility of the gift gave him a certain prominence in the United States, where his philosophy got a reputation for being a phenomenology of the gift.93 For Marion, a gift is basically a “given as a fold of givenness”94 and, by the operation of reduction, he suggests a way of thinking the gift that excludes any metaphysical approach. In their discussion of the gift, Derrida and Marion firstly consider the gift without any reference to an economy of exchange. The idea of the gift as a form of exchange originates in Marcel Mauss’ theory of the gift. For Mauss, gift as “predicate” and also as “accident.” See Paul Slomkowski, Aristotle’s Topics (Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1997), 92. 92 Marion, Being Given, 157; Étant donné, 222. 93 Derrida and Marion, “On the Gift,” 54–78. 94 Marion, Being Given, 65; Étant donné, 96.

50

CHAPTER 1

giving has the function of exchange in archaic societies.95 Disagreements about the definition of the gift as a form of exchange give rise to different philosophical approaches to the gift. Marion claims that the gift can be understood as a phenomenon without any reference to the economy of exchange. His point of departure for such a claim is the idea that a reduction to the gift is possible in phenomenology. Reduction is performed on the gift by bracketing one or two of these three aspects: the givee, the giver and the gift itself.96 Marion makes clear his aim of treating the gift as a phenomenon in the following passage: So, how is it possible to describe the gift as a phenomenon? My demonstration – and I sum it up because it looks after all, very simple – amounts to saying that, even though the most abstract and common pattern of the gift implies a giver, an object to be given, and a receiver, you can nevertheless describe the gift, I would say the enacted phenomenon, the performative of the gift, by bracketing and putting aside, at least one and even from time to time two of those three features of the gift. And this is new: It makes clear that the gift is governed by rules that are completely different from those that are applied to the object or to the being.97 In each instance, reduction shows that the gift is outside of any relation of exchange and can be reduced to the pure immanence of consciousness. Marion’s motive is to think about the phenomenon of the gift according to the rules of the phenomenology of givenness. In this sense, a gift can be a phenomenon if the rules of the phenomenology of givenness are borne in mind regarding the gift. It can thus be understood beyond the exchange relation while also avoiding the rules of objectness and beingness. Nevertheless, Derrida claims that the meaning of a gift is such that if it were to exist, it could not be subject to exchange without annulling itself as such. This is because when it is returned, anticipated, or received with gratitude, it cannot appear as a gift. Derrida gives voice to the paradoxical ineffability of the gift: “As soon as a gift – not a Gegebenheit, but a gift – as soon as a gift is identified as a gift, with the meaning of a gift, then it is cancelled as a gift. It is reintroduced into the circle of an exchange and destroyed as a gift. [ … ]​ But 95 96

97

Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. W. D. Halls (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 17. Marcel Mauss, Essai sur le don (Paris: PUF, 1950). Jeffrey L. Kosky, the translator of Étant donné, translates Marion’s term “donataire” as “givee.” Even if this word does not exist in English, I will follow the decision of the translator in order to avoid any possible confusion. This term means “recipient” on the discussion of the gift. Derrida and Marion, “On the Gift,” 62.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

51

I never concluded that there is no gift. I went on to say that if there is a gift, through this impossibility – it must be the experience of this; impossibility, and it should appear as impossible.”98 For Derrida, the phenomenological method does not allow us to consider the gift as being outside of a logic of exchange. In speaking of its impossibility, Derrida is by no means rejecting the possibility of the gift altogether. He is rather trying to uncover the experience of a true gift, one free from the logic of debt or return. For Derrida such an experience of the true gift is phenomenologically impossible; the gift can “not appear as such.” By leaving aside the method of phenomenology, Derrida aims to have “a relation to the gift beyond the circle, the economic circle, and beyond the theoretical and phenomenological determination.”99 The divergence between them stems from their different understandings of the capability of phenomenology. Unlike Derrida’s understanding of phenomenology, Marion utilises givenness to provide a broadened sense of phenomenology. Nevertheless, Marion’s reinterpretation of givenness and reduction facilitate an understanding of the gift that does not necessitate any appeal to the notion of exchange. For Marion, if the gift is a given and at least one of its three aspects is bracketed, one can consider it without the idea of exchange. He claims that the third reduction is capable of suspending the giver, the givee and the gift itself. This is because the task that Marion assigns to reduction is that of unfolding the pure given. It is not determined by any other horizon. Therefore, it is possible to conceive of the gift without any attempt at objective determination. In this sense, Marion does not distinguish the gift from the fold of givenness. It is a privileged phenomenon, which is exemplary for understanding phenomenality. Nevertheless, Derrida makes a crucial distinction by emphasising that the etymological relation between “Gabe/don” (gift) and “Gegebenheit/donation” does not mean a phenomenological relation exists between givenness and gift. Derrida does not understand the gift by way of the concept of givenness, and he claims that the attempt to determine the gift as a phenomenological given on the basis of givenness is problematic.100 In this sense, for Derrida, the gift cannot be intuitively given in the phenomenological sense, and it is, therefore, impossible for phenomenology. For Marion, “givenness determines the gift as much as and in the same sense as the phenomenon because the phenomenon shows itself as such and on its

98 Ibid., 59. 99 Ibid., 60. 100 Ibid., 58.

52

CHAPTER 1

own basis only insofar as it gives itself.”101 Marion claims that such a reduction of the gift allows one to think of it without reference to causality or exchange because the gift is given and is not an object. The reduction reveals it to have all the characteristics of givenness. Kevin Hart interprets Marion’s understanding of the gift as remaining out of exchange by an example of giving money to a charity.102 According to Hart’s naïve interpretation of the gift, when somebody gives some money to a charity to help poor people somewhere, the giver does not get anything in return, because she does not know to whom the money is given. “The one to whom I have in fact given without knowing it cannot respond with gratitude or ingratitude, since my gift is bundled up with other donations and has no name associated with it. [ … ]​ And the gift itself can be reduced; strictly speaking, it is not an object that is transferred from one person to another.”103 For Hart, this example of the gift proves the possibility of the gift by the bracketing of one of its three aspects in the reduction. In this philosophical discussion, I think that one of the main problems between Derrida and Marion concerns the idea of the possibility of a full reduction to the absolute given. For Derrida, phenomenology is not capable of performing such a reduction. Nevertheless, Marion’s project assumes that reduction can fulfil this task because of his conception of givenness. In this sense, the problem of the gift is related to the idea of the phenomenological reduction to the pure given for a subject. In Chapter 3, in the section on the adonné and Marion’s understanding of reduction, a detailed assessment of such an idea of reduction will be provided. The other point of contention for these philosophers concerns the idea of excess. For Derrida, the gift has an excessive character, and this excessiveness is an essential characteristic of the gift.104 Derrida does not describe the excessive character of the gift as an “intuitive excess.” He says that “[i]t is difficult for me to understand how an excess of intuition can be described phenomenologically. If deconstruction – I do not want to use this word and to speak as if I were speaking deconstruction – is interested in the excess I was mentioning a moment ago, in some excess, it is not an excess of intuition, of phenomenality, of fullness, of more than fullness. The excess, the structure, in which I am interested, is not an excess of intuition.”105 101 Marion, Being Given, 118; Étant donné, 168. 102 Hart, “Introduction,” 37. 103 Ibid. 104 Derrida and Marion, “On the Gift,” 60. 105 Ibid., 71.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

53

For Marion, the excess of intuition is a central issue in his phenomenology of givenness. In this regard, the gift is defined by its excessive character for intuition. For the phenomenology of givenness, the gift can be thought of as a saturated phenomenon.106 Marion claims that the phenomenology of givenness is capable of describing this excess of intuition. In this sense, what Derrida means by phenomenology differs from what Marion presents as his phenomenology of givenness. 1.1.4 The Saturated Phenomenon The “saturated phenomenon” is another term that is of central importance for understanding the phenomenology of givenness. By the saturated phenomenon, Marion aims to generate a new category of phenomena as given which are ruled by neither a horizon nor an “I” (ego). Such a possibility is opened up by the liberation of phenomenality from the metaphysical structures that remained in the earlier accounts of phenomena (Husserl). For Marion, the phenomenology of givenness creates a new setting for the notion of possibility. The metaphysical elements that persisted in Husserlian phenomenology meant that, for Husserl and his followers, a phenomenon must appear on the horizon of objectness and must be constituted by a subject. Whatever does not conform to these norms of objectness cannot be constituted as an object. This entails that the existence of any kind of phenomenality outside of these bounds of objectivity is deemed impossible. Yet what is assumed to be impossible in the earlier (metaphysical) accounts of phenomena becomes possible within the phenomenology of givenness. The conditions of being possible of a phenomenon do not come from the subject and the horizon of objectness. For the phenomenology of givenness, however, its possibility comes from the phenomenon itself. Appearing is not constrained by objects, thus the appearing of a phenomenon is not conditioned. In this way, rethinking the possibility of phenomena beyond objectness gives rise to what Marion calls the “saturated phenomenon.”107 The saturated phenomenon is not an object. It is not constituted through intentionality. It has a rich intuitive content; thus intention cannot grasp it in the same way that it can the other phenomena. In contrast to the common characterisation of phenomena, saturated phenomena can be defined as the excess of intuition over intention, concepts or limiting 106 Christina M. Gschwandtner, “The Excess of the Gift in Jean-Luc Marion” in Gift and ­Economy: Ethics, Hospitality and the Market, ed. Eric R. Severson (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 21. 107 Marion, “Le phénomène saturé,” 79–128.

54

CHAPTER 1

horizons.108 Moreover, saturated phenomena invert the relation between intuition and intention. They do not appear in the mode of the object, because for objectness intuition needs to be fulfilled by the intention. Marion classifies the contribution of intuition to phenomena at three distinct levels. First, there are “poor phenomena” for which intuition is determined by the concept (e.g. logical forms, mathematical idealities). These are deemed to be poor in intuition. Secondly, there are what he terms “commonlaw phenomena,” whose intuition is regulated adequately by the concept (e.g. scientific objects). Finally, there are saturated phenomena, for which intuition overflows the concept so that there is an excess of intuition over the concept.109 Marion’s saturated phenomena are intended to contradict the idea of phenomena that arises from metaphysical presuppositions. Phenomena are assumed to be poor in intuition according to the metaphysical understanding of truth as adaequatio.110 For Marion, this understanding of truth undervalues the contribution of sensibility and overplays the power of intellect. In Husserlian terms this translates as a lack of intuition and it attributes a fulfilling function to intention for this lack. The saturated phenomenon resets the unequal relation between intuition and intention that is established by adaequatio. It does not fit the definition of truth as adaequatio. In contrast to the object, the saturated phenomenon is not regulated by intentionality. Since its phenomenality is different than that of objects, one cannot understand it as having been constituted by consciousness. Rather than being constituted, the saturated phenomenon gives itself such that it exceeds every subjective capability. Here it is important to note that Marion qualifies intuition as “giving intuition.” In his account of the principle of principles mentioned above, Marion claims that Husserl assigned the phenomenon’s source of right to “originarily intuition.”111 Nevertheless, according to Marion, phenomenality does not stem from intuition but from givenness, which gains credence because givenness is possible without intuition.112 Yet this need not imply that he overvalues intuition. It is rather that for Marion givenness has a more primary role than intuition. Intuition depends on the given character of phenomena. He says that “if intuition deserves a privilege, it owes it not to the ecstasy of intentional ­fulfilment but to 108 Marion, Being Given, 199; Étant donné, 280. 109 Marion, Negative Certainties, 195; Certitudes négatives, 301. 110 Anthony Steinbock is strongly critical of Marion’s account of degrees of intuition. See Anthony Steinbock, “The Poor Phenomenon: Marion and the Problem of Givenness,” in Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology, eds., Bruce Benson and Norman Wirzba (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 120–31. 111 Husserl, Ideas I, 44; Ideen I, 51. 112 Marion, Being Given, 245; Étant donné, 340.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

55

its quality as giving intuition. Only holding the place of givenness allows intuition to exercise a regency for the truth. As such, intuition could make nothing visible, perceptible, or even capable of deception, if it did not set itself up by virtue of the givenness it puts into operation.”113 As Kevin Hart defines “the originary giving intuition” as the self-givenness (Selbstgegebenheit) of phenomena.”114 In this context, his account of the saturated phenomenon as intuition over intention becomes more meaningful. The “giving” intuition is a kind of seal of givenness. By virtue of givenness, a given can give more intuition than an object. The excess of the saturated phenomenon comes from the overabundance of the giving intuition that weakens the intentional capacities to grasp and conceptualise. The commonly accepted definition of phenomena as objects is related to conceptualisations of Kant and Husserl. According to their definitions, every phenomenon is subsumed under a horizon of appearing and a constituting “I” (ego).115 For Marion, Husserl retains Kant’s basic framework for the idea of the object. This means that the constitution of the object requires the fulfilment of intention, because it presupposes a deficit of intuition and, therefore, a lack of givenness.116 Marion asserts that the metaphysical definition of truth as adaequatio presupposes the lack of intuition and the fulfilling role of the understanding (Kant) or intention (Husserl) for the synthesis of the manifold of the given. Rather than an “equality” presupposed in an adequation between intuition and intention, for Husserl intuition is too weak to provide ideal evidence. This hierarchical relation between intuition and intention is rooted in the definition of truth as adaequatio.117 According to Marion, such evidence 113 Marion, Being Given, 17; Étant donné, 27. 114 Kevin Hart, “Introduction,” in Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion, ed. Kevin Hart (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 13. 115 In The Paradox of the Subjectivity, David Carr similarly locates Kant and Husserl within what he terms “the transcendental tradition.” His perspective on Kant and Husserl differs from that of Heidegger, whose critique he thinks unfair. For Carr, “these two philosophers [Kant and Husserl] have very similar things to say about subjectivity and [ … ]​ their views together establish and constitute something that can be understood as a ‘transcendental tradition.’” See David Carr, The Paradox of the Subjectivity: The Self in the Transcendental Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 99. 116 Marion, Being Given, 192–6; Étant donné, 270–5. It is important to bear in mind that Kant’s and Husserl’s usage of the concept of intuition differs. Husserl’s breakthrough is his idea of categorical intuition. Its function with regard to the constitution of objects is very different from Kant’s notion of sensible intuition. For Marion, the phenomenological breakthrough that Husserl generates with his notion of categorical intuition is severely compromised by his theoretical decision to retain a Kantian definition of evidence. 117 Marion, Being Given, 190; Étant donné, 266.

56

CHAPTER 1

is commonly achieved in mathematics and formal logic because they do not have a strong phenomenality.118 In this way, what is lacking in intuition is supplemented by fulfilling intention in Husserl. Since phenomenology should do more than merely describing these kinds of objects, and since the range of phenomena is wider than that constrained within the horizon of objectness, Marion seeks to consider the possibility of there being excessive phenomena. In contrast to the deficit of intuition, Marion’s saturated phenomenon presents an excess of “intuition, therefore of givenness” over intention.119 This is an alternative mode of phenomena that contrasts with poor and common-law phenomena. In the case of saturated phenomena, therefore, intuition gives excessively, providing more than the intention can aim at. Since the intention cannot fulfil it and constitute it as an object, it cannot be on the same plane of phenomenality as objectness. Thus, a saturated phenomenon becomes an exceptional kind of phenomenon, and its phenomenality does not have any common framework with the phenomenality of objectness. Since it is not an object, the saturated phenomenon is overwhelming, bedazzling and unintelligible in the manner of mathematical objects. By developing this insight, Marion aims to change the paradigm of phenomenality from the object to the saturated phenomenon. Here it is also important to note that what Marion proposes with the saturated phenomenon was already partly developed in Kant’s conception of the “aesthetic idea.” For Kant, there are two kinds of ideas: the ideas of reason and the aesthetic idea. Whereas no adequate intuition can be found for the ideas of reason, there is no adequate concept for the aesthetic idea, which means it cannot be an object.120 Kant defines the aesthetic idea as an “inexponible representation of imagination.” According to Marion, because of the overabundance of intuition, a concept cannot expose it: “The impossibility of the concept arranging this disposition comes from the fact that the intuitive superabundance no longer succeeds in exposing itself in a priori rules, whatever they might be [ … ​]. Intuition is no longer exposed in the concept; it saturates it and renders it overexposed.”121 In this sense, Marion’s saturated phenomenon seems to echo the Kantian aesthetic idea because, in both cases, the excess 118 Marion, Being Given, 191; Étant donné, 268–69. 119 Marion, Being Given, 199; Étant donné, 280. 120 Kant states that “[a]n aesthetic idea cannot become cognition because it is an intuition (of the imagination) for which an adequate concept can never be found.” See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indiana and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), 215. For the German text, see Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974), 283. 121 Marion, Being Given, 198; Étant donné, 279.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

57

of intuition and the lack of concept are at work. The aesthetic idea is not the only Kantian influence, for Marion also presents Kant’s understanding of the sublime as an example of the saturated phenomenon.122 Nevertheless, Marion does not entirely rely on the Kantian aesthetic idea. The saturated phenomenon is an attempt to move the centre of phenomenality beyond objectness. Marion shows how saturated phenomena offer an intuitive excess over the categories of understanding by using the Kantian categories in a reversed way. He matches four kinds of saturated phenomena with the Kantian categories of the understanding but in a reversed way. He describes saturated phenomena as paradoxes by showing in each case the excess of intuition over concept.123 Here Marion refers to the Kantian pair of intuition and understanding in the synthesis of the manifold of the given. He claims a parallelism is evident between the pairing of intuition/understanding in Kant and that of intuition/ intention in Husserl. It should be noted that there is no equating of these two pairs and also, that the role of intuition is quite different in Kant and Husserl. Nevertheless, according to Marion, the metaphysical understanding of truth as adaequatio plays an important role in their accounts of intuition and understanding/intention. These pairs are in accordance with adaequatio by which the definition of the object in these philosophers are shaped. In this respect, Marion suggests that there is a similarity between the definition of the object in Kant and Husserl. Moreover, the main philosophical dichotomy between sensibility and intellect finds its clearest expression in the use of these pairs by these philosophers. As has been mentioned above, in their accounts of objectness, intuition is mostly lacking and this lack is fulfilled by the subjective powers of understanding and intention. In this sense, it is not intuition but intention that has the authority to determine what is possible in phenomenology. This over-emphasis on intention is related to the idea of the transcendental subject. As David Carr points out, Husserl can be seen as a follower of Kant because he belongs to the same “transcendental tradition,” which is particularly evident in Husserl’s use of the transcendental ego in his account of subjectivity.124 In this respect, Marion’s attempt to describe the saturated phenomena with the reversal of the Kantian categories seems a crucial point regarding Marion’s project. Kant identifies twelve categories, and he divides them equally into four groups: quantity, quality, relation and modality. According to the Kantian table 122 Marion, Being Given, 220; Étant donné, 307. 123 For Marion’s dealing with Kant in his phenomenology, see Claudia Serban, “Marion als Leser Kants,” in Jean-Luc Marion. Studien zum Werk, eds. Gerl-Falkovitz and HannaBarbara (Dresden: Text & Dialog, 2013), 199–215. 124 Carr, The Paradox of the Subjectivity, 99.

58

CHAPTER 1

of categories, these pure concepts of the understanding function as rules that constitute experience. Any experience must conform a priori to these categories. Even if Kant deduces these categories from the forms of judgment in order to identify the conditions of experience, they determine phenomenality itself. As Heidegger points out, “the goal of all ontology is the theory of categories.”125 In this sense, the Kantian categories are highly determinative of how something can appear, that is to say, how something can be a phenomenon. They necessarily impose their laws on phenomena. Husserl can be seen to develop these Kantian laws of experience in his account of the phenomenological constitution of the object, which suggests to Marion the idea of the sovereign subject that imposes these rules on phenomenality. As has already been discussed, in his phenomenology of givenness, Marion proposes to overcome the conditions of appearing of phenomena, and these conditions come from the transcendental subject. This is the Kantian foundation that persists in ­phenomenology. In an article entitled “Marion as a Reader of Kant,” moreover, Claudia Serban claims that Marion criticises Kant not alone for the poverty of intuition but also because his conditions of phenomenality rely upon “the metaphysical definition of possibility.”126 In his “postulate of empirical thinking,” Kant states that “whatever agrees with the formal conditions of experience (in accordance with intuition and concepts) is possible.”127 Here the orientation of possibility is placed under the jurisdiction of the concept. In this respect, the phenomenon’s right to appear does not come from the phenomenon itself, but the formal conditions of experience in general organise the possibility of phenomenality, that is its right to appear.128 In reversing the Kantian categories, Marion aims to show how saturated phenomena fall outside the laws of objectness. Each kind of saturated phenomena is defined in terms of its exceptional status vis-à-vis the categories, that is, in terms of its not being regulated by a category. First, an event exceeds the category of quantity. An event’s unforeseeable happening does not allow the category of quantity to operate so as to compose the whole out of its

125 Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 208. For the German text, see ­Martin Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio K ­ lostermann, 1983), 195. 126 Serban, “Marion als Leser Kants,” 205. 127 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 321. A218, B265. 128 Marion, Being Given, 181; Étant donné, 253.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

59

parts.129 Second, the category of quality is not capable of capturing the intense fullness of the visibility of the idol. Marion’s use of the term “idol” here refers to the artwork as a saturated phenomenon, and it should not be confused with his earlier theological remarks on the term.130 For Kant, this category determines the anticipation of perception by referring to “intensive magnitude” which defines degrees in the appearance for the sensation.131 Kant’s starting point for the intensity of degrees of intuition is the zero point. “Now I call that magnitude which can only be apprehended as a unity, and in which multiplicity can only be represented through approximation to negation = 0, intensive magnitude. Thus every reality in the appearance has intensive magnitude, i.e., a degree.”132 Marion thinks that this amounts to Kant explicitly admitting the paucity of intuition in his account. For a saturated phenomenon that is overloaded with intuition, however, there can be no anticipation of perception because the excess cannot be expected. In the same way, no measure is enough for this excess in any degree because of the intensity of intuition of an idol which bedazzles and blinds. What is meant by blinding is not that the phenomena is no longer visible, but that it exceeds our ability to see it as an object; so the intensive magnitude of intuition cannot be borne by the gaze.133 In In Excess, Marion provides some detailed examples from the history of art on his conception of the saturated phenomenon as an idol.134 The third saturated phenomena Marion makes use of is flesh, which leads to the suspension of the category of relation. This category regulates the relation between appearances according to inherence (between substance and accident), causality (between cause and effect) and community (among other substances). In order to synthesise the unity of the manifold of appearances, this type of categories operate as an a priori ground with respect to their combination in time “yet since time itself cannot be perceived, the determination of the existence of objects in time can only come about through their combination in time in general, hence only through a priori connecting concepts.”135 For Marion these concepts are modelled after mathematical relations and they are poor in intuition. Furthermore, “the analogies of experience do not really 129 Marion, Being Given, 200; Étant donné, 280. I forgo discussion of the event as a saturated phenomenon here as I will return to this aspect in some detail later. 130 Gschwandtner, Reading Jean-Luc Marion: Exceeding Metaphysics, 80. 131 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 291. A168, B210. 132 Ibid. 133 Marion, Being Given, 203; Étant donné, 284. 134 Marion, “The Idol and the Radiance of Painting,” in In Excess, 54–81. 135 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 296. A176, B219.

60

CHAPTER 1

constitute their objects, but state the subjective needs of the understanding.”136 Marion claims that a phenomenon can appear without relation to other phenomena because of the excess of intuition. Since such a saturated phenomenon gives itself without any relation, he argues that it is absolute. His paradigmatic example of this kind of saturation is flesh. Flesh as an absolute phenomenon cannot be regulated by these categories. Its immediacy affects me, and no distance or difference is discernible between my flesh and me.137 Without any internal mediation, it imposes itself on me by overwhelming me. My flesh is given to me absolutely without any relation to other phenomena. Moreover, the excess and bedazzlement of flesh overflows every horizon and cannot be restricted within the horizon of time. Marion states that all appearances are in time for Kant, and thus it is “the horizon in general as the condition for the appearing of these phenomena.”138 Nevertheless, Marion merely gestures towards this understanding of time as a horizon and does not give a detailed account of the issue. Indeed, for Kant, time is the form of inner intuition, and all sense data are organised with respect to each other in time. Nevertheless, Marion does not expand further on the issue. He treats the issue of time solely in terms of it being a horizon in the Kantian context. His account of how flesh overturns the horizon does not explain the relation between time and givenness. Marion’s treatment of the saturated phenomenon does not provide a detailed account of time.139 While the previous three saturated phenomena deal with the idea of horizon, the focus of the fourth saturated phenomenon is the transcendental I. For Kant, the categories of modality, in distinction from the other categories, are “the postulates of empirical thinking in general.” Having discussed the three other groups of categories, Kant introduces the fourth by posing them as a question: “I can still ask about this object whether it is merely possible, or also actual, or, if it is the latter, whether it is also necessary?”140 These categories determine the relation of the faculty of knowledge to objects and their agreement with it – so one can decide whether objects are possible, actual and necessary. For Kant, to postulate the possibility of something requires presuming its agreement with the formal conditions of experience in general.141 136 Marion, Being Given, 208; Étant donné, 291. 137 Marion, In Excess, 100. Also See Jean-Luc Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 138 Marion, Being Given, 209; Étant donné, 292. 139 Marion’s treatment of time will be discussed to some degree below and in more detail in Chapter 3. 140 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 321–22. A218–9, B266. 141 Ibid., 322. A220, B267.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

61

Thus, the possibility of a phenomenon is not intrinsic to the phenomenon itself but requires the subjective conditions of the transcendental I. Marion says that “the phenomenon is possible strictly to the extent that it agrees with the formal conditions of experience, therefore with the power of knowing that fixes them, therefore finally with the transcendental I itself. The possibility of the phenomenon depends finally on its reconduction to the I.”142 The fourth saturated phenomenon, the icon or the face of the other, thus suspends the transcendental I by being “irregardable” according to modality. Rather than the subject determining its status of being possible or impossible, the saturated phenomenon imposes its own possibility on me, and thereby converts the “I” into a passive “me.” Marion regards it as “irregardable” because my gaze cannot look at it, rather the saturated phenomenon looks at me. This means it cannot be constituted by intentionality. It inverts the meaning-giving (Sinngebung) function of intentionality. Its excess reverses the direction of meaning giving, as Gschwandtner explains: “If there is any intentionality here, it is that of the other acting upon me. Intuition does not proceed from me but comes towards me and envisages me. Noesis does not prepare any noema but rather unleashes a noetic uncontrollable and hopeless superabundance. The noema appears as infinite and overflows all noesis. The saturated phenomenon in this case does not appear as visible but as excess.”143 To these four, Marion adds a fifth kind of saturated phenomenon. It is the phenomenon of revelation – Jesus Christ – which is saturated in all four aspects. He terms this redoubled saturation the “paradox of paradoxes.”144 Saturation is not an exceptional case for the phenomenology of givenness, rather it is a “banal” situation.145 The saturated phenomenon becomes a new paradigm for phenomenality and thereby enlarges it. As Marion puts it: “My entire project, by contrast, aims to think the common-law phenomenon, and through it the poor phenomenon, on the basis of the paradigm of the saturated phenomenon. [ … ]​ What metaphysics rules out as an exception (the saturated phenomenon), phenomenology here takes for its norm – every phenomenon shows itself in the measure (or the lack of measure) to which it gives itself. To be sure,

142 Marion, Being Given, 212; Étant donné, 297. 143 Gschwandtner, Reading Jean-Luc Marion, 82. 144 Marion, Being Given, 5; Étant donné, 10. I do not want to discuss the question of phenomenality regarding the revelation as saturated phenomenon par excellence here, but I do want to draw attention to how the paradigm for phenomenality is the saturated phenomenon, especially the saturated phenomenon par excellence. 145 Jean-Luc Marion, “The Banality of Saturation,” in The Visible and Revealed, trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 119–44.

62

CHAPTER 1

not all phenomena get classified as saturated phenomena, but all saturated phenomena accomplish the one and only paradigm of phenomenality.”146 Saturated phenomena are defined as a “counter-experience.”147 This reflects Marion’s transformation of the notion of experience. As explained above, the saturated phenomenon contradicts the very definition of an object and, as a consequence, the saturated phenomenon cannot be experienced in the same way as objects. Rather than dismissing the very possibility of an experience of non-objectable phenomena, Marion speaks of a “counter-experience,” which he characterises in the following way: “the experience of a phenomenon that is neither regardable, nor guarded according to objectness, one that therefore resists the conditions of objectification. Counter-experience offers the experience of what irreducibly contradicts the conditions for the experience of objects.”148 It refers to an impossibility for objects but not for the saturated phenomenon. The paradoxical characteristic of the saturated phenomenon comes from such non-conditional phenomenality versus objectness. For Marion, “[a] paradox is not the same thing as a logical contradiction of a proposition (or non-sense), nor is it an (empirical) impossibility of knowledge, nor an obscurity (a confusion) in phenomenality,” but “among the phenomena that I unquestionably experience, paradox defines those that happen (like events) only by contra-dicting the conditions of my experience, and therefore that impose themselves only by imposing on me a counter-experience.”149 The paradoxical nature of the saturated phenomenon inverts our understanding of experience, and by so doing it generates a new category of experience, that is to say a counter-experience. In the counter-experience, the phenomenon is given in an excessive way, so that it is neither grasped by the concept nor by intentionality. It imposes itself without thereby becoming determined as an object in another mode of phenomenality. This way of experience, counterexperience, draws a new relation between the subject and the object. In other words, there is no more subject and object for the saturated phenomenon. The counter-experience of the saturated phenomenon turns the “I” into a “me,” that is to say, it renders the subject passive. Furthermore, the inversion of the categories of modality also opens up a sphere wherein the category of possibility is reoriented towards the phenomenon as opposed to the subject. This change fulfils Marion’s goal of liberating phenomena from any conditions 146 Marion, Being Given, 227; Étant donné, 316. 147 Marion, Being Given, 215; Étant donné, 300. 148 Ibid. 149 Jean-Luc Marion, Givenness and Revelation, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Oxford: Oxford ­University Press, 2016), 55.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

63

imposed on them. In this sense, these characteristics of counter-experience will provide the groundwork for Marion’s new articulation of “subjectivity”, the adonné. For the moment it is important to note that the reception of the saturated p ­ henomenon also brings forth a new articulation of the subject, which has been decentred by the counter-experience of the saturated phenomenon. Marion will also ascribe the paradigmatic role of the saturated phenomena to the notion of the event in his Negative Certainties. This normative function of the saturated phenomenon can engender some questions for phenomenology. What is the role of hermeneutics in the appearing of phenomena? Marion does not give a role to hermeneutics in the appearing of the phenomenon, and a saturated phenomenon gives itself in an absolute, unconditioned way. For this reason, the appearing of the saturated phenomenon does not depend on any hermeneutical horizon. The question is how a phenomenon can gain such a privileged status without any interpretation, only by its appearing. Moreover, Marion ascribes a paradigmatic role to the saturated phenomenon for our understanding of all phenomena because it is given in an unconditioned way. Yet how can one assign these normative and paradigmatic functions to a phenomenon, especially a very particular phenomenon, such as the revelation of Christ? How can a particular phenomenon become a reference for all phenomenality? Is this a hermeneutical choice or a consequence of the absolute given?150 The relation between the phenomenology of givenness and hermeneutics will be addressed in the section dealing with the event. 1.2

Phenomenality: Objectness and Eventness

Before delving into the distinction between objectness and eventness in Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, let us briefly look at the development of the conception of the event throughout his oeuvre. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, the notion of the event has gradually increased in importance in the phenomenology of givenness. This process has led Marion to a radical ­position that understands eventness as a new mode of phenomenality. Until Negative Certainties, however, the status of the event oscillated between being an example of saturated phenomenon and being a determination of givenness, without being clearly defined either way. In Interpreting Excess, Shane Mackinley deals extensively with this tension and the problem of the concept of the 150 See Kadir Filiz, “Eine andere Beziehung – eine andere Offenbarung: Berührungspunkte zwischen Jean-Luc Marion und der islamischen Philosophie,” in Der Primat der Gegebenheit, ed. Michael Staudigl (Freiburg and Munich: Karl Alber Verlag, 2020), 398–426.

64

CHAPTER 1

event being utilised in two ways in Being Given and In Excess.151 I want to argue that Marion has resolved this tension by proposing eventness as a new mode of phenomenality in a subsequent work, Negative Certainties. There Marion clearly classifies phenomenality as having two modes: objectness and eventness. This definition of eventness as a mode of phenomenality overcomes the tension in his earlier works. The role of hermeneutics has been another vexing issue for the phenomenology of givenness and is finally addressed in Marion’s discussion of eventness in Negative Certainties. What role hermeneutics should play in the appearing of phenomena for the phenomenology of givenness had long been discussed by critics of Marion.152 In the wake of these criticisms, Marion proposes the event as a way of dealing with this issue in Negative Certainties. Hermeneutics now acquires a central role for determining the distinction between the objectness and eventness of a phenomenon. In what follows, I will first investigate two hesitant uses Marion makes of event, then the role of event as a mode of phenomenality, before finally turning to this use of hermeneutics as a method of distinguishing between eventness and objectness. 1.2.1 Two Uses of the Event: the Determination of a Given and a Saturated Phenomenon Marion’s first account of the event in Being Given appears in Book III, where he discusses “the determinations of givenness.” After his equation of the phenomenon with the given (in Book I)153 and his presentation of the gift as the paradigmatic example of the givenness of phenomena (in Book II),154 Book III sees Marion focus on the basic determinations of the given phenomenon, where, as already mentioned, the event is one of five such determinations: anamorphosis, unpredictable landing, fait accompli, incident and event. ­Determinations of the given are fundamental characteristics that show how a phenomenon is given. As a determinant of givenness, the event shows the “self” of the phenomenon: 151 Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 80. 152 For some comments on the role of hermeneutics in Marion’s phenomenology, see Jean Greisch, “L’herméneutique dans la ‘phénoménologie comme telle’: Trois questions à propos de Réduction et Donation,” Revue de métaphysique et morale 96/01:1991, 43–63. Jean Grondin, “La tension de la donation ultime et de la pensée herméneutique de l’application chez Jean-Luc Marion,” Dialogue 38, no. 3 (1999): 547–59. Richard Kearney, The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001). Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess. Gschwandtner, Degrees of Givenness. 153 Marion, Being Given, 71; Étant donné, 103. 154 Marion, Being Given, 119; Étant donné, 169.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

65

[I]f appearing implies showing itself as showing itself implies giving itself both imply a self of the phenomenon. Such a self, supposing it could be reached, would in no way be equivalent to the in itself of the object or the thing. That is, both are defined by the constitution (possible or impossible, it matters little) exerted over them by the I held to be original. [ … ]​ Therefore, the self of what shows itself and gives itself can never be verified through inference or constitution, which would collapse it equally into the in-itself of the object (or the thing without phenomenality). [ … ​] The self of the phenomenon is marked in its determination as event. It comes, does its thing, and leaves on its own; showing itself, it also shows the self that takes (or removes) the initiative of giving itself. The event, I can wait for it (though most often, it surprises me), I can remember it (or forget it), but I cannot make it, produce it, or provoke it. Let us describe the event, where the phenomenon gives itself to the point of showing itself.155 The characteristic ability of the event to produce itself and show itself on its own initiative is what gives it its exceptional status. The event is characterised by the phenomenon’s showing itself from the self of the phenomenon, not from any external framework that rules out its conditions of appearing. One of the rules to which every phenomenon (as an object) is subject is the principle of causality. According to this rule, everything has to be either a cause or an effect – it is the condition par excellence on phenomenality. When framed in terms of causality, the event cannot be understood as a distinctive mode of phenomenality. In this nexus, it must have a cause and so must be understood as the effect of this cause. The metaphysical relation between cause and effect highlights cause’s priority over effect. Nevertheless, Marion maintains that, phenomenologically speaking, an effect is prior to its cause and that the metaphysical relation between cause and effect is not capable of indicating this priority of effect. Marion also defines the event as effect, and its cause is always attributed to it after its occurrence. Nevertheless, in such a metaphysical explanation, the cause gains an ontological priority over the effect even if, epistemologically, it is only known after the effect. Marion defines cause “as effect of the effect” because “all knowledge begins by the event of the effect.”156 He claims that “the event does not have an adequate cause and cannot have one,”157 because of its overabundance as a given 155 Marion, Being Given, 159–60; Étant donné, 226. 156 Marion, Being Given, 165; Étant donné, 232. 157 Marion, Being Given, 167; Étant donné, 235.

66

CHAPTER 1

­ henomenon. In this respect, the event suspends the principle of sufficient p reason, which Leibniz understood to mean that nothing is without reason and Kant defined as meaning that “everything that happens has its cause.”158 In almost all contemporary elaborations of the event, the suspension of the principle of sufficient reason is understood to be a fundamental trait. As Gert-Jan van der Heiden states in his Ontology after Ontotheology, “event is a concept that is created to think an alternative to the principle of sufficient reason.”159 In the following pages, I will present another aspect of Marion’s account of causality – one in which he reveals that as a Kantian concept of the understanding, causality (category of relation) is not able to grasp the event as a given. While depicting the event as a determination of givenness, this account focuses on the problematic relation between cause and effect with respect to their epistemological and ontological priorities. By discussing the event without appealing to causality, Marion identifies three other related characteristics which define the event: unrepeatability, excessiveness, and possibility.160 For Marion, unrepeatability stems from the unique character of the event’s happening. The same event cannot happen again since its time of happening always differs: “the same event in two different times would differ from itself.”161 Excessiveness, as has been discussed, is a common theme in the phenomenology of givenness, in which the saturated phenomenon is always defined in terms of its excess, that is, the abundance of intuition over intention. In the same way, the event’s excessive character derives from the phenomenological meaning of existence, as opposed to the metaphysical determination in which “to exist means, for a being, to posit itself at a distance from causes that produced its existence.”162 In the phenomenology of givenness, the event happens outside of its causes. It exceeds them to the point of leaving them. It is worth noting that, for Marion, the event as a determination of givenness is not to be understood as simply one determination among others. While Marion articulates the event as one of the determinations of givenness, the other determinations of givenness are also applicable to the event, which explains his frequent references to anamorphosis, unpredictable landing, the fait accompli and the incident in his discussion of the event.163 As one of 158 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 142. A9, B13. 159 Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014), 6. 160 Marion, Being Given, 170–2; Étant donné, 240–3. 161 Marion, Being Given, 171; Étant donné, 241. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

67

Marion’s commentators states, all the other determinations of givenness are event-driven because these characterisations are no less valid for the event.164 Even in Marion’s own account of the event, he repeatedly relates it to the other determinations. For him, “the characteristic of eventness gathers together all those previously recognised in the given phenomenon.”165 As I proposed at the beginning, although Marion’s elaboration of the notion of the event in Being Given gives some privileged roles to the event, these roles are incapable of making the status of its phenomenality explicit in the phenomenology of givenness. Apart from this use of the notion of the event as a determination of givenness, Marion deals with the notion of the event as an instance of phenomenality, as a “saturated phenomenon.” As was already stated above, the saturated phenomenon is a new category of phenomena which is richer in intuition and exceeds any intentional aim. Each saturated phenomenon inverts a Kantian category and is a negative imprint of the category in question. The event, as one of the four kinds of saturated phenomena, does not allow intention to organise and conceive of it within a defined horizon. Rather than being constituted as a phenomenon within the horizon of objectivity, the event as a saturated phenomenon exceeds the category of “quantity” because it cannot be aimed at and foreseen.166 The category of quantity organises the successive synthesis because for Kant every intuition is “an extensive magnitude as it can only be cognised through successive synthesis (from part to part) in apprehension.”167 Thus, the successive synthesis of intuition is made up of parts which follow each other successively and eventually constitute the whole. For Marion, in this way “what appears will always be inscribed in the sum of what its parameters allow always already to be anticipated.”168 The foreseeability of a phenomenon comes from the measurability of its finite parts. Nevertheless, the saturated phenomenon “cannot be measured in terms of its parts, since the saturating intuition surpasses limitlessly the sum of the parts by continually adding to them.”169 In this sense, his understanding of the event cannot be thought of as a result of any causal relation or as a part of a whole. Marion’s engagement with the Kantian category of quantity, i.e. his inversion of it, intends to reveal the inadequacy of any horizon, especially the horizon 164 Roberto Terzi, “L’Événement et le (Non-)Phénomène: Marion/Derrida,” Phenomenon 26, no. 1 (2017): 165. 165 Marion, Being Given, 162; Étant donné, 229. 166 Marion, In Excess, 34–35; De surcroît, 40–41. 167 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 288. A163, B204. 168 Marion, In Excess, 35; De surcroît, 41. 169 Marion, Being Given, 200; Étant donné, 281.

68

CHAPTER 1

of objectness. His analysis stresses the capacity of the saturated phenomenon to go beyond any horizon. In Being Given, his explanation of the event as a saturated phenomenon emphasises this aspect of the event. In describing the historical event as an “apex,” he underlines the plurality of horizons that render impossible any attempt to “describe it exhaustively and constitute it as an object.”170 As an illustration of this conception of the event, he mentions the battle of Waterloo which could not be foreseen and unified within any individual horizon: “the battle makes itself of itself, starting from a point of view that it alone can unify, without any unique horizon.”171 The multi-layered horizons evident in this example – such as military, economic, political, ideological and so forth – do not permit it to be constituted as an object.172 Concerning these two uses of the notion of the event in Being Given, the following question emerges: How do these two aspects of the notion of the event cohere to provide a compelling account of the event and its role in the phenomenology of givenness? The problem is that we have two different accounts of the event. On the one hand, the event is said to provide a determination of givenness that also draws together its other determinations; on the other hand, the event is understood as one example of the saturated phenomenon among others. To answer this question requires focusing on Negative Certainties, which provides the most detailed account of the event in Marion’s oeuvre. If one merely focussed on Being Given, one would not find a comprehensive explication of these two ways of understanding the event. Roberto Terzi affirms the centrality of the notion of the event in Marion’s subsequent works, but according to him, in spite of their recurrence, the two aforementioned understandings of the event are never explicitly thematised and remain somewhat juxtaposed.173 1.2.2 The Event as a Pole of Phenomenality The analysis of the event in Negative Certainties gathers together the various descriptions of the event from his earlier books into a more detailed and comprehensive account. The notion of the event here accedes to its proper place in the phenomenology of givenness by being defined both as a paradigmatic pole of phenomenality and as a saturated phenomenon. The twofold character of his conception of the event is unified on the basis of eventness as a pole of phenomenality. This means that the degree of saturation stems from eventness. 170 Marion, Being Given, 228; Étant donné, 318. 171 Marion, Being Given, 229; Étant donné, 318. 172 Ibid. 173 Terzi, “L’Événement et le (Non-)Phénomène : Marion/Derrida,” 166.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

69

Marion states: “Eventness fixes the degree of saturation, and saturation varies according to eventness. This distinction thus has a strictly phenomenological status. But then it is immediately necessary to note that eventness does not characterise only one of the types of the saturated phenomenon (the event in the strict-sense, as opposed to the idol, the flesh, and the icon): not only does it determine each of these types, which each put it into operation, but it already defined the phenomenon as given in general.”174 Marion proposes a new account of phenomenality that is intended to counter the idea that all phenomena are determined according to the criteria of being an object. According to Marion, the objectivating determination of phenomenality has been dominant in earlier accounts of the notion. In the process of expanding the phenomenological status of the event, he rejects the determination of phenomenality in terms of objectness. Since the traditional account means that without conforming with the conditions of objectness, nothing can be called phenomenon, Marion’s motivation is to extend the range of phenomenality so as to make space for the event within the phenomenal sphere. Moreover, by reversing the standpoint of phenomenality, the event establishes a new domain of phenomenality in which there are no a priori principles of metaphysics – neither the principle of identity nor the principle of sufficient reason.175 Questions remain as to how we define an object and how it has attained this privilege status of dominating all phenomenality while nevertheless being unable to embrace all phenomena. Marion provides the following answer: “The phenomenal impoverishment of the object lies in the fact that it must in this way satisfy the conditions of possibility, which of course guarantee its appearing in the mode of a certainty, but which, in return, exclude from this appearing as uncertain and nonobjective all that which cannot (or must not) submit to those conditions.”176 The ruling criterion for the conditions of possibility of objectness is “certainty.” Whatever agrees with these conditions can be classed as an object. Descartes is the first to make certainty a standard of reason by reworking the ancient question “what do I know?” as “what do I know with certainty?”177 174 Marion, Negative Certainties, 199–200; Certitudes négatives, 307. 175 For Marion these principles are the main pillars of metaphysics that he aims to overcome. In the later chapters, the idea of overcoming metaphysics will be discussed. For the definition of metaphysics, see Jean-Luc Marion, “The Phenomenology of Givenness,” in Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and Chris W. Hackett (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 51–52. 176 Marion, Negative Certainties, 163; Certitudes négatives, 254. 177 Ibid.

70

CHAPTER 1

Descartes assigns this priority of certainty to mathesis of mathesis universalis which proposes an order and measure. Kant follows Descartes but puts forward a new criterion for certainty: the laws of experience: “The sensible faculty of intuition is really only a receptivity for being affected in a certain way with representations, whose relation to one another is a pure intuition of space and time (pure forms of our sensibility), which, insofar as they are connected and determinable in these relations (in space and time) according to laws of the unity of experience, are called objects.”178 According to Kant, representations (that is, not things) depend on the unity of space and time, and on the laws of experience in order to be understood as objects. This unity stems from the concept, which establishes the relation of intuition to the laws of experience. One can think of the condition of being an object as the unity of intuition and concept; that is, as the process in which the “I think” proceeds by unifying representations in transcendental apperception: “The synthetic unity of consciousness is therefore an objective condition of all cognition, not merely something I myself need in order to cognise an object but rather something under which every intuition must stand in order to become an object for me.”179 The rule of “I think” regulates the conditions of being an object. Thus, an object does not have power in becoming an object, because its appearing presupposes an authority other than itself: a subject. This rule imposed by the subject sets the conditions for being an object. Then it is tied to the pure concepts of understanding and they organise sensible givens which were already represented in the pure forms of space and of time for being objects.180 In the elaboration of the event, Marion follows the same way with his account of the saturated phenomenon. In both of them, he deals with the inversion of the categories of understanding. In order to show how the event differs from and overcomes the categories of understanding, Marion aims to emphasise the paradigmatic phenomenality of the event in contrast with the phenomenality of objectivity. The approach he adopted for the saturated phenomena is now deployed for the notion of the event. Marion’s extensive engagement with Kant is deemed necessary because the idea of objectness in phenomenology originates in the Kantian determination of the object. In her article “Marion as a Reader of Kant,” Claudia Serban describes Marion’s interpretation of Kant as being “with Kant against Kant.”181 Marion is “with” Kant because he acts within the Kantian framework in developing his own account of the saturated 178 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 511–2. A494, B522. 179 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 249. B138. 180 Marion, Negative Certainties, 167; Certitudes négatives, 260. 181 Serban, “Marion als Leser Kants,” 207.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

71

phenomenon and the event. Moreover, as has been discussed, Marion presents Kant’s notions of the aesthetic idea and the sublime as antecedents of his own notion of the saturated phenomena. On the other hand, Marion can be seen to be “against” Kant insofar as he aims to invert the Kantian conditions on phenomena. This emphasis on Kant rather than Husserl is premised on the idea that Husserl maintains the Kantian definition of phenomena as objects. When objectness is equated with phenomenality, with the conditions for the possibility of phenomenality, the horizon and the constituting function of the I for the object determine how the phenomenon appears.182 It will be necessary to reiterate Marion’s engagement with the categories from the perspective of eventness, which is similar to what has already been outlined from the perspective of the saturated phenomena. Situating the event in a counter position to the object in his engagement with the categories allows Marion to develop the characteristics of the event insofar as the categories are not able to constitute an event as a phenomenon. First, according to the category of quantity, an object must consist of quantifiable elementary parts in a sum, such that the whole can be obtained by the addition of its finite parts.183 An object can be foreseen according to the category of quantity because the sum of its parts makes the object knowable. As a result, it is considered as a foreseeable object. Nevertheless, an event cannot be foreseen. Second, according to the category of quality, an object must conform to the rule of intensive magnitude as defined by Kant. This means “[i]n the object, in order for it to be defined, its quality requires that we expose it according to a degree.”184 In being characterised by measurable degrees, an object can be repeated and reproduced identically because its degree determines its form regardless of its specific temporal, spatial, or material conditions.185 The best example for illuminating the function of this category can be seen in technological objects, which are reduced to mere form. None of these features are applicable to the event because its degree cannot be measured. Third, an object must appear according to the category of relation, that is to say, it is involved in three relations: inherence of accident in substance, commonality among several substances, and causality between cause and effect.186 The most important of these relations is no doubt causality as this is one of

182 Marion, Being Given, 4; Étant donné, 9. 183 Marion, Negative Certainties, 167; Certitudes négatives, 260. 184 Ibid. 185 Marion, Negative Certainties, 167–8; Certitudes négatives, 261. 186 Marion, Being Given, 206; Étant donné, 289.

72

CHAPTER 1

the main principles of metaphysics: “Everything that happens has its cause.”187 Causality presupposes that whatever is or occurs is either a cause or an effect. As has been mentioned, it is considered the fundamental principle of metaphysics. This is clear when one considers the theological discussions within metaphysics, where god is also thought of as the first cause. Causality can be understood as the ground of thinking throughout the history of metaphysics (from Aristotle to Kant via Suarez, Descartes, and Leibniz), and it gives necessity to every phenomenon.188 Leibniz articulated this principle as the main rule of thought. His principle of sufficient reason states that “nothing is without reason.”189 Marion comments on it in the following quotation: “This principle admittedly is not self-evident, so restrictive does it seem in its conditions and imperialist in its universality; yet the decision that imposes it, for its part, does go without saying: the principle of sufficient reason justifies the cause as the privileged (but not the sole) operator of reason – of reason in the precise sense of explaining the phenomenon, rendering reason to it, reframing it according to ‘the level of reason’, submitting it to the condition of its intelligibility.”190 The hegemony of the principle of sufficient reason reduces whatever happens to a cause and, ultimately, to an object. According to Leibniz, this principle sets out that to “give a reason is sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise.”191 For Marion, through this compulsion of being necessarily so and not being otherwise, the event is forced to be determined as an object.192 After Leibniz, and particularly in Kant, it gained an even more principal role. Causality is not only one of the categories of understanding, it also becomes the criterion of the formal conditions of experience. This is because it defines the general possibility of being a thing, as an ontological rule posed by the subject. Causality conditions the phenomenon’s main and intrinsic characteristic – its right to appear from itself. Any phenomenology of the event that seeks to do justice to the phenomenon’s defining characteristic must therefore suspend the principle of sufficient reason in order to remove 187 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 131. A9, B13. 188 Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991). For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Der Satz vom Grund (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997). 189 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989), 31. 190 Marion, Negative Certainties, 169; Certitudes négatives, 263. 191 G. W. Leibniz, The Philosophical Works of Leibniz, ed. and trans. George Martin Duncan (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1908), 303; quoted in Marion, Negative ­Certainties, 169; Certitudes négatives, 262. 192 Marion, Negative Certainties, 169; Certitudes négatives, 264.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

73

it from any causal relation. Since the event by definition stands beyond the causal nexus and its unforeseeable bursting forth does not depend on any preceding “cause,” this principle is suspended. As was noted in the determination of givenness as the event, Marion takes into account the paradox of causality: a cause has epistemological posteriority and ontological anteriority with regard to its effect. This is because a cause for the event is only known after its happening. Nevertheless, the cause of the event acquires the status of ontological priority even though it is only known after the occurrence of the event. Ontologically the cause comes first, but epistemologically it comes after the event. This reverse relation between the cause and the event is regarded as a paradoxical situation for Marion. Moreover, he also stresses the plurality of causes and the impossibility of assigning just one cause to an event. Finally, the category of modality has a central role insofar as it comprises “the postulates of empirical thinking in general,” which are defined by three couples: possibility/impossibility, existence/nothingness, necessity/contingency.193 Among them, the concept of the possibility sets the conditions for the rules of whether objects are possible, which means that it determines the “possibility of every condition, the very condition (foundation) of objectivity.”194 For Kant, an object becomes possible only by its agreement with the formal conditions of experience. This means that there is an equivalence between the conditions of our experience and the conditions of the phenomenality of things. As Kant says: “The a priori conditions of a possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience.”195 From this equivalence, it is clear that the conditions that regulate the phenomenality of objects of experience are also valid and the same for this experience itself. According to a priori conditions of our experience, the concept of possibility manages the other categories according to time and space. For Marion, then, an object is constituted by conformity with our concepts without contradiction. The concept of possibility in this way leads to the production of an existence through our conception: To an existence that simply “completes the possibility”, itself restricted to our conception; to exist therefore means simply to place outside of thought (or extra causas) that which thought had already validated as possible, since it did not contradict itself by not contradicting thought. 193 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 321. A218, B265. 194 Marion, Negative Certainties, 172; Certitudes négatives, 267. 195 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 234. A111.

74

CHAPTER 1

Existence becomes, then, the result of production: the final step in the constitution of the object through the diminution of the phenomenon and the submission of its phenomenality to my gaze. To exist no longer implies any bursting forth into the world of that which shows itself in itself … ​196 Hence, existence is transformed into making essence possible as an object, so that the concept of possibility rules both essence and existence. In order to exist, an object cannot contradict thought. Nevertheless, this definition of the object totally contradicts the definition of the phenomenon as that which gives itself from itself as itself. Objectness excludes any other possibilities from phenomenality. The range of phenomenality is not only composed of the a priori conditions of objects, nor even necessarily delimited to objects, but must also include the phenomenality of events.197 Until now, I have aimed to show that the phenomenality of the event contradicts the phenomenality of objects. One might then ask, how does the event differ from an object? Must phenomenality be understood only in terms of objectness? If the phenomenon is, for Heidegger, “what shows itself, selfshowing, the manifest”198 (das Sich-an-ihm-selbst-zeigende, das Offenbare) and, for Marion, “what gives itself shows itself”, then how can a phenomenon be delimited by the conditions imposed by anything other than the phenomenon itself? The phenomenon of the event lies beyond the conditions of objectness and has its own sphere of phenomenality, wherein it is not the exception that it would appear to be if regarded from the perspective of an object-centred phenomenology. The domination of phenomenality by objectness, therefore, cannot be not regarded as a comprehensive rule for all modes of phenomenality. The definition of phenomenality cannot merely rely upon the rules of being of an object. On the contrary, it is the event that validates and realises the defining features of the phenomenon. Marion redefines phenomenality in terms of these two poles: “Phenomena manifest themselves according to their distinction as objects (of a phenomenality restricted to the conditions of possibility of our experience) and as events (of a phenomenality without any restriction other than that of the mode of showing itself by itself).”199

196 Marion, Negative Certainties, 173; Certitudes négatives, 269. 197 Marion, Negative Certainties, 172; Certitudes négatives, 267. 198 Heidegger, Being and Time, 25; Sein und Zeit, 28. 199 Marion, Negative Certainties, 178; Certitudes négatives, 276.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

75

Marion aims to put eventness at the centre of phenomenality and to thereby displace objectness. The fundamental distinction between phenomenality as objectness and phenomenality as eventness gives rise to a reconsideration of which pole ought to have phenomenological priority. The notion of the event now takes priority because it fulfils the expectation of what a phenomenon is or “gives.” In this respect, Marion’s conception of the event does not generate anything other than itself in order to happen: “it passes and passes of itself, and therefore it does without that which is not itself.”200 Its happening by itself asserts that the event is without cause. Just as the “rose without why” blossoms because it blossoms, the event happens because it happens. It does not need to have a cause for Marion. The event cannot be recognised from the metaphysical point of view that sees all things as either causing or being caused and being only intelligible as objects.201 The event is not reproducible, whereas the object is because an object is constituted by categories that determine its essence, its possibility, before its existence. As Marion puts it: “The foreseen object is before being, taking the posture of strictly intentional object, of the objective an intention that sees it before its appears and knows it without its even existing, or without its ever coming into existence.”202 As an alternative to the phenomenality of the object, the event suspends causal explanations because the rules of objectness cannot capture or shape its way of appearing. As opposed to the object, the event happens, by definition, from itself and then passes, like a lightning flash.203 Its characteristic unforeseeability makes it unintelligible by the standards of the objectness. In happening, it attests to an unforeseeable origin, a rising up from causes often unknown, even absent, at least not assignable.204 In light of these characteristics of the event, one can say that it has neither a cause nor an essence. Another important point regarding the phenomenality of the event is its temporal character. This offers a demarcation between the event and object. The temporality of objects assumes permanence in presence because of the synthesis of phenomena as objects.205 Nevertheless, presence is in no way 200 Marion, Negative Certainties, 182; Certitudes négatives, 282. 201 Ibid. 202 Marion, Negative Certainties, 186; Certitudes négatives, 288. 203 Nietzsche uses the example of lightning to describe the event. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Writings from Late Notebooks, trans. Kate Sturge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 75–6. For the German text: Friedrich Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885– 1887, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag & de Gruyter, 1999), 103–4, 2 [84]. 204 Marion, In Excess, 31; De surcroît, 35. 205 Marion, In Excess, 38; De surcroît, 45.

76

CHAPTER 1

an issue for the event. The temporality of the event “does not persist in presence but presents itself according to a happening that passes on and passes beyond.”206 Marion distinguishes eventness from objectness by highlighting the event’s non-presentable aspect, and he claims that “the time of the event therefore presents itself as perfectly unavailable.”207 This means that the time of the event does not make itself known to me and that it happens unexpectedly. Marion describes its unique mode of having a non-presentable and unavailable temporal character as follows: “[T]he time it takes is its own, decided by it and carried out according to its measure; the time of the passage and thus the time that passes, before my very eyes. The event of the passage arrives when the passage itself wishes, according to its own rhythm, when it decides and sets itself to it.”208 His description serves, in a way, to deactivate any subjective contribution to the event’s happening and its presenting of itself to the subject. Marion refers to a delay in the happening of the event. Since it does not have any presence or persistence, it not only comes to me in an unexpected way, but also passes all of sudden. In its passage, there is no adequate concept with which to determine and grasp it. My attention or expectation is not able to constitute it. In this way, the happening of the event to me reveals a different kind of temporality than that of objects. Marion depicts the counterexperience of the event as follows: “the event gives itself only in abandoning me. It comes too early for me, and I wake up too late for it. Time alone gives the event, but what it gives it does not keep for me, nor is it concerned with me.”209 As a non-constituted, non-conceptualised, non-persisting and unpresented phenomenon, the event is given by time. The question remains, however, how it is that time is given. As far as I can see, the temporal distinction between the event and the object does not provide a proper account of the relation between time and the event. In fact, this refers to a general question regarding the phenomenology of givenness. The question of time is not a central issue for Marion. As has already been mentioned, the discussion of time and temporality is notably absent in the phenomenology of givenness. In an interview where he provides a rare reflection on the topic, Marion draws a general conclusion about time: “[T]ime is not a question of consciousness: it is a question of givenness. That’s why I never focused on time as the primary feature of consciousness.”210 Although he 206 Marion, Negative Certainties, 160; Certitudes négatives, 256–7. 207 Marion, Negative Certainties, 185; Certitudes négatives, 286. 208 Marion, Negative Certainties, 184; Certitudes négatives, 286. 209 Marion, Negative Certainties, 185; Certitudes négatives, 286. 210 Marion, “The Phenomenology of Givenness,” 47.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

77

offers a radical idea about the nature of time and differentiates the event from the object in strict temporal terms, with the exception of a few short remarks, the question of time and, specifically, temporality vis-à-vis the event remains at the periphery of his phenomenology.211 The problem of time and temporality with regard to the adonné will be discussed in a later chapter (3.2.2). What is clear from our discussion of Marion’s conception of time and the t­ emporality of the event is that the event has a different mode of temporality to that of objects. Marion provides examples of events, some personal and some general, such as: the passing of a woman in Baudelaire’s poem “À une passante (To a ­Passerby)” in Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil), birth, the battle of Waterloo, and his speech in a conference room.212 Although he does not put forward criteria to distinguish between collective events and personal events, he offers a general view on the phenomenality of the event by discussing both of them. All these events appear in the phenomenal realm of eventness. In order to do justice to events, Marion holds that events cannot exhibit the features of objects. Nevertheless, even in his account of birth as a paradigmatic event which can “only be interpreted without the reduced phenomenality of object,” he also mentions a possibility of “the interpretation” of it according to the phenomenality of the object. By making such an interpretation, birth “vanishes by being lowered to the rank of a production – incoherent and imperfect – of a failed object.”213 That is to say, the event, even the paradigmatic event, can be interpreted according to objectness even if this will lead it to lose its special characteristics of eventness. This problem leads us to the question of hermeneutics in relation to the event. 1.2.3 Eventness or Objectness: The Role of Hermeneutics In this dualistic mode of phenomenality, a fundamental question arises about the nature of the distinction between the event and the object. What determines the appearing of a phenomenon as an event or an object? Is the distinction between an event and an object the result of a hermeneutical decision? The place and the role of hermeneutics in the phenomenology of givenness has been hotly debated for a long time and discussed by many scholars.214 211 See Marion, Being Given, 294–6; Étant donné, 405–8. For another remark on time, see Marion, In Excess, 38–44; De surcroît, 45–52. 212 Marion, In Excess, 35; De surcroît, 41. Marion, Being Given, 228; Étant donné, 318. Marion, Negative Certainties, 182–3; Certitudes négatives, 283. 213 Marion, Negative Certainties, 194; Certitudes négatives, 299. 214 For the place of hermeneutics in Marion’s phenomenology, see Greisch, “L’herméneutique dans la ‘phénoménologie comme telle’: Trois questions à propos de Réduction et

78

CHAPTER 1

Many critics of Marion question his claim that a phenomenon can appear in such an excessive way as itself from itself without any appeal to hermeneutics. As a reaction to these criticisms and questions, Marion assigns a new function and place to the interpretation of phenomena in their appearing in Negative Certainties. He suggests that a phenomenon does not have to appear absolutely as an event. The same phenomenon can also appear as an object in terms of the horizon from which it is understood. Thus, interpretation is at work in the appearing of phenomena in Marion. Marion answers these questions with reference first to Kant and then to Heidegger. For Kant, the distinction between phenomena and noumena depends on the form of intuition, that is to say, sensible intuition and intellectual intuition. In terms of this division, noumena are defined as the objects of understanding, but they are not given to sensible intuition, only to intellectual intuition, whereas phenomena appear as objects in accordance with the unity of the categories and sensible intuition.215 The demarcation line between phenomena and noumena is what differentiates the two kinds of intuition. Nevertheless, for phenomenology, Marion does not adopt such a difference at all in intuition in order to define the distinction between object and event. He also does not have any distinction of phenomena and noumena. Rather he prefers to diversify intuition according to its relation to the concept. In this context, intuition varies in three different ways that each determine the kind of phenomenality in question: the first two cases are objects due to their diminished intuition, whereas the last one represents the event because of its overabundance of intuition: 1. Poor phenomena: intuition is overdetermined by the concept (logical forms, mathematical idealities), poor in intuition 2. Common-law phenomena: intuition is regulated adequately by concept (scientific objects) 3. Saturated phenomena: intuition overflows the concept, excess of intuition over the concept (events).”216 According to this classification of phenomena, the distinction between the event and the object is derived from the degree of intuition available, which parallels Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. One more point to discuss here is the relation between saturation and eventness. In ­ onation”. Grondin, “La tension de la donation ultime et de la pensée herméneutique D de l’application chez Jean-Luc Marion”. Kearney, The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion. Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess. Gschwandtner, Degrees of Givenness. 215 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 347. A249. 216 Marion, Negative Certainties, 195; Certitudes négatives, 301.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

79

Being Given, Marion similarly distinguishes between degrees of intuition for the saturated phenomenon,217 but not for eventness specifically. Even though he does not use saturation and eventness in the same sense in Negative Certainties, he does point to a binding of saturation and eventness to each other in a footnote, where he claims that “a phenomenon shows itself to be all the more saturated when it gives itself with a greater eventness.”218 In this regard, the event is a saturated phenomenon and differs from the object by its overabundance of intuition. Nevertheless, here there is no consideration of Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. Rather, Marion draws on Kant’s distinction in order to show that phenomena can be differentiated in terms of available intuition. By following another Kantian approach to the distinction, Marion also comes to discuss the hermeneutical variation of phenomenality. Kant, in the first Critique, mentions thinking noumena not “as” an object of sense but “as” a thing in itself: he claims that for noumena “… the understanding must think without this relation to our kind of intuition, thus not merely as appearances but as things in themselves.”219 As Marion sees it, this thinking “as” is a hermeneutical variation of things, one that Kant chiefly uses in his account of practical reason in order to explain how man has noumenal freedom while nevertheless acting in the phenomenal world.220 In this sense, Kant arrives at a way of differentiating between two distinct interpretations of man, distinguishing between man as phenomenon and man as noumenon. This leads Marion to recognise the variation of phenomenality in terms of hermeneutical decisions, and so he focuses on the as-structure as it can be seen in Heidegger’s discussion of objective presence (presence at hand) (Vorhandenheit) and handiness (readiness to hand) (Zuhandenheit). For Heidegger, the same phenomenon can be understood in different ways depending on the context of assessment, the famous hammer shows up differently in its practical usage in the hands of a craftsman than it does if it is determined as a subsistent object in the gaze of a scientist. Heidegger maintains that “the understanding of being” is aroused in this difference, in the transformation from ready to hand to present at hand.221 This variation has an ontological status, and it originates from the “as-structure” of the interpretation that is “inscribed within the rank of the existentialia of Dasein.” Heidegger explicates that this transformation from ready to hand to present at hand, from equipment to “the object 217 Marion, Being Given, 221–33; Étant donné, 309–25. 218 Marion, Negative Certainties, 262 , fn. 76; Certitudes négatives, 301, fn. 1. 219 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 361. A 252, B 307. 220 Marion, Negative Certainties, 196; Certitudes négatives, 302. 221 Heidegger, Being and Time, 344; Sein und Zeit, 361.

80

CHAPTER 1

of the assertion,” could only occur in the assertion because “the assertion can only say that which remains,” what persists or is present at hand.222 It is named the “existential-hermeneutical ‘as’ in distinction from the apophantical ‘as’ of the assertation.”223 This different function of “as” is based on the ontological structure of Dasein. The existential hermeneutics of Heidegger helps Marion to make a parallel point in order to define the object as presence at hand, but he does not thereby refer to the event as ready to hand. For Marion, the phenomenality of the event differs from ready to hand equipment because in the latter case Dasein still plays an active role in the existential hermeneutic. In contrast with the active relation of Dasein, which has priority over other beings,224 in its comportment towards equipment, “the event happens without my aim, most often against my intention, and in every case exiles me outside of what it could have been about for me.”225 Moreover, sometimes the usage of equipment in the mode of the ready to hand can originate from a relation of foreseeability, intention or causality.226 In this way, Marion distinguishes his own account of hermeneutics from Heidegger’s existential one. He grounds the distinction between phenomenality as event and phenomenality as object in variations in the degrees of intuition. It is at this point that the event paves the way for the notion of saturation. As has been discussed above, saturation is also understood in terms of the variation of the degrees of intuition. Marion similarly defines the distinction between eventness and objectness according to variations in the degrees of intuition. Nevertheless, to move from the existential hermeneutics of Dasein to the hermeneutics of the event does not mean suspending the hermeneutic decision that distinguishes the event from the object. It is here that a hermeneutics of horizons emerges in order to make such a decision between an object or the event. Marion concludes: “In the final analysis, they ever and still remain events, assigned to a here and now in which they must give themselves. A hermeneutics becomes possible here: it tends to retranscribe all the phenomena initially considered as ‘objects’ or ‘beings’ into primordially given phenomena, because they are giving themselves in themselves. This hermeneutics of the horizons puts into, operation the first broadening of phenomenality.”227

222 Marion, Negative Certainties, 198; Certitudes négatives, 306. 223 Ibid. 224 Heidegger, Being and Time, 11; Sein und Zeit, 12. 225 Marion, Negative Certainties, 198; Certitudes négatives, 306. 226 Marion, Negative Certainties, 199; Certitudes négatives, 307. 227 Marion, Negative Certainties, 202; Certitudes négatives, 310–1.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

81

The hermeneutics Marion articulates here aims to draw a distinction between the object and the given phenomena. Until now, what I have tried to present has been the difference of the event as a given phenomenon from the object. I have also tried to highlight how eventness differs from objectness as a mode of phenomenality. These modes of phenomenality show the possibility of two different approaches to the understanding or reception of the same phenomenon. Furthermore, Marion seems to bring Heidegger’s approach into play in the above quotation by mentioning “beings” alongside “objects.” He makes a passing reference to Heidegger’s broadening of phenomenality to beingness as an incomplete attempt to liberate phenomenality from any authority other than itself. In this regard, Heidegger’s horizon is not “objectifying but ontological at least in the sense of the repetition of the question of being by the analytic of Dasein.”228 As has been discussed above, Marion assigns a new role to reduction, one that contrasts with Husserl’s reduction to the object and Heidegger’s reduction to being: he defines his own method of reduction as the reduction to givenness. Marion’s third reduction seeks to draw another horizon for phenomenality: eventness. Moreover, Marion takes into account Heidegger’s existential hermeneutics in order to show how phenomena differ by an interpretive act. This interpretive act, called “as-structure” for Heidegger, makes the difference between ready to hand and presence at hand. As a result of this hermeneutical act, for Marion, the difference between beingness and objectness are provided. Nevertheless, despite the limits of Heidegger’s approach, Marion maintains the hermeneutical structure of phenomenality in order to ascertain the horizon of eventness for his project of broadening the horizon of phenomenality. In this sense, Marion thinks that unless its horizon is broadened by a hermeneutical decision, every event as a given could also be understood from Dasein’s ontological point of view as being merely an object or a being. The locus of this difference is the horizon of phenomenality in which the decision is made as to whether the given shows up as an object, a being, or an event. It has become clear that hermeneutical decisions are at work in how phenomena appear. One can decide whether a phenomenon appears as an event or an object. In the phenomenology of givenness, however, eventness is meant to do justice to the very definition of the phenomenon. Eventness remains true to the notion of the phenomenality for the phenomenology of givenness. A phenomenon does not have metaphysically determined, a priori rules governing its appearance, but decides its appearance for itself. In this 228 Marion, Negative Certainties, 201; Certitudes négatives, 309.

82

CHAPTER 1

respect, Marion’s incomplete effort to understand and determine givenness as eventness in Being Given is completed in Negative Certainties. He develops two opposing conceptions of phenomenality, rejects the paradigmatic authority of objectness, and proclaims the priority of eventness for phenomenology. Marion proposes that eventness, which is reciprocally determined by givenness, provides a way outside of the sphere of objectness. In proposing the given phenomenon of the event as the horizon of phenomenality, he broadens our understanding of phenomenality. As Marion concludes: “All phenomena without exception, before being objected to an I, before being entities in front of nothingness, happen on the basis of themselves as self-giving, which is to say: as events happening on the basis of itself.”229 This horizon of givenness, that is to say, of eventness, is then decided by a hermeneutical operation which Marion calls the “broadening of phenomenality.” Turning to hermeneutics in order to determine the horizon of phenomenality is an important innovation in the phenomenology of givenness. 1.3

Conclusion

In this chapter, I first discussed the main tenets of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness and his notion of the saturated phenomenon. By looking chronologically at Marion’s oeuvre, I presented his engagement with the phenomenon of the event as a saturated phenomenon and then his reconfiguration of phenomenality under the aspects of eventness and objectness. Eventness as a mode of phenomenality is distinguished from the phenomenality of objects. This distinction between eventness and objectness led me to examine the role of hermeneutics in relation to the appearing of phenomena and to show how Marion engages with hermeneutics in his phenomenology of givenness. Marion offers a hermeneutics of horizons for phenomena in light of givenness. For Marion, eventness as a pole of phenomenality reveals a broadening of phenomenality. In this way, eventness becomes a new paradigm for phenomenality. This broadening of phenomenality comes from a hermeneutical act in the horizon of givenness. After this hermeneutical decision, the saturated phenomena can appear on the mode of eventness. This way of appearing of phenomena offers another kind of phenomenality than objectness. It pushes the limits of the rationality based on objectness, and indeed suggests 229 Marion, Negative Certainties, 201; Certitudes négatives, 309.

The Event in the Phenomenology of Givenness

83

a new rationality according to eventness that suspends any a priori rule over phenomenality. Such a broadening of phenomenality undoubtedly brings with it a new understanding of the “subject,” which Marion terms the “adonné,” the gifted. Just as the object requires its subject, that is, requires the transcendental ego for its constitution, so too does the event bring forth its own “subject,” but rather than having a kind of constituting function, “it gives itself to me at the moment when it gives me to myself.”230 In this sense, the transformation of phenomenality leads directly to the transformation of subjectivity. Nevertheless, Marion does not think that one can call the figure that appears in this way a subject in the traditional sense of the notion any longer. It is the event that decentres and desubjectivises the subject, therefore the adonné is not a “subject” anymore; in other words, it is what comes after the subject. In the second part of this study, I will focus on the possible results for the phenomenological subject of the transformation of phenomenality by the event. This will show us how the event puts forward a new way to think of the human being as the adonné. 230 Marion, Negative Certainties, 186; Certitudes négatives, 288.

Chapter 2

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics Claude Romano’s point of departure is that no ontology or phenomenology has been able to “do justice to the way events show themselves from themselves, to their phenomenality.”1 He purports to engage critically with the phenomenology of Husserl and, in particular, Heidegger in order to provide an account of phenomenality that facilitates the development of a new phenomenology in which the proper meaning of events can be grasped. His project of “evential hermeneutics” (herméneutique événementiale) addresses the lacunae apparent in previous philosophical accounts of the event, which have failed to allow events to show themselves from themselves through the kind of phenomenality proper to them. In this new domain of phenomenality, not only the conception of the event but also subjectivity itself finds a new way to realise itself. Before explaining the role of the phenomenality of events within his hermeneutical phenomenology, let us first turn our attention to his understanding of phenomenology as “evential hermeneutics.” At first glance, Romano’s use of hermeneutics to understand phenomenology appears to place him outside phenomenology altogether. Federico Viri, who tries to map the notion of the event in contemporary phenomenology, comes to this conclusion based on Romano’s reception of hermeneutics. Viri’s article provides a short summary of the main tenets of evential hermeneutics in comparison with other conceptions of the event and then goes on to categorise evential hermeneutics as a form of thought that stands outside of phenomenology. He claims that Romano oversteps phenomenology because he formulates the event in terms of hermeneutics. Viri thinks that Romano’s project leads to the absorption of the notion of the phenomenon by the event, the substitution of understanding in place of intentional correlation, apriority of event before phenomenology and ontology.2 This criticism aims to show 1 Claude Romano, Event and World, trans. Shane Mackinlay (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 15. For the original French text, see Claude Romano, L’événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, 1998), 26. 2 Federico Viri, “Essai d’une cartographie de la notion d’‘événement’ dans la phénoménologie française contemporaine,” Methodos: savoirs et texte [Online] 17, no. 1 (2017): e4776, https:// doi.org/10.4000/methodos.4776. “En suivant une telle démarche la phénoménologie est donc totalement dépassée par le thème de l’événement. Ainsi, il n’est pas exclu que la ­tentative © Kadir Filiz, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004689541_005

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

85

that Romano does indeed propose going beyond phenomenology with his understanding of the event and its hermeneutical upshot. Viri bases his analysis, however, on the explicit assumption that a sharp distinction exists between phenomenology and hermeneutics, that they are separated into conflicting fields. Yet one would be hard pressed to find such a conflict between hermeneutics and phenomenology in the work of Romano – as long as one accepts that what he means by phenomenology differs from Husserl’s use of the term. Far from treating phenomenology and hermeneutics as two completely separate methods of philosophy, Romano sees them as having a fertile interrelationship. He articulates this explicitly: “Genuine hermeneutics is phenomenology and phenomenology is only achieved as hermeneutics.”3 On the surface, phenomenology as the ultimate science – at least in its ­Husserlian sense – is not premised on any foundation that would condition the manifestation of phenomena. In this respect, it has no need to presuppose a metaphysical background for the appearance of phenomena. A phenomenological description that brings one back “to the things themselves” takes its cue from the “principle of principles” so as to make intuition the only source for phenomenological description.4 Hermeneutics, on the contrary, strongly emphasises historicity and the finitude of reason; it therefore presupposes an understanding of phenomena from the perspective of a finite being that is historically and culturally conditioned. From the hermeneutical point of view, phenomenology cannot start without presuppositions, and its access to phenomena will always be mediated. It is this difference in their respective approaches that helps us to understand the apparent gulf between phenomenology and hermeneutics. In place of this tension, a principal aim of Romano’s oeuvre is to reconcile the description of phenomena with understanding. This is especially evident de penser la phénoménologie à partir de l’événement, plutôt que de la dépasser vers une forme de l’herméneutique (comme chez Romano) ait pu jouer un rôle dans la reformulation ­événementielle …” 3 Claude Romano, At the Heart of Reason, trans. Michael B. Smith and Claude Romano (­Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2015), 485. For the French text, see Claude Romano, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), 873. A similar expression can be found in Event and Time: “phenomenology is possible only as hermeneutic.” See Claude Romano, Event and Time, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (New York: Fordham ­University Press, 2014), 7. For the French original, see Claude Romano, L’événement et le temps (Paris: PUF, 1999), 9. 4 Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983), 44. For the German original, see Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl ­Schuhmann (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 51.

86

CHAPTER 2

in his explanation of the method in At the Heart of Reason.5 Romano claims that the phenomenological method involves the fundamental presupposition that “a good description not only takes the place of understanding, but is this understanding itself. To describe a phenomenon beginning from itself is to understand, with regard to it, all there is to understand.”6 In this sense, Romano aims to describe a phenomenon by beginning from it, but at the same time, maintains that the description of the phenomenon is nothing other than the understanding of it. More precisely, to engage in evential hermeneutics as a method of phenomenology means to describe events by understanding them. With this approach to describing and understanding events, it becomes possible to take appearing – or, in the evential jargon, “montrance” (­Erscheinung) – as a showing-forth of the event as “the source of all meaning.”7 Thus, phenomenality has a hermeneutical structure in evential hermeneutics. In this regard, Romano maintains that understanding is the fundamental characteristic of the human being, which he calls the “advenant.”8 There is “meaning only for understanding. Understanding and interpreting are comportments of an advenant.”9 As phenomena, events require interpretation in order to understand them and the advenant himself. The new mode of phenomenality of the event thus inevitably highlights a hermeneutical context. Romano draws this hermeneutical structure that bases phenomena on meaning and interpretation from Heidegger’s framework in Being and Time. In this chapter, I will first present Romano’s relation to Heidegger. The methodology Romano employs in his evential hermeneutics is deeply informed by his reception of Heideggerian thought. Nevertheless, Romano also distances his conception of the event from the Heideggerian notion of Ereignis. In the first 5 6 7 8

Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 459–503; Au cœur de la raison, 827–906. Romano, Event and Time, 2; L’événement et le temps, 2. Romano, Event and World, 50; L’événement et le monde, 70. Romano, Event and World, 20; L’événement et le monde, 34. Romano uses the term “advenant” as a new alternative to Dasein for his philosophical project. He defines the term in the following way: “Advenant is the term of the human being as constitutively open to events, insofar as humanity is the capacity to be oneself in the face of what happens to us.” The translator of Event and World, Shane Mackinlay, prefers to leave this term untranslated. In French, “advenant” is a noun formed from the present participle of advenir, which means “to happen.” The verb advenir has an etymological relation to the word “événement”, event. The word comes from Latin e-venio. The suffix “e” means “out of” and “venio” means “come.” In a similar way, the verb “advenir” comes from the prefix “ad” and the verb “venire.” “Ad” in Latin means “towards, to, at.” See Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, “ad,” A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 26–27; “ē-vĕnĭo,” A Latin Dictionary, 666–7; “vĕnĭo,” A Latin Dictionary, 1969. 9 Romano, Event and World, 35; L’événement et le monde, 50.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

87

part of this chapter, I will deal with these two aspects of evential hermeneutics. Examining Romano’s engagement with Heidegger will help us to discover the guiding motive of his evential hermeneutics. In the second part of this chapter, I will explain the distinctive phenomenal characteristics of events. These characteristics determine how events have a different kind of phenomenality than facts. Finally, in the third part of the chapter, I will elucidate the transformation of the main notions of phenomenology by evential hermeneutics. Since events have a different mode of phenomenality than other phenomena, and since they play a fundamental role in determining human being, they bring forth a new understanding of the world, time and experience. In this last part of the chapter, I will discuss how the transformation of these three aspects of phenomenology arises from the phenomenality of the event. 2.1

The Heideggerian Shadow

Before examining how the event appears, let us turn briefly to the Heideggerian shadow hanging over the project of evential hermeneutics. Heideggerian motives seem to permeate the task of evential hermeneutics in Romano’s elaboration of human existence. As Gert-Jan van der Heiden asserts, Romano “rewrites Sein und Zeit in light of the primacy of the event for human existence.”10 Even though changing the starting point of Being and Time would mark a significant departure from Heidegger’s project, it would not alter the fact that any such rewriting would still have to adhere to Heidegger’s original grounding in phenomenology and hermeneutics. Although Romano adopts Heidegger’s hermeneutical framework for phenomenology in order to understand events, he has also distanced his own project from fundamental ontology on the question of the meaning of the phenomenality of the event. Indeed, his main disagreement with Heidegger revolves around “what counts as event.”11 This disagreement also determines where evential hermeneutics begins. Romano basically transforms the position and meaning of the event for his project by adopting the hermeneutical structure of fundamental ontology and according a central role to the concept of event. Before discussing Romano in relation to Heidegger, we must insist that his reception of Heideggerian thought – that is to say, his “rewriting of Being and Time” – does not mean 10

Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event, and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014), 188. 11 Ibid.

88

CHAPTER 2

that his evential hermeneutics simply replicates fundamental ontology. On the contrary, Romano seems to have found a critical and sophisticated approach to the event with his evential hermeneutics, just as Heidegger’s fundamental ontology did for the question of being. 2.1.1 The Methodological Paths of Heidegger and Romano That the world has a hermeneutical structure for the advenant and the event appears in a hermeneutical structure of the world, is crucial for Romano’s arguments. The meaning of the event is elucidated in the horizon of the world, but in order to speak about the meaning of an event, one first needs to understand “understanding.” Romano describes understanding in the following way: There is meaning only for an understanding. Understanding and interpreting are comportments of an advenant. As such, they constitute fundamental modalities of its adventure, or eventials. Understanding can be characterized more precisely as projection, a way for an advenant to relate to interpretative possibilities, a projection that is always carried out according to a particular orientation. Insofar as an advenant relates himself to interpretative possibilities according to some particular orientation, all projections of understanding are directed to a meaning that can be defined as the projection’s aim. [ … ​] Here, “world” refers to the horizon of meaning for all understanding, the totality of possibilities articulated among themselves from which an interpretation is possible, the totality of interpretative possibilities that prescribe a horizon in advance for understanding, from which alone it can be put into action and brought about. It is itself a hermeneutic structure and thus refers to the totality of possibilities from which a meaning can come to light as such.12 Romano defines meaning in terms of the relation between understanding and the world, where the hermeneutical structure of the world determines the advenant’s openness to events, and the interpretative possibilities of projections pertain to meaning in the world. In fact, the understanding of the world as the ultimate horizon of meaning resembles the hermeneutic structure of the world conceived by Heidegger, which can be seen in the following statement: “What is encountered in the world is always already in a relevance which is

12 Romano, Event and World, 35; L’événement et le monde, 50.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

89

disclosed in the understanding of world, a relevance which is made explicit by interpretation.”13 For Heidegger, it is Dasein for whom being (Sein) itself is disclosed and from whom the meaning of being is unfolded. Nevertheless, in evential hermeneutics neither the question of Being nor the priority of Dasein for this question plays a role. In evential hermeneutics, there is no Dasein who questions the meaning of being, which Romano explains by describing the event as “prior than being.”14 This privilege results from the priority of the event of birth for human existence. For Romano, the event of birth is a “proto-event,”15 which in German would be termed an “Ur-Ereignis,” and it makes possible the possibility of other events. In order to understand the meaning of being, or even “to exist”, one first has to be born. In this sense, being would be an issue for Dasein only after its birth: “Birth is rather the (originally impersonal) event from which Being ad-venes; consequently, it is that which radically forbids a simple identification of Being itself and event. That Being itself is given to us, handed over to us, conferred on us by the event of birth.”16 It is important to remember the Heideggerian sense of the notion of being with which he is operating. Being in this sense “concerns first and foremost the existence and being-in-the-world of Dasein.”17 By elaborating on the event of birth, Romano is pointing to the fact that the question of being and Dasein are conditioned by it, since birth is the earliest and most fundamental event in the life of a human being. The antecedence of the event gives it priority over being. In this respect, evential hermeneutics does not share with fundamental ontology any idea of being. On the other hand, evential hermeneutics does adopt the hermeneutical structure of fundamental ontology. This twofold reception of Heidegger by Romano situates him both against and yet with Heidegger. In the following quotation, Heidegger describes the methodology of his ­fundamental ontology in relation to the hermeneutics of Being and Time. This passage can be read in comparison with Romano’s evential hermeneutics to see how and to what degree Romano follows the Heideggerian project: Phenomenology of Dasein is hermeneutics in the original signification of that word, which designates the work of interpretation. But since the 13

Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), 150. For the ­ nglish translation, see Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh E (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 145. 14 Romano, Event and World, 20; L’événement et le monde, 32. 15 Romano, Event and World, 129; L’événement et le monde, 177. 16 Romano, Event and World, 19–20; L’événement et le monde, 32. 17 Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 189.

90

CHAPTER 2

discovery of the meaning of being and of the basic structures of Dasein in general exhibits the horizon for every further ontological research into beings unlike Dasein, the present hermeneutic is at the same time “hermeneutics” in the sense that it works out the conditions of the possibility of every ontological investigation. Finally, insofar as Dasein has ontological priority over all other beings – as a being in the possibility of existence [Existenz] – hermeneutics, as the interpretation of the being of Dasein, receives the third specific and, philosophically understood, primary meaning of an analysis of the existentiality of existence.18 This brief reflection on methodology sets forth the main tenets of fundamental ontology.19 It offers a clue to how evential hermeneutics may follow Heidegger’s fundamental ontology with respect to its methodological approach towards phenomenology and hermeneutics. As a methodological account, it seems valid to ascribe this paragraph to Romano’s project, too, though it would require some modification with the concepts of event, advenant and adventure. To get a basic sense of how Heidegger’s Being and Time might foreshadow Romano’s project of evential hermeneutics, then, one would have to strip Dasein of its priority in the existential analytic – a priority Heidegger strongly articulates in the previous citation – and replace it with the priority of the event. As Van der Heiden indicates, Romano’s rewriting of Being and Time puts the event at the centre: the event itself is “the source of meaning.”20 If the starting point of evential hermeneutics is not Dasein but indeed the event, then one could replace “phenomenology of Dasein” with “phenomenology of event.” Evential hermeneutics does not aim to discover the meaning of being through interpretation as an ontological investigation, but instead focuses on an evential understanding of events in human existence – or, as Romano terms it, “adventure.” Here, neither Dasein nor any other kind of subjectivity enjoys “ontological priority over all other beings.” The event is prior to the subject, even to being: “Events before anything” is the motto of evential hermeneutics.21 18 Heidegger, Being and Time, 35; Sein und Zeit, 37–38. 19 Jean Grondin finds this paragraph of Sein und Zeit as unclarified for the relation of hermeneutics with ontology and phenomenology. As Grondin writes: “On peut le regretter puisque l’herméneutique, à l’époque et en dépit de sa faveur relative, ne pouvait se réclamer d’une notoriété comparable à celle de la tradition ontologique ou de la phénoménologie.” See Jean Grondin, “L’herméneutique dans Sein und Zeit,” in Heidegger 1919–1929: De L’herméneutique de la facticité à la métaphysique du Dasein, ed. Jean François Courtine (Paris: Vrin, 1996), 179–92. 20 Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 197. 21 Romano, Event and World, 2; L’événement et le monde, 7.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

91

At the same time, even if the “human being” is not central to Romano’s project, in contrast to Dasein’s centrality for fundamental ontology, the term event is only appropriate if what happens, happens to the advenant. One should recall Romano’s declaration, which directly concerns evential hermeneutics: “A phenomenological hermeneutics of the advenant is the aim of this book.”22 By starting from the event, Romano uses the hermeneutical structure of Being and Time in order to develop a hermeneutics of the advenant. Hermeneutics can be defined in its most basic sense as the work of interpretation (Geschäft der Auslegung).23 In Being and Time, Heidegger gives hermeneutics an existential role because he takes understanding to be the existential mode of Dasein, not just a part of epistemology. The originality of the Heideggerian revolution in hermeneutics lies in his ontologisation of understanding. “The mode of being of Dasein as a potentiality of being lies existentially in understanding.”24 Dasein exists insofar as it understands. Projecting possibilities, Dasein then discloses innerworldly beings through its existential understanding. As Gadamer points out: “[U]nderstanding [ … ​] is the mode of being of Dasein itself [ … ]​ hence embraces the whole of its experience of the world.”25 Moreover, Dasein’s fundamental encounter with the world and its experience are possible by means of interpretation through Dasein’s projection of its own possibilities. Its existence is based on its understanding in the world, which is disclosed to Dasein in terms of its possibilities.26 Dasein is in the world thanks to its capacity to project its possibilities of understanding. Dasein’s projection of possibilities is related to its being-in-the-world in such a way that understanding finds its orientation from the “fore-structure” (fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception) of Dasein, and this fore-structure is at work before and behind every interpretation.27 Heidegger defines this fore-understanding in terms of the as-structure of interpretation according to which the world is disclosed. This hermeneutical as-structure, not the apophantic as-proposition of judgments, is implicit in any interpretation within the meaningful referential totality of the world. Within this framework of the fore-structure of interpretation, “beings are disclosed in their possibility in 22 Romano, Event and World, 20; L’événement et le monde, 33. 23 Heidegger, Being and Time, 35; Sein und Zeit, 37. 24 Heidegger, Being and Time, 140; Sein und Zeit, 148. 25 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. ­Marshall (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), xxvii. 26 Heidegger, Being and Time, 139; Sein und Zeit, 143. “Understanding is the existential being [Sein] of the ownmost potentiality of being of Dasein itself in such a way that this being [Sein] discloses in itself what its very being is about.” 27 Heidegger, Being and Time, 145–7; Sein und Zeit, 150–2.

92

CHAPTER 2

the projecting of understanding.”28 Dasein projects its possibilities through interpreting them as a disclosure for the sake of which it is practically involved in the world, but projecting possibilities is also related to Dasein’s capacity to understand itself. Heidegger further emphasises the link between understanding and self-understanding by referring to understanding as “transparency” (Durchsichtigkeit). This is not an allusion to the Delphic motto “Know yourself,” however, but instead refers to “grasping and understanding the full disclosedness of being-in-the-world throughout all its essential constitutive factors.”29 By interpreting its possibilities, Dasein fundamentally understands itself. For Romano, understanding likewise has a primordial role which provides “the most fundamental relation between an advenant and the world. An advenant’s adventure consists wholly in understanding what happens to him – his adventure is itself hermeneutic.”30 But whereas understanding plays the same central role in both philosophers, its function differs significantly depending on what gives it meaning – that is to say, the source of meaning. In Romano’s project of evential hermeneutics, the source of meaning is not the interpretative projection of possibilities by Dasein but the event. For Heidegger, all understanding is the self-understanding of Dasein in its possibility, and possibility is only offered to Dasein against the background of death. In this sense, all meaning comes from “the horizon of death” because only an understanding of being-towards-death makes it possible for “the whole of Dasein [to be] completely ‘given’.”31 In this respect, Romano distinguishes his own notion of understanding from Dasein’s understanding: For an advenant, understanding is always marked by a kind of ­ex-centricity: understanding is always understanding something else – events – so that, through them, we can understand who we are. The interpretative possibilities from which an understanding-projection aimed at meaning becomes possible are not in our possession; they are allotted to us, in excess of any projection, by events themselves. This is what happens in the first of them, birth, by which a human adventure is opened to the excess of a meaning that goes beyond it. Understanding cannot make this meaning possible; rather, this meaning comes to understanding from

28 Heidegger, Being and Time, 146; Sein und Zeit, 151. 29 Heidegger, Being and Time, 142; Sein und Zeit, 146. 30 Romano, Event and World, 60–61; L’événement et le monde, 84. 31 Heidegger, Being and Time, 296; Sein und Zeit, 309.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

93

elsewhere than the horizon that closes an adventure back on itself: my death.32 In contrast to Dasein, then, Romano’s account of understanding is not determined by the horizon of death but stems from the event, especially the first event, birth. While the interpretative possibilities of Dasein come from its projections as being-towards-death, in the case of the advenant the event is the source of meaning and makes meaning possible for the interpretation of the advenant. Romano not only decentres Dasein by bringing the event into play, he also criticises Dasein’s central position with reference to subjectivity. I will defer the discussion of Romano’s critique of Dasein until the second part of the book, “Who Experiences the Event?” For now, let us simply note that the advenant’s understanding differs from Dasein’s understanding with regard to their respective sources of meaning. This difference concerning the origin of meaning shapes the selfhood of Dasein and the advenant in relation to self-understanding. In spite of Romano’s criticism of Dasein, the advenant also understands himself through the experience of events in the same way as Dasein does. As Romano puts it: “The advenant is the one to whom events happen, in that he is himself implicated in what happens to him, that is, in that it belongs to him to understand himself in what happens to him in this way.”33 As stated earlier, Dasein’s self-understanding comes from its possibilities, such that “[a]s long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself and will understand itself in terms of possibilities.”34 This hermeneutical structure of self-understanding lies at the heart of the advenant but not in the same way as with Dasein. The advenant understands himself not from his own possibilities but from the possibilities opened up by events. The happening of events opens the already existing possibilities of the advenant to radical change; and thus, events make possible new horizons of possibility for the advenant. In this sense, then, while both Dasein and the advenant understand themselves in terms of possibilities within a hermeneutical structure, Romano departs from Heidegger on the issue of the origin of the possibilities of selfhood. This difference is related to the origin of meaning and the possibilities for selfhood. I will discuss this point in greater detail in the third part of this chapter. Finally, there is one more important element in Heidegger’s thought that concerns Romano’s project: temporality and its relation to the history of 32 Romano, Event and World, 137–8; L’événement et le monde, 188. 33 Romano, Event and World, 52; L’événement et le monde, 73. 34 Heidegger, Being and Time, 141; Sein und Zeit, 145.

94

CHAPTER 2

metaphysics. Romano’s approach to time differs from Heidegger’s understanding of temporality to some extent, but the way he defines “the metaphysics of time” follows the same path as Heidegger does in overcoming metaphysics. Heidegger’s project of the destruction of the history of ontology aims to uncover the understanding of time underlying the history of philosophy. He states that “the history of ontology in general and the interpretation of being have been thematically connected with the phenomenon of time,” in other words, “the problematic of temporality.”35 According to Heidegger, the history of ontology from Aristotle to Husserl determines the understanding of being (Sein) by reference to the temporality of the present (Gegenwart). This is what constitutes the unity of metaphysics. As a definite mode of time, the present posits a definite understanding of the being of beings: “Beings, which show themselves in and for this making present and which are understood as genuine beings, are accordingly interpreted with regard to the present; that is to say, they are conceived as presence.”36 With his fundamental ontology, Heidegger seeks to move beyond this understanding of temporality as presence by posing the question of being. The analysis of Dasein is the first concern in addressing the question of being. In this sense, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology aims to provide “an original explication of time as the horizon of the understanding of being, in terms of temporality as the being of Dasein which understands being.”37 By doing so, Heidegger also attempts to destruct the history of ontology – that is to say, metaphysics. Romano similarly describes this particular understanding of temporality as “the metaphysics of time,” which he sees as all-encompassing for the history of philosophy. The combination of such a unitary identification of the history of philosophy with a critical project of overcoming the metaphysics of time undoubtedly makes Romano’s position very close to the Heideggerian idea of overcoming metaphysics. Nevertheless, Romano’s conception of metaphysics is one that includes Heidegger himself. He offers a broader definition of metaphysics than Heidegger does. According to Romano, the metaphysics of time is incapable of understanding the radical newness of events, because it seeks to understand the phenomenon of time in time: “That which determines the frame of thought in which the metaphysical approaches time as a whole move is that time is apprehended there in light of concepts (change, passage, becoming, transition, flow, permanence) that only legitimately apply to innertemporal phenomena. What metaphysics thus recovers is what one might call 35 Heidegger, Being and Time, 22; Sein und Zeit, 23. 36 Heidegger, Being and Time, 24–25; Sein und Zeit, 25–26. 37 Heidegger, Being and Time, 17; Sein und Zeit, 17.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

95

the ‘chronological difference,’ that which must be established between the (inner-)temporal features of the phenomena subjected to becoming and the features of time itself. In other words, metaphysics conceives time as such by ‘projecting’ it, so to speak, in time.”38 I will deal extensively with the role of temporality in evential hermeneutics in due course. For the moment, all that one can say is that the metaphysics of time described by Romano also includes within its scope the fundamental ontology of Heidegger. For Romano, Heidegger’s understanding of the history of metaphysics as a problem of temporality is too limited in its approach. It “represents only a consequence of the more general specification” of the characterisation of time that Romano provides.39 It is significant, too, that Romano should differ from Heidegger on the source of temporalisation. As was noted above, the temporality of Dasein is determinative of the question of being; it draws the temporal horizon for the meaning of being. Romano also does not consider Heidegger’s pronouncements to be themselves entirely free of the metaphysics of time. Even if the ecstatic temporality of Dasein amounted to an alternative to Husserl’s manner of temporalisation, it would still subjectivise time because of the prioritisation of Dasein within fundamental ontology. The subjectivation of time means thinking time in inner-temporal terms from the horizon in which its subjectivation took place. Romano claims that the “[e]cstatic temporality [of Dasein] thus remains an attempt – probably the last – to conceive time within the orb of a radical ontology of the subject.”40 Nevertheless, Romano states that to understand time in another way than the metaphysics of time does, would be to conceive of time beyond the horizon of the subject – that is to say, to think time “hors-sujet.” Although Romano proposes a different understanding of the characterisation of metaphysics, his critical project concerning the history of metaphysics shares a similar trajectory to the Heideggerian destruction of metaphysics. By following Heidegger in this regard, Romano finds a unitary constitution of metaphysics in the light of the issue of time, and he also includes Heidegger as an element in this ­history of the metaphysics of time. Thus, in certain respects, the issue of temporality is as determinative of metaphysics for Romano as it is for Heidegger, but in other respects, they differ markedly in their characterisation of it. As has been seen, Romano considers Heidegger to be part of the metaphysics of time on the grounds that Dasein subjectivises time by its temporalisation. This situation returns us, once more, to the question of the subjectivity of Dasein. 38 Romano, Event and Time, xii. 39 Ibid. 40 Romano, Event and Time, 107; L’événement et le temps, 141.

96

CHAPTER 2

2.1.2 Romano’s Account of the Heideggerian Ereignis I have thus far explained how evential hermeneutics shares a similar trajectory to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology with regard to the methodological relation between hermeneutics and phenomenology. In addition to this discussion, Romano also analyses fundamental ontology and the notion of Ereignis as such in relation to the phenomenality of the event. As I have said from the outset, Romano seeks a place for the event in phenomenology so that its phenomenality cannot be disregarded. He claims that previous ontologies, and phenomenology too, have failed to do justice to the phenomenality of the event. In this respect, Romano is not only criticising the understanding of the event within classical ontologies, he is also focusing on Heidegger’s reception of the event, particularly at the beginning of his book Event and World.41 Romano engages with Heidegger by praising his fundamental ontology in general, while taking exception to how he considers the notion of the event in its phenomenality. On the one hand, he approves of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology because Heidegger, with his ontological project, broke from classical ontology, which can also be termed “ousiological ontology.”42 On the other hand, he maintains that fundamental ontology cannot provide a proper description of the event’s phenomenality, because the event is reduced to the rank of an innerworldly fact for Dasein. Moreover, although the notion of event as Ereignis finds a central place in Heidegger’s later thought, this does not offer an adequate approach to the event for evential hermeneutics. Romano describes the relation between Heidegger’s thought and the notion of the event as follows: “Heideggerian phenomenology maintains complex and ambivalent relation to the event.”43 I will present, in three aspects, Romano’s direct engagement with the complex and ambivalent relation of Heideggerian thought to the notion of the event from the perspective of the phenomenality of the event. First, Romano approves of Heidegger’s renovation of fundamental ontology, which represents a radical break from ousiological ontology. In the grammar of classical logic, events were understood as accidents or attributes of the subject (ousia). Nietzsche’s famous passage on “lightning flashes” expresses a similar complaint about the failure of the Aristotelian ousilogical grammar, where events lack their proper phenomenality. In his posthumously published notebooks, after criticising the Aristotelian concepts of “judgment” and “predicate,” Nietzsche poses the problem anew with the example of lightning (der Blitz leuchtet): 41 Romano, Event and World, 10–20; L’événement et le monde, 19–33. 42 Romano, Event and World, 10; L’événement et le monde, 19. 43 Claude Romano, L’aventure temporelle (Paris: PUF, 2012), 21.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

97

If I say: “Lightning flashes”, I have posited the flashing once as activity and once as subject, and have thus added on to what happens a being that is not identical with what happens but that remains, is, and does not “become.” To posit what happens as effecting, and effect as being: that is the twofold error, or interpretation, of which we are guilty. Thus, e.g., “The lightning flashes” – “to flash” is a state of ourselves; but we don’t take it to be an effect on us. Instead we say: “Something flashing” as an “­in-itself” and then look for an author for it – the “lightning.”44 For Nietzsche, predicate logic separates “flashing” from “lightning” in the proposition “lightning flashes” because the subject, as a substance (ousia), is not exposed to any change and can exist without its accidents. In the case of “lightning flashes”, however, the relation between the substance and its accidents is not possible because “an event simply occurs from itself.” The activity of flashing cannot be regarded as a change in the lightning. Here, “flashing” as an event is indistinguishable from what flashes – lightning is not an ontic substrate, the agent of the action, the cause of the effect, and so on. “Instead, what flashes, the lightning, is precisely nothing else than the ‘flashing’ itself.”45 Thus the event of the flashing cannot be attributed to something else, it happens as it is. Going beyond Nietzsche, Heidegger not only criticises the ousiological ontology or ontology of the copula; he offers a new project of ontology altogether, that is to say, “the fundamental ontology” presented in his Being and Time. This project aims to provide an account of being (Sein), not beings (Seiende), and to do so with the aid of the ontological difference between the two. He contends that Western metaphysics has become oblivious to the difference between being and beings. Ousiological ontology is responsible for this forgetfulness because the copula “be” carries the same sense of “mode of being” for both beings and being. In this regard, the forgotten ontological difference assumes 44

Friedrich Nietzsche, Writings from Late Notebooks, trans. Kate Sturge (Cambridge: ­ ambridge University Press, 2003), 75–76, 2 [84]. For the German text, see Friedrich C Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885–1887, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag & de Gruyter, 1999), 103–4, 2 [84]. “Wenn ich sage ‘der Blitz leuchtet’, so habe ich das Leuchten einmal als Thätigkeit und das andere Mal als Subjekt gesetzt: also zum Geschehen ein Sein supponirt, welches mit dem Geschehen nicht eins ist, vielmehr bleibt, ist, und nicht ‘wird.’ – Das Geschehen als Wirken anzusetzen: und die Wirkung als Sein: dies ist der doppelte Irrthum, oder Interpretation, deren wir uns schuldig machen. Also z.B. ‘der Blitz leuchtet’ – : ‘leuchten’ ist ein Zustand an uns: aber wir nehmen ihn nicht als Wirkung auf uns, und sagen: ‘etwas Leuchtendes’ als ein ‘An sich’ und suchen dazu einen Urheber, den ‘Blitz.’” 45 Romano, Event and World, 5; L’événement et le monde, 10.

98

CHAPTER 2

the radical difference he discerns between Sein and Seiende. Thus, Heidegger means to say that, not being but, beings “are.” He regards the copula not as a guiding thread for the meaning of being, but Dasein who is a privileged being “for whom an understanding of being belongs essentially to its being, the being that is ontologically ontological.”46 There can be a meaning of being because Dasein uncovers a meaning of being. Insofar as Heidegger claims that “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence”,47 Dasein can be said to exist transitively and its being can only have the transitive sense of existing. In this way, as far as Romano is concerned, “the verbal sense of existence indicates the event of transcendence by which Dasein understands and relates itself to Being in order to uncover Being and thus discover beings in general, including the being that it itself is.”48 Moreover, the understanding of Dasein is not a theoretical comportment. Nor is the meaning of being a logical truth for Dasein, for whom understanding plays an existential role with regard to the meaning of being. Truth has an ontological function and it “is ultimately grounded on the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of being.” The radical shift that Heidegger achieves with his fundamental ontology results from thinking being, not as copula but, as event.49 Romano describes this aspect of Heidegger’s as follows: Thus, because, from Being and Time on, Being has been interrogated from the outset in its verbal and transitive-evental-sense, with Dasein as the guiding concept, it has become possible to derive and dismantle ontology, which, as ousiology, has been governed since Aristotle by the primacy of the predicative structure. In short, from Being and Time onward, Heidegger no longer thinks Being “logically” in its meaning as copula (with its various significations: existential, “the tree is”; essential, “the 46 Romano, Event and World, 11; L’événement et le monde, 20. 47 Heidegger, Being and Time, 41; Sein und Zeit, 42. 48 Romano, Event and World, 12; L’événement et le monde, 22. 49 Romano quotes Levinas’s commentary on Heidegger’s thought, which was written during the early years of its reception in France. Levinas describes Heidegger’s new ontology as the “eventness of being,” and states: “I think that the new philosophical ‘thrill’ that comes from Heidegger’s philosophy consists in making the distinction between Being [être] and being [étant] and carrying into Being the relation, motion, efficacy that until then resided in the existent [existant]. Existentialism [a term Levinas uses for Heidegger’s thought as a whole, without thereby reducing it to anthropology] is feeling and thinking existence-the being-verb [l’etre-verbe]-as event... In short, there are no more copulas in existential philosophy. Copulas express the very event of Being.” See Emmanuel Levinas, Unforeseen History, trans. Nidra Poller (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 68–69 (Emphasis by Romano). As quoted in: Romano, Event and World, 10; L’événement et le monde, 19–20.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

99

tree is a plant”; accidental, “the tree is green”; truth-asserting, “the tree is green”; etc.), but more originarily as event.50 Romano considers this a revolutionary step in Heidegger’s approach to events, one that brings forth a new way of doing ontology. Yet, when it comes to the notion of the event (Ereignis), Heidegger appears to partly maintain the silence about it that was evident in the prior history of philosophy insofar as he does not pay any attention to its phenomenality. The second aspect Romano identifies is not as revolutionary as the first. Leaving aside the eventness of being, Heidegger’s account of events fails to engage properly with the phenomenality of the event: neither the notion of the event nor its phenomenality stands out in Being and Time. Instead, Heidegger reduces the phenomenality of the event to the rank of an innerworldly fact whose mode of being is the objective presence (Vorhandenheit). Events are thus always in the domain of Dasein’s inauthentic understanding of itself. Romano also insists that “Dasein is defined ontologically without any relation to events.”51 He takes Heidegger’s example of death, which is viewed as an event from within the inauthentic understanding of Dasein.52 Heidegger makes a distinction between dying (sterben) and demise (ableben) in his account of the existential structure of death.53 He argues that the existential anxiety for dying should not be confused with the fear of demise, because “the existential concept of dying is clarified as thrown being towards the ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable potentiality-of-being.” In demise, however, this 50 Romano, Event and World, 13; L’événement et le monde, 23. 51 Claude Romano, There is: the Event and the Finitude of Appearing, trans. Michael B. Smith (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 18. 52 In Chapter 4, I will deal with the place of birth within fundamental ontology. This section will also help us to think about the historicity that stretches between the birth and death of Dasein. History is also Dasein’s ontological constituent. For the moment, I will just note that the historicity of Dasein is also within the horizon of ontology for Heidegger. What Romano seeks is to dislocate the status of the event from the economy of fundamental ontology. 53 Heidegger, Being and Time, 241; Sein und Zeit, 251. “Anxiety in the face of death is anxiety ‘in the face of’ the ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable potentiality-of-being. What anxiety is about is being-in-the-world itself. What anxiety is about is simply the potentiality-of-being of Dasein. Anxiety about death must not be confused with a fear of one’s demise. It is not an arbitrary and chance ‘weak’ mood of an individual, but, as a fundamental attunement [Grundbefindlichkeit] of Dasein, it is the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown being-towards-its-end. Thus the existential concept of dying is clarified as thrown being towards the ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable potentiality-of-being. Precision is gained by distinguishing this from mere disappearance, and also from merely perishing, and finally from the ‘experience’ [‘Erleben’] of a demise.”

100

CHAPTER 2

existential meaning is not at work, and dying is understood as “a mere event to come.”54 Such an understanding of death as demise breaks with its ontological meaning and leads Dasein to become the they (das Man), who understand death “as a familiar event occurring within the world.”55 This inauthentic way of engaging with death occurs with respect to the death of another person, which Heidegger defines as an event. It contains no ontological possibility for Dasein, but merely reproduces the empty talk of the they. In this sense, death as an event does not concern Dasein because the talk of the they about death as a coming and publicly occurring event transforms the anxiety into fear and thus veils its character of possibility.56 According to Romano, the event is regarded as a mere innerworldly fact in fundamental ontology and loses its peculiar phenomenality. By reducing events in this way, Dasein is bereft of any happening of events. In a nutshell, Being and Time pays no attention to the phenomenality of events, and the meaning Heidegger assigns to events in the text places them at a remove from the ontological sense he accords to Dasein. Events do not even appear on the horizon of being, but rather as an objective presence. Romano says, “Heidegger establishes his fundamental ontology on reducing events to the rank of mere innerworldly facts, so as to bring to light the singular meaning of possibility that Dasein itself is by existing.”57 Heidegger’s engagement with the notion of the event relies on the primacy of Dasein, but since Dasein is the measure of all phenomenality, its own understanding of being remains the “ontological-formal condition of possibility” for events. For Romano, however, 54 Heidegger, Being and Time, 241; Sein und Zeit, 251. 55 Heidegger, Being and Time, 243; Sein und Zeit, 253. 56 Heidegger, Being and Time, 243; Sein und Zeit, 253. “The analysis of ‘one dies’ reveals unambiguously the kind of being of everyday being towards death. In such talk, death is understood as an indeterminate something which first has to show up from somewhere, but right now is not yet present for oneself, and is thus no threat. ‘One dies’ spreads the opinion that death, so to speak, strikes the they. The public interpretation of Dasein says that ‘one dies,’ because in this way everyone can convince him/herself that in no case is it I myself, for this one is no one. ‘Dying’ is leveled down to an event which does concern Dasein, but which belongs to no one in particular. If idle talk is always ambiguous, so is this way of talking about death. Dying, which is essentially and irreplaceably mine, is distorted into a publicly occurring event which the they encounters. Characteristic talk speaks about death as a constantly occurring ‘case.’ It treats it as something always already ‘real,’ and veils its character of possibility and concomitantly the two factors belonging to it, that is, its non-relationality and its insuperability. With such ambiguity, Dasein puts itself in the position of losing itself in the they with regard to an eminent potentialityof-being that belongs to its own self. The they justifies and increases the temptation of covering over for itself its ownmost being-towards-death.” 57 Romano, Event and World, 17; L’événement et le monde, 29.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

101

the phenomenality of events does not need any condition for their appearing. Heidegger engages with the event of death as demise and this is an inauthentic way of thinking of death. This interpretation of death does not regard Dasein’s own death which has an ontological significance for Dasein. In Heidegger’s words, it is defined as “always mine” (je meines) and related to the modality of its existence: “A modality of authentic existence and the uttermost possibility of that existence, death is just as much as existence is, it is the very possibility of existing … H ​ ence the ontological primacy of death: it alone removes Dasein from the impersonality of events, of which it is not itself the origin. Death alone allows the constitutive mineness of existence to be affirmed.”58 By failing to appreciate death as an event for authentic Dasein, Heidegger makes dying (sterben) the main constitutive of the mineness of Dasein’s existence. This is because death, for him, is the impossible possibility of Dasein. In being-towards-death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality of being.59 In this respect, it concerns the very mineness of Dasein. As mentioned above, Romano suggests that the notion of birth could replace Heidegger’s “death” for the constitution of selfhood. From this perspective, birth would signify the transformation of Dasein into an advenant. I will deal with his understanding of birth in the chapter on the advenant. In short, for Romano, there are no events in fundamental ontology except the eventness of being. The third aspect, finally, is Heidegger’s engagement with the notion of the event (Ereignis) after the publication of Being and Time. In his later thought, especially in Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), On Time and Being, and Identity and Difference, he began to develop a new conception of Ereignis.60 In these works, Ereignis does not mean a happening or an occurrence, nor should it imply any synonym (Geschehnis, Vorkomnisse, Begebenheit) for the word that might suggest the daily happening of events.61 Heidegger instead assigns 58 Romano, Event and World, 18–19; L’événement et le monde, 31. 59 Heidegger, Being and Time, 241; Sein und Zeit, 250. 60 Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012); Martin ­Heidegger, Beiträge Zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio K ­ lostermann, 1989). Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row Publishing, 1969); Martin Heidegger, Identität und Differenz (Frankfurt am Main: ­Vittorio Klostermann, 2006). Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan ­Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972); Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (­Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007). 61 Heidegger, On Time and Being, 20; Zur Sache des Denkens, 25. Moreover, for Heidegger, this term cannot be translated because of its root, which a has twofold meaning: “er-äugen” and “er-eignen”, respectively “to grasp” and “appropriate.” Heidegger defines this term as a singulare tantum in his Identity and Difference: “The words event of appropriation,

102

CHAPTER 2

it a more fundamental function, defining Ereignis as: “What determines both, time and Being, in their own, that is, in their belonging together, we shall call: Ereignis, the event of Appropriation. Ereignis will be translated as Appropriation or event of Appropriation. One should bear in mind, however, that ‘event’ is not simply an occurrence, but that which makes any occurrence possible.”62 Heidegger seeks a new starting point from which to initiate an inquiry into being (Sein) as such, one that is not Dasein. In this sense, Ereignis becomes his new ground for thinking being without any appeal to metaphysics.63 For Heidegger’s later thinking, Ereignis is a more comprehensive notion. Richard Capobianco does not limit Heidegger’s reflections on the notion of Ereignis to Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event). This book “[ … ]​ and the Beiträgerelated reflections of the late 1930s [ … ​] are marked by a somewhat disturbing quasi-apocalyptic tone” but Capobianco claims that “[i]n his later statements, he no longer speaks of Ereignis in terms of the dramatic – and even traumatic – moment-ousness or event-fulness of history, but rather now as the ‘most gentle of all laws’ that gathers each being into what it properly is and into a belonging with other beings – a characterisation that is remarkably similar to his earlier descriptions of Being as the primordial Logos as the primordial foregathering (Versammlung).”64 As a central term in his later texts, Heidegger gives Ereignis priority relative to both being and time and, thus, thinks time and being with the expression es gibt (it gives/there is) instead of the verb “to be.” For Heidegger, the “es” (it) of the expression es gibt should be understood as Ereignis.65 Ereignis makes it possible to think time and being by “giving” them. Beyond time and being, and a condition of their givenness, Ereignis is outside of history. Nonetheless, by being outside of history, it makes possible what occurs in history. Although it determines epochs in the history of being, it does not show itself in history but rather withdraws itself. Its unhistorical character is thought of in terms of the matter indicated, should now speak as a key term in the service of thinking. As such a key term, it can no more be translated than the Greek Logos or the Chinese Tao. The term event of appropriation here no longer means what we would otherwise call a happening, an occurrence. It now is used as a singulare tantum. What it indicates happens only in the singular, no, not in any number, but uniquely.” See Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, 36; Identität und Differenz, 45. 62 Heidegger, On Time and Being, 19; Zur Sache des Denkens, 24. 63 Heidegger, On Time and Being, 24; Zur Sache des Denkens, 30. 64 Richard Capobianco, Heidegger’s Way of Being (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2014), 20. For a detailed discussion of Ereignis, see Richard Capobianco, Engaging Heidegger (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2010), 34–51. 65 Heidegger, On Time and Being, 19; Zur Sache des Denkens, 23.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

103

described as follows: “What sends as Ereignis is itself unhistorical, or more precisely without destiny.”66 In contrast to this, Romano states that, according to his conception, no event can be outside of history. Each event must rather be in history, where it belongs to the world.67 In sum, Heidegger in his later thought places great stress on the priority of Ereignis for the thinking of being and time. Nevertheless, this effort bears no relation to the conception of the event proposed by Romano, who articulates it in his works as the totally historical, plural, finite event of a human being. Romano concludes that “[i]f the event opens a new page of history, it still belongs to that history, precisely as an innerworldly fact. Once again, the evential problem and Heidegger’s Ereignis thought signify two different and even, in some respects, opposite directions.”68 In this part, I have shown three aspects of Romano’s direct engagement with the notion of the event in Heidegger’s oeuvre. Heidegger’s “complex and ambivalent” relationship with the notion of the event is lacking any explicit discussion of the phenomenality of the event. In this respect, Heidegger’s use of the concept is inadequate for thinking about the phenomenality of the event, but it still parallels what Romano does with his project of evential hermeneutics. When Heidegger does not make use of this concept, Romano finds Heidegger’s thinking closer to his own evential project, thanks to the break with the ontology of the copula. It is this break that leads Heidegger to focus on the eventness of being in his fundamental ontology. That said, Romano’s use of the phrase a “complex and ambivalent relation”69 to describe Heidegger’s relation to the event may well apply to Romano’s own relation to Heidegger’s thought. The Heideggerian shadow that hangs over the work of Romano is sometimes quite pronounced, but sometimes it is barely discernible at all in the light of the brilliant renewal that he attempts to achieve for the notion of the event and its phenomenality. Just as Heidegger’s fundamental ontology emphasises the eventness of being and approaches an evential hermeneutics when it does not directly engage with the notion of event, so Romano can be seen to follow Heidegger’s way of thinking even when he does not directly engage with that thinking. In other words, his account of Heidegger with respect to the event is mostly critical, but when he is not directly 66 Heidegger, On Time and Being, 41; Zur Sache des Denkens, 50. 67 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 28. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., 21.

104

CHAPTER 2

discussing Heidegger and his concepts, his evential hermeneutics can be seen to approach Heidegger’s thought on the issue of the hermeneutical structure of phenomenality. On the one hand, Romano follows the hermeneutical structure of Being and Time for his evential hermeneutics and understands phenomenality in the hermeneutical way that Heidegger does. On the other hand, by strictly criticising the priority of Dasein and how it is configured by death, he is in effect proposing a new philosophical inquiry regarding events, one which differs from fundamental ontology in determining a new conception of selfhood, that is to say, the advenant. Neither the question of being nor any priority of the subject plays a role anymore with regard to events in phenomenology. Romano’s project puts events before all else and starts with the most primordial event for a human being: birth. In this sense, his evential project offers a completely different account of the phenomenology of the event by renewing the phenomenality of the event and selfhood.70 Having provided this explanation of the relation between Romano and Heidegger, I will next turn my attention to the notion of the event in evential hermeneutics. The novelty of Romano’s evential hermeneutics stems from his renewal of phenomenality in terms of events. In this regard, Romano distinguishes between two different phenomenalities: fact and event. This distinction no doubt reminds one of Jean-Luc Marion’s distinction between objectness and eventness. Romano proposes four distinct characteristics of events in relation to facts. These features of events are what differentiates them from facts.

70

I would here like to quote from Romano’s new preface to the forthcoming one-volume edition of two of his earlier books, L’événement et le monde and L’événement et le temps. The author shared this preface with me on 3rd April 2020, prior to its publication. The new publication does not involve any change in the content of the books, but there are stylistic changes regarding their form. In his new preface, after more than 20 years, he retrospectively interprets the project of evential hermeneutics that he carried out in these books. In regard to Heidegger, he states the following: “L’événement et le monde se donnait ainsi pour but, sur la base de cette critique de l’ontologie fondamentale, non pas d’ajouter de nouveaux existentiaux à ceux décrits par Heidegger, mais de refondre entièrement l’analytique du Dasein pour faire droit à la dimension ‘événementiale’ (intrinsèquement ouverte à des événements) de l’existence elle-même. Cette opération supposait que l’on transformât l’ensemble des existentiaux du Dasein, en accordant cette fois une préséance non à la mort, mais à la naissance, conçue comme proto-événement. Le véritable ‘oubli de la naissance’ que l’on peut en effet repérer dans l’ontologie fondamentale, et qu’Hannah Arendt y avait déjà diagnostiqué, n’est que la conséquence de l’oubli plus général de l’événement qui y est à l’œuvre.” See Claude Romano, L’événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, 2020), 16.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

2.2

105

The Four Distinctive Characteristics of Events

There are events. They happen at every moment. We witness them in our daily lives. The sun rises, it sets, and the night comes on. Sometimes it rains. To take the present moment as an example: I am writing these lines in a corner of the kitchen while smoking my cigarette; the cigarette grows smaller with each instant, smoke rises from it, and it hangs in the air while these lines are being typed; glancing out of the kitchen window, I see that it is raining. All of these occurrences can be termed events in the general sense. Can they be called events in the evential sense? In the midst of the abundance of events that occur in our lives, how can an event be described in such a way that its specific character stands out from other events? How can the event of smoking a cigarette, one which I experience many times a day, have a specific meaning that is capable of affecting my existence? Is every event an issue for evential hermeneutics? This cannot be the case; one would have to say that not every event is an issue for evential hermeneutics. Indeed, what we might refer to as an event or happening in our daily lives is not necessarily equivalent to the use of the term in evential hermeneutics. The peculiarity of events in the evential sense is due to some peculiar characteristics of their appearing. In order to emphasise its difference from facts, Romano articulates some distinctive traits of events. Romano uses a pair of adjectives to indicate the difference between innerworldly facts and events: evental (événementiel) and evential (événemential).71 Whereas the first term refers to events in the general sense, that is, as innerworldly facts, the second one refers to events of a specific kind, namely, those which are the focus of Romano’s project. At the beginning of this chapter, I noted that the event establishes a new regime of phenomenality. Through the reception of the phenomenality of the event, this version of phenomenology is able to provide a proper account of 71

The first adjective événementiel is the usual adjective related to event (événement) in French language and it also means “factual.” The other adjective événemential is a neologism in French and translated into English as “evential.” In this study, I will follow the choice of the translator of Event and World for these notions. See Romano, Event and World, ix. These notions of Romano also remind Heideggerian use of the pair of notions existentiell (existenziell) and existential (existenzial). Heidegger means a particular ontic determination of Dasein’s ontological structures in the first term and by the second term, he refers to the ontological structure of existence. In fundamental ontology, existential understanding has priority over existentiell one. See Jan Slaby, “Ontic,” in The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, ed. Mark Wrathall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 542–5; Jesús Adrián Escudero, “Existential (Existenzial) and Existentiell (Existenziell),” in The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, ed. Mark Wrathall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 300–302.

106

CHAPTER 2

events and assign a privileged status to them among other phenomena. In this way of phenomenology, events are distinguished from innerworldly facts which take place in our every moment. By innerworldly facts, Romano means whatever happens or exists within the world. Nevertheless, Romano states that “the event does not happen in the world but opens a new world for the one to whom it happens.”72 At first glance, this claim may seem confusing. How can an event in the evential sense not happen in the world? However, his explanation of the distinction between events and facts will make this confusing claim understandable. First of all, Romano claims that innerworldly facts are addressed to everybody in general but nobody in particular. Events, by contrast, are very personal: they only happen to the one to whom they happen, that is to say, to an advenant. Events happen with a “determinate assignation.”73 That the event happens to an advenant means that it puts the advenant into play with his selfhood. In contrast to this, something can happen to me in fact, but neither selfhood nor the world undergo a transformation through my experience of a factual occurrence. Nevertheless, the event happens “unsubstitutably” to me, it does not address everyone and anyone in the way the factual occurrence does. Mere facts cannot bring about the reconfiguration of the possibilities of the selfhood.74 Let us consider the following everyday example. The occurrence of rainfall is an innerworldly fact. When it rains, it rains for everybody and not just for me in particular. The occurrence of rain does not have the power to determine my possibilities. In contrast to this, the death of somebody I love is not a common event. It happens only for me, only to me. There can also be others who experience this loss. Romano states: “While the innerworldly fact of death is the same for anybody, the event of this death and the bereavement I undergo will not have the same meaning for myself and for another. Bereavement is incomparable for each person, even when it is bereavement of one and the same person, and even, at the limit, when it is bereavement that is common to us all, that we ‘share’ in suffering: for it is always my suffering and yours, which are incomparable with each other, because they always put into play our unsubstitutable selfhood.”75 The death of someone I love happens singularly to me, and by its

72 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 8. “Il ne survient pas dans le monde, mais ouvre un ­nouveau monde pour celui à qui il advient.” 73 Romano, Event and World, 45; L’événement et le monde, 64. 74 Romano, Event and World, 29–30; L’événement et le monde, 43–44. 75 Romano, Event and World, 31; L’événement et le monde, 45.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

107

singular character, it serves to transform my selfhood. It differs from an innerworldly fact because it addresses me in a particular way.76 This singular character of events leads us to encounter one of the limitations of evential hermeneutics, a limitation of which Claude Romano is aware.77 Evential hermeneutics only considers the personal events of the human being. The univocal assignation of the event to a given individual poses a problem with respect to collective events. By collective events, I mean events that happen to a group of people at the same time; these events can address me in person, but do so together with other people. Many examples of collective events can be considered in the social, political, cultural, natural and ecological realms. The collective event has both a particular and singular character at the same time insofar as it affects my existence as well as that of other people.78 There are many ways in which a collective event can affect an individual’s existence. A personal event can also be an intersubjective event. Romano’s strict distinction between the personal event and other events comes from his claim that they are two different sorts of events, which means the phenomenological analysis of a personal event cannot be made in the same way as the analysis of collective events. It seems to me that collective events have a different kind of phenomenality and that they need a different kind of analysis. Nevertheless, there is some crossover between collective and individual events. A collective event addresses a group of individuals, but it can also happen uniquely and singularly for the individual human being, and it can put the selfhood of the individual into play. Collective events cannot be thought of as totally separate 76

77

78

Romano’s account of the event’s happening singularly to me recalls Heidegger’s account of death as a singularising possibility of Dasein. Dying singularises Dasein because his death each time belongs to him (Jemeinigkeit) as an “ownmost potentiality of being.” See Heidegger, Being and Time, 232; Sein und Zeit, 250. For a detailed study of Heidegger in respect to Derrida, see Paola Marrati, Genesis and Trace: Derrida Reading Husserl and ­Heidegger (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 142–76. For another study on the singularising aspect of death for Dasein, see Rafael Winkler, Philosophy of Finitude: Heidegger, Levinas and Nietzsche (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 9–12. In the second part of the book, which deals with subjectivity, I will examine the singularisation of death for Heidegger by focusing on the notion of “Jemeinigkeit” and considering it as a solipsistic moment for Dasein. For Romano, philosophical reflection upon collective events would require different instruments of analysis. See Claude Romano and Kadir Filiz, “Phenomenology with BigHearted Reason: A Conversation with Claude Romano,” trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner, Philosophy Today 65, no. 1 (2020): 193. Jeffrey Andrew Barash’s discussion on the collective and personal memories in his book can be read in a parallel direction with tension between the collective and personal events, see Jeffrey Andrew Barash, Collective Memory and the Historical Past (Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016).

108

CHAPTER 2

from individual events. In this regard, Romano’s evential hermeneutics does not provide an explanation for how an event which happens to me can, at the same time, happen to others too. Romano insists that the criterion of the event being “only addressed to an individual” is a necessary constraint for a proper phenomenological analysis of the event. Let us consider the status of a collective event in relation to an individual’s existence by way of an example. When a family loses their father or mother, it is both a collective and singular event for each member of the family. We can think of William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying for an articulation of such an event.79 The novel begins with the last moments in the life of the mother of Bundren family, Addie Bundren. Her death is expected by her children and husband. After her death, the children and their father want to move her coffin to Jefferson in order to bury her there. Faulkner devotes individual chapters to each family member so as to present their individual streams of consciousness as they engage in the arduous task of moving the coffin to Jefferson. By recounting their inner perspectives, Faulkner shows us what Addie’s death means for each member of her family, how it shapes their past and future in different and related ways. Each child has a singular relation to the death of their mother. Nevertheless, its singular reception by each member of the family does not erase its meaning as a collective event. Moreover, its being a collective event for the Bundren family is directly related to its being a singular event for each member of the family because the event and the journey to Jefferson are shared by them, even if it transforms their individual forms of selfhood in a singular way. Its collective character plays a crucial role in its singularisation for each person. For instance, if Faulkner’s novel only recounted the experiences of Addie Bundren’s husband and he were the only person tasked with moving her coffin, then his existence and its possibilities would be otherwise – and perhaps nothing mentioned in the actual novel would happen to him. Thus, I think that it is precisely by being a shared and collective familial event that the death of Addie Bundren is a singular event for each family member. It might be helpful here to recall Heidegger’s notion of Mitsein, being-with, and also Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of “being singular plural.”80 Heidegger’s notion of being-with is meant to articulate an existential situation for Dasein, who is always with others. In the same vein, Nancy claims that “Being cannot be anything but being-with-one-another, circulating in the with and as the with of this singularly plural coexistence.”81 Heidegger’s 79 William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (New York: Vintage Books, 1990). 80 Heidegger, Being and Time, §27; Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, trans. Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). 81 Nancy, Being Singular Plural, 3.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

109

and Nancy’s conceptions can prove helpful for discussing the singularity of the event together with its collective aspect for a group of people, even if Romano’s evential hermeneutics aims at radically rethinking the event beyond ontology and the question of being. In short, an event can be both singular and collective (or plural) at the same time, and its collectiveness is not an obstacle to its being received in a singular way. Its collective quality also plays a role in its singularisation for each person. We can also think about this problem in terms of a more encompassing example, one which is not related to a small group of people but to every living being on earth: the ecological problem. This refers to the harmful effect of human beings on the biological and physical environment. At the most basic level, this problem endangers the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the biophysical environment in which we live. As an event it is obviously a collective phenomenon as well as being an individual phenomenon, one which has effects on my existence and possibilities in the world, on my capacities as a human being. That it addresses every human being in the world does not change its uniquely assignation to each individual. It happens universally, but at the same time singularly. It might also be helpful to mention another contemporary event, the coronavirus pandemic, concerns all human beings in the world at present. This universal and global event addresses every human being singularly while also happening for everybody as a collective. Like everyone else, I experience the pandemic in terms of its limitation on my life, the possibilities I have in the world, my capacities to respond to it. I have a unique and singular relation with this event, and it directly addresses my individual existence. It being a collective event does not prevent it from also being an individual event, which affects all my possibilities and transforms my selfhood. In cases such as these, Romano’s rule of the univocal assignation of the event to a person does not give a proper and plausible account of the distinction between the collective event and individual event. We cannot find an analysis of such events in evential hermeneutics. Moreover, this problem may lead us to ask further questions regarding the status of the individual, the human being to whom the event happens. Does this criterion result from a failure to acknowledge the collective dimension of human existence? Does my individual existence have to be separated from the community? How can we acknowledge the idea of coexistence in an evential sense? These are not questions that I can answer here, and I pose them simply to point out the indifference of evential hermeneutics towards the collective event and its relation to the existence of an individual. This problematic indifference results from the presupposition that a collective event cannot be personal at the same time, and that its collective character is an obstacle for the reception of its singular

110

CHAPTER 2

addressing of the individual. The framework of evential hermeneutics prevents the discussion of the collective event. The second characteristic of the event is that it establishes a world for the advenant.82 While innerworldly facts show themselves in the horizon of the world, which serves as a context that confers sense on them, events open up their own horizons of the world, which is to say that they create their own context rather than being referred back to an existing one. As has already been explained in relation to the hermeneutical structure of phenomenality, for Romano, the notion of the world means “the horizon of meaning for all understanding, the totality of possibilities articulated among themselves from which an interpretation is possible, the totality of interpretative possibilities that prescribe a horizon in advance for understanding.”83 This description of the world is reminiscent of the Heideggerian background to his account of possibility and understanding. For Heidegger, Dasein understands innerworldly entities because of the possibilities it projects out of the situation into which it is thrown. Yet, the event in the evential sense alters this structure of projection and thrownness.84 In this sense, events do not happen within a pre-existing horizon of possibilities, because the meaning of events only originates in their own bursting forth from their own horizon. Unlike a factual occurrence in the world, the event proper introduces something completely new that cannot be understood in terms of the world we inhabited before the event took place.85 The happening of the event reconfigures the possibilities that precede it. The world before the event does not disappear totally, but its meaning is radically modified. The event reconfigures the pre-existing possibilities of the world. For this reason, the (former) world is not capable of providing a context through which to understand the event.86 This metamorphosis of the world is a shift from its evental sense (related to innerworldly facts) to its evential sense. For the advenant, this metamorphosis signifies the opening up of a new frame of possibility for the world by means of the event. The event does not happen in the world, but opens a new world. It is the origin of the world.87 I will return to this point and the problem of the world in the section 2.3.1.

82 Romano, Event and World, 45; L’événement et le monde, 64. 83 Romano, Event and World, 35; L’événement et le monde, 51. 84 Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 190. 85 Ibid., 189. 86 Romano, Event and World, 39; L’événement et le monde, 56. 87 Romano, Event and World, 143; L’événement et le monde, 193.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

111

The third feature that distinguishes the event from facts is the suspension of causality. An innerworldly fact can be explained by means of a causal nexus of pre-existing possibilities in the world. The event, however, as a “pure beginning from nothing … ​in its an-archic bursting forth” is exempt from all prior causal chains.88 The causal framework of the world before the event is not able to provide the grounds for understanding events, because the event originates its own meaning. Unlike facts, events cannot “be reduced to the actualisation of a fact.” While an event can be positioned within a causal nexus in order to explain it, doing so would strip it of its evential character – would reduce it to a fact. As in the example of the death of somebody you love, the event of death can also be explained in causal terms by making reference to sickness, accident or some other grounds. Nevertheless, such a causal explanation would hardly be a comprehensive account, would not do justice to the radical novelty of an event that appears to surge up from nothing and to reconfigure the world of the advenant. The death of somebody you love cannot be explained in terms of any prior possibilities in the world prior to the event. The hospital’s medical report or the police incident report can provide an explanation of the reasons for the death, but the passing of a loved one would always mean more for the person concerned than these causal accounts could offer. Romano states: “It becomes an event by radically transcending its own actualisation, reconfiguring my possibilities articulated in a world, and introducing into my adventure a radically new meaning that shakes it, upends it from top to bottom, and thus modifies all my previous projections.… ​an event opens to itself, gives access to itself, and, far from being subjected to a prior condition, provides the condition of its own occurring.”89 Rather than being the actualisation of a fact, the event opens a new stage of possibility and changes possibility completely. The event is not gauged in terms of something other than or prior to the event itself. Its an-archic occurrence reconfigures the possibilities of the advenant. Finally, the fourth feature of events is their unique temporal character, which is evident in “the impossibility of any dating” of them because, according to Romano, “events do not happen in time but open time or temporalise it.”90 The event’s unique temporal character means its happening occurs outside of time. For the event to happen outside of time means that its temporality cannot be understood in terms of the succession of time within which facts occur. 88 Romano, Event and World, 41; L’événement et le monde, 58. 89 Romano, Event and World, 42; L’événement et le monde, 60. 90 Romano, Event and World, 49; L’événement et le monde, 69.

112

CHAPTER 2

Similar to his characterisation of facts as innerworldly, Romano designates the temporality of the fact as “inner-temporality,” which refers to their occurrence in time.91 The event is not an inner-temporal phenomenon. The event does not belong to the causal nexus in which facts are determined according to the succession of past, present, and future, but comes from outside of this temporal sequence. The event brings forth its own temporal horizon after the fact. It opens up a future in which new possibilities arise,92 thus Romano describes the event as a “retrospective experience.”93 Even if the event happens in a moment that is preceded by nothing and that proceeds from nothing, it is not accessible at this moment.94 Since understanding the event always comes from the possibilities opened up by the event, and not from prior possibilities, this also imposes a structural delay on understanding the meaning of events. The event as the origin of meaning can only be understood after its happening in the light of the world it reconfigures. Its retrospective character comes from this inaccessibility of the event at its time of occurrence. Retrospectively, the event declares itself as its own horizon of time, that is to say, it makes possible any temporalisation, opens up time by its happening from nothing. Romano claims that “it is in the event that the possibilisation of the possible and the temporalisation of time originate.”95 These four characteristics of the event make its phenomenality unique in comparison to other phenomena. As was stated at the beginning of the chapter, Romano’s project of evential hermeneutics aims to shed light on the individual events in a human being’s existence from the perspective of phenomenology. As he sees it, the phenomenality of the event has never been elucidated in either phenomenology or the history of philosophy. Examining these features of the event contributes to such a phenomenology of the event (or evential hermeneutics). In light of these features, we can identify how the phenomenality of the event differs from the phenomenality of facts. These differences in phenomenality serve to determine the main tenets of evential hermeneutics. In this respect, the phenomenality of the event requires the transformation of some of the concepts of phenomenology in order to do justice to the event. Within this new framework, a phenomenology of the event becomes possible. 91 Romano, Event and Time, xiv. 92 Romano, Event and World, 46; L’événement et le monde, 64. 93 Romano, Event and Time, xii. 94 Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 191. 95 Romano, Event and Time, 127; L’événement et le temps, 167.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

2.3

113

 he Transformation of Phenomenological Notions by the T Phenomenality of the Event

The event is not an innerworldly fact. It has a different kind of phenomenality and shows itself in a different way than facts. In the light of the phenomenality of the event, Romano reformulates the main concepts of phenomenology. In this section of the chapter, I will discuss how the concepts of phenomenology are formulated in a new sense in order to think the event in a phenomenological way. By doing so, the main characteristics of the mode of appearing of the event will, at the same time, be explained with regard to their difference from innerworldly facts. 2.3.1 Possibility and the Problem of the World “The event does not happen in the world but opens a new world for the one to whom it happens.”96 Romano’s challenging claim may prompt questions regarding the status of the world. What does a “new world” mean in evential hermeneutics? How do the old world and the new one differ? And finally, how is an understanding of the former world and the new world possible when we are always in one world? These questions shall be addressed in what follows. As has been already discussed, by the term “world” Romano means a hermeneutical structure that “refers to the totality of possibilities from which a meaning can come to light as such.”97 It is the totality of possibilities from which an interpretation is possible. Within this framework of the totality of possibilities, the distinction between innerworldly facts and events shapes the character of the world. Only innerworldly facts can be interpreted on the basis of the present or prior possibilities of the world. As Romano puts it, “to understand a fact as innerworldly is nothing other than subordinating it to a universe of prior possibilities from which its factical arising becomes explicable.”98 An innerworldly fact can be explained in the light of the context that precedes its occurrence. We can think of any event in its everyday sense, namely, any innerworldly fact, in these terms. For example, I may break my leg in an accident that happens in my home. It can be said that I broke my leg because I slipped in the bathroom. Such an explanation draws a causal connection between the fact of my slipping and the fact of my broken leg. The word “because” explains the reason why my leg broke. Between these two innerworldly facts, there is a causal relation. In this case, the context or the horizon of the world gives an 96 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 8. 97 Romano, Event and World, 35; L’événement et le monde, 51. 98 Romano, Event and World, 37; L’événement et le monde, 54.

114

CHAPTER 2

adequate frame for an explanation which always presumes a causal relation between facts. In the same vein, the character of the notion of the possible can be thought in the same horizon of the world. This means that the world can be seen as the structure of possibilities, and an innerworldly fact can be seen as the actualisation of some of these possibilities. The taking place of an innerworldly fact is the actualisation of the former possibilities of the world. Such a world assumes that every possibility is an actualisable fact. In this already given horizon of the world, facts always actualise a prior possibility, which can be always thought and explained in terms of causality.99 Nothing appears within this horizon except innerworldly facts, and, in this horizon and context, the character of the world is only shaped by the actualisation of what were formerly possibilities of the world. In contrast to this realm of innerworldly facts, the prior context or already given horizon of the world is not capable of shedding light on the meaning of the phenomenality of events, which appear in an an-archic bursting forth. This is the starting point of the project of evential hermeneutics, from where Romano aims to do justice to the phenomenality of the events. He claims that the event in the evential sense “illuminates its own context, rather than in any way receiving its meaning from it.”100 The event gives its own meaning to its own content rather than receiving it from the subject. The meaning opened up by the event is a new one for the world. It radically modifies and transforms the meaning of the world. The event as “world-configuring” becomes the source of meaning for those to whom it happens. It is because “the occurring of such an event renders the former world insignificant, since this event can no longer be understood in light of that world’s context.”101 Since the former world is not able to provide an account of the event, the world reconfigured by the happening of the event is a different one. In this sense, Romano distinguishes between two phenomenological concepts of the world, the “evental” and the “evential.” It is the events in the evential sense that open a new world. In this new world that is opened by the event, the already given possibilities of the former world are not in play to illuminate the possible interpretation of the event. By its an-archic bursting forth, the event ushers in an excess of meaning such that he who experiences it can make no appeal to prior contexts and possibilities. Since events originate in themselves, their meaning can only be understood in the horizon that they themselves have opened through their arising.102 They 99 Romano, Event and World, 82; L’événement et le monde, 112. 100 Romano, Event and World, 38; L’événement et le monde, 55. 101 Romano, Event and World, 38–39; L’événement et le monde, 55. 102 Romano, Event and World, 43; L’événement et le monde, 61.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

115

confer meaning upon their own horizon. In this new horizon, all possibilities are totally reconfigured from top to bottom for the one to whom the event happens. There is no causality, nor any relation, that is able to explain this excess of meaning. The rupture that the event manifests between these two worlds is not the actualisation of any possible eventuality. Rather than effecting the actualisation of possibilities, it “opens new ones and correlatively closes old one, that is, in each case, it makes them [these new possibilities] possible.”103 What Romano means by “opening a new world” through the event is this very making possible of the possibilities of this new world. It is important to note that the source of this making possible does not come from the subject or any subjective projection. As mentioned in the discussion of the relation between Heidegger and Romano, it is Dasein who projects itself into the future on the basis of its possibilities of being. Dasein’s resoluteness is mostly at play in configuring what is possible in Dasein’s projection of the future. Thus, Heidegger claims that “beings are disclosed in their possibility in the projecting of understanding.”104 In contrast to the existential analytic, the future is not projectable by Dasein or the advenant, because the possibility made possible by the event transcends every projection of the future. The possibilities of the future opened up by the event comes to the advenant without any relation to the present, comes from a future that exceeds his present.105 It is the radical novelty and an-archic bursting forth of the event that makes such a rupture, which achieves a temporal cut. In this respect, the event stands as the source of possibility by way of its excessive character.106 I have answered the first two questions posed at the beginning of this section. The event as a source of meaning closes the former world and opens a new world through a reconfiguration of the totality of possibilities. Now, a final question can be asked: How are we to understand the coexistence of the former world and the new world when we are always only in one world? What is the ultimate situation of the world in which one closes and another one is opened? This is also the question that Romano raises at the end of Event and Time: “How, indeed, can we reconcile the plurality of events (and of the histories to which they give rise), each of which opens – and shuts – a world, with the uniqueness of the world for every advenant? … H ​ ow can the advenant 103 Romano, Event and World, 85; L’événement et le monde, 117. 104 Heidegger, Being and Time, 146; Sein und Zeit, 151. 105 Romano, Event and World, 86–87; L’événement et le monde, 118. 106 Here I will not discuss how an advenant deals with these possibilities opened up by the event. The advenant’s capacities to respond to the event will be elucidated in the chapter on the advenant.

116

CHAPTER 2

relate at once to several worlds? … ​There is one single world in which every adventure takes place, from birth to death.”107 The problem of the world for phenomenology was described by Husserl as the “riddle of the world” (Welträtsel).108 For Romano too, this problem serves as a limit for evential hermeneutics as well as for any hermeneutical phenomenology. As explained at the beginning of this chapter, Romano describes the world not as the sum of possibilities, but as the totality of possibilities, which means it is “the structural, hierarchical, and signifying totality that integrates them [possibilities].”109 The problem is the plurality of the worlds. For evential hermeneutics, there are two worlds (one before and one after the event) and also a multiplicity of worlds for each advenant. On the other hand, we are always in the same world that the event or two distinct events reconfigure. The world where all events take place is one and the same, even if it is closed and opened by the event in its reconfiguration of possibilities. Romano displays philosophical honesty in confessing the limits of his own project, but he also makes it clear that these limits do not bring him any closer to the Heideggerian understanding of the world. An advenant is also “in the world,” but not the one Dasein projects in existing: Instead, “world” has an evential meaning: it is what is illuminated by the event, according to a given viewpoint that governs the meaning that it takes on for me. There is only a “world” through the “there is” of events. But, at the same time – and this point now becomes decisive – if the world is that which happens in each event according to a new meaning, the “there is” of sense is not itself an “event” in the same sense as before. The “fact” that there is meaning, the “there is” of meaning itself, is the “condition” for every “there is.” The world is “older” than every event – that is to say, transcends them all.110 Taken in this sense, the world is what conditions events by transcending them. This means that the world in this sense is not one that is closed, opened and transformed by events, but that it always provides the basis for all events to 107 Romano, Event and Time, 236; L’événement et le temps, 303. 108 Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 100. In English, it is translated as the “world-enigma.” See Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European ­Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, IL: ­ Northwestern ­University Press, 1970), 97. 109 Romano, Event and Time, 236; L’événement et le temps, 304. 110 Romano, Event and Time, 238; L’événement et le temps, 306–7.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

117

take place. At this point, following Andrea Staiti’s contentions about Event and Time, one can claim that this limit marks a closure of the hermeneutical understanding of phenomenology. For Staiti, this points to the inadequacy of any hermeneutical phenomenology, an adequacy from which the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl does not suffer.111 Staiti maintains that no hermeneutical or phenomenological project can escape being a transcendental phenomenology, and this problem, which he terms “the dead-end” of evential hermeneutics, shows that the philosophy of the event must have an “intrinsic inability to account for the overarching, all-encompassing field in which events take place: the world.”112 I do not think that this limit drawn by Romano is a failure of evential hermeneutics. Rather, it is a further question that asks for and elicits a new conception or framing of the world. In Romano’s later works, namely, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie (At the Heart of Reason) and L’aventure temporelle (The Temporal Adventure), he deals with the problem of the world as a continuation of evential hermeneutics, but with the addition of a new perspective: the holism of experience and the relational paradigm. In his preface to L’aventure temporelle (2010), Romano claims that while his new elucidation on the world in this book served as background material for his books on evential hermeneutics, it was not explicitly addressed and conceptualised in these books.113 This justifies my treatment of his new account of the world, which serves to answer the problem of the world that Romano, at the end of Event and Time, interprets as a limit to his project.114 The notion of holism comes from the Greek term “to holon” which means the whole. A holistic view is one that claims that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this sense, the holism of experience views the world as the “milieu” of all experience, thus Romano claims that “an experience is only an experience if it fits into the entirety of experience, which is not the simple sum of its parts.”115 In a holistic system, a structural “cohesion” maintains a property between the parts and the whole. This property is shared by the whole and its parts. The structural cohesion proper to the holism of experience is primarily evident in perception because in comparison to other modes of experience 111 Andrea Staiti, “Event and Time,” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2014.05.31. 112 Ibid. 113 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 10. 114 L’événement et le temps was first published in 1999. Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie and L’aventure temporelle were published in 2010. The period of time between these books makes plausible such an answer to the problem discussed above. 115 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 88. This chapter of the book is translated into English, see Claude Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental Position: the holism of experience,” Continental Philosophy Review 44 (2011), 2.

118

CHAPTER 2

(sensual, imaginary, memorial etc), perception is the one which is opened as such to the world. In a holistic system of experience, since the world is the milieu of all experience, the property of being a perception is a necessarily holistic property. Perception as the primary mode of experience of things always opens onto the world itself. Thus, “an experience is a perceptive experience if and only if it is integrated without hiatus into the whole of the perceptive experience, and therefore if it presents a structural cohesion with the system of the perceptive experience as a whole.”116 In this sense, every experience must open onto the world in its structural cohesion because the property of being perceived is a property of the whole, that is, of the world, before being a property of its parts. An experience must always open to the world as such in the totality of experiences. It means that perceiving the world in the structural cohesion requires a property between the parts and its whole, that is to say the perception of the world as such. There can be no perception without an opening to the world as such. Romano notes that “only a world endowed with structural cohesiveness is perceived (and is by that very fact a world) and only a thing that is integrated into such a world can be perceived.”117 This dependency of experience on the world presents a new framework that is different from the transcendental one, which assumes the independence of consciousness and the dependence of the world upon it. In contrast to the transcendental position, this new framing of the issue sees the world as such as the milieu of all experience and understands the interaction between the human being and the world in terms of a relational paradigm. Within the framework of the holism of experience, the relational paradigm supposes that the status of “co-belonging” characterises the “subject” and the world.118 The character of this co-belonging can be explained as a new kind of being in the world. This new version of being in the world can be defined as a practically and bodily co-belonging because the embodied “subject” has the capacity to perceive and experience the world. The capacity to perceive the world is a practical ability. “Such ability is only given to a ‘subject’ that 116 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 91–92; Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental P ­ osition: the holism of experience,” 4 (translation modified). 117 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 110; Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental Position: the holism of experience,” 14. 118 I will not deal with the meaning of the subject here. In the second part of the book, I will discuss the subject, subjectivity and Marion’s and Romano’s new conceptions instead of the subject extensively. Here, however, I will follow Romano’s use of quotation marks when referencing the term “subject.” The practice of using quotation marks in this way indicates a critical approach to the idea of the subject while, at the same time, facilitating a continued use of the general expression for a human being.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

119

c­ onstitutively belongs to the world through its body and is situated and corporeally embedded in it.”119 Here, being in the world is not an ontological property of Dasein. Rather it is a reformulation of Heidegger’s notion but without any intention to determine Dasein’s ontological characteristics. As has been noted above, Romano does not consider an understanding of the world configurated by Dasein’s projections in a one-sided way coming from Dasein. For Heidegger, Dasein is always a condition for the world. However, for Romano, being in the world rather refers to “a structural characteristic of a system, that formed by a ‘subject’ endowed with practical capacities with the world.”120 In this new understanding of the world, the embodied “subject” in the world has the practical capacities to respond to the possibilities of the world, which are relationally meaningful to the “subject.” The relational conception of the world as a structural totality of possibilities forms a system with the “subject” who has the practical capacities to access these possibilities. They are not projected or configured by the “subject” but are offered to the “subject” in light of this relation of co-belonging, a relational system which is a totality indivisible into elements. With his conception of the holism of experience and his relational paradigm, Romano arrives at a realistic conception of the world. It is a new type of realism, which he calls “descriptive realism.” For him, the world always has to “exist” for a perception in a holistic structure. Romano distinguishes this kind of realism from the metaphysical one that assumes a causal relation between reality and human beings.121 The experiential relation to the world cannot be reduced to a causal relation, because it is premised upon the holism of experience. There is no experience without the world. This conclusion proffers an answer to the question posed by Romano with regard to the limit of evential hermeneutics. Our experience always necessitates a world that is opened by the first event, by birth, and closed and reopened by other events through the possibilisation of the possibility that characterises the event. We can conclude that there is only one world. The first and the second world do not ultimately exclude each other, even if from one 119 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 113; Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental Position: the holism of experience,” 16. 120 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 113; Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental Position: the holism of experience,” 16. 121 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 111; Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental Position: the holism of experience,” 15. For a detailed analysis of the difference between metaphysical and phenomenological realism, see Claude Romano, “Réalisme métaphysique et réalisme descriptive” in Choses en soi: Métaphysique du réalisme, ed. Emmanuel Alloa and Élie During (Paris: PUF, 2018), 117–33.

120

CHAPTER 2

to another, there is always a reconfiguration of the possibilities by the events. The world into which I am born (and in which facts take place) is “not only the horizon of any actual manifestation but also of all possible manifestation; it is made up of a horizon of possibilities as well as ‘actualities’. These possibilities obviously depend on the expectations of the advenant, of his daily anchoring in such a ‘world’. In other words, the first ‘world’, as an all-around innerworldly context, is no less inseparable than the second for the advenant, as a practical, embodied agent.”122 The world that is opened to the advenant is the same as the world we share with others, the most common and unshakable ground. It is the world in which we always “are”; the “real” world where we are exposed to events. In this way, Romano’s descriptive realism provides an answer to the question raised at the end of Event and Time about the limit of evential hermeneutics. I think that the realism that is developed explicitly in his later works was already inherent in evential hermeneutics, but that it was not elucidated and conceptualised as such. As a way out of transcendental phenomenology,123 evential hermeneutics can be seen to have already gestured towards a realist understanding of the world with its novel conception of experience.124 2.3.2 Time and Temporality The reconceptualisation of temporality is one of the central themes of evential hermeneutics.125 Romano describes how the phenomenality of the event requires hermeneutics of temporality. Insofar as the event is now understood to provide the possibility for every kind of temporalisation, Romano’s framing of the event entails a new structure for time and temporality. As mentioned above, evential hermeneutics makes the challenging claim that the event does not happen in the world but opens a new world. In the same way, Romano claims that the event does not happen in time but unfolds and “temporalises 122 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 41. 123 In the second part of the study, I will deal extensively with the conception of the world that is articulated in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. 124 For evidence of an inherent or latent conceptualisation of a kind of realism in one of his books on the event, see Romano, Event and World, 163–4; L’événement et le monde, 220. “To the extent that ex-per-ience becomes the instance of the transcendental, the hermeneutic phenomenology with the task of presenting its modalities and meaning can be called transcendental empiricism. [ … ​] Such an empiricism is also – if one wishes – a ‘realism’ to the extent that events, which are more ‘exterior’ to an advenant than any fact in the world, are also that starting from which all self-intimacy and ‘interiority’ is constituted. More ‘foreign’ to an advenant than any state of affairs, events are the condition, for him, of any advent to himself: they are as real and even ‘more real’ than empiricism’s facts.” 125 Romano, Event and World, 54; L’événement et le monde, 76 : “evential hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of temporality.”

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

121

time.”126 In temporalising time, the event exhibits different characteristics from the temporality of facts. In this context, there is another crucial point for evential hermeneutics. Romano suggests a new definition of metaphysics with respect to time, one which asserts a more comprehensive scope and unitary form in the history of philosophy. He defines this metaphysics of time as “the tendency of Western philosophy from Aristotle onward to reduce time to an inner-temporal phenomenon – a tendency that also leads to a subjectivisation of time, i.e. a renewal of time to internal changes of consciousness (from Augustine to Husserl).”127 The metaphysics of time is responsible for reducing the temporality of the event to the level proper to the temporality of the innerworldly facts. Overcoming this version of the metaphysics of time is thus a critical aspect of Romano’s effort to do justice to the event and its temporality. In the remainder of this section, I will first explain Romano’s account of the metaphysics of time and then focus on the temporality of the fact and that of the event. By doing so, I will show how Romano’s account differentiates between the time of the event and the temporality of the fact. Romano claims that the metaphysics of time understands time as an “innertemporal” (l’intratemporal) phenomenon. Inner-temporality assumes that time proceeds in time through flow. Inner-temporal determinations cannot be a means by which to grasp time itself, because this would entail attempting to grasp time from within the flow or process of time. In opposing such an approach, Romano will argue that time is not a phenomenon as such and that it is not something temporal, but rather the condition of all possible descriptions of phenomena.128 In this sense, time cannot be conceived in time, because by being the condition of every phenomenon proceeding in time, it stands outside any given conception considered within time. A phenomenology of time can only attend to the experience of changes that are happening in time. There cannot be an experience of time as such, but only a mediated understanding or phenomenology of time through the modalities of the experience of ­changes.129 Time as such cannot be a starting point for any phenomenology of time due to the fact that it is the condition of all possible descriptions of phenomena. Romano thus takes “the event” as a guiding thread for any possible mediated phenomenology of time. 126 Romano, Event and Time, 136; L’événement et le temps, 179. 127 Romano and Filiz, “Phenomenology with Big-Hearted Reason,” 190. The French term “subjectivation” is rendered here as “subjectivisation.” In general, this French term is rendered as either “subjectivation” or “subjectivisation.” Here I mostly use “subjectivation,” but in citations I follow the translators’ decision about the word. 128 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 71. 129 Ibid.

122

CHAPTER 2

Inner-temporality presumes that time is a process consisting of past, present and future. It is a succession in which the future becomes the present and then the past within a temporal flow. Nevertheless, this flow is also in time and a temporal phenomenon, which means that it is not able to go beyond its own temporality in order to give an account of time itself. Inner-temporality is related to the subjectivation of time in that it conceives time according to internal relations of the mind, that is to say, as a temporal flow based on succession. To conceive of time according to the temporal flow of the succession of the mind/subject arises from the determination of time as “a certain ‘passage’ or ‘change’ endowed with direction, from the future towards the past.” In this passage from the future to the past, the mind or the subject is gathering them into presence under the measure of its own presence in which “the subject itself deploys through all time by relating itself to a re-presented future, in expectation, and by interiorising the past under the form of an overcome present [présent dé-passé], in remembrance.”130 The subjectivation of time presupposes the reduction of time to a succession of presents, which implies a failure to recognise the radical novelty of the event. The conception of time that is presupposed by the metaphysics of time is unable to consider the radical novelty of the event because it is entirely limited to the present: “the future is only a waiting present, and the passage from the future to the present becomes a simple change affecting something already there, as if this passage were only a modification of an already present reality.”131 In this sense, the happening of events can find no place within the metaphysics of time. The conception of the future as a “waiting present” cannot provide an adequate account of the novelty of the event. Moreover, Romano claims that “the metaphysics of time not only conceives of time in light of that which is inner-temporal, it also conceives of inner-temporality in an inadequate way.”132 Thus, a phenomenology of time beyond the metaphysics of time only becomes possible in light of the event in the evential sense, and it must be without the subject. It has already been noted that the event as an an-archic bursting forth comes from nothing. The radical novelty of the event is not preceded by any causal nexus. In its happening, the event effectuates a pure genesis and a change from nothing into something.133 In this regard, Romano’s account of the radical novelty of the event leads him to rethink the link between the future (futur) and to 130 Romano, Event and Time, 96; L’événement et le temps, 127. 131 Claude Romano, “Préface à l’édition révisée (2020),” in L’événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, 2020), 20. 132 Romano, Event and Time, xiii. 133 Ibid.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

123

come (à venir) in relation to waiting and making present. To a certain extent, this analysis is also valid for factual occurrences, because factual occurrences can also be characterised by novelty in how they take place, though not to the same degree as events. An innerworldly fact can be explained in terms of facts that precede it and its possibility does not contradict the horizon of the world. This horizon can provide an explanatory context for what happens. An innerworldly fact is an inner-temporal phenomenon because we can describe an innerworldly fact by awaiting, then perceiving, and then remembering it. Nevertheless, awaiting an inner-temporal fact does not require the attribution of a presence to its future. It cannot be a present that has not happened yet. For example, in the case of my death, it is a fact to come, but it cannot be a future fact. The occurrence of an inner-temporal fact cannot be a mere change in its mode of presence: Before occurring, the fact has no presence, because only what has already happened or already exists can have a presence. In short, the difference between the future and the present is a difference of a completely different nature than that of the present and the past. The future does not “become” present just as the present “becomes” past – simply because it does not become present: it is absolutely not before it occurs, it has no modality of presence, even in potency. The possible is not a lesser actuality [Le possible n’est pas une moindre actualité].134 In this way, if something is to come then it cannot be made present, because the future and the past cannot have the same modalities. Before its occurring, even if we are able to predict it to some degree, the future cannot be a “pseudopresent.” For Romano, the metaphysics of time is not even able to give a fair account of the inner-temporal fact. This is because such a metaphysics provides no place for any kind of newness of any happening. It considers time only as something passing, and whatever happens in time is only a becoming because the future is already present before its happening.135 Here it is also important to distinguish between the degree of unpredictability and novelty of an innerworldly fact and that of the event. As was already discussed, while an innerworldly fact happens in the world, the event opens up a new world where the totality of the possibilities is reconfigured. The event effects a split between the former and latter worlds. Nevertheless, this reconfiguration does not appear in the moment of the event. The transformation of the world reveals 134 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 74. 135 Ibid.

124

CHAPTER 2

itself in a delayed fashion. Contrary to the innerworldly or inner-temporal fact, the event is never contemporary with itself, and “it is revealed as such only by a constitutive reprieve. Even the most striking events at the same time acquire their character of events only in retrospect … ​An event is/is not; it will have been an event. Its time is the future perfect (le futur antérieur).”136 This retrospective character of the event makes it unpredictable at the moment of its happening. At the same time, it is never actual in its happening. One can say that it opens in time a rupture or hiatus. “Unlike the fact, first future, then past, the event disturbs all factual chronology... it is not present but only as past, in the light of the future it opens.”137 This is why its novelty cannot be thought of according to inner-temporality. In light of this analysis, Romano concludes that there are three main differences between the temporality of an innerworldly fact and that of an event. An innerworldly fact can be determined according to inner-temporality, which means that (1) it is predictable from its worldly context, (2) it is entirely accomplished and actualised in the present of its occurrence, and (3) our experience of it in no way brings the cohesion of the totality of the meaning of our experience into crisis.138 In contrast to this, the event is described in the following terms: (1) The event is unforeseeable but not in the sense that nothing here could be predicted (for the event is also a fact), but in the sense that what makes an event in a given innerworldly fact is precisely what, in it, evades all prediction. (2) The event is prospective, in precession upon itself: it is not an event at the moment when it occurs as fact, it will have been an event only in the light of its future. (3) The experience of the event, as a non-empirical test [épreuve] of what, in fact, exceeds its own effectuation, is never accomplished in the present, it is only possible as such in retrospect.139 These three characteristics of the event are what enable it to make the opening of a new world possible. Unlike innerworldly facts, events are not innertemporal happenings, but rather temporalise time and thereby open time to the advenant. Since the event always happens to the advenant, we can only speak of time being temporalised by the event as a process that takes place for 136 Ibid., 79. 137 Ibid., 80. “il n’est présent que comme passé, à la lumière du futur qu’il ouvre.” 138 Ibid., 80. 139 Ibid., 81.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

125

the advenant. Through the experience of the event, the advenant confronts the radical novelty of the event, and it is in light of this novelty that time is opened and temporalised for the advenant. I will deal with the relation of time to the advenant’s modalities of response in the second part of this book (Chapter 4). Nevertheless, in order to elucidate the advenant’s modalities of response to the event, I do need to address how the event requires us to reconceive the notion of experience. 2.3.3 The Experience of the Event The notion of experience plays a key role in conceiving the phenomenality of the event in evential hermeneutics. The renovation of phenomenality by the event also necessitates a transformation in the concept of experience itself. Since events have peculiar characteristics that distinguish them from facts, they cannot be experienced in the same way as facts. Romano claims that in the experience of the event, a new relation between the advenant and the world is revealed. Unlike the experience of facts, the event’s happening puts the advenant’s selfhood into play. The experience of the event is inseparable from selfhood and the world.140 In the happening of the event to the advenant, that is to say, in his experience of the event, his selfhood and the world undergo a transformation. What concept of experience can give a fair account of the event that transforms both one’s selfhood and the world? For Romano, the empiricist concept of “experience” can explain facts, but it is unable to explain events. Hence, it cannot be the only concept of experience.141 In order to reconsider the experience of events, Romano offers a hermeneutical understanding of the notion of experience. Hermeneutics as a “work of interpretation”142 (Geschäft der Auslegung) deals with meaning and language through human understanding. The hermeneutical account of experience is one that assumes the finitude of the human being in his encounter with things, that is to say, in his experiences, on the basis of the historicity of human understanding. Human understanding is historically conditioned and meditated by language in its experiential encounter with things. Romano’s “hermeneuticisation” of experience aims to make human understanding capable of encountering events. After explaining his account of the difference between the experience of facts and the experience of events, I will here deal with the 140 Romano, Event and World, 31; L’événement et le monde, 45. 141 For a detailed study on the concept of experience, see Martin Jay, Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme (Berkeley and Los ­Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005). 142 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 37.

126

CHAPTER 2

hermeneutical aspect of the notion of the experience employed in evential hermeneutics. In order to distinguish the evential notion of experience from the empiricist one, Romano deals with two expressions of experience used in German and French: having an experience (avoir une expérience/Erfahrung haben) and undergoing an experience (faire une expérience/eine Erfahrung machen). The first phrase, having an experience, implies the idea of an accumulation of knowledge, which would mean experience is nothing more than the derivation of knowledge. Romano thinks that the second notion of experience is related to “the idea of being put to the test.”143 The selfhood that undergoes an experience is thereby transformed. It is not knowledge but the transformative exposure to experience that is at issue for the one who experiences in this sense. Romano draws on Heidegger’s explanation of the phrase “undergo experience”/“eine Erfahrung machen” from On the Way to Language. For Heidegger, undergoing an experience means that experience is not something that we produce, it is rather what befalls us, what comes over us.144 Heidegger’s conception of “undergoing an experience” is mainly concerned with the experience of language. I will not delve into this linguistic aspect presently, but will instead address Romano’s use of the Heideggerian idea of undergoing an experience.145 At a later point, I will discuss language in its relation to Romano’s understanding of experience. Heidegger discusses the root of the word Erfahrung in German. In Greek, the word for experience (empeiríā) is rooted in the term “peiro, perao,” which means “to traverse”, “to pass through.” The word “experience” that is used in 143 Romano, Event and World, 144; L’événement et le monde, 194. 144 “To undergo an experience with something – be it a thing, a person, or a god – means that this something befalls us, strikes us, comes over us, overwhelms and transforms us. When we talk of ‘undergoing’ an experience, we mean specifically that the experience is not of our own making; to undergo here means that we endure it, suffer it, receive it as it strikes us and submit to it. It is this something itself that comes about, comes to pass, happens.” See Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1971), 57. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zu Sprache (Frankfurt am Main: Vittoria Klostermann, 1985), 149. “Mit etwas, sei es ein Ding, ein Mensch, ein Gott, eine Erfahrung machen heißt, daß es uns widerfährt, daß es uns trifft, über uns kommt, uns umwirft und verwandelt. Die Rede vom ‘machen’ meint in dieser Wendung gerade nicht, daß wir die Erfahrung durch uns bewerkstelligen; machen heißt hier: durchmachen, erleiden, das uns Treffende vernehmend empfangen, annehmen, insofern wir uns ihm fügen. Es macht sich etwas, es schickt sich, es fügt sich.” 145 For a detailed discussion of Heidegger’s approach with respect to Gadamer and Walter Benjamin, see Gert-Jan van der Heiden, “Poverty and Promise: Towards a Primordial Hermeneutical Experience,” in Phenomenology and Experience: New Perspective, ed. Antonio Cimino and Cees Leijenhorst (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 63–80.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

127

French and English comes from the Latin word “experiri,” which means “to put to the test.”146 In the context of this multitude of etymological connotations for the notion of “experience”, Romano indicates that “the meaning of Erfahrung is arranged along the same two axes as the Greek empeiria: on the one hand ‘traversal’ and on the other ‘endangering’ (Gefahr, danger, derived from the old high German far(a); and gefährden, endanger), exposure, ordeal.”147 The point Romano wants to accentuate is that the notion of experience involves a danger and a traversal: in experience I am putting myself at risk. Through experience, the selfhood of the person is exposed to a transformation. This notion of experience accords with the very experience of the event that Romano describes.148 Before elucidating this primordial meaning of the notion of experience for evential hermeneutics, I will briefly explain why the empiricist notion of experience is unable to provide an adequate account of the experience of events. Romano’s definition of the notion of experience used in the empiricist tradition distinguishes between two features. The first feature of the empiricist use of the term is that all experience is taken to be the experience of something that repeats itself.149 The idea of repeatability comes from Aristotle’s notion of experience (empeiríā), which he defines as a means of transition from sensible individuals to universals.150 As the “first empiricist philosopher,”151 Aristotle associates experience with memory insofar as he takes it to ultimately produce experience: “for many memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience.”152 Repeated exposure to the same thing in memory leads to a single experience. Hume shares this idea of the repeatability of experience with Aristotle. Hume describes the mind as “a kind of theatre” where “rehearsals” are performed.153 These rehearsals are perceptions or impressions in their raw states. Nevertheless, Hume highlights that experience does not 146 For the Greek origin of the word and its meaning in Latin, see Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, “ex-pĕrĭor,” A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 693–4. 147 Romano, Event and World, 145; L’événement et le monde, 195. 148 Romano hyphenates the word of experience as “ex-per-ience” in order to stress its etymology. This new use of the concept refers to its evential understanding. Here, I prefer to use the conventional spelling, “experience”, though “ex-per-ience” is used for relevant citations from his works. 149 Romano, Event and World, 196; L’événement et le monde, 265–6. 150 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans. David Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 3. 981a15–16. 151 Antonio Cimino and Cees Leijenhorst, “Phenomenology and Experience: A Brief Historico-Philosophical Introduction,” in Phenomenology and Experience: New Perspective, ed. Antonio Cimino and Cees Leijenhorst (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 1. 152 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 2. 980a28–980b1. 153 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1960), 253.

128

CHAPTER 2

necessitate any idea of causality. It is our imagination and habit that produce the “fiction” of a causal relation between one fact and another. Hume does not consider causality to be a necessary connection between facts, but instead considers it a contingent one. The second feature of the notion of experience in the empiricist tradition is that “all experience fundamentally puts causality between phenomena in play.”154 As explained in the first chapter, Kant claims that the category of relation is an a priori concept of the understanding that subsumes perceptions under causality. This is a universal and necessary causal relation between phenomena. Nevertheless, Romano’s claim about the empiricist tradition seems, at first glance, contradictory because whereas Hume rejects a necessary causal relation, Kant argues for one. Romano’s broad use of the notion of empiricism includes both Hume (an empiricist philosopher) and Kant (a rationalist philosopher). For Romano, “rationalists” rely on a concept of experience in their critique of empiricism and thus still remain “empiricists” in the broader sense.155 Kant pays attention to Hume’s analysis of the “fictional” causality that is derived from the habits and the imagination of the subject. Hume’s analysis of this fiction only relies on facts. On the one hand, Kant can be seen to follow Hume by claiming that causality cannot be derived from perception. On the other hand, however, Kant finds a new principle for the derivation of causality, which is made objectively valid by “concepts originally generated in understanding.”156 Hume does not deny causality altogether, but nor does he grant it objectivity. For Romano, their different approaches do not make any difference to the notion of experience that underlies their accounts: “While Hume understands causality as arising from merely subjective and contingent principles, Kant regards it as belonging to objective and necessary principles, but what at first glance appears to be an opposition between these empiricist and rationalist theses masks the essential proximity in their characterisation of experience as such.”157 154 Romano, Event and World, 197; L’événement et le monde, 266. 155 Romano, Event and World, 197; L’événement et le monde, 266. 156 Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. Gary Hatfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 50. [4:298]. “Empirical judgments, insofar as they have objective validity, are judgments of experience; those, however, that are only subjectively valid I call mere judgments of perception. The latter do not require a pure concept of the understanding, but only the logical connection of perceptions in a thinking subject. But the former always demand, in addition to the representations of sensory intuition, special concepts originally generated in the understanding, which are precisely what make the judgment of experience objectively valid.” 157 Romano, Event and World, 199; L’événement et le monde, 269.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

129

The notion of “experience” in the empiricist tradition is related to the experience of facts, not events. The two defining features of this notion of experience, repeatability and causality, can provide a valid explanation for factual occurrences. Since facts simply occur in the world, they are repeatable and can be explained according to causality. Yet the phenomenality of events distinguishes them from facts. First, in contrast to facts, events are always singular and can never take place again. Second, since each event is its own origin, events have in principle excepted from such an archeology of causality and cannot be reduced to something like a causal explanation.158 In light of the event’s characteristics, one must ask, what takes place in the experience of the event? As was already noted, the notion of experience is etymologically related to the Greek verb peiro, which means “to traverse,” and, in line with this, Romano identifies the experience of the event as one of peril, danger and traversal. The exposure of events to whom experiences puts the selfhood in a danger and it makes a traversal of the selfhood, from one to another. The character of this transformation will be explained in the chapter on the advenant. For the moment, I will only explain what such a transformation of the selfhood of the advenant gives rise to. Romano’s notion of experience is distinguished from the empiricist account because it is characterised by singularity, unrepeatability and the suspension of causality. The experience of the event is unrepeatable. In every occurrence, it happens for the first-time. “Every event, no matter how ‘prepared’, has a ‘first time’ character (Erstmaligkeit), which leaves us entirely exposed and as though naked before its radical novelty.”159 Their radical novelty, which Romano proposes as one of the four distinctive characteristics of events that differentiate them from facts, gives the experience of the event a singular and unrepeatable character. In this way, the experience of events does not involve the accumulation of any knowledge, because the repeatable character of experience belongs to facts but not to events. In order for experience to be linked to the accumulation of knowledge, it must involve facts that are repeatable. There is a Turkish proverb that can serve as an example that clarifies the claim that the event does not involve the accumulation of knowledge. “Bir musibet bin nasihattan evladır,” which in English literally means: “A bad event is better than a thousand pieces of advice.” In English, the proverb “A good scare is worth more than good advice” has a similar meaning. The word “musibet” means that something bad happened, that it hit the person in an unpredictable way. It comes from the root “isabet,” which means hitting. “Musibet” is not something we can 158 Romano, Event and World, 197; L’événement et le monde, 266. 159 Romano, Event and World, 147; L’événement et le monde, 198.

130

CHAPTER 2

expect from or project into the future. We are rather exposed to it. “Musibet” as an event is instructive more than a thousand pieces of advice that can be accumulated in an empirical way. Likewise, in the English equivalent of this proverb, a scare tells us more than good advice. The term “scare” can here be taken, both metaphorically and literally, to signify an event that we undergo and that leaves its trace on us. Responses to events that transform us – for example, a failed romance or the loss of a loved one – are not the same as the acquisition of knowledge through the experience of a repeatable innerworldly fact. What, then, does the experience of the event do if it does not give us any knowledge? For Romano, even if experiences of events do not transmit any knowledge, “they teach us about ourselves by allowing us to understand ourselves” and this means that the experience of the event is “a way of understanding oneself.”160 The very transformation of selfhood that the advenant undergoes provides selfunderstanding. What this kind of experience teaches one is not knowledge, it rather opens one to an understanding of oneself. According to Romano’s hermeneutical conception: “it [experience] is inseparable from a transformation of the one who understands through events, which he understands, and from which he understands himself.”161 In traversing from one selfhood to another by undergoing an experience, the advenant understands his selfhood in another way than before. This transformation is made possible through a process of “distanciation,” which puts distance one’s former selfhood and the new configuration of selfhood.162 This brings about a temporal distance between different moments in the selfhood of the advenant. Nevertheless, rather than being a result or a consequence, it is only after the fact that the traversal of experience leads the advenant to understand himself and his world as different. As was noted above, the event is the reconfiguration of the adventure and of the world of the advenant. The distance between the temporal forms of selfhood of the advenant opens up the meaning of past events for interpretation. Romano claims that the process of interpretation starts “from that strangeness to myself that ex-per-ience has introduced into my own adventure.”163 That is to say, Romano assumes that a delay in understanding is at work in experience. In this way, Romano’s hermeneuticisation of experience raises some basic questions regarding hermeneutics. What is the relation between the two forms of selfhood of the advenant in the traversal of experience? In other words, how are we to understand the role of pre-understanding in evential hermeneutics? 160 Romano, Event and World, 147–8; L’événement et le monde, 199. 161 Romano, Event and World, 148; L’événement et le monde, 200. 162 Romano, Event and World, 148; L’événement et le monde, 200. 163 Romano, Event and World, 149; L’événement et le monde, 201.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

131

Furthermore, how are we to conceive of the hermeneutical circle that the advenant’s understanding of himself and the world entails? The hermeneutical circle is a central issue for the process of understanding. The idea of the hermeneutical circle originates in ancient hermeneutics and rhetoric, which understand the circle as the relation of the whole to its parts. We can only understand the whole by understanding its parts, yet we can only understand the parts by gaining an understanding of the whole. In contemporary hermeneutics, the hermeneutical circle assumes that we always understand or interpret from some prior understanding. Nevertheless, in both conceptions, the basic idea is that there is no understanding without presuppositions.164 In the first part of this chapter (“The Heideggerian Shadow”), I pointed out that the originality of the Heideggerian revolution in hermeneutics lies in its ontologisation of understanding. For Heidegger, “the mode of being of Dasein as a potentiality of being lies existentially in understanding.”165 Since Dasein exists insofar as it understands, then as a potentiality of being, Dasein has a preunderstanding of being. Romano calls it the “a-priority of preunderstanding,” and by this he means that it conditions and universalises every understanding of being by Dasein.166 Moreover, Heidegger’s notion of thrownness (Geworfenheit) stresses that one of the characteristics of Dasein is the facticity of its being. Dasein’s preunderstanding is historically rooted in its existence by the facticity of its being.167 Gadamer will appropriate Heidegger’s account of the preunderstanding being conditioned by its historical existence. For Gadamer too, the particular, factical character of preunderstanding accompanies every interpretation of the understanding. He defines the facticity of understanding that is at work in every interpretation as “prejudice,” in the sense that it comes from the pre-existing historico-cultural conceptual framework that we inherit from tradition.168 Gadamer’s project takes up the Heideggerian discovery of the ontologisation of preunderstanding and its facticity. Nevertheless, they do not agree on the question of whether tradition or historical conditions determine understanding in every interpretation. Although Heidegger makes facticity an a priori ontological character of Dasein, for him the authentic understanding of being is premised upon overcoming the factical prejudices bequeathed by tradition. Jean Grondin points out that “whereas 164 Jean Grondin, “The Hermeneutical Circle,” in The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics, ed. N. Keane and C. Lawn (Oxford: Blackwell, 2016), 299. 165 Heidegger, Being and Time, 140; Sein und Zeit, 148. 166 Romano, Event and World, 150; L’événement et le monde, 202. 167 Heidegger, Being and Time, 131; Sein und Zeit, 135. 168 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 278–318.

132

CHAPTER 2

Heidegger insists on the anticipatory structure of understanding in order to challenge the prevailing pre-understanding of Being and existence, thus paving the way for a more authentic one, Gadamer views in this anticipatory structure a recognition that ‘prejudices’ are always at work in understanding... The hermeneutical circle thus means for Gadamer that there is no understanding without prejudices.”169 Despite their different assessments of the roles of tradition and prejudices, both Heidegger and Gadamer assume human understanding to be conditioned by preunderstanding as an ontological a priori. In light of their approaches, Romano develops another conception of preunderstanding for evential hermeneutics. First of all, he separates understanding into two forms: the understanding of innerworldly facts and the understanding of events. The first form refers to understanding in a general sense, and it does not concern itself with the experience of events but with innerworldly facts. Such facts are able to be explained, and do not create an upheaval for the human being. The second form refers to the situation of preunderstanding in the experience of events and is concerned with evential understanding. Evential understanding is related to the experience of events that put the advenant into the play with his selfhood, and it is at issue for the advenant in his adventure.170 The way Romano uses the preunderstanding in evential hermeneutics requires him to adopt a particular position with respect to the hermeneutical circle. On the one hand, the evential understanding or one can call it “preunderstanding” must precede events because, as an a priori of the human adventure, we can only understand and interpret events through the evential understanding. On the other hand, “preunderstanding could not precede the events whose meaning it has to interpret, as some sort of ontological-formal a priori: understanding events in general is possible only if I have undergone an event at least once and if in fact I myself only advene to myself from an event that inaugurates my own adventure (birth), the condition of all other events.”171 Birth as the first event and the condition for all other events brings about human understanding. By emphasising the constitutive character of birth for understanding, Romano’s aim can be seen as an attempt to take a starting point and depart from the Heideggerian account of the status of the preunderstanding as an ontological a priori. For Romano, preunderstanding itself originates in an event, and thus it is acquired in an a posteriori way by the advenant. This aposteriority comes from the original delay that is inscribed 169 Grondin, “The Hermeneutical Circle,” 303. 170 Romano, Event and World, 152; L’événement et le monde, 205. 171 Ibid.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

133

in every evential understanding because of the temporal distance involved. By the same token, the interpretation of the experience of events does not rely on any historical facticity, but is premised on the intrinsic constitution of the understanding by the birth of the advenant and, therewith, “the event of his [the advenant’s] advent in the world.” In this regard, “the delay with which any interpretation can appropriate a meaning that constitutively precedes and exceeds it does not arise from a supposed historical ‘facticity’ but instead belongs to the a-priori-evential character of its meaning.”172 It is here worthwhile recalling the event’s character of the world opening. The event as a source of meaning is marked by an original delay such that its meaning can only be grasped after the fact. It cannot be explained by reference to a prior horizon, but its own possibilities that appears by a delay. Rather than the continuation of a historical facticity, or “a continuous effectiveness of tradition,” the event presumes a “fundamental discontinuity,” a rupture which transforms the selfhood of the advenant.173 In this sense, the advenant is not in possession of a preunderstanding of the event. The deferral involved in the inaugural event of birth means that the advenant has acquired an understanding that the event “has always conferred possibilities on him with a constitutive delay.” This constitutively delayed character of understanding makes it a posteriori, but Romano specifies that it is a “transcendental a posteriori.”174 Romano’s conceptualisation would seem, at first glance, to involve a contradiction because the notions of transcendental and a posteriori exclude each other. While aposteriority refers to an empirical instance happening after the fact, the use of transcendental in modern philosophy refers to “conditions of possibility” that are not experienceable.175 For Romano, “conditions of possibility” do not mean a formal condition of the subject. Rather, “it refers to the dimension of play in which an advenant is himself at stake … ​a dimension that does not precede events but is opened by them, as a condition (without condition) of its own advent.”176 The transcendental character of events arises from 172 Romano, Event and World, 154; L’événement et le monde, 207. 173 Van der Heiden, “Poverty and Promise: Towards a Primordial Hermeneutical Experience,” 74. 174 Romano, Event and World, 155; L’événement et le monde, 209. 175 The scholastic use of “transcendental” has a different meaning than the modern one. It refers to three transcendentals (ens, unum and verum) that are not genera but have a universality transcending any generic universality. For a discussion of Kant on the transcendentals of scholastic philosophy in the proposition, “Quodlibet ens est unum, verum, bonum,” see Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 216–8. B 113–6. 176 Romano, Event and World, 163; L’événement et le monde, 219.

134

CHAPTER 2

their “making possible” (possibilisation) all other possibilities of the world, that is to say, the event is “world-configuring.” The experience of events always opens new possibilities for the advenant. Moreover, the advenant acquires his selfhood through the very first event, his birth. The play of selfhood becomes possible because of the event. It is the opening of all other possibilities for the advenant. In the way of framing the transcendental, it is understood to be transcendental because its unconditional happening is the condition for all other possibilities. Nevertheless, the event always has the character of being a posteriori. Even if its happening creates a rupture and opens a new world of possibilities, we still experience the event as a human being in the world. Given the world-configuring character of events, the combination of these two contradictory notions does not necessarily imply a contradiction or paradox, but helps to capture the way the event transforms the selfhood by being a source of meaning that makes understanding possible. Finally, with regard to the experience of events and preunderstanding, I need to explain evential hermeneutics’ position vis-à-vis language. As a hermeneutical phenomenology, evential hermeneutics does not deal with the issue of language in a radical way even though it considers the event as “a source meaning.”177 Nevertheless, Romano’s evential hermeneutics does have some implications for language. One can find a detailed discussion of the relation between language and experience with respect to hermeneutics in At the Heart of Reason. As has been discussed above, as an heir of the hermeneutical tradition, Romano claims that “[g]enuine hermeneutics is phenomenology and phenomenology is only achieved as hermeneutics.”178 Nevertheless, he does distinguish his own approach from those of previous hermeneutical philosophers, such as Gadamer and Ricœur. In hermeneutical philosophy, language is considered not only as a tool for engaging with the world but as a medium through which we engage with the world. Gadamer’s famous sentence, “Being that can be understood is language,”179 points to the fact that there is an essentially linguistic (sprachlich) quality to our experience of the world. Through language, the world expresses itself to human beings. In this sense, Gadamer thinks that language is the universal medium of our being in the world.180 Such an intermediary role for language presumes that all experience has a linguistic character for human beings. Romano makes a similar assessment of 177 One can find some implications of this issue in his Event and World: §22 chapter “Experience and Speech,” 164–73; L’événement et le monde, 220–32. 178 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 485; Au cœur de la raison, 874. 179 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 491. 180 Ibid., 466.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

135

Ricœur, who describes the world as “the whole set of references opened by every sort of descriptive or poetic text I have read, interpreted, and loved.”181 He understands being in the world “according to narrativity,” in which it is a “being-in-the-world [is] already marked by the linguistic practice leading back to this preunderstanding.”182 Borrowing a term from Elizabeth Anscombe, Romano labels the position wherein language is seen as essential for any experience of the world as “linguistic idealism.”183 Against the linguistic idealism of Gadamer and Ricœur, Romano stresses a pre-linguistical dimension of experience within which our openness to the world is not determined by language. Romano here assumes a perceptual openness to the world in which our experience is not necessarily conditioned by language.184 This implies a regime of pre-linguistic aspect of the world.185 In light of this structure of the world, he remarks that there is an essential relation between the description of phenomena, that is to say, interpretation, and experience. Rather than excluding each other, our perceptual openness to the world makes possible pre-linguistic experience. Romano states that “it becomes possible to consider that the experience of the world does not involve, generally speaking, any interpretation, but that the description of that experience, to the extent that it exceeds by the transcendental questions it formulates a pure description of essence, is only carried out as

181 Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative I, trans. Kathleen Mclaughlin and David Pellauer (­Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press: 1984), 80. 182 Ibid., 81. 183 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 487; Au cœur de la raison, 878. Romano points out that linguistic idealism falls into the problem of relativism, see Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 488: “If experience presents no feature of intelligibility outside its structuration by language, and therefore if the life-world is linguistic and cultural through and through, we must conclude that the depositaries of different cultures do not live in the same world. Conversely, it may be that cultural relativism in its various forms is always connected, whether closely or remotely, to the idea of incommensurable languages, and therefore to the idea of incommensurable worldviews: its implicit premise is that language structures our perception of the world without remainder.” Discussing this problem at this juncture would risk a digression from my main theme, namely, the relation between experience and language. 184 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 527; Au cœur de la raison, 948. It is important to note that Romano’s project in At the Heart of Reason is much broader than his project of evential hermeneutics. In this thick book, the author engages in a lengthy engagement with both phenomenological and analytical philosophers regarding the main problems of phenomenology. In my treatment of this work here, it is necessary for me to significantly narrow my scope in order to maintain a focus on his evential hermeneutics. 185 Steven DeLay, Phenomenology in France (New York: Routledge, 2019), 169.

136

CHAPTER 2

an interpretation.”186 For Romano, the new, phenomenological image of reason is premised on the sensible logic of the world, and it is one that seeks to defend experience and to displace the deracinated image of reason, which he describes as “a reason cut off from its corporeal and experiential roots.”187 On the basis of these pre-linguistic structures of experience, the world comes to interpretation, that is to say, to language. Romano’s At the Heart of Reason aims to renew phenomenology, and this project can be instructive for understanding his evential hermeneutics. The experience of events involves the reconfiguration of the world and this reconfiguration implies a transformation such that there is a rupture between the world before and the world after the event. By this experience, the advenant is opened to the world. It is not language that opens the world to the advenant, but the very happening of the event and the experience of it. The experience of the event is prior to any mediation through language. Moreover, the experience of the event as a transcendental a posteriori conditions our every engagement with the world, re-opens the world, and makes the world possible. As an event, birth is not conditioned by language or preunderstanding. It is the condition of our being in the world. In this sense, it is not language but experience itself that has priority for evential hermeneutics. In this way, what Romano develops in At the Heart of Reason can be seen as an extension of his project of evential hermeneutics. 2.4

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have explained how the event exhibits a particular kind of phenomenality that differs from the phenomenality of facts in the phenomenological hermeneutics of Claude Romano. He argues that the phenomenality of the event and the event as such are ignored in the history of philosophy, specifically by Heidegger. Since Romano’s project of phenomenological hermeneutics, that is to say, evential hermeneutics, mainly presents a critical approach to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology with regard to the primacy of the event, I have explained the ways in which evential hermeneutics engages with Heideggerian ontology. By doing so, I have shown both the hermeneutical sources of Romano’s project and his criticisms of Heidegger. This has served to help us to understand how the event is distinguished from innerworldly facts. In light of the distinctive characteristics of the event, this new kind of 186 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 493; Au cœur de la raison, 887. 187 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 527; Au cœur de la raison, 947.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

137

phenomenality that belongs to the event paves the way for a reformulation of the key phenomenological notions of possibility, the world, time, temporality, and experience. At the end of the chapter, I have discussed how the idea of the phenomenality of the event has served to transform these notions by putting the event at their centre. With respect to the two chapters that have comprised the first part of this book, it can be said that the question of what the event is has been addressed by providing two accounts of the phenomenality of the event. By looking at two different ways of understanding the event, I have sought to address significant common points in order to help us grasp the main traits of the phenomenology of the event. First, for both Marion and Romano, it can be noted that the event is not understood in terms of any kind of ontology. As has been noted above, throughout the history of philosophy, the event has been mostly regarded in terms of the economy of accident, as an attribute of a substance or the subject. The ontology of substance, that is to say, ousiology, renders the event as a mere accident of a substance. Within this framework, the event is placed under the ontological category of the accident, and, thereby, a proper account of its happening cannot be given in its own terms. For Marion and Romano, the event must be conceived of beyond any ontology. Both philosophers aim to dislocate the event from any ontological account, especially from Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. For Romano, the fundamental ontology of Heidegger reduces the event to the status of a fact. The motto of the evential hermeneutics is “events before anything” (L’événement avant toute chose).188 This statement in French not only expresses the priority of the event but also that “the event is not a thing or being.”189 In a similar way, Marion also aims to put phenomenology beyond the question of being.190 His entire project of the phenomenology of givenness attempts to locate givenness prior to being so that phenomena can be thought of on the basis of givenness and prior to the question of being. Since the event is also understood in terms of givenness, it is obvious that it too takes place before the question of being. Furthermore, what Marion calls the “third reduction” is prior to Husserl’s first reduction concerning the horizon of the object and Heidegger’s second reduction concerning the horizon of being. The horizon of givenness allows the phenomenon to show 188 Romano, Event and World, 2; L’événement et le monde, 8. 189 DeLay, Phenomenology in France, 171 (fn. 8). 190 His most well-known work, God Without Being, aims to think of God beyond the question of being, see Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being: Hors-Texte, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 1991); Jean-Luc Marion, Dieu sans l’être: HorsTexte (Paris: Communio/Fayard, 1982).

138

CHAPTER 2

itself under the condition of giving itself: “Everything that shows itself (in the strict sense of showing itself on the basis of itself) must first of all give itself from itself … ​as events happening on the basis of their self.”191 In this respect, givenness is prior to being and thus his account of the phenomenality of the event proposes to go beyond any ontological commitment. Regarding the priority of the event over being, it might be useful to discuss my basic question, “What is the event?”, in light of this claim. The interrogative pronoun “what” can be seen to ascribe an essence and substance to the subject of the question because of the copula “be.”192 My inquiry into the phenomenality of the event began with the question: “What is the event?” This question can also be taken to indirectly refer to the event under the rules of ontology because to answer it by providing a definition of the event would also seem to require using the term “is.” Because the event has no substance and cannot be subordinated to any kind of ontology, one may prefer to use the question, “How does the event happen?” instead of “What is the event?” That said, I have also briefly discussed the issue of “linguistic idealism,” which presupposes language as a necessary condition for experience. In contrast to such an approach, there is no need for us to suppose language to be a condition for the experience

191 Jean-Luc Marion, Negative Certainties, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 202. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes négatives (Paris: Grasset, 2010), 310. 192 Apart from the conventional use of language, this claim relies on a supposed premise that the verb “be” is a necessary condition of logical identity and performs the synthesis of a subject and its predicate. For most Indo-European languages, this is the case because the copula is a particular verb (“to be”) and also an infinitive of being. Nevertheless, in many languages, such as Chinese, Arabic, Turkish there is no particular verb of “to be” in the same function. In such languages, logical identity and the relation between a subject and a predicate are established by means of the nominal phrase. See Emile Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 1:151–67, as cited in: Romano, Event and Time, 257–8 (fn. 76); L’événement et le temps, 171 (fn. 72). I want to argue that a particularity of a given language cannot be treated as a condition for philosophy in general. The copula “be” cannot be the necessary condition of logical identity and the synthesis of a subject and its predicate, even if such specific features of a language are here interpreted as if they negated the phenomenality of the event. As far as I can see, based on my knowledge of Turkish, English, German, French and Arabic, there is a vast range of verbs that describe the verbal sense of events in everyday language, even though some of these languages use the verb “be” to denote the subject-predicate relation. The question “What is?” needs not suppose a substantial ontological framework if we bear in mind that it is always translatable into other languages where “be” does not perform the copular function and “to be” is not an infinitive of being. Even if the question, “How does the event happen?”, might better represent what is meant by the question, “What is the event?” in English, it is nevertheless true that the conventional use of the question “What is?” might serve to focus our attention on the matter itself.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

139

of the event, and this means that the copula “be” need not always imply the ascription of a substance to the event. The event comes prior to any ontology. This makes the event a privileged phenomenon and generates a different kind of phenomenality. The event distinguishes itself from other kinds of phenomena by its unconditional happening. It takes place without any condition that could regulate its bursting forth. In the work of both philosophers, we can trace this privileged status of the event among the phenomena. The radical novelty of the event renders it unpredictable and unforeseeable. Romano uses the phrases “from nothing” and “pure an-archic bursting forth” to describe how the event as a “pure beginning” is something that happens unconditionally without appealing to any prior ground.193 Likewise, Marion’s characterisation the event as unforeseeable refers to the event’s bursting forth from nothing, its emergence from its own basis.194 In both figures, events are opposed to objects or facts in the way they happen from nothing and burst forth with a radical novelty. In this sense, there is no a priori for the happening of the event. The event is not subject to any rule governing its right to appear. This leads one to think of the event as being beyond any principle, especially the principle of sufficient reason. The distinguishing feature of the event is the suspension of the principle of sufficient reason, which states that everything has a reason.195 In contemporary philosophy, this feature of the event is emphasised by almost every philosopher who deals with the topic. As Gert-Jan van der Heiden summarises: “‘Event’ is not a name for a simple occurrence or happening in the world. Rather, event is a concept that is created to think an alternative to the principle of sufficient reason. An event is an occurrence happening without reason or ground; it cannot be foreseen; it cannot be mastered; it cannot be calculated.”196 The suspension of the principle of sufficient reason can be traced back to Heidegger’s revolutionary approach in The Principle of Reason.197 It would not be an exaggeration to say that Heidegger’s account sheds light on many ways of thinking about the event. For Romano and Marion, the event is not subject to causality. Once it is considered as an effect of a cause, it can no longer be understood as an event, 193 Romano, Event and World, 41; L’événement et le monde, 58. 194 Marion, Negative Certainties, 173–81; Certitudes négatives, 269–80. In this book, Marion uses “the unforeseeable” in the title of his section on the event, which is called “The Unforeseeable or the Event.” 195 For Leibniz’s account of the principle, see G.W. Leibniz, Monadology, trans. Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), 116. 196 Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 6–7. 197 Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991); Der Satz vom Grund (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997).

140

CHAPTER 2

properly speaking but a fact. In this sense, every event is always also a fact but not vice versa. A fact cannot always be an event. The event’s exceptional status in this regard reveals its fundamental distinction from other phenomena. The suspension of the principle of sufficient reason does not mean that it is totally annulled. The event only allows us to consider its phenomenality without any reliance on the authority of this principle. Asides from such considerations, the event may also be thought of as being in a causal nexus, as an effect of a cause under this principle. For example, the event of birth can be explained by some biological facts or statistical reasons such as war, the impetus of survival, etc. for population planning. On a personal level, it can also be explained by reference to sexual intercourse: a baby is born because of the actions of his/her parents. Nevertheless, such explanations do not exhaust the phenomenality of the event of birth. For the person who is born, the event of birth cannot be subordinated to the reasons for her existence. As the first and proto-event of my existence, birth makes possible that which subsequently happens throughout my existence in the world. In this respect, we can come to conclude that the happening of the event has a hermeneutical structure. If subordinated to a causal chain, it is not possible to think of the eventness of phenomena. Thus, the event must suspend the principle of sufficient reason in order to happen as an event. Finally, I wish to draw attention to a crucial difference between Marion and Romano. Insofar as both of them propose a phenomenological understanding of the event and attempt to distinguish its phenomenality from other modes, this puts them into dialogue with each other, allowing them to discuss each other’s project regarding their understanding of phenomenology and, as a result, their understandings of the phenomenality of the event. Marion’s project of phenomenology is based on givenness. As he points out, the phenomenon must be given before showing itself: “What shows itself first gives itself – this is my one and only theme.”198 In addition to the Heideggerian definition of the phenomenon, he sets up the given character of the phenomenon for anything that shows itself. Moreover, his final principle of phenomenology, “so much reduction, so much givenness,”199 makes reduction a task for the phenomenology of givenness. In light of this principle, the phenomenon that is reduced as a gift becomes the determination of the given phenomenon, which means Marion aims to equate “what shows itself and what gives itself.” Thus, he claims that “givenness and phenomenality each unfold from 198 Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 5. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1998), 10. 199 Marion, Being Given, 3; Étant donné, 7.

The Phenomenality of the Event in Evential Hermeneutics

141

the other, the one for the other.”200 As was discussed in Chapter 1,201 determinations of givenness are event-driven, which means that the given character of phenomena is portrayed by eventness as a mode of phenomenality. Marion establishes the horizon of givenness as the most general horizon for phenomena. This all-encompassing horizon determines eventness. For Marion, one can conclude that the event is given and eventness is based on givenness. Nevertheless, givenness does not have any role in evential hermeneutics. Romano intends to withdraw the event from all the prior conditions of the appearing of phenomenon, including givenness. Even if Marion would argue that givenness is not a condition of the appearing of phenomenon, Romano’s definition of the event considers givenness as a condition. Romano, in his preface to There Is, discusses how givenness and the given close up the event, in other words, the event cannot be thought under givenness as a given: “What is characteristic of the event qua phenomenon is rather that it does not let itself be closed up in the alternative of appearing and that which appears, of Being and beings, or even of givenness and the given.”202 Romano points out that the event has a different “phenomenological ‘syntax’” than being and givenness because in the happening of the event, there is “the opening of appearing … ​at the same level as that which appears, and as that appearing itself.”203 The event’s anarchic bursting forth does not work according to any prior conditions that could determine its appearing. The event opens appearing by opening to itself as that which appears. Thus, for Romano, the logic of givenness cannot determine the mode of appearing of the event. His article “Le don, La donation et La Paradoxe” directly addresses Marion’s project of the phenomenology of givenness, and problematises the relation between givenness and reduction.204 He claims that Marion’s description of givenness as unconditional is incompatible with any idea of reduction. In this respect, unlike what Marion proposes, there must be a difference between the reduced given and givenness, so that what is shown cannot be the same as what is given.205 Regarding the ­phenomenality 200 Marion, Being Given, 175; Étant donné, 246. 201 See Chapter 1 (section 2.1). 202 Romano, There Is, xvii. In the footnote to this sentence, he refers to these books by Marion: Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998); Marion, Being Given. 203 Romano, There Is, xvii. 204 Claude Romano, “Le Don, La Donation et Le Paradoxe,” in Philosophie de Jean-Luc Marion: Phénoménologie, théologie, métaphysique, ed. Philippe Capelle-Dumont (Paris: Hermann, 2015), 11–30. 205 Ibid., 20–26. For the problematic aspects of reduction in Marion, see Chapter 3 (­section 2.4.1) of this study.

142

CHAPTER 2

of the event, Romano’s critique of the idea of givenness argues that givenness makes conditions for the appearing of the event. This is a fundamental divergence between their understanding of the phenomenality of the event. Whereas Romano aims to provide a groundless ground – it is nothing other than the event itself – for the appearing of the event, Marion also proposes to do so via the given character of the event, but without abandoning the syntax of givenness. I think that this point of conflict determines differences in their way of doing phenomenology and that any attempt to compare these philosophers must regard this matter as a structural difference rather than a mere difference in nuance.

PART 2 Who Experiences the Event?

∵

Introduction to Part 2 In this part of the book, I discuss two new ways of understanding subjectivity that are articulated in the works of Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano. I argue that the phenomenality of the event requires a new understanding of the subject. Since the event regulates a new range of phenomenality, previous understandings of subjectivity in phenomenology prove themselves inadequate for properly explaining the experience of events. The event’s unique characteristics and mode of appearance give rise to a radical reformulation of subjectivity. More precisely, these new conceptualisations aim to repudiate the idea of the subject and subjectivity in phenomenology. Both Marion and Romano offer new names that are to take the place of the notion of the subject in their corpora. In this respect, the concepts of adonné and advenant can be seen to respond to a need that is engendered by the phenomenality of the event. Before proceeding further, let me recall a question concerning subjectivity that Jean-Luc Nancy posed to various philosophers in 1986. As we will see from the question posed by Nancy, the issue of subjectivity – or the offering of alternative subjectivities – is not something peculiar to the phenomenality of the event in contemporary philosophy. The following lengthy quotation comprises a letter that was written by Jean-Luc Nancy as a way of posing his question to significant figures of the eighties: Who comes after the subject? This question can be explained as follows: one of the major characteristics of contemporary thought is the putting into question of the instance of the “subject,” according to the structure, the meaning, and the value subsumed under this term in modern thought, from Descartes to Hegel, if not to Husserl. The inaugurating decisions of contemporary thought whether they took place under the sign of a break with metaphysics and its poorly pitched questions, under the sign of a “deconstruction” of this metaphysics, under that of a transference of the thinking of Being to the thinking of life, or of the Other, or of language, etc. – have all involved putting subjectivity on trial. A wide spread discourse of recent date proclaimed the subject’s simple liquidation. Everything seems, however, to point to the necessity, not of a “return to the subject” (proclaimed by those who would like to think that nothing has happened, and that there is nothing new to be thought, except maybe variations or modifications of the subject), but on the contrary, of a move forward towards someone – someone else in its place (this last © Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_006

146

Introduction to Part 2

expression is obviously a mere convenience: the “place” could not be the same). Who would it be? How would s/he present him/herself? Can we name her/him? Is the question “who” suitable? (My formulations seem to presuppose that none of the existing designations for example, Dasein or “the individual” would be suitable. But my intention of course is to leave open all possibilities.) In other words: If it is appropriate to assign something like a punctuality, a singularity, or a hereness (haecceitas) as the place of emission, reception, or transition (of affect, of action, of language, etc.), how would one designate its specificity? Or would the question need to be transformed or is it in fact out of place to ask it?1 My aim in recalling this question is to show how the problem of subjectivity is an eminent issue for contemporary philosophy, including phenomenology. It would not be an exaggeration to say that contemporary philosophy aims at nothing less than “putting subjectivity on trial.”2 Consequently, the question, “Who comes after the subject?” is still an active and vital theme in contemporary philosophy. In this context, Jean-Luc Marion’s and Claude Romano’s alternatives for the subject can also be seen as attempts to answer this question. In any case, it should be noted that “subjectivity has always been of central concern for phenomenologists” because any account of the main phenomenological themes, which means such themes as “the first-person perspective, the structures of experience, time-consciousness, body-awareness, self-awareness, intentionality,” would also necessitate a reconsideration of subjectivity.3 In his book Testing the Limit, François-David Sebbah presents a general analysis of French phenomenology. He points out that the reconfiguration of subjectivity – a French affair – offers “the recovery of a fertile disquiet with which we can never be finished.”4 The discussion about the phenomenological 1 Jean-Luc Nancy, “Introduction” in Who Comes After the Subject?, ed. Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor and Jean-Luc Nancy (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 5. This edited volume contains answers to this question from many philosophers of the period, including: Alain Badiou, Jean-François Courtine, Jacques Derrida, Michel Henry, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Rancière. A similar approach and question is evident in a subsequent German publication, see Manfred Frank, Gérard Raufet and ­Willem van Reijen, eds., Die Frage nach dem Subjekt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998). 2 Nancy, Who Comes After the Subject?, 5. 3 Dan Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005), 5. 4 François-David Sebbah, Testing the Limit: Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the Phenomenological Tradition, trans. Stephen Barker (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 128.

Introduction to Part 2

147

subject is oriented towards both the nature of phenomenology and its subjectivity: “[p]henomenology has participated and continues to participate in this ‘work’ on the subject, on exaltation, humiliation, deadliness, and – why not? – resurrection. This participation [ … ​] can teach us a great deal, as much about the nature of phenomenology as about that of subjectivity.”5 To this French affair on subjectivity, Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano, as phenomenologists, devote much effort. Their endeavours of the transformation of subjectivity pave the way for understanding their respective interpretation of phenomenology. Furthermore, the most noteworthy feature of their respective reconceptualisations of subjectivity is how each relates to the phenomenality of the event, which is the main determinant of both Marion’s and Romano’s understanding of phenomenology. Marion and Romano accord a fundamental role to the phenomenality of the event, and they criticise earlier phenomenological efforts to interpret the subject in light of the event. Their critiques allow them to propose new names for the subject. By means of these new names, Marion and Romano propose new interpretations of the human being that focus on the human capacity to experience the event in all of its peculiar phenomenality. This seems to satisfy the meaning of the preposition “after” in Nancy’s question, insofar as these new designations are intended both as criticisms of previous conceptions and renewals of the subject. In this regard, one can no longer refer to them as “subjects.” Rather, they can be thought of as new interpretations of the human being in phenomenology; thus, these designations can provide a way out of the idea of the subject and subjectivity in the phenomenological tradition. In my discussion of the adonné and the advenant, I will thus follow the lines of Marion’s and Romano’s critiques of subjectivity and their development of alternative notions. As was mentioned in the introductory chapter, here my usage of the notions “subject” and “subjectivity” in reference to the adonné and the advenant is not meant to suggest that the latter are simply continuations of the former. Instead, it is indicative of their posteriority. It means that these new names come “after” the subject by aiming to leave behind the subject and subjectivity in phenomenology. Thus, Marion and Romano clearly aim to replace the subject and subjectivity by criticising the various forms these notions take and reformulating them under the designations of the adonné and the advenant. As Nancy’s question indicates, the issue of the subject has been problematised by modern thinkers from Descartes to Kant and on down to Husserl and, eventually, Heidegger, whose conception of Dasein is his own response 5 Ibid., 131.

148

Introduction to Part 2

to the question of subjectivity. One of the first twentieth-century philosophers to problematise subjectivity, Heidegger has become a key influence on many subsequent efforts to criticise and reformulate the notion. Indeed, Heidegger’s Dasein shall be seen to play a crucial role in Marion’s and Romano’s accounts of subjectivity by simultaneously offering a new, alternative model and nevertheless remaining one of the final heirs of the idea of subjectivity. Each of the following two chapters deals with one of the two new models for subjectivity proposed by Marion and Romano. Chapter 3 discusses Marion’s renewal of the subject under the designation of the adonné.6 His neologistic alternative to the subject is related to the central theme of his phenomenology, which seeks to shape the phenomenality of the event in light of the notion of givenness, as was discussed in Chapter 1. Marion’s critique of subjectivity will serve as our starting point for understanding the adonné; it reveals why the event requires another way of being received as well as what the adonné cannot be. Following this analysis, we will consider Marion’s reformulation of the subject by examining how the adonné is subjectivised by the phenomenality of the event. By alluding to Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein, I will focus on some major determinants of the adonné, the main characteristics of which are receptivity and posteriority. With these two characteristics, Marion claims to have provided a robust account of the adonné as a non-transcendental subject. I wish to critically examine these claims of Marion’s by focusing on his version of the “reduction.” Chapter 4 focuses on Romano’s alternative formulation for the subject, the advenant. His detailed analysis of the advenant offers us a new way to think about the role and place of human beings in the light of the event. Romano aims to remove the subject from its transcendental position, so the advenant serves to provide a critical approach to earlier conceptions of subjectivity. The advenant is configured by events, in particular the first event: birth. In this regard, I will first focus on birth as the event that opens the world to the advenant. I will then discuss Romano’s notion of selfhood, which is of central importance for understanding the relation between the advenant and events. This will lead us to consider Romano’s explication of temporality, through 6 In this study, I will use “l’adonné” as it is used in French but without the French article. This notion is translated into English as “the gifted” in Being Given, whereas other translations use “the adonné.” I prefer to leave it in the original because it is a singular and proper noun. The French word “adonné” literally means “the one to whom is given,” and its meaning in everyday usage is “addicted.” Marion refers to its etymological relation to the verb “donner”, “to give.” It is not an issue here, but one could also ask why the adonné only takes a masculine form. Its meaning “the one whom it is given” can also be expressed as a feminine noun, namely, as the adonnée.

Introduction to Part 2

149

which the subjectivation of the advenant becomes possible in the light of events. The last section of the chapter deals with the problem of transcendentalism and its relation to scepticism. After discussing the problem of scepticism and Romano’s attempt to overcome it in phenomenology, I will compare his understanding of descriptive realism to some examples of new realism in contemporary philosophy. This will help us to understand what Romano attempts to do with his phenomenological understanding of realism. Finally, the investigation of subjectivity that is necessitated by my analysis of the “adonné” and the “advenant” is aimed at the phenomenological version of this notion. The terms “subject” and “subjectivity” have many meanings, and this diversity of meanings allows thinkers from a variety of fields to interpret different structures of subjectivity.7 From anthropology and law to psychoanalysis and neuropsychology, the term “subject” has come to refer to a range of concepts, which means that it has many synonyms, such as: human being, man, reason, mind, self-consciousness, individual, self, selfhood, person, human agency, spirit, soul, identity, ego and I.8 This diversity of meanings is even evident in the ways the term is deployed within the phenomenological tradition.9 Of course, this study could hardly cover such a vast semantic range and so will be restricted to a particular use of the term within the phenomenological tradition, one that is specific to the two figures who have expanded our understanding of events. 7 Manfred Frank, Ansichten der Subjektivität (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012), 7. 8 Roland Hagenbüchle, “Subjektivität: Eine historisch-systematische Hinführung,” in Geschichte und Vorgeschichte der modernen Subjektivität, eds. Reto Luzius Fetz, Roland Hagenbüchle and Peter Schulz (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 6. 9 Dermot Moran, “The Personal Self in the Phenomenological Tradition,” in Identity and Difference: Contemporary Debates on the Self, ed. Rafael Winkler (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 3–35. See also Rudolf Bernet, “Subjectivity: From Husserl to his Followers (and Back Again),” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology, ed. Dan Zahavi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 492–510.

Chapter 3

The Adonné This chapter will show how Marion’s rethinking of subjectivity is guided by his analysis of the phenomenality of the event. Marion advances a new conception of the subject for his phenomenology, l’adonné, which he proposes as an alternative to previous phenomenological conceptions of the subject. With his new conception of subjectivity, he seeks to transform the role of the subject in phenomenological thought comprehensively and in a manner that reflects his understanding of phenomenality. The way phenomena appear determines how and in which way the subject experiences phenomena and herself or himself. Since the nature of the relation between the phenomenon and the one who experiences it is central for phenomenology, the specific character of this relation in any given phenomenological approach shapes the idea of phenomenality and its subject. In this sense, one may also say that earlier accounts of subjectivity in phenomenology arise from the determination of phenomenality at work in a given approach. An introduction to Marion’s interpretation of phenomenality is helpful for situating the adonné. As was presented in Chapter 1, Marion discusses two modes of phenomenality: objectness and eventness. He states that the phenomenological status of the event has been dismissed in phenomenology and that the criteria of being a phenomenon have tended to follow the conditions of objectness. His idea of “eventness” as a mode of phenomenality – that is, as the proper mode of phenomenality – aims to extend the range of phenomenality to phenomena that are given without any determining conditions being specified before they show themselves.1 Concerning the primacy of the given phenomenon over any other principle in phenomenology, Marion sets givenness as the basis of the self-showing of all phenomena. The definition of the phenomenon in terms of givenness ensures that nothing external to the phenomenon can play a central role in its appearing. This means that a phenomenon shows itself “without any other principles beside itself.”2 This understanding of the phenomenon as self-given is a starting point for Marion’s account of the mode of eventness in the phenomenology of givenness. 1 Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 5. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1998), 10. 2 Marion, Being Given, 18; Étant donné, 29. © Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_007

152

CHAPTER 3

While Marion anchors the two general modes of phenomenality – that is, objectness and eventness – in the idea of the phenomenon as self-given, he also aspires to change the criteria of being a phenomenon, which had hitherto been configured according to the rules of objectness. As noted in Chapter 1, the rules of objectness presuppose the existence of a transcendental subject for the appearing of the phenomenon. This means that an object can only appear to the extent that a subject has constituted it. In the case of objects, the selfshowing of the phenomenon is conditioned by an authority other than that of the phenomenon itself. It assumes the “the alienated status of the object” by being subjected to “the rule of a constituting I, who from the outside defines and produces it [the self of the phenomenon].”3 In this sense, Marion’s aim to remove any other authority from the self-showing of the phenomenon is directly related to his understanding of subjectivity. He argues that “the phenomenon gives itself and shows itself only by confirming itself as a ‘self’ and this ‘self’ is attested only counter to every exclusively transcendental claim of the I.”4 To show itself in an unconditioned manner, the “self” of the phenomenon requires a new type of subject.5 This subject would exhibit a new form of subjectivity, one that is “stripped of the characteristics that gave it transcendental rank.”6 Before touching on the consequences of this claim about subjectivity, it is important to consider what Marion means by the “self” (soi) of the phenomenon. This issue was problematised by Shane Mackinlay in his book Interpreting Excess.7 According to Mackinlay, what is meant by the idea of the “self” of the phenomenon has yet to be specified by Marion with any precision. Marion’s account of the “self” of the phenomenon is intended to reinforce the idea that the origin of the given phenomenon is not something external to it, but is the phenomenon as such. Although Marion makes frequent use of the notion of the “self” of the phenomenon in order to express the self-giving (Selbst-gebung, donation de soi) of phenomena,8 one cannot find a detailed 3 Marion, Being Given, 248; Étant donné, 343. 4 Marion, Being Given, 248; Étant donné, 343. 5 On this point, one should recall Heidegger’s definition of the phenomenon: “what shows itself, the self-showing, the manifest.” This definition is reconsidered by Marion in light of his conception of givenness, but Marion’s definition also adheres to the Heideggerian one insofar as it aims to locate the self-showing of the phenomenon in the phenomenon itself, see Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 27. For the German text, see Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), 28. 6 Marion, Being Given, 219; Étant donné, 302. 7 Shane Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 17–19. 8 Marion, Being Given, 20; Étant donné, 33.

The Adonné

153

discussion of this notion in his work.9 Nevertheless, I argue that Marion’s use of the notion does not presuppose some “in itself” of phenomena.10 Rather, with Mackinlay, it can be argued that “[a]scribing a ‘self’ to phenomena is a way of excluding claims about the role of subjectivity in phenomenality.”11 In this sense, Marion’s references to the “self” of the phenomenon make use of this expression in order to draw attention to the self-givenness of phenomena. Marion’s idea of the saturated phenomenon exemplifies how a phenomenon is given without any condition and not limited by any authority other than that of the phenomenon itself. The saturated phenomenon is defined as an excess of intuition over intentionality, which describes a situation in which subjective capacities are not capable of constituting phenomena as objects. The excessive way in which the saturated phenomenon appears “contradicts the subjective conditions of experience precisely in that it does not admit constitution as an object.”12 Marion makes use of the Kantian categories in order to draw attention to the given character of saturated phenomena, exposure to which entails the reversal of each of these categories. By overturning the determinative power of the Kantian categories, Marion describes each saturated phenomenon as a counter-phenomenality to objectness. The conditions of possibility of objectness come from the idea of the transcendental subjectivity. By not being an object, saturated phenomena draw a new range of phenomenality on the basis of givenness. The event as a saturated phenomenon is described as being “a nonobjective or, more exactly nonobjectifiable phenomenon.”13 As was discussed in ­Chapter 1, asides from being an example of the saturated phenomenon, the event also has a paradigmatic function: eventness is a mode of phenomenality in general that defines “each type of the saturated phenomenon” and “the phenomenon as given in general.”14 Jean Greisch points out that the etymological 9

He also states that the motto of phenomenology, “back to the things themselves,” can only be understood in the light of the last principle of phenomenology, “so much reduction, so much givenness,” because the self of the phenomenon can only be given in reduction, see Marion, Being Given, 20; Étant donné, 32. 10 In his relatively late article, Jean-Luc Marion discusses the “thing in itself”, realism and the phenomenality of the event and object, see Jean-Luc Marion, “Le réalisme réel: l’objet ou la chose,” in Choses en soi: Métaphysique du réalisme, ed. Emmanuel Alloa and Élie During (Paris: PUF, 2018), 79–100. 11 Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 18. 12 Marion, Being Given, 214; Étant donné, 299. 13 Marion, Being Given, 213; Étant donné, 299. 14 Jean-Luc Marion, Negative Certainties, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 200. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes negatives (Paris: Éditions Grasset, 2010), 308.

154

CHAPTER 3

relation between the German words “Begebenheit” (event) and “Gegebenheit” (­givenness) invites us to consider whether the phenomenality of the event is paradigmatic for the phenomenology of givenness.15 Here it is also important to note the priority of the event with respect to other saturated phenomena because of its perfect accord with what Marion describes as the given c­ haracter of the phenomenon: Givenness overrules both the given and the givee in the very same event. So there is no a priori, not even the passive a priori, nor that of the transcendental “I,” nor yet that of the empirical self … ​I think I made this point with givenness [ … ]​ I hope that I am moving to a position where we have left the a priori entirely behind. That is why the most original saturated phenomenon is the event. The event achieves the destruction of the a priori. It happens as the only self-imposing a priori, so that everything else happens through it. To happen is to happen a posteriori by definition. The only correct a priori lies in the universal a posteriori of the event.16 The emphasis that Marion places on the event in his explanation of the given character of phenomena is crucial in two respects. First, he characterises its status with regard to other saturated phenomena as being “the most original” because of its paradigmatic achievement of givenness. As such, the way in which the event appears is also a mode of phenomenality in general. Its a posteriori character serves to contrast the mode of eventness to the other mode of phenomenality, objectness. Second, the event has a central role in the “subjectivation” of the subject for Marion.17 Since the event happens without any a priori conditions, the subject’s constituting role in its appearing is not at issue anymore. Aposteriority means that the one who experiences the event becomes the adonné because the adonné “receives itself from what it receives, 15 16 17

Jean Greisch, “Ce que l’événement donne à penser,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 102, no. 1 (2014): 39–62. Jean-Luc Marion, “The Phenomenology of Givenness,” in Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and Chris W. Hackett (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 54 (emphasis added). I borrow the term “subjectivation” (subjectivation) from Stéphane Vinolo, who uses it in his article “L’apostrophe de l’événement: Romano à la lumière de Badiou et Marion.” In this article, he proposes that the subjectivation process arises from the event in the course of its recognition. While this is chiefly drawn from Badiou’s work, Vinolo relates Romano’s understanding of the advenant to Badiou’s understanding of the event, see Stéphane Vinolo, “L’apostrophe de l’événement: Romano à la lumière de Badiou et Marion,” Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 21, no. 2 (2013): 51–67.

The Adonné

155

as the first phenomenon, rendering possible the reception of all others.”18 This passage is one that moves from the event to subjectivation, not vice versa, which means that the starting point for the adonné is the event, not the subject. Marion claims that such an understanding of the subject contradicts the very idea of the subjectivity of the “transcendental I” because it is not a locus of the appearing of phenomena. Let us entertain this notion of the event as both the most important saturated phenomena and a mode of phenomenality that plays a vital role in the subjectivation of the adonné. The event does not allow an a priori understanding of the subject – that is to say, the transcendental I – to be involved in its occurrence. Since it appears excessively and unpredictably, an event cannot be ruled by the subjective powers of synthesising, constituting or objectifying. In this respect, as was claimed at the beginning of this part, Marion critiques and dismantles previous phenomenological understandings of subjectivity with his conception of the adonné. Just as Marion’s account of eventness entails the critique of objectness, so too does his account of the adonné entail the critique of its opposite, transcendental subjectivity. Behind this move lies the idea that every account of phenomenality requires its own configuration of the subject. This approach, I argue, comes from the Heideggerian transformation of the subject. For Heidegger, Dasein facilitates the destruction of the Cartesian ego and transcendental subjectivity. With Dasein, Heidegger aims to go beyond the limits imposed by the notion of the subject, since each idea of the subject entails an ontological understanding of hypokeimenon (subjectum).19 Rather than thinking of the human being as a subject, Heidegger deploys the notion of Dasein because he thinks that it is free from any ontological inheritance from the Cartesian ego or transcendental subjectivity. According to Heidegger, the problem of the notion of the subjectum comes from its origin in the Greek notion of hypokeimenon (underlying), which meant it has been identified with the concept of substantia or substance (ousia) from the beginning.20 Descartes allowed this ontological notion to be applicable to a particular existence, to the “ego” or “I” as “res cogitans.” This means that the ego becomes a subject as a substantial being among other beings. This privilege of the ego as a thinking thing (res cogitans) establishes its ontological priority over other beings, that is to say, extended things (res extensa). Heidegger claims that Descartes “carries 18

Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess, trans. Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 43. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, De surcroît: Études sur les phénomènes saturés (Paris: PUF, 2010), 51. 19 Heidegger, Being and Time, 45; Sein und Zeit, 46. 20 David Carr, The Paradox of the Subjectivity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 16.

156

CHAPTER 3

out the fundamental reflections of his Meditations by applying medieval ontology to this being [Seiende] which he posits as the fundamentum inconcussum [unshakable foundation].”21 This egological definition and function of the subject serves to determine the philosophical conception of the human being from Descartes to Husserl. Thus, it became an “ontological foundation” and serves as a methodological starting point for Husserl.22 Heidegger thus introduces Dasein as an alternative to the Cartesian ego and the different forms it takes in Kant and Husserl. As a new starting point for ontology, Dasein makes it possible to question the meaning of being (Sein), which had been neglected throughout the history of philosophy. Rather than being a subject and a substance, Dasein in the light of its existential analysis will guide the inquiry into the meaning of being that comprises his fundamental ontology. Heidegger’s existential analytic of Dasein is intended to be more fundamental than the understanding of human beings found in anthropology, psychology and biology, and he attempts to overcome the understanding of the human being at work in these latter disciplines by means of his fundamental ontology. This is because their definition of the human being is identical to the definition of the subject as a substance and they do not aim to achieve any ontological understanding of this being.23 Indeed, in this respect, Marion’s account of the adonné can be seen as a continuation of the Heideggerian project of overcoming subjectivity and reformulating the subject, even if their aims are different and often at odds with each other. In an article entitled “Le sujet sans subjectivité” (The subject without subjectivity), Christian Sommer interprets Marion’s adonné as the outcome of the “theological turn” in French phenomenology.24 Rather than focusing on the examples Marion draws from theological sources in his explanation of the adonné, Sommer relates Marion’s conception of subjectivity, as an heir of Heidegger and Husserl, to “phenomenological anthropology.” This is a term 21 Heidegger, Being and Time, 23; Sein und Zeit, 24. 22 Heidegger, Being and Time, 48; Sein und Zeit, 49. 23 Heidegger, Being and Time, 49; Sein und Zeit, 50. 24 Christian Sommer, “Le sujet sans subjectivité. Après le ‘tournant théologique’ de la ­phénoménologie française,” Revue germanique internationale 13, no. 1 (2011): 149–62. The “theological turn” or “religious turn” of French phenomenology was so named by Dominique Janicaud in the 1990s. This designation was proposed by Janicaud in order to highlight how the phenomenological approaches of Marion, Levinas, Henry and Chrétien can be seen as an abandonment of phenomenology for theology. For Janicaud, phenomenology must be methodologically atheist. See Phénoménologie et théologie de la phénoménologie française, ed. Dominique Janicaud (Paris: Criterion, 1992). For the English translation, see ­Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’: The French Debate, ed. Dominique Janicaud, trans. ­Bernard G. Prusak (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).

The Adonné

157

he borrows from Hans Blumenberg,25 who sought to develop this notion in contrast to the critical attitudes of Husserl and Heidegger towards the notion of anthropology.26 Sommer argues that Marion’s adonné, as a “subject without subjectivity,” furnishes us with a new phenomenological analytic of the subject – that is to say, a “decentred” subjectivity – in a similar way to Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, but that it also involves an attempt at overcoming Heidegger and Husserl. Marion’s aim of overcoming metaphysics and “approaching precisely phenomena of ‘otherwise than being’” opens up a post-metaphysical figure of the subject the subject that is opposed to both the transcendental subject and Dasein.27 At the same, Marion’s project is seen to fit well with Blumenberg’s notion of “phenomenological anthropology” as a return to anthropological thinking in phenomenology through its “a double critical rereading of Husserl and Heidegger.”28 In light of Sommer’s reading, the adonné can be thought in relation to Blumenberg’s idea of phenomenological anthropology. Nevertheless, my objective here is not to relate the adonné to Blumenberg’s phenomenological anthropology but, rather, to address how Sommer links Marion’s adonné to the Heideggerian project of reinterpreting 25

26

27 28

As an exceptional voice within the German phenomenological tradition, Hans Blumenberg sought to develop a “phenomenological anthropology” after Husserl and Heidegger, that is to say, in opposition to the anti-anthropological approach of these thinkers. He considers the anti-anthropological aspect of phenomenology as “anthropology-phobia” and tries to overcome this phobia within phenomenology, see Hans Blumenberg, Zu den Sachen und zurück, ed. Manfred Sommer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002), 98. The proposal of a specifically phenomenological anthropology would entail c­ hanging the central question of any idea of philosophical anthropology from “What is man [the human]?” to “How is man [the human] possible?” See Hans Blumenberg, Beschreibung des Menschen, ed. Manfred Sommer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2006), 535. Beschreibung des Menschen can be seen as one of his main contributions to this project of phenomenological anthropology. In the afterword of the book, its editor says that another title for the book could be, “Phenomenological Anthropology,” see ibid., 897. The phenomenological phobia concerning anthropology, which Blumenberg describes, comes from Husserl’s and Heidegger’s critical engagements with anthropology. In his article, “Phenomenology and Anthropology,” written in 1931 (after Being and Time), Husserl criticises Heidegger by claiming that Heidegger aims to conduct a “transcendental anthropology”, see Edmund Husserl, Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931), ed. and trans. Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer (Dordrecht: Springer, 1997), 485–500. Françoise Dastur traces the discussion between Husserl and Heidegger on the issue of philosophical anthropology, see Françoise Dastur, “Phenomenology and Anthropology,” in “Recenterings of Continental Philosophy,” eds. Cynthia Willett and Leonard Lawlor, Supplement, Philosophy Today 54 (2010), 5–14. Sommer, “Le sujet sans subjectivité,” 150. Ibid., 160.

158

CHAPTER 3

the phenomenological subject as a post-metaphysical subject. In this sense, Dasein as the destruction of metaphysical subjectivity and Marion’s account of the adonné as a decentred subject seem thematically similar. Like Heidegger’s Dasein, Marion’s adonné is a post-metaphysical account of subjectivity in the sense that it is no longer a hypokeimenon and does not have constitutive role or a priori function. Thus, the criticism of the modern metaphysical subject and the post-metaphysical reconfiguration of subjectivity will serve to guide our understanding of the adonné’s subjectivation by way of the event. In what follows, I will first engage with Marion’s account of the aporias of the transcendental subject in Kant and Husserl. I will then focus on his understanding of the new subjectivity of the adonné. In other words, I first examine Marion’s critique of subjectivity and then elaborate on his reformulation of “subjectivity” as the adonné.29 3.1

Aporias of the Subject

Marion’s contribution to Who Comes After the Subject? begins by stating that, “[p]henomenology has perhaps never had a more pressing task to confront than the determination of what – or possibly who – succeeds the subject.”30 He assigns phenomenology the task of proposing a new conception of the “subject.” In allocating this main task to contemporary phenomenology, Marion also brings to the fore those accounts of the subject provided by earlier phenomenologists that must now be overcome. In dealing with the aporias of the subject in this section, I want to address the problematic aspects of these earlier accounts of subjectivity for the phenomenology of givenness and to show how Marion problematises the subject. The phenomenology of givenness attempts to put the self-givenness of the phenomenon at the centre of phenomenality so as to remove any determining conditions from the appearing phenomena. In this sense, what Marion seeks in his investigation of subjectivity is the most pressing “task” for phenomenology, namely, removing the conditions imposed by the subject on the self-showing of phenomena. What Marion here means by the subject is “the Cartesian ego” 29 30

I use the terms “subject” and “subjectivity” within quotation marks here intentionally in order to emphasise Marion’s renewed understanding of the subject as “the subject without subjectivity” or the “desubjectivised subject.” Jean-Luc Marion, “L’Interloque,” in Who Comes After the Subject?, ed. Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor and Jean-Luc Nancy (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 236.

The Adonné

159

and its corollary, the “transcendental I.” The idea of leaving behind the subject aims to liberate the self-showing of phenomena from the transcendental I.31 In this context, it is worth recalling that Husserl’s principle of principles aims to see the position of the subject in its relation to givenness: “Every originarily giving intuition is a source of right for cognition – that everything that offers itself originarily to us in intuition (in its fleshly actuality, so to speak) must simply be received for what it gives itself but without passing beyond the limits in which it gives itself.”32 Marion considers Husserl’s use of the phrase “to us” in the principle indicates a devaluation of givenness because it implies determining phenomenality in terms of the conditions of the transcendental I. Thus, in a contradictory fashion, the transcendental I becomes a criterion for the originarily self-giving of phenomena even though the same principle suggests givenness as the sole source for any cognition. Marion claims that “the givenness of the phenomenon on its own basis to an I can always veer towards a constitution of the phenomenon by and on the basis of the I.”33 He aims to eradicate the transcendental position that the “I” occupies within this schema. It is the saturated phenomenon that dislocates the position of the transcendental I and turns it into a “receiver” of the phenomenon who does not have a constituting role. As has been discussed in Chapter 1, the paradigm of the saturated phenomenon undermines the transcendental notion of subjectivity by inverting its capacities; it is deemed insufficient to constitute the saturated phenomenon. A gesture similar to the one made by Marion in his explication of the saturated phenomenon can be found in his account of transcendental subjectivity. Marion shows that the saturated phenomenon suspends the Kantian categories. By reversing them, each saturated phenomenon is characterised. Moreover, in his pitting of eventness against objectness, he offers a similar reversal of Kantian categories. In the latter account, Marion defines objectness in Kantian terms and notes that Kant’s conception of objectness was retained by Husserl. In examining transcendental subjectivity, Marion describes it by contrasting it to the adonné and then justifies the adonné by explicating the aporias of the 31 Marion, In Excess, 12; De surcroît, 14. 32 Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983), 44 (translation modified). For the German text, see Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), 51. 33 Marion, Being Given, 187; Étant donné, 262.

160

CHAPTER 3

transcendental I.34 Thus, Marion’s well-documented and long-term relationship with Kantian philosophy also sheds light on his disquietude regarding the transcendental subjectivity. He also aims to find its traces in Husserlian phenomenology. Marion deals with the mode of objectness in Husserl through Kant’s conception of the object.35 As Manfred Frank has shown, Kant’s definition of subjectivity lies behind phenomenology’s conception of subjectivity in general.36 Before investigating Marion’s critique of the aporias of the transcendental I, I would like to briefly note a discussion about the differences and similarities between Husserl’s and Kant’s conceptions of the transcendental subject. For many commentators, Husserl’s account of the transcendental differs in many ways from that of Kant, and the notion of transcendental is said to play a different role in their respective projects.37 The frequent scholarly discussions about the role of transcendental subjectivity in Kant and Husserl has revealed many divergences 34

Claudia Serban, “Marion als Leser Kants,” in Jean-Luc Marion. Studien zum Werk, eds. ­ erl-Falkovitz and Hanna-Barbara (Dresden: Text & Dialog, 2013), 208. G 35 It should also be noted here that Claudia Serban shows that Marion’s overall undertaking in his phenomenology begins by criticising Kant, but after her detailed analysis of this reception, she concludes that “Marion’s criticism of Kant cannot therefore be regarded as a farewell to Kant.” See Serban, “Marion als Leser Kants,” 214. In a similar way, an article by Jason Alvis addresses the relation between the Kantian subject and Marion’s reading and transformation of this subject in his conception of the adonné. He raises the following issue: “Is it possible to have a first, grounding philosophy without a stable, transcendental subject who might allow for the consistency and repetition of particular thoughts and experiences? [ … ​] Marion attempts to work out this originally Kantian concern for the subject.” See Jason Alvis, “Subject and Time: Jean-Luc Marion’s Alteration of Kantian Subjectivity,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 14, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 29. 36 Manfred Frank, “Subjekt, Person, Individuum,” in Individualität, ed. Manfred Frank and Anselm Haverkamp (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1988), 10. Frank claims that: “Kants Definition von Subjektivität ist maßgeblich geblieben für Philosophie seiner Nachfolgernicht nur für die Hegelianer, sondern auch für die Neukantianer und Phänomenologen.” 37 Carr, The Paradox of the Subjectivity, 82. For further discussions of this issue, see Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen, “Introduction: Methodological, Historical, and Conceptual Starting Points,” in Phenomenology and the Transcendental, ed. Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen (New York: Routledge: 2014), 1–18; Marco ­Cavallaro, “Ego-Splitting and the Transcendental Subject. Kant’s Original Insight and Husserl’s Reappraisal,” in The Subject(s) of Phenomenology, ed. Iulian Apostolescu (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020), 107–31; Sebastian Luft, “From Being to Givenness and Back: Some Remarks on the Meaning of Transcendental Idealism in Kant and Husserl,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 15, no. 3 (2007): 367–94; Nicolas de Warren, Husserl and The Promise of Time: Subjectivity in Transcendental Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 11; Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Subjectivity and intersubjectivity, subject and person,” Continental Philosophy Review 33, no. 3 (2000): 275–87; Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 48.

The Adonné

161

between these philosophers. I do not intend to initiate a new debate or analyse the meaning of transcendental subjectivity in these figures. Nevertheless, a line of succession within transcendental philosophy in general, and concerning the use transcendental I in particular, can be traced from Kant to Husserl; this is what David Carr has called “the transcendental tradition.”38 In the most basic sense, Kant uses the term “transcendental” to refer to the a priori conditions of possibility of the experience of objects. Kant defines the term as follows: “I call all cognition ‘transcendental’ that is occupied not so much with objects but rather with our a priori concepts of objects in general. A system of such concepts would be called transcendental philosophy.”39 Husserl, following Kant, calls phenomenology “eo ipso ‘transcendental idealism,’ though in a fundamentally new sense.” Husserl adds, “[n]or is it a Kantian idealism, which believes it can keep open, at least as a limiting concept, the possibility of a world of things in themselves.”40 In Crisis, Husserl defines himself as a follower of “the transcendental philosophy,” which he sees as “starting from Descartes” in “the broadest sense,” even if this term “has been much used since Kant,” and grounded in the “ego” as “the ultimate source of all the formations of knowledge” by “the knower’s reflecting upon himself and his knowing life.” In this respect, “the whole transcendental set of problems circles around the relation of this, my ‘I’ – the ‘ego’ – to what it is at first taken for granted to be – my soul – and, again, around the relation of this ego and my conscious life to the world of which I am conscious and whose true being I know through my own cognitive structures.”41 While the idea of the transcendental ego originates in the Cartesian ego and the Kantian transcendental subject, Husserl’s conception elaborates a new sense of the “transcendental” in which the ego and the world (or the constitution of the world in the immanent sphere of consciousness) become an issue for phenomenology. Jussi Backman comments on this relation between Kant and Husserl as follows: “For Kant, the transcendental structures of accessibility ‘mediate’ between the inaccessible (transcendent) and the accessible (immanent); for Husserl, the ‘transcendentality’ of 38 Carr, The Paradox of Subjectivity, 99–100. 39 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 133. A11–12, B25. 40 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), 86; Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1973), 119. 41 Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 100–101; Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 97–98.

162

CHAPTER 3

subjectivity is related precisely to its capacity for constituting the world as relatively transcendent, that is, as a domain that always exceeds immediate and purely immanent presence to consciousness.”42 This capacity to constitute the world in the domain of the immanence of pure consciousness signifies the Husserlian revolution of reduction in transcendental philosophy. The method of reduction is what distinguishes phenomenology from other forms of transcendental philosophy. This method is introduced by Husserl in Ideas and developed throughout his oeuvre. For most phenomenologists, it is the conditio sine qua non of phenomenology. It is also the starting point for different ways of doing phenomenology, for the inauguration of what Ricœur calls phenomenological heresies. As will be discussed in the subsequent parts of this chapter, the transformation of the method of reduction is also central to the phenomenology of givenness and its conception of subjectivity. According to Sebastian Luft’s summary, reduction means the following: “Phenomenology as transcendental idealism asserts that the world must be construed as constituted in transcendental consciousness. Transcendental consciousness (or subjectivity) is absolute to which every worldly entity is relative. The reduction is the method of leading back (from the Latin reducere) to this sphere of origin.”43 This operation of reducere is achieved by putting “the natural attitude” into parenthesis. This means reducing the natural attitude to the sphere of the pure consciousness of the transcendental ego by putting it out of play. The natural attitude is described as the realistic account of the empirical world, but in the reduction, the world constituted in the transcendental ego is not the same one that the natural attitude gives us. This is also the reason why Husserl characterises phenomenology as “transcendental idealism.” After the reduction, the objective world constituted by the transcendental ego “does not pertain to consciousness as a human being in the world as understood in the natural attitude, but it is asserted from the transcendental standpoint. From the transcendental standpoint, the natural human being is but a constituted entity in the world.”44 This performance of the ego is also called epoché, which Husserl understands as the first step of the reduction. Its function is described in the following passage:

42

Jussi Backman, “Transcendental Idealism and Strong Correlationism,” in Phenomenology and the Transcendental, ed. Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen (New York: Routledge: 2014), 280. 43 Sebastian Luft, “Husserl’s Method of Reduction,” in The Routledge Companion to ­Phenomenology, ed. Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard (London and New York: ­Routledge, 2012), 243. 44 Ibid., 250.

The Adonné

163

By phenomenological epoché I reduce my natural human Ego and my psychic life – the realm of my psychological self-experience – to my transcendental-phenomenological Ego, the realm of transcendentalphenomenological self-experience. The objective world, the world that exists for me, that always has and always will exist for me, the only world that ever can exist for me this world, with all its Objects, I said, derives its whole sense and its existential status, which it has for me, from me myself, from me as the transcendental Ego, the Ego who comes to the fore only with transcendental-phenomenological epoché.45 The world constituted after the reduction is a “subjective” world of the pure consciousness, which assumes a split between the transcendental ego and the empirical ego. This split understands human being under two modes, whereby a separate role is allotted to each of them. According to Husserl, the transcendental ego is constitutive of both the objective world and the empirical ego who experiences this world. In this way, the human being is characterised as being both the absolute, transcendental ego through which the objective world is constituted and the empirical ego of the world of the natural attitude – the world in which we live, exist, move and experience.46 David Carr calls this the paradox of subjectivity in Husserl.47 This split is the origin of many conflicts in the phenomenological tradition. It is also one of the main motives for Marion’s attempt to overcome transcendental subjectivity in phenomenology. Moreover, this tension gives rise to a problem concerning the ontological status of the world and the subject, which was one of Husserl’s main concerns. 45 Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 26; Cartesianische Meditationen, 65. 46 One might also here recall Husserl’s famous passage from §49 of Ideas I about the annihilation of the world as a result of the transcendental reduction: “Now let us add the results reached at the end of the last chapter; let us recall the possibility of non-being of everything physically transcendent: it then becomes evident that while the being of consciousness, of any stream of mental processes whatever, would indeed be necessarily modified by an annihilation of the world of physical things it own existence would not be touched. Modified, to be sure. For an annihilation of the world means, correlatively, nothing else but that in each stream of mental processes (the full stream – the total stream, taken as endless in both directions, which comprises the mental processes of an Ego), certain ordered concatenations of experience and therefore certain complexes of theorising reason oriented according to those concatenations of experience, would be excluded. But that does not mean that other mental processes and concatenations of mental processes would be excluded. Consequently no real being, no being which is presented and legitimated in consciousness by appearances, is necessary to the being of consciousness itself (in the broadest sense, the stream of mental processes).” See Husserl, Ideas I, 110; Ideen I, 91–92. 47 Carr, The Paradox of Subjectivity, 89.

164

CHAPTER 3

This problematic topic is the starting point for many post-Husserlian thinkers, including Heidegger.48 It is also important to define the phenomenological notion of constitution for what follows in this chapter.49 In the immanence of pure consciousness as the region of the transcendental ego, its objects and the empirical ego are constituted, “in acts of consciousness; these acts of consciousness are, in so far as they are objectifying acts, structured by intentionality, that is, transcendence.”50 In the constitution of objects by consciousness, one can identify an asymmetrical and hierarchical relation because “the transcendental ego is constituting; the world and itself as empirical ego, constituted. Moreover, it presupposes, precisely to be able to account for the asymmetry of that relation, that the constituting instance is ontologically independent from the constituted instance, that it enjoys an existential self-sufficiency expressed by the formula: ‘nulla re indiget ad existendum’[The only thing it needs to exist].”51 In this sense, these acts of consciousness by the transcendental subject in the transcendental realm determine the conditions of being a phenomenon and appearing as such. This becomes an a priori principle of any phenomenon, presupposing a dependency of the constituted object on the transcendental ego. The ­determination of 48

49

50 51

One could also consider this problematic to be an important moment for the new realist movements, both within phenomenology and also beyond it. For example, Meillassoux’s critique of phenomenology as correlationism comes from Husserl’s idea of the transcendental subject. See Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of the Contingency, trans. Ray Brassier (London and New York: Continuum, 2008), 24, 30. It is described as follows: “‘Constitution’ (Konstitution) is a term commonly used by the neo-Kantians to refer to the manner in which an object is formed and given its particular structure and attributes by certain a priori acts of consciousness. According to the neoKantian tradition (to which the mature Husserl broadly belongs), objects do not exist simply on their own but receive their particular intelligible structure from the activity of the conscious subject apprehending them (see, e.g., Ideas I § 83). For Husserl, objects and other classes of entities (divided into various ontological regions) do not simply exist but are experienced by consciousness according to pre-delineated sets of acts of consciousness to which they are correlated.” See Dermot Moran and Joseph Cohen, The Husserl Dictionary (London and New York: Continuum, 2012), 70–71. De Warren, Husserl and the Promise of Time, 37. Claude Romano, At the Heart of Reason, trans. Michael B. Smith and Claude Romano (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2014), 292. For the French text, see Claude Romano, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), 533–4. Romano summarises the relation between constitution and reduction as follows: “Without the thesis of Cartesian inspiration according to which pure consciousness is a self-contained sphere of being, possessing a mode of being different from that of the world, there is no priority of consciousness; without that priority, there is no constitution; and without constitution, there is no transcendental reduction, since ‘transcendental reduction’ means a leading back to the constituting ego.”

The Adonné

165

phenomenality comes from the subjective decision to constitute any particular object as a phenomenon; this is the work of the transcendental ego. Marion’s interpretation of these aporias of subjectivity paints a picture of both the tradition of transcendental philosophy in general and phenomenology as a successor of this school. His criticism of Kant is also directed towards phenomenology because he thinks Kant’s invention of the transcendental subject has been retained by phenomenology. It should not surprise us that Marion is also aware of the revolutionary nature of phenomenology and its differences from previous forms of transcendental philosophy. For example, his starting point for the saturated phenomenon is Husserl’s phenomenological breakthrough. Nevertheless, at the same time, Kant is an important character in his genealogy of phenomenology, one whose influence can be seen in Husserl’s definitions of objectness and the transcendental subject. 3.1.1 The Four Aporias of Subjectivity Marion describes four aporias of subjectivity. As has been noted above, in describing these aporias he is referring to transcendental philosophy in general, including phenomenology. In his critique of subjectivity, Marion assumes a succession from Kant to Husserl, which means that his four determinations of the aporias of the subject start with Kant. In what follows, I shall explain these four aporias. These aporias reflect both problematical points within the notion of subjectivity and a negative definition of the adonné as a counter-example. First, Marion states that the transcendental I cannot be individualised.52 Marion here has in mind the Kantian “I think” (Ich denke) that refers to the transcendental I. Kant distinguishes the “I think”, the transcendental I who accompanies every manifold of intuition, that is to say, “pure apperception”, from the “empirical me”, which can be regarded as belonging to s­ ensibility.53 It is the unity of the self-consciousness of an I which accompanies every manifold of representation but which is not itself sensible. David Carr interprets Kant’s notion of “apperception,” which grants self-consciousness to the subject through the “I think,” in the following way: “Kant uses ‘apperception’ to mean ‘self-consciousness’. It is this ‘unity of self-consciousness’ that is now called ‘transcendental’, that is, a condition of the possibility of a priori knowledge. There is a shift of focus here because up to now Kant has been speaking of consciousness of the sensible world, and now he is speaking of a self-consciousness.”54 The subject synthesises the manifold of representations 52 Marion, Being Given, 252; Étant donné, 348. 53 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 246. B132. 54 Carr, Paradox of the Subjectivity, 36.

166

CHAPTER 3

into one consciousness, and it determines itself as a unified consciousness. Kant calls this operation of apperception “the supreme principle” of human cognition and defines it as follows: Synthetic unity of the manifold of intuitions, as given a priori, is thus the ground of the identity of apperception itself, which precedes a priori all ‘my’ determinate thinking. Combination does not lie in the objects, however, and cannot as it were be borrowed from them through perception and by that means first taken up into the understanding, but is rather only an operation of the understanding, which is itself nothing further than the faculty of combining a priori and bringing the manifold of given representations under unity of apperception, which principle is the supreme one in the whole of human cognition.55 It does not belong to the senses, but rather to the faculty of understanding through which a subject gets its unity of being itself as a self-consciousness. Carr says that “this implicit self-consciousness could always in principle be made explicit and expressed as ‘I think’.”56 In this regard, Marion’s critique of the “I think” as non-individualisable should be understood in terms of the fact that the self-consciousness of a subject is not empirical but transcendental. Although the “I think” provides its self-consciousness, Marion claims that “the ‘subject’ secures its transcendentality at the price of the deprivation of all quality: it, therefore, establishes its universality to the detriment of its identity.”57 This very problem results from the transcendental position of the “I think,” because there is no possibility of an individuation of the “I think” in Kant’s idea of apperception. Second, Marion points out that the transcendental I, the “I think,” remains solipsistic because of “the transcendental implications of the primacy of an ‘I think’ that would accompany every other representation.”58 Any idea of the “I think” also presupposes that every manifold of presentation belongs to the self-representation of the transcendental I. This means that “all cogitatio harbors a cogitatio sui,” which implies that the “I think” also intrinsically implies

55 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 248. B134–5. 56 Carr, Paradox of the Subjectivity, 36. 57 Marion, Being Given, 252; Étant donné, 349. 58 The term “solipsism” comes from the Latin words “solus,” meaning alone, and “ipse”, meaning “self.” It means that only a self exists and the rest depends on this self’s existence. See Gottfried Gabriel, “Solipsismus,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, ed. J. Ritter and K. Gründer (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 1995). DOI: 10.24894/HWPh.3931.

The Adonné

167

“I think myself.”59 A similar kind of solipsism is an issue for Descartes’ ego.60 Marion, in the same way, describes the ego’s primacy with respect to others (minds, phenomena, etc): “If man defines himself to himself as an ego that relates to itself constantly through its cogitatio, he must establish himself as the single and necessary centre of any possible world.”61 Such a passage from “cogitatio” to “cogitatio sui” indicates the position of a subject that establishes for itself a self-sufficient and central role by presenting itself to itself in place of every other. It makes the subject the origin for every other representation by a primary closure of itself in its thinking of itself. In this respect, Marion thinks that the solipsism of the transcendental I comes from the imitation of “the identity of essence and existence,” which was “deployed by the so-called ‘ontological argument’ and by the causa sui: all thought (of whatever essence) includes in it the existence (the ontico-epistemological) of the I as ‘I think’ whose essence is enough to cause its own existence … ​The primacy of the ‘I think (myself)’ … ​radically forbids the finitude of the ‘subject’.”62 Before the thought of anything else, there must be an I who must think itself. It becomes an epistemological condition for thinking about any other thing except its own self, and it is also the necessary ontological origin and centre of any other being. For Marion, the primacy of the subject in a solipsistic sense does not presuppose the finitude of the subject.63 The problem of the solipsism of the subject is a central issue in the critique of subjectivity in general. Since the 59 Marion, Being Given, 253; Étant donné, 350. 60 One can find a detailed analysis of the Cartesian ego in respect to the metaphysics of subsistence and presence in Marion’s On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism. I cannot provide a detailed explanation of his account of the Cartesian ego, but it is worth noting that he mainly focuses on the ego’s self-presence, self-sufficiency, substantiality, absolute sovereignty and solipsism. For example, see Jean-Luc Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 203–5. 61 Jean-Luc Marion, Cartesian Questions: Method and Metaphysics, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 119. 62 Marion, Being Given, 253; Étant donné, 350. 63 Marion also adds that despite the fact that the solipsistic understanding of subjectivity seems to contradict any claim to finitude, Kant and Husserl also tried to maintain its relation to finitude because [Kant] “pairs the spontaneity of the ‘I think’ with the receptivity of sensibility, while Husserl by contrast lets his transcendental I drift towards indefiniteness and universal oneness because he always maintains the primacy of activity over and above passivity and the intentional aim over and above intuitive fulfilment.” Moreover, Heidegger changes this relation by “uprooting Dasein from the prestige of the theoretical attitude and the ‘I think (myself)’ by means of Being-in-the-world, involvement and facticity.” For Marion, this relation to finitude is even maintained by Descartes: “Descartes – before anyone else – would not have maintained the finitude of the ego if he had not

168

CHAPTER 3

problematic centrality of the subject was initiated by Descartes,64 the ego’s characteristic solipsism lies at the heart of any conception of subjectivity. This central trait of subjectivity renders it the origin and the condition of any thought or phenomenon.65 The privileged position of the ego over any other thing remains in almost every conception of subjectivity. Philosophers such as Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, and even Descartes who is the founder of “ego cogito,” problematise this solipsistic aspect of subjectivity in relation to the finitude of the subject. Marion’s third critique of transcendental subjectivity concerns the other half of the transcendental I, that is to say, the “empirical me.” It also refers to Husserl’s phenomenological mode of transcendental subjectivity. The conception of the empirical me stems from the transcendental understanding according to which the “I think” must accompany every empirical moment. This makes the empirical me dependent on the transcendental ego. Kant suggests that the spontaneity of understanding in the synthesis of the manifold by the accompaniment of the “I think” arrives after this manifold’s appearance through intuition.66 The first act of the “I think” must come after intuition and is dependent on the arrival of the intuition. As shown in the account of the saturated phenomenon, this primordial position of sensibility has a central role in Marion’s definition of a new subjectivity. Nevertheless, what Marion sees as an aporia is here related to the idea of the empirical me still needs the transcendental subject, since it is defined by “its receptivity to ­impressions of

taken care to frame the cogitatio sui by, on one side, doubt and the creation of eternal truths and, on the other, its formally infinite will.” See Marion, Being Given, 254. 64 Christina M. Gschwandtner, Reading Jean-Luc Marion: Exceeding Metaphysics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), 193. 65 For example, Husserl claims that “[p]henomenology is eo ipso ‘transcendental idealism’, though in a fundamentally and essentially new sense. It is not a psychological idealism, and most certainly not such an idealism as sensualistic psychologism proposes, an idealism that would derive a senseful world from senseless sensuous data. Nor is it a Kantian idealism, which believes it can keep open, at least as a limiting concept, the possibility of a world of things in themselves. On the contrary, we have here a transcendental idealism that is nothing more than a consequentially executed self-explication in the form of a systematic egological science, an explication of my ego as subject of every possible cognition, and indeed with respect to every sense of what exists, wherewith the latter might be able to have a sense for me, the ego.” See Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 86. On the other hand, one can find a counter position to my argument here in claims that Husserl does not have a solipsistic conception of the subject. See De Warren, Husserl and The Promise of Time, 209–49; Rodney Parker, “Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism and the Problem of Solipsism” (PhD diss., The University of Western Ontario, 2013). 66 Marion, Being Given, 254; Étant donné, 350.

The Adonné

169

the consciousness.”67 Although the empirical me is the direct result of transcendental subjectivity, Marion claims that some characteristics of the empirical me parallel features of the adonné as a receiver. Nevertheless, this does not imply that the empirical characteristics of the subject are not exempt from the critique of transcendental subjectivity. In a transcendental frame, the empirical me only maintains the other pole of the transcendental I, and it cannot be thought of independently, but only under the shadow of the transcendental I. As will be discussed in the second section of this chapter, the adonné shares some similarities with the empirical me, but the adonné is not the result of any transcendental understanding of subjectivity. Finally, Marion states that the bifurcation of the subject into the transcendental I and the empirical me creates an aporia because, “the splitting means … t​hat what gives itself in fact (the me) has no standing as origin (not transcendental) and that reciprocally what exercises the transcendental function can never and should never give itself.”68 For the phenomenology of givenness, the subject cannot have a position other than that of a given, whereas the transcendental I, on the one hand, has a priority – it is “fixing the conditions of experience” – and therefore, “it removes itself from the ranks of the objects of experience.” Moreover, it can only appear in the mode of objectness, which presents “the poorest phenomenality.”69 Such an understanding of the subject is premised on the phenomenality of objectness and supposes the subject to be just one object among others in a problematic way.70 Once the determination of phenomenality is changed from objectness to eventness based on 67 Gschwandtner, Reading Jean-Luc Marion, 206. Marion’s critical account of the empirical me involves an analysis of Husserl’s constitution of time, where Husserl considers the requirement of the transcendental I for the constitution of time even if the empirical me fulfills an originary role in the original impression of living time, that is to say, the temporal impressions. Nevertheless, the constitution of time requires the transcendental I’s superior relation to the “empirical me” in order to phenomenalise “the irreducible phenomenality of the originary impression of time.” See Marion, Being Given, 255; Étant donné, 351. 68 Marion, Being Given, 255–6; Étant donné, 352–3. Marion in his Cartesian Questions gives a detailed analysis of the splitting of the ego in Husserl and calls it “schizophrenia within an I.” He claims that the Cartesian subject’s idea of the cogito, ergo sum remains as a model for intentionality, see Marion, Cartesian Questions, 98–100. 69 Marion, Being Given, 256; Étant donné, 354. 70 Marion implies that Kant asks this question, see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 258. B155– 6. “But how the I that I think is to differ from the I that intuits itself (for I can represent other kinds of intuition as at least possible) and yet be identical with the latter as the same subject, how therefore I can say that I as intelligence and thinking subject cognise my self as an object that is thought, insofar as I am also given to myself in intuition, only, like other phenomena, not as I am for the understanding but rather as I appear to myself,

170

CHAPTER 3

givenness, one cannot claim a transcendental status for the subject. Rather than constituting the object, the subject is constituted by the event, and as such, the subject does not encounter the aforementioned aporias. Marion suggests that the adonné can have neither a transcendental status nor play the role of the empirical me. It can only be defined by its unique characteristic: receptivity. He states that “the adonné, in losing transcendental status and the spontaneity or the activity that this implies, does not amount, however, to passivity or to the empirical me. In fact, the adonné goes as much beyond passivity as activity, because in being liberated from its royal transcendental status, it annuls the very distinction between the transcendental I and the empirical me.”71 For Marion, the adonné does not have any a priori position, since it only receives itself by receiving the phenomenon.72 He thus changes the starting point of phenomenology from the subject to givenness because this allows him to overcome the aporias of subjectivity and to remove any a priori condition from the self-showing of phenomena: “These aporias remain as long as we claim to begin with the ego, the ‘subject,’ or Dasein presupposed as a principle or, to speak like Aristotle, as a that ‘from which one would start first’ in general.”73 Marion’s insistence the phenomenology of givenness as first philosophy becomes clearer in this context.74 No form of subjectivity imposes a condition or a priori principle upon phenomena because subjectivity is a posteriori. Phenomenology must start from phenomena, but not from the idea that subjective conditions determine their self-showing. Before coming to the aposteriority of the adonné, it will be helpful to clarify how Marion sees ­Heidegger’s Dasein as an heir to the tradition of subjectivity. this is no more and no less difficult than how I can be an object for myself in general and indeed one of intuition and inner perceptions.” 71 Marion, In Excess, 48; De surcroît, 57. 72 I will discuss this in detail in the section 3.2.1. 73 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 360. 74 Marion, In Excess, 25; De surcroît, 29. Marion’s account of the first philosophy can be seen in the following comment: “It then becomes possible to conceive how, according to givenness, phenomenology can take up again the question of a ‘first philosophy’. It authorises it, in effect, but with precautions. For if one expects of a “first philosophy” that it determines what it brings to light in fixing to it a priori a principle or a group of principles, in particular, in imposing the transcendental anteriority of the I (or the equivalent), then phenomenology no longer reaches, nor especially claims, the status of a ‘first philosophy’ understood in this way. For as I have just recalled, the determining originality of its enterprise consists in rendering to the phenomenon an incontestable priority: to let it appear no longer as it must (according to the supposed a priori conditions of experience and its objects), but as it gives itself (from itself and as such).” See Marion, In Excess, 25–26; De surcroît, 29.

The Adonné

171

3.1.2 Dasein as an Heir of the Subject At the beginning of this chapter, I noted that Heidegger is the starting point for the critique of subjectivity within the phenomenological tradition. Heidegger’s designation of Dasein is an inspiration for Marion’s conception of the adonné because it offers a new way of describing the role of human beings in general for phenomenology. Heidegger mainly focuses on problematising the Cartesian and Kantian heritage of Husserl’s phenomenology. As has been discussed above, Heidegger does not define Dasein as a substance; rather, he claims that “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence.”75 In Chapter 2 it was made clear that fundamental ontology does not rely on any kind of ousiology. Heidegger claims that Descartes’ dualism of res cogitans and res extensa, which is determined on the basis of substance, defines beings in the mode of objective presence (Vorhandenheit). For him, such an understanding would foreclose the possibility of a fundamental ontology and prevent Dasein from playing a proper role in ontology: The idea of being as constant presence not only motivates an extreme ­definition of the being of innerworldly beings and their identification with the world as such. At the same time, it blocks the possibility of bringing to view the attitudes of Dasein in an ontologically appropriate way. But thus the road is completely blocked to seeing the founded ­character of all sensuous and intellective apprehension, and to understanding them as a possibility of being-in-the-world. But Descartes understands the being of “Dasein” to whose basic constitution being-in-the-world belongs, in the same way as the being of res extensa, as substance.76 In the same vein, Heidegger thinks that Husserl’s definition of consciousness as “absolute”77 establishes the primacy of ego over beings and defines “its way of being by substantiality.”78 Heidegger claims that intentionality serves the objectivisation of beings in the pure region of consciousness.79 In order to ­overcome 75 Heidegger, Being and Time, 41; Sein und Zeit, 42. 76 Heidegger, Being and Time, 96; Sein und Zeit, 98. 77 Husserl, Ideas I, §49, 109–12. 78 Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 82. 79 For Heidegger’s detailed analysis of the Husserlian ego and intentionality, see Martin ­Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 91–114. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,

172

CHAPTER 3

the Cartesian understanding of the ego that persisted in Husserl’s work, Heidegger substitutes it with being-in-the-world, which conceives of Dasein as open to the world rather than constituting objects. Thus, “the intentionality that constitutes objects no doubt remains” for Heidegger, but “it is reduced to the level of a case derived from the fundamental determination, namely Beingin-the-world affecting he who is no longer in the world as a ­spectator, especially not a constituting one. He is in the world as one taking part in it.”80 In addition to Dasein’s being determined by existence rather than essence, Heidegger claims that Dasein has another general characteristic: “Dasein is in general determined by always being-mine [Jemeinigkeit] … ​This being does not have and never has the kind of being of what is merely objectively present within the world. Thus, it is also not to be thematically found in the manner of coming across something objectively present.”81 Here Heidegger warns that Dasein is neither a kind of subjectivity nor a mode of objectness, an objective presence. In each instance, the being of Dasein is characterised by “mineness” (Jemeinigkeit) because Dasein provides its ownmost potentiality of being by being-towards-death. Heidegger defines death as the following: “Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as one’s ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable possibility … I​ ts existential possibility is grounded in the fact that Dasein is essentially disclosed to itself, and it is disclosed as being-ahead-of-itself.”82 Marion thinks that in making the move to determine Dasein as existence and mineness of being, Heidegger leaves behind the Cartesian duality of the transcendental ego and empirical me. Nevertheless, this step is insufficient to fully liberate of Dasein from the aporias of the subject. Marion claims that “Dasein is still exposed to solipsism and the objectness of a substratum.”83 In his account of Dasein, Marion focuses on Heidegger’s notion of resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) in order to emphasise the transcendental status of authentic Dasein in relation to all other innerworldly beings, because Dasein is the only one – as a sole being among others – for whom being is an issue. With regard to temporal meaning, resoluteness determines the structure of care of Dasein on the basis of the temporality of the future. It is, “an eminent mode of the disclosedness [Erschlossenheit] of Dasein” and the disclosedness 1979), 124–57. For Heidegger, the primacy of the ego in Husserl’s phenomenology does not compromise the main purpose of phenomenology, that is to say, the programme announced in the motto: “Zurück zu den Sachen selbst.” 80 Marion, Being Given, 258; Étant donné, 356. 81 Heidegger, Being and Time, 42; Sein und Zeit, 43. 82 Heidegger, Being and Time, 241; Sein und Zeit, 251. 83 Marion, Being Given, 259; Étant donné, 357.

The Adonné

173

is “an essential constituent of being-in-the-world as such.”84 Heidegger defines the resoluteness with reference to three phenomena – anxiety, consciousness of guilt, and being-towards-death. Marion insists that these phenomena only open Dasein to nothing: “The three phenomena that determine being of Dasein as care exhibit anticipatory resoluteness as an ecstasy open strictly onto nothing. Dasein is disclosed, at the very moment of risking and individualising itself as the being in which its very being is at issue, as an empty identity to itself … ​Dasein therefore exists insofar as itself.”85 In this sense, Dasein’s disclosedness is directed towards nothing. The resolute Dasein discloses phenomena on the basis of the care structure. Resoluteness as being-towards-death “opens Dasein to absolute possibility.” Marion refers to this determination of Dasein as “absolute” because it is a possibility that even includes impossibility, “where it fully accomplishes its transcendence towards every being and is therefore undergone as such.”86 Since Dasein’s being-towards-death determines Dasein’s own potentiality-for-being,87 Dasein’s ecstatic relation to phenomena discloses “an empty identity.” In this way, resoluteness results in an empty identity because what is disclosed is nothing. Thus, Dasein’s mineness is based on this empty identity. As was already discussed above, Marion does not think that Heidegger’s solipsism is derived from the Cartesian ego. Since Dasein’s disclosedness means that it has ecstatic relation to other beings, its being-in-the-world overcomes this kind of solipsism. The selfhood of Dasein is determined as “a way of existing”,88 so it should not be understood in terms of any kind of egology. Nevertheless, Marion maintains that Dasein still generates an ontological solipsism due to its transcendental position in relation to other beings. This problem leads Heidegger to put forward the idea of the “self-constancy” (Selbst-ständigkeit) in his account of selfhood: If the ontological constitution of the self can neither be reduced to a substantial I nor to a “subject,” but if, on the contrary, the everyday, fleeting saying-I must be understood in terms of our authentic potentiality-ofbeing, the statement still does not follow that the self is the constantly objectively present/subsisting ground of care. Existentially, selfhood is only to be found in the authentic potentiality-of-being-a-self, that is, in 84 Heidegger, Being and Time, 284; Sein und Zeit, 297. 85 Marion, Being Given, 259–60; Étant donné, 357–8. 86 Marion, Being Given, 259; Étant donné, 357. 87 Heidegger, Being and Time, 242; Sein und Zeit, 252. 88 Heidegger, Being and Time, 257; Sein und Zeit, 267.

174

CHAPTER 3

the authenticity of the being of Dasein as care. In terms of care the constancy of the self [die Ständigkeit des Selbst] as the supposed persistence of the subject, gets its clarification. The phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-of-being, however, also opens our eyes to the constancy of the self in the sense of its having gained a steadiness. The constancy of the self in the double sense of constancy and steadfastness is an ­authentic counter-possibility to the unself-constancy [Unselbst-ständigkeit] of irresolute falling prey. Existentially, the self-constancy [Selbst-ständigkeit] means nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. Its ontological structure reveals the existentiality of the selfhood of the self.89 According to Heidegger, the self-constancy is maintained by anticipatory resoluteness and this ontological structure reveals the existentiality of selfhood. Heidegger implies that Dasein’s authentic potentiality-of-being is not the same as the subsistence/constancy of the self, so it is not a transcendental element for Dasein. For Marion, however, the fact that Heidegger does not have a proper means of distinguishing “the self-constancy” and “an objectively present/­subsisting ground for the self” actually implies yet another version of the transcendental subject. Because the reflective characteristics of the transcendental subject recur in Heidegger’s conception of Dasein, Marion argues that there are no phenomenological criteria by which to distinguish these two modes of constancy.90 Even if Heidegger seeks to differentiate between these modes of the self, he has no clear way of establishing the self-identity of Dasein other than as a kind of autarchy in the form of the self-constancy. The transcendental problem of the subsistence of the self remains in ­Heidegger’s account of selfhood. Thus, Marion claims that “the aporias of the ‘subject’ forever haunt Dasein. It could be that Dasein does not designate what succeeds the “subject” so much as its last heir, such that it offers less an overcoming than the path towards possibly overcoming it.”91 Marion is not the only one to point out that Heidegger’s attempt to overcome subjectivity through Dasein remains unsuccessful. Jacques Taminiaux also claims that the mineness that characterises Dasein serves to perpetuate the subjectivist heritage of 89 Heidegger, Being and Time, 308 (translation modified); Sein und Zeit, 322. The English translation of “the constancy of the self” for the notion “Selbst-ständigkeit” is changed into “self-constancy.” In the passage quoted, Heidegger uses “die Ständigkeit des Selbst” and “Selbst-ständigkeit.” The former is translated as “the constancy of the self” and the latter as “self-constancy.” 90 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 360. 91 Marion, Being Given, 261. For Marion’s detailed analysis of the relation between Dasein and Ego, see Marion, Reduction and Givenness, 77–107.

The Adonné

175

metaphysics even if Heidegger’s project of fundamental ontology aims to rule out an ontology which has “the principle that the ‘I exist’ must accompany all my representations.” Taminiaux proposes that “[o]n the one hand the project offers the most sobering and unrelenting description of finitude, and on the other hand it turns out to be the last implementation of the absolute pretensions of metaphysics [of subjectivity].”92 Contrary to these criticisms of Dasein as a continuation of subjectivity, François Raffoul suggests that the mineness of Dasein is not indicative of any inherent relation to the Cartesian tradition of subjectivity. In his Heidegger and the Subject, he argues both that Heidegger’s conception of Dasein is not an heir of the Cartesian ego and that Marion fails to relate Dasein with the ego on the basis of mineness. For Raffoul, “the ego has to be destroyed if any access to Dasein’s mineness is to be gained.”93 In light of these comments on Dasein’s relation to the modern subject, one should also bear in mind Heidegger’s own subsequent reflections on the subjectivism of fundamental ontology. With regard to this discussion in the literature on Heidegger, then, it is important to note that Heidegger would himself come to criticise the position of Dasein in fundamental ontology in the years after Being and Time. This is especially evident when he refers to the disruption of the conception of Dasein as an alternative to the subject: “the reason for the disruption is that the attempt and the path it chose confront the danger of unwillingly becoming merely another entrenchment of subjectivity; that the attempt itself hinders the decisive steps; that is, hinders an adequate exposition of them in their essential execution.”94 What Heidegger means by this is that although Dasein was a development towards an understanding of human being without any appeal to the subject that sought to determine “the essence of man in terms of his relationship to being”, it was not comprehended well and did not achieve its end. Thus, Heidegger defines Dasein’s failure as being an “entrenchment of subjectivity.” Yet, Heidegger does not discuss the details of this “entrenchment” 92 93 94

Jacques Taminiaux, Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology, trans. and. ed. Michael Gendre (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991), xix. François Raffoul, Heidegger and the Subject, trans. David Pettigrew and Gregory Recco (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1998), 210. Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 4 trans. Frank A. Capuzzi, ed. David Farrell Krell (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 141. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche II (Frankfurt Am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997), 194–5. “Dieser Abbruch ist darin begründet, daß der eingeschlagene Weg und Versuch wider seinen Willen in die Gefahr kommt, erneut nur eine Verfestigung der Subjektivität zu werden, daß er selbst die entscheidenden Schritte, d. h. deren zureichende Darstellung im Wesensvollzug, ­verhindert.”

176

CHAPTER 3

(Verfestigung) of subjectivity in his conception of Dasein, but rather reveals his own misgivings regarding Dasein as an heir to subjectivity.95 His thought after the so-called “turn”96 indicates a new understanding of Dasein’s position with respect to being. In short, Marion thinks that the remnants of subjectivity are still evident in Heidegger’s conception of Dasein, even if he attempts to go beyond subjectivity. He shows that the issue of Dasein’s self-constancy, which is secured on the basis of mineness, poses a problem that bears a resemblance to the solipsism and subsistence of the transcendental subject. In this respect, Marion’s adonné promises a new way of understanding human beings that is no longer haunted by the aporias of subjectivity. Marion highlights this point at the end of Being Given by claiming that “the phenomenology of givenness has finished radically – in my eyes, for the first time – with the ‘subject’ and all its recent avatars.”97 In the following pages, I will first analyse Marion’s reconfiguration of subjectivity, the adonné, by considering its characteristics along with its relation to the phenomenality of the eventness. I will then discuss whether the adonné succeeds in breaking completely with the “subject” by examining Marion’s insistence on retaining the method of reduction, which could be seen as one of the main notions at work in the Husserlian egology. Thus, I will argue that Marion’s adherence to the method of reduction as a fundamental point of phenomenology should be read in the context of his critical analysis of Heidegger as an heir of the subject. Yet this time I want to ask whether Marion’s criticism of Heidegger should not also apply to his own understanding of reduction. 3.2

The Replacement of the Subject by the Adonné

In his account of subjectivity, Marion follows the Heideggerian path of overcoming subjectivity. To this end, he renames the subject as the adonné, 95

It is worth recalling Claude Romano’s criticism of the subjectivity of Dasein, which was discussed in Chapter 2. Romano also addresses the notion of resoluteness in Heidegger but comes to his conclusion about the subjectivity of Dasein by a reading of “resoluteness” in its relation to the potentiality of Dasein as a source of possibility. 96 The “turn” (Kehre) is a term used by Heidegger himself in order to express the change in his thought after the 1930s, which serves as a kind of renovation of his project in Being and Time. On his idea on subjectivity after the “turn”, see François Raffoul, “The Incompletion of Being and Time and the Question of Subjectivity,” in Division III of Heidegger’s Being and time: The Unanswered Question of Being, ed. Lee Braver (Cambridge, ­Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2016), 249–55. 97 Marion, Being Given, 322; Étant donné, 442.

The Adonné

177

which is “emancipated from all subjectivity because first free of all subjectness and through with all substrata.”98 Before delving into this reconfiguration and replacement of subjectivity under the name of the adonné, I want to draw attention to some of the other names that are taken on by this new “subject” in the corpus of Marion. They are, chronologically l’interloqué (the interlocuted),99 l’attributaire (the receiver), le témoin (the witness), l’adonné (the gifted or the given over)100 and l’amant (the lover).101 This issue of different designations for the subject has been previously analysed by Christina Gschwandtner and Shane Mackinlay. For Gschwandtner, they present different stages in his account of subjecthood, with each subsequent version becoming deeper and more radicalised.102 For Mackinlay, too, these names have a chronological order in Marion’s corpus, and they culminate in the adonné, which incorporates the features of all the preceding designations. Mackinlay also points out that they make use of different grammatical cases. From Reduction and Donation to Being Given, their cases change by “moving from the accusative, locative and vocative cases … t​ o the dative – or even ablative – case.”103 Both scholars seem to agree that the description of the adonné includes all the other concepts of the subject except l’amant, which only appears after the adonné in The Erotic Phenomenon. L’amant includes the concept of the adonné while also connoting theological aspects of love. Ultimately, the adonné is the key notion, since, etymologically, it is directly derived from givenness and is named by Marion with this in mind. Since the most fundamental notion for the phenomenology of Marion is givenness, the adonné subsumes the meanings of the other terms. Given this clear importance and centrality of the adonné in Marion’s thought, it deserves specific and detailed consideration. In this part of the analysis of Marion’s reconfiguration of the subject, I will interpret the subjectivation process of the adonné by looking at crucial points which determine the adonné as a non-transcendental subject. These points will help us to understand how the adonné becomes himself through events on the basis of givenness and the ways in which the adonné responds to events. I will also critically discuss the achievements of the adonné in relation to what it promises. My critical assessment will consist of the analytic of the 98 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 361. 99 Marion, Reduction and Givenness, 200. Marion, Being Given, 266; Étant donné, 367. 100 L’attributaire (the receiver), le témoin (the witness), and l’adonné are used throughout Being Given. 101 L’amant is used frequently in one of his theological works, see Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 2003). 102 Gschwandtner, Reading Jean-Luc Marion, 207. 103 Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 23–25.

178

CHAPTER 3

adonné, the temporality of the adonné, the structure of the call and response, and the concept of reduction. 3.2.1 The Analytic of the Adonné The phenomenology of givenness introduces a new understanding of the subject, which strips it of any substance.104 One cannot call it a subject anymore. Rather, it is the adonné. As the etymological origin of the word “adonné” reveals, such an understanding of the subject emerges from givenness. The way the phenomenon is given to the one whom it is given to describes the adonné. In Being and Time, Heidegger describes Dasein in terms of “the ­existential analysis of Dasein” and not by answering the question of “what a human being is.” Such a gesture is intended to highlight the priority of his analysis over other scientific or anthropological approaches due to its existential centrality.105 Alluding to Heidegger’s “existential” analytic of Dasein, one might refer to this as the analytic of the adonné insofar as it is not concerned with ontology but with givenness.106 In this way, I will use the expression “the analytic of the adonné” to refer to my analysis of the reconfiguration of the subject. In the analytic of the adonné, I shall discuss how the adonné is subjectivised by the given ­character of phenomena and the role of the event in this subjectivation. It is first important to reiterate Marion’s definition of the adonné: “The one who receives itself from what it receives. L’adonné is [ … ​] characterised by reception.”107 This process of receiving itself “from what gives itself (the phenomenon)” determines the adonné in an a posteriori way. As has been noted already, for the phenomenology of givenness there is no a priori for the appearing of phenomena because the phenomenon is first of all given. On this basis, Marion refers to the determinations of the given phenomenon in order to explain how the adonné is stripped of the aporias of the subject: “For in receiving what gives itself (the phenomenon), the receiver receives its effects, therefore receives itself from it – it is individualised by facticity, breaks solipsism by the alterity of the unpredictable landing and the incident, overcomes the spontaneity of the ‘I think’ in the receptivity of the ‘I am affected’ by the effect of the event, and receiving itself as a being given [ … ​].”108

104 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 360. 105 Heidegger, Being and Time, 44; Sein und Zeit, 45. 106 In chapter 1, we saw how Marion’s project of givenness aims to go beyond any ontological commitment by stressing the priority of givenness over ontology. 107 Marion, In Excess, 48; De surcroît, 57. 108 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 360.

The Adonné

179

These determinations of given phenomenon show the way in which a phenomenon is given to the adonné. They set up the main features of the adonné, which receives itself from what it receives. This double function of the adonné – which receives phenomena and also receives itself from this reception – makes it dependent on givenness, on the given character of phenomena. In this respect, the adonné posits a kind of condition for its own reception from the given phenomenon. Marion describes the subject as a “screen of appearing,” “the place of givenness,” and a point of arrival rather than an origin of lived experiences.109 Thus, the origin of the “phenomenalisation” is not the subject, but the phenomenon or given itself. The “subjectivation” results from the phenomenon. Marion claims that the operation of phenomenalisation and subjectivation arise from his own method of reduction which is, for him, the inevitable methodological cornerstone for any understanding of phenomenology.110 Marion’s account of the saturated phenomenon inverts the relation between intentionality and intuition. For the saturated phenomenon, the excess of intuition means that intentionality cannot play the role of constituting it as an object, and so the saturated phenomenon appears in a different mode of phenomenality than objectness. In this regard, the adonné is subjectivised through the saturated phenomenon. This leads some commentators to claim that the adonné is a passive subject. Mackinlay argues that Marion “is so concerned to avoid producing another heir to the Cartesian ego that the balance of his thought tends strongly towards depicting the adonné as passive,”111 even though Marion stresses that his aim is to provide a mode receptivity that is between activity and passivity. This latter emphasis underscores that the adonné has both active and passive characteristics, since it annuls the very distinction between the transcendental I and the empirical me.112 Marion deals with the relation between activity and passivity in his treatment of the concepts of call and response.113 It is necessary to readdress the determinations of given phenomena in terms of the way they serve to regulate the subjectivation of the adonné. Since the adonné originates in the self-given character of the phenomenon, the 109 Marion, Being Given, 20; Étant donné, 31. 110 I will subsequently discuss the link between subjectivity and reduction for the adonné. For the moment, my argument focuses on how Marion inverts the main relationship between the phenomenon and the subject on the basis of givenness. 111 Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 33. 112 Marion, In Excess, 48; De surcroît, 57. 113 I will return to the structure of the call and response, and the issue of passivity and ­activity below.

180

CHAPTER 3

determinations of given phenomena shape how the adonné experiences the phenomenon. As was discussed in Chapter 1, the determinations of the given phenomenon are anamorphosis, unpredictable landing (arrivage), fait accompli, incident, event and being given.114 Marion asserts that “all other determinations of givenness are event-driven.”115 For Marion, “the characteristic of eventness gathers together all those previously recognised in the given phenomenon” and it is “the ultimate determination of the given phenomenon.”116 The way events appear without any cause and are not anticipated or foreseen by a subject serves to decentre the subject, which is now unable to constitute the event and instead receives itself from the given phenomenon. Marion exemplifies these determinations of givenness with the example of the friendship between Montaigne and La Boétie.117 This friendship is famous thanks to Montaigne’s detailed account in his Essays.118 This friendship exemplifies anamorphosis and is described by Montaigne as follows: “We are looking for each other before seeing each other.”119 This implies that “the gaze of one of them does not follow his intentionality towards his friend but submits him to the point of view that his friend’s sight waits for him to expose himself … w ​ ithout reducing it to his point of view on his friend.”120 This anamorphosis attunes each gaze to the other, and it requires one to look at the other from a particular point of view that does not put him under the gaze of a spectator. It imposes its own way of being seen without any idea of constitution, except that of being constituted by the other. The second characteristic of givenness that determines the adonné is arrival or unpredictable landing (arrivage), according to which a phenomenon is given without any projection, anticipation, or prediction. Montaigne notes the following: “[a]nd at our first meeting … ​we found ourselves so taken, so known, so obliged between ourselves, that nothing from then on was as close as we were for one another.”121 For Marion, the factical character of this encounter is 114 Marion, Being Given, 119–78; Étant donné, 169–250. 115 Roberto Terzi, “L’Événement et le (Non-)Phénomène: Marion/Derrida,” Phenomenon 26, no. 1 (2017): 165. 116 Marion, Being Given, 162, 177; Étant donné, 229, 249. 117 I have already provided a detailed discussion of these determinations in the first chapter and will limit my depiction of them here to how they are exemplified in the relationship between Montaigne and his friend. 118 Michael Montaigne, Essais I (Paris: Gallimard: 1965), 265–79. 119 Ibid., 271. 120 Marion, In Excess, 37; De surcroît, 44. 121 Montaigne, Essais I, 271.

The Adonné

181

assured due to its happening by chance and without any expectation.122 The third determination of givenness is as fait accompli and incident (incidence), and it indicates the suspension of the principle of causality in the occurrence of the event. Montaigne admits that “[i]f one presses me to say why I loved him, I sense that this can only be expressed in replying: because it was him; because it was me.”123 According to Montaigne’s account, there is no rational justification for this friendship. There is no reason for their love for one another other than it being for the sake of love itself. In light of this, Marion claims that all determinations of givenness are determinations of the eventness that governs all phenomena.124 In this way, the adonné receives itself in its reception of the phenomenon according to the determinations of givenness. Reception has a twofold function in that the adonné receives itself through the process of receiving the event as a phenomenon. In the phenomenology of givenness, subjectivation arises from the event. Thus, the event contains a definitive description of the adonné, which becomes itself after experiencing the phenomenon. This a posteriori character means that there is a chronological order for the subjectivation of the adonné, which Marion characterises as “its proceeding from the phenomenon.”125 In coming after the event, the adonné presupposes a certain chronological order, which brings us to the question of the temporality of the adonné. In this respect, I wish to discuss the temporal relation between the adonné and the event. Thus, one can ask: how can the temporality of the event be thought of in terms of the adonné? And: what are the temporal implications of the relation between an event and the adonné? 3.2.2 The Temporality of the Adonné The issue of time and temporality is notably absent in Marion’s oeuvre. This is particularly striking because Marion is a phenomenologist who has commented extensively on Husserl and Heidegger. There is no detailed account of temporality; it does not play an explicit or implicit role in the phenomenology of givenness or in his conception of the adonné. The first of the rare references he makes to the issue of time and temporality occurs in his account of 122 Marion, In Excess, 37; De surcroît, 44. 123 Montaigne, Essais I, 271. 124 Marion, In Excess, 38; De surcroît, 45. 125 Marion, Being Given, 249; Étant donné, 344: “The receiver therefore comes after the ‘­subject’ in the double sense of succeeding its metaphysical figure and, especially, of ­proceeding from the phenomenon, without coming before it or producing it.”

182

CHAPTER 3

the event and the adonné. This helps us to identify the issue of temporality in Marion as an essential aspect of the adonné and its subjectivation by the event. Marion’s reference to the issue of temporality occurs in the context of an interview, where he deals directly with a question on the problem of time and its place in his phenomenology. The interviewer asks about Derrida’s reading of Husserl’s internal time consciousness and its relation with the phenomenology of givenness. Marion answers with the following statement: I think that taking the question of time seriously requires that we not take up the debate on the constitution of time in Husserlian terms … ​Time is not a question of consciousness: it is a question of givenness. That’s why I never focused on time as the primary feature of consciousness … ​Time first happens as an unconscious, preconscious event … ​In fact, time is an event prior to the distinction between present, past, and future – prior to consciousness. So, very early, the question of time was, for me, an effect of the general issue of givenness. I did not avoid or dodge anything but rather pointed it out.126 Marion argues that givenness precedes time and that time is not determined by consciousness. Thus, there is no constitution of time by consciousness or the subject for Marion. He also commends Heidegger’s effort to rethink the experience of time not as an “internal” issue of the subject but as an ekstasis of Dasein. Heidegger first makes this move in Being and Time, but for Marion, his real success with it occurs in a later book, On Time and Being, where Heidegger, “discovered that time and Being were related not through the Gemüt of Kant, or even through Dasein, but through something far more radical: the Ereignis or, in my language, the Es gibt (I think the Ereignis is a bad nickname for the original phenomenon, which is, in fact, the Es gibt according to Heidegger himself).”127 Marion means that Heidegger’s attempt to think of time in terms of the “Es gibt”, that is to say, givenness, provides an understanding of time that is external to and not constituted by the subject. Marion states that givenness is not ruled by a temporalisation determined by presence. There is no intuition of the present, so givenness is before temporalisation for the adonné. In his account of the call and response, we will see how this structure is considered without any identification of the understanding of the present with the given. The temporal horizon of the present determines the past and the future of the present moment in terms of the present. 126 Marion, “The Phenomenology of Givenness,” 47–48. 127 Ibid., 47.

The Adonné

183

In other words, the past and the future are thought of as different modifications of the present. The past is an already gone present and the future is an awaited present. In this sense, an object’s temporalisation belongs to the conception of the present. In the sphere of objectness, temporality allows “the synthesis of phenomena as objects and therefore works to assure in them permanence in presence.”128 As was discussed in Chapter 1, when viewed under the category of quantity, the saturated phenomenon does not enable the “successive synthesis” of objects. In this synthesis, intuition is made up of parts that follow each other successively and eventually constitute the whole. This temporal flow of the synthesis presupposes a temporal relation between the parts in terms of presence, which is “inscribed in the sum of what its parameters allow always already to be anticipated phenomenon.”129 Nevertheless, in contrast to the temporality of objects, events do not have any permanent character of presence, and they cannot be temporalised in terms of the present in the way that objects are. The temporal character of events does not require any transcendental I that makes possible the synthesis of objects. The occurrence of events does not succeed from the past to the present and future; such a conception presupposes different presents (of the past and the future) in succession. According to the excessive temporality of the events, the event is given only in its happening, not in something expected or anticipated arising from the event’s passage.130 Marion understands this excessive temporality to be exemplified in the events of death and birth.131 In his Negative Certainties, which was written after In Excess, Marion elucidates the temporality of events. He writes: It [the event] begins before me, arrives without me, anticipating my expectation, and disappears from my sight, no sooner done than gone. To say “too late!” always means already too late: as soon as it began to burst forth, the event had finished beginning and begun to finish. The time of the event therefore presents itself as perfectly unavailable. Only the time of the object can persist in presence, like the object itself … ​Consequently, I must receive it unforeseen in order to lose it right away and 128 Marion, In Excess, 38; De surcroît, 45. 129 Marion, In Excess, 35; De surcroît, 41. 130 Marion, In Excess, 39; De surcroît, 46. 131 It should be emphasised that the event of birth is central to Romano’s evential hermeneutics. In Marion’s account of birth, he also refers to Romano’s analysis of it in order to develop his own explanation. I will not discuss Marion’s understanding of birth here, though in the chapter on Romano’s advenant (Chapter 4), I will provide a detailed account of the phenomenon.

184

CHAPTER 3

irremediably. It comes out of the unexpected to return without delay into the irrevocable. Its instantaneousness sends it into eternity. The event gives itself only in abandoning me. It comes too early for me, and I wake up too late for it. Time alone gives the event, but what it gives it does not keep for me, nor is it concerned with me.132 The temporal character of the event implies a delay for the receiver, which means the event has always already happened, and thus it is always unavailable to the receiver. As opposed to the persistence of presence, it is never graspable by the one to whom it happens. Since there is no subjective contribution to its happening, its temporal character does not stem from the subject and cannot be reduced to the status of an object’s presence. The passage of the event implies a delay for the receiver. By the time the adonné is exposed to this passage and it has awoken an incipient recognition, the event has already gone and abandoned the adonné. In this structure of the temporality of the event, its time is never available to the adonné. As Marion puts it, “time alone gives the event.” In his account of time and temporality, Marion aims to avoid conceptualising time from within the temporality of objectness, that is, in terms of presence. Time is to be understood neither in terms of the present nor as constituted by  the transcendental subject. As opposed to such conceptions, ­Marion stresses that givenness precedes time and the eventness of phenomena temporalises the adonné.133 Nevertheless, Marion does not provide a proper account of this relation between the adonné and time or explain how the adonné is temporalised by the event. Although Marion occasionally tries to differentiate the temporality of the saturated phenomenon or the event from the object’s temporality, he does not provide an explicit account of the temporality in his work. This lacuna in Marion’s oeuvre has been picked up by Mackinlay, who thinks Marion needs to address two main issues with regard to temporality. Firstly, Marion does not give a detailed analysis of how the modalities of past, present, and future relate to the adonné’s temporalisation by the event. As Mackinlay puts it: “Marion’s analysis shows little evidence of being informed 132 Marion, Negative Certainties, 185; Certitudes negatives, 286–7. 133 In this regard, it is worth recalling Derrida’s account of time in relation to the gift. As has been discussed in Chapter 1, Derrida considers the giving of the gift to be impossible, and therefore points to a relation between the given character of time as presence and its impossibility, see Jacques Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 18–33.

The Adonné

185

by Heidegger’s decisive exposition of Dasein and temporality, including the complex and distinctive characters of the past, the present and the future.”134 Having a temporality different from the temporality of objectness must also lead to the adonné having different temporal modes. Secondly, Mackinlay claims that “Marion allows very little scope for a possibility to open a future that contains real novelty.”135 This criticism by Mackinlay arises from his comparison of Marion and Romano. Whereas Romano proposes a detailed analysis of the novelty of the future under the notion of possibility, Marion provides no such explanation about the novelty of the event in relation to the future.136 In summary, Marion’s answers in the interview reveal a rare glimpse into his thoughts on time and temporality. Nevertheless, his reply does not provide much of a guide for developing the temporal aspects of the adonné – even if they do make clear that time is not a question of consciousness (the transcendental subject), but stems rather from givenness. Likewise, the occasional mentions of time and temporality that can be found in his works do not lead to any deeper reconsideration of the temporal modes of the adonné. 3.2.3 The Call and Response Marion’s phenomenological description of the call and response is another of the rare explanations of temporality to be found in his oeuvre. Marion uses the call and response to describe how a given is manifested in and through the adonné. He indicates that the chronological relation between the call and response offers a paradoxical understanding of time. This paradox arises because, while the response can be said to follow the call in a general sense, the structure of the call and response does not assume this chronology within Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. This insight is one that Marion shares with Levinas and Chrétien, who both claim that the call is heard in response.137 Marion describes this reversal in the following way: “traditionally, the call is supposed to come first, to be already past in relation to the response, which is supposed to happen in the present. In fact, the response makes the call heard for the first time.… ​Givenness can be seen in the structure called ‘response,’ and already, just with that, you have a more complicated scheme than that of protension, retention, and so on.”138 His goal here is also to remove the idea of 134 Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 53. 135 Ibid., 54. 136 I will discuss Romano’s account of time and temporality in Chapter 4 (4.1.6). 137 Marion, Being Given, 287; Étant donné, 396. 138 Marion, “The Phenomenology of Givenness,” 49.

186

CHAPTER 3

the constitution of time from the temporality of givenness. Nevertheless, there is no detailed discussion of how the adonné is temporalised in the structure of the call and response. Another noteworthy aspect of Marion’s discussion of the call and response is its relation to the issue of the activity and passivity of the adonné. Marion maintains that the response allows the self-showing of phenomena to become manifested for the adonné. As was discussed above, the fundamental difference between the adonné and transcendental subject is receptivity. The receptivity of the adonné orients it towards the empirical. Since the call is heard in response, the adonné receives itself after receiving the given. In the phenomenology of givenness, the appearing of phenomena for the adonné neither comes from any a priori principle nor depends on the function of the transcendental subject. Rather, Marion claims that “the one undergoing the reception has to be received and does not precede the given in the reception of the given. Givenness overrules both the given and the givee the very same event. So there is no a priori, not even the passive a priori, nor that of the transcendental ‘I,’ nor yet that of the empirical self.”139 One should say that the empirical aspect of the adonné does not imply any similarity to empirical subjectivity, which assumes a kind of substance in the form of a tabula rasa.140 Since the adonné does not have an essence and instead receives itself in an a posteriori way, it cannot be assumed to have any substance the way the subject has. Marion proposes a nuanced understanding of the adonné, one which would locate it between pure passivity and activity, between the empirical me and the transcendental I. He depicts the adonné as a screen of appearing, that is to say, as the place of givenness: “For phenomenology does not begin with appearing or evidence (otherwise it would remain identical to metaphysics), but with the discovery, as difficult as it is stupefying, that the evidence, blind in itself, can become the screen of appearing – the place of givenness. Place of givenness, therefore not its origin but rather its point of arrival: the origin of givenness remains the ‘self’ of the phenomenon, with no other principle or origin besides itself.”141 In this regard, Marion assigns the role of being a filter or prism to the adonné, which transforms givenness into manifestation by means of its receptivity. The 139 Ibid., 54. 140 Marion defines the relation between phenomenology and empiricism in the following terms: “Phenomenology agrees with empiricism in privileging recourse to the fact, even if it stands apart from it in refusing to limit the facts solely to empirical sensibility.” See Being Given, 119; Étant donné, 169. 141 Marion, Being Given, 20; Étant donné, 32–33.

The Adonné

187

mediating role of the adonné between the givenness and manifestation of phenomena does not produce the phenomenon or constitute it in an active way. On the other hand, it is also not a purely passive gesture for the self-showing of a phenomenon, even if its subjection to givenness means it takes the dative case. Marion describes this relationship as follows: The receiver, in and through the receptivity of “feeling,” transforms givenness into manifestation, or more exactly, he lets what gives itself through intuition show itself. In receiving what gives itself, he in turn gives it to show itself – he gives it form, its first form. Beyond activity and passivity, reception gives form to what gives itself without yet showing itself. The receiver is therefore put forward as a filter or prism, which brings about that the first visibility arises, precisely because it does not claim to produce it.…142 Marion adds that this giving of form to the given does not mean that the receiver has any primacy in relation to the given. In what follows he states that before the given, the adonné has no receptivity: “The receiver does not precede what it forms by means of its prism – it [the receiver] results from it [what it forms]. The filter is deployed first as a screen. Before the not yet phenomenalised given gives itself, no filter awaits it. Only the impact of what gives itself brings about the arising, with one and the same shock, of the flash with which its first visibility bursts and the very screen on which it crashes.”143 The metaphors he uses for this mediation are “filter,” “prism,” and “screen.” These metaphors can be seen to depict the precise – or as Marion suggests, “­paradoxical” – relation between the activity and passivity of the adonné in its function of receiving the phenomenon while at the same time receiving itself. Similarly, the call and response structure can also be seen as helpful in defining an aspect of this relationship. Marion asserts that the adonné is exposed to the saturated phenomenon, from which he receives an “undeniable” call.144 The saturated phenomenon can be phenomenalised once it is received through a response. The response of the adonné to the call renders the self-givenness of phenomena as the manifestation of phenomena. The phenomenalisation of the given stems from the mediation of the adonné, whose mediating role has been likened to that of a “prism.” Yet this mediating role does not grant the adonné the status of an 142 Marion, Being Given, 264; Étant donné, 364. 143 Marion, Being Given, 265; Étant donné, 365. 144 Marion, Being Given, 282; Étant donné, 390.

188

CHAPTER 3

a priori subject. Marion states that the “[a]donné holds the place of a horizon of visibility for the paradox [the saturated phenomenon] that gives itself. It makes the call visible by accepting it in its own visibility; it manifests the a priori in the prism of its a posteriori. What gives itself (the call) becomes a phenomenon – shows itself – in and through what responds to it and thus puts it on stage (the adonné).…”145 Phenomenalisation comes from the receptivity of the adonné in its transformation of the given into the manifestation, but the subjectivation of the adonné results from the phenomenon, the event in its givenness. Marion assigns an a priori role to givenness and an a posteriori one to the adonné in this relation on the basis of his accounts of receptivity and the call-response. In discussing the call and response, his description of responsibility also points out the relation between the given phenomenon and the adonné: “Responsibility belongs officially to all phenomenality that is deployed according to givenness: what is given (the call) succeeds in showing itself as a phenomenon only on the screen and according to the prism that the adonné (the responsal) alone offers it. All the determinations by which the phenomenon gives itself and shows itself starting from itself to the point of exerting a call (impact, counter-intentionality, unpredictable landing, anamorphosis, fait accompli, incident, event, etc.) are concentrated and transcribed for the adonné in the responsibility that he suffers from them.”146 Thus, what Marion achieves with the structure of the call and response is central to his conception of the adonné and its non-transcendental function in the phenomenalisation of the given and the subjectivation of itself. He re-establishes a reciprocal balance between activity and passivity through a reliance on receptivity, which is the main feature of the adonné, but he can only do this under one condition: the achievement of reduction. Mackinlay claims that the balance of the activity and passivity of the adonné remains problematic because it still overemphasises the passive role of the adonné. As he puts it: “All initiative is assigned to the call, with the responsal being an almost automatic reaction rather than an active response.”147 Nevertheless, I think that Mackinlay’s claim, which bears the mark of Romano’s influence, is too critical.148 This also seems to be the case with regard to Romano’s critique of reduction as a phenomenological method. It seems to me that Marion provides a nuanced account of the relation between activity 145 Marion, Being Given, 287; Étant donné, 397. Square brackets and the change of “the gifted” to “the adonné” belong to me. 146 Marion, Being Given, 293–4; Étant donné, 405. 147 Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 32–33. 148 Ibid., 47–54.

The Adonné

189

and passivity and establishes the right balance between them in order to pursue his project of decentring the subject. Moreover, Marion’s phenomenology of givenness has a more problematic aspect. Without critically engaging with Marion’s third reduction, one cannot gain a clear insight into any potential problem concerning the predominance of passivity for the adonné. I think that the real problem lies in the status and function of reduction for the adonné, and not in the relation between activity and passivity. If Marion’s reduction functioned properly and succeeded in unfolding the given, then the imbalance between passivity and activity that Mackinlay identifies would not be evident. If it is to be accepted that reduction achieves what Marion claims it does, then it seems to me that Marion’s account of receptivity secures a delicate and exact balance between activity and passivity. Such a view of the relation is predicated on an idea of Marion’s method of reduction as unproblematic, which remains to be tested. 3.2.4 Ego and Reduction In Chapter 1, it was noted that Marion viewed reduction as an essential method for phenomenology. He even insists that there is no phenomenology without reduction.149 Moreover, he describes phenomenology as “the sum of discussions and disagreements about the doctrine and the practices of reduction.” This is inspired by an earlier claim by Ricœur: “Phenomenology is the sum of misinterpretations of Husserl’s doctrine.”150 His insistence on reduction is as evident in his early phenomenological work, Reduction and Givenness (1989), as it is in his most recent publications, Reprise du donné (2016). Marion’s overemphasis on reduction seems to stem from the fact that his method of reduction radically differs from other conceptions.151 By labelling his approach the third reduction, Marion seeks to assert that he has surpassed the reductions of Husserl and Heidegger. Whereas Marion’s reduction is oriented towards givenness, Husserl’s reduction aims at the constitution of objects within the horizon of objectness, and Heidegger’s reduction is deployed for ontological purposes within the horizon of beingness. According to Marion, Husserl’s reduction is 149 Marion, “The Phenomenology of Givenness,” 54. 150 Jean-Luc Marion, Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016), 31. For the English translation of the first chapter of the book, see Jean-Luc Marion, “The Reduction and ‘The Fourth Principle’,” Analecta Hermeneutica 8, no. 1 (2016): 47. 151 Claudia Serban discusses different approaches to the method of reduction in phenomenology. For her, this tension in these different approaches comes from the interpretation of phenomenology that is made according to whether it is Husserlian or Heideggerian understandings of phenomenology, see Claudia Serban, “La méthode phénoménologique, entre réduction et herméneutique,” Les Études philosophiques 100, no. 1 (2012): 81–100.

190

CHAPTER 3

performed by the transcendental ego, and it distorts the given character of phenomena because of the horizon of objectness. In a similar way, Heidegger’s reduction is seen to constrain the given character of phenomena because it posits the horizon of beingness under the subjective orientation of Dasein. Marion’s third reduction addresses “pure givenness” beyond objectness and beingness, thus “the phenomenon comes forward without any other principle than itself.”152 Marion’s account of reduction is encapsulated in his fourth principle of phenomenology, “so much reduction, so much givenness.” In other words, this means that: “the reduction reduces everything, except the given; inversely, what it cannot reduce it admits as given. The reduction does not reduce givenness; it leads back to it.”153 By reminding us of the etymological roots of the word “reduction” in the Latin, Marion specifies that the reduction “leads back to” the given. Marion claims that the adonné does not have a transcendental function in his method of reduction; instead, the adonné becomes itself in the operation of the reduction through self-givenness of the phenomenon. The rest of this section will be devoted to critically engaging with Marion’s claim concerning the relation of his conception of reduction to subjectivity. For Marion, the third reduction has two main features that set it apart from the reductions of Husserl and Heidegger. The first feature relates to the result of the reduction. The third reduction brings the phenomenon back “ultimately to the given, showing itself inasmuch as it gives itself – thus fixing the given in terms ultimate and irreducible by any other reduction.” The second distinctive feature concerns the position of the subject in this reduction: “[the] third reduction only brings us back to the given in also reducing the I to the derived rank of the adonné.”154 It also proceeds to reduce the subject by way of a new function that is different from the transcendental one. As was mentioned above, it is the receptivity of the adonné “which receives itself from what gives itself.” By stripping off all the a priori foundational and constitutive functions, the adonné becomes a posteriori through its receptivity. This reduction “becomes a performative contradiction – it is deprived of the very operator of the givenness that it nevertheless claims to render manifest by reduction.”155 Marion defines this “contradictory” relation between the reduction and the subject as follows: “Save to contradict the result of the third reduction – the phenomenon gives itself from itself … t​ hat it is accomplished even in the one who makes 152 Marion, Being Given, 18; Étant donné, 29. 153 Marion, Being Given, 26; Étant donné, 40. 154 Marion, In Excess, 46. 155 Ibid., 46.

The Adonné

191

it possible, l’adonné. L’adonné does not compromise the reduction to the given but rather confirms it in transferring the self from itself to the phenomenon.”156 It is necessary to examine whether Marion’s claims regarding his own version of the reduction succeed or not. Since Husserl’s transcendental turn, the method of reduction is typically seen as the ground of Cartesian egoicism in phenomenology. The complex and problematic structure of Husserl’s reduction is inspired by the Cartesian ego and Kant’s transcendental subject and aims to constitute phenomena as objects of the absolute consciousness for “certitude and a sense of the density of pure immanence.”157 In the famous paragraph 49 of Ideas I, Husserl aims to achieve the annihilation of the world by means of a reduction in the immanence of absolute consciousness.158 In this context, the problem arising from the splitting of the subject into the transcendental ego and the empirical me has led to discussions regarding the status of the world, the subject and reduction in the work of every phenomenologist from Husserl onwards. Whereas philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Romano attempt to rid phenomenology of reduction by claiming its impossibility, others – such as Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion – try to renovate reduction through the transformation of its fundamental aspects. As was mentioned at the beginning of this section, Heidegger is one of the most important figures to respond to this problem, which he does by moving the problem to another level in his conception of Dasein. Fundamentally, reduction as a method of phenomenology presupposes three elements: “1) The one who accomplishes reduction; 2) that which is reduced in such a reduction; 3) that to which such a reduction is led back, the phenomenon in the reduced (and properly phenomenological) sense.”159 In light of the tendency to link reduction to the egological foundation of phenomenology, we should no doubt ask what the exact function and status of the adonné in Marion’s third reduction is. The answer to this question becomes more complicated because Marion claims that the adonné does not have any transcendental and constituting role for phenomena. In what follows, I wish to outline Marion’s claim and then critically analyse it with reference to the three elements of any idea of reduction. Although Marion aims to remove any reliance on subjectivity by means of his conceptualisation of the receptivity of the 156 Ibid., 48. 157 Sebbah, Testing the Limit, 70. 158 Husserl, Ideas I, 109–12; Ideen, 103–6. 159 Claude Romano, “Love in Its Concept: Jean-Luc Marion’s The Erotic Phenomenon,” in Counter Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion, ed. Kevin Hart (Notre Dame, IN: ­University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 329.

192

CHAPTER 3

adonné, I think that he has not succeeded in distancing the adonné from the egological understanding of the subject, because he has remained too committed to the method of reduction. Marion tries to position the adonné such that it occupies neither a transcendental nor a mere empirical position. His account of receptivity enables him to articulate a double relation between the adonné and the given. Marion assigns a double role to the receptivity of the adonné, thus the adonné phenomenalises the given and the phenomenon subjectivises the adonné. This reciprocal relation is maintained in the reduction. Marion asserts that “l’adonné functions precisely to measure in itself the gap between the given – which never ceases to be imposed on it and to impose itself on it – and phenomenality which is only accomplished as much and insofar as reception achieves phenomenalisation or, rather, lets it be phenomenalised. This operation – to phenomenalise the given – by rights is owed to l’adonné by virtue of its difficult privilege of constituting the only given in which there is the visibility of all other givens. It therefore reveals the given as phenomenon.”160 The phenomenalisation of the given or “revealing the given as phenomenon” phenomenalises the adonné in the same operation of the reduction. Marion also uses the same metaphors to explain the functioning of this receptivity: “screen,” “prism,” “frame,” and “resistance to the electricity in a circuit.”161 In all of these metaphorical accounts, the adonné receives the given and transforms it into a phenomenon (from self-givenness to the self-showing of the phenomenon) but, at the same time, it serves this function without distorting the phenomenon’s right to show itself. One might also recall Marion’s call and response structure here, insofar as it seems to parallel his third reduction. As was discussed above, Marion claims that the call is heard in response and he also understands this structure on the basis of receptivity. Whether the adonné occupies an active or passive position (as Mackinlay discusses), this call and response structure replicates the procedure of the third reduction. Thus, focusing on the reduction will give us a broader understanding of the adonné. Through the performance of its function, exemplified in Marion’s metaphors, the adonné becomes itself. I think that this paradoxical relationship in the third reduction is not without its problems, which seem reminiscent of the problems Husserl engaged with ever since he proposed the reduction in

160 Marion, In Excess, 49. 161 Marion, In Excess, 50–51.

The Adonné

193

Ideas.162 In the above citation, Marion speaks of the “phenomenalisation” of the adonné, in contrast to my usage of the term “subjectivation” for this process. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the adonné is not just one phenomenon among others in the phenomenology of givenness. To call it “phenomenalisation” would be inaccurate because what it refers to is, in a general sense, the subject, and a phenomenon is what is given to the adonné and not to any other phenomenon. To speak of the “phenomenalisation,” rather than the subjectivation, of the adonné would undervalue its subjective contribution to phenomenology. Marion’s use of this term allows us to question the status of the adonné in just the same way as Husserl’s reduction exposes itself to questioning because of the way the status of the subject oscillates between the worldless transcendental ego and the empirical me. The adonné’s process of becoming itself is never merely a process of phenomenalisation because of the receptive function it has as a subject. As Marion’s metaphors clearly illustrate, being a screen or prism characterises the adonné in a certain way, and such metaphors suggest that one can think of it as similar to the substance or essence of the subject. The functional analysis of the adonné, which is necessitated by the reduction, has to assign a role to the adonné and this role is not dissimilar to the one Husserl assigns to the transcendental I in his own conception of the reduction. Whereas the function that Husserl establishes is constitution, Marion establishes the function of receptivity. Nevertheless, this does not change the underlying premise that a function is always at work in the reduction.163 In other words, regardless of whether or not we call it transcendental, there is always a subject who performs the reduction by means of subjective powers. A further question that arises is whether the third reduction might not have transcendental implications that Marion tries to avoid altogether? It is worth recalling what Romano identifies as the three essential elements of any reduction: “1) The one who accomplishes reduction; 2) that which is reduced in such a reduction; 3) that to which such a reduction is led back, the phenomenon in the reduced (and properly phenomenological) sense.”164 In identifying these 162 See Dermot Moran, Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology (Cambridge and ­Malden: Polity Press, 2005), 174–201; Rudolf Bernet, “The phenomenological reduction: from ­natural life to philosophical thought,” Metodo 4, no. 2 (2016): 311–33. 163 Jocelyn Benoist proposes a similar critique of subjectivity on the basis of its function in phenomenology, see Jocelyn Benoist, L’idée de Phénoménologie (Paris: Beauchesne, 2001), 109. 164 Romano, “Love in Its Concept: Jean-Luc Marion’s The Erotic Phenomenon,” 329. Romano also adds a fourth element along with these three characteristics: “… because the reduction is to be the method of access to the phenomenological field as such and in its entirety,

194

CHAPTER 3

fundamental elements of the reduction, Romano intends to show that there is no way out of transcendentalism within such an operation. What reduction achieves cannot be understood without reference to some kind of transcendental account of the subject. The reducer, that which is reduced, and the reduced phenomenon are inseparable parts of any reduction, and they must work within the shadow of the transcendental framework of phenomenology that has been established by Husserl: “For Husserl, the one who accomplishes the reduction is the transcendental ego; what is reduced, which is to say bracketed, is the natural thesis of the existence of the world and its correlate, the existence of the ego; that back to which the reduction leads is the transcendental field purified of every thesis of existence, and thus to ‘phenomena according to phenomenology’ such as they are constituted by the pure ego.”165 Reduction presupposes the immanent sphere of the pure ego in order to constitute its object.166 3.2.4.1 Romano’s Critique of the Third Reduction The discussion between Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano concerning the method of reduction begins with Romano’s review of Being Given in 2000, a few years after the text’s original publication in 1997.167 Romano also applied his critique to Marion’s erotic reduction in The Erotic Phenomenon in 2007.168 Finally, Romano addresses this issue again in another article published in 2015.169 Marion’s improved account of the third reduction in De surcroît (In Excess) in 2001 and Certitudes négatives (Negative Certainties) in 2010 can be thought of as replies to Romano’s criticisms, and one can undoubtedly find references to Romano in the footnotes of these books. Marion would ultimately rearticulate his own account in opposition to these criticisms in his Reprise

165 166

167 168 169

it is not only prior to every other method, but universal by principle, which is to say practiced without restriction upon the totality of the phenomenal given.” Romano, “Love in Its Concept: Jean-Luc Marion’s The Erotic Phenomenon,” 329. I should note that my discussion between Romano and Marion regarding reduction does not aim to make a direct comparison between them. Rather I give place Romano’s criticism of reduction in the chapter on the adonné because of their dialogue regarding reduction in their texts. My focus to Romano mainly comes from his criticism of Marion’s reduction as a secondary source. Romano, “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné.” Here I don’t focus on his erotic reduction because it is based on Marion’s general idea of reduction but used for his conception of love with its theological resonances, see Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon. Claude Romano, “Le Don, La Donation et Le Paradoxe,” in Philosophie de Jean-Luc Marion: Phénoménologie, théologie, métaphysique, ed. Philippe Capelle-Dumont (Paris: Hermann, 2015), 11–30.

The Adonné

195

du donné in 2016. I want to provide an overview of this discussion because it not only provides one of the sharpest criticisms of the phenomenology of givenness, but should also prove helpful for the broader project of this book in underscoring the fundamental difference between Marion and Romano. It will allow us to reconsider Marion’s project of rejecting the transcendental subject. Moreover, their discussion about the reduction reminds us that phenomenology is still a vibrant philosophical discourse that never ceases reflecting upon its own limits and conditions. The controversy about the reduction was first raised by Romano’s review of Being Given, which made a twofold claim about Marion’s book. On the one hand, there is unconditioned, absolute givenness that is freed from any transcendental, a priori instance and takes the measure of phenomenality from the phenomenon itself. On the other hand, Marion assumes that phenomenality is dependent on reduction, which means that the transcendental subject is assured of its right over phenomenality and constitutes it. In this sense, reduction is an act which is at work that modifies the gaze of the transcendental subject. This cannot be seen as a paradox but can be seen as a controversy, because Marion determines the phenomenon simultaneously as “given inasmuch as reduced”170 and also claims that “the reduction alone permits the given.”171 In a similar fashion, Romano thinks that Marion’s account of the call as anonymous – not coming from me, but coming to me – is an irrelevant factor for any understanding of the call, since it can only operate within the subject. Yet if the call does not come from the adonné, one can ask how the adonné can perform a reduction on himself when the call appears in its own strangeness?172 In summary, Romano proposes that there is no escaping from subjectivity once the reduction is performed, thus one must either abandon reduction or abandon the claim to describe unconditional givenness. Marion continues to insist on the method of reduction in In Excess, where he considers Romano’s critique. As has already been outlined, Marion maintains that the third reduction is determined by the receptivity of the adonné, which means that it is neither a subjective performance nor one occupying a transcendental position. Marion presents Husserl’s reduction as the transformation of the empirical I into the transcendental I by the operation of reducing. While the reduction leads the things of the world back to the lived experiences of consciousness where they are constituted as intentional objects, the empirical I “is itself reduced to its pure immanence (‘region of consciousness’) 170 Marion, Being Given, 176; Étant donné, 247. In French it is “donné en tant que réduit.” 171 Marion, Being Given, 52; Étant donné, 77. 172 Romano, “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné,” 10–11.

196

CHAPTER 3

and brings back the totality of its empirical me to the transcendence of the ‘region of the world.’ The I in this way becomes transcendental in the ­phenomenological sense because it is reduced to itself and is extracted from the natural world in first renouncing for itself the natural attitude.”173 In this way, Marion maintains that it is the operator of the reduction who assumes the role of transcendental subject for Husserl. By emphasising its difference from the subjective operation of Husserl’s reduction, Marion states that his reduction leads the adonné to be “modified by the reduction that he or she puts to work.”174 One can see the range and the character of the adonné’s modification by the reduction through the metaphors Marion uses in describing it. Nevertheless, Romano keeps reflecting critically on this further explanation from In Excess because what Marion describes for the modification of his own reduction is no different than what Husserl’s account of the reduction proposes, “[f]or one can affirm exactly the same thing of the transcendental ego: it modifies itself as a worldly ego through the operation of reduction which includes itself, which in no way prevents this reduction from retaining the character of a transcendental condition of access to the ‘realm of phenomena in the sense of phenomenology’, as Husserl puts.”175 Thus it is not the transcendental ego but the worldly ego that is exposed to modification, remains and is at work in any access to the realm of phenomena for Husserl. The main problem for Marion’s account of the reduction results from his assumption that the modification of the adonné strips it of any transcendental moment. It cannot be described in this way, however, because the same situation of modification is also valid for Husserl’s account, even if there we find a kind of modification of the worldly ego along with the transcendental ego who performs the reduction.176 In this manner, Marion’s argument for the modification of the subject does not prevent the adonné from assuming a transcendental status in the reduction. The modification of the subject or the adonné does not dispossess it of its transcendental function, regardless of whether we 173 Marion, In Excess, 46–47. 174 Marion, In Excess, 46. 175 Romano, “Le Don, La Donation et Le Paradoxe,” 21. 176 In this regard, some interpretations of Husserl’s reduction also address this aspect. For example, David Carr’s The Paradox of Subjectivity and Nicolas de Warren’s Husserl and The Promise of Time and even Husserl’s own account in Crisis point out this double function of the reduction, which modifies both the transcendental ego and the empirical ego of the phenomenal region. It is this tension that means one should not confuse a pure Kantian transcendental ego with Husserl’s understanding of subjectivity. This distinction can also be employed to shield Husserl’s actual account from Heidegger’s criticism of the Husserlian subject.

The Adonné

197

describe this function as one of receptivity. Romano claims that “the modification of the subject itself, which occurs through the reduction, no more deprives this reduction of its transcendental function than it does its s­ tatus as a precondition for appearing in its pure phenomenological sense.”177 In this respect, a phenomenon must be reduced in order to be given as opposed to Marion’s fundamental idea of it being first given in order to be shown.178 Hence, the transcendental performance of the reduction, which is inevitably inherent in any conception of the reduction, is never absent from Marion’s account of the reduction either.179 3.2.4.2 Absence of the World for the Adonné With regard to the transcendental status of the subject, the adonné’s lack of worldliness also caught the attention of some philosophers.180 With the notable exception of one of his late books, Reprise du donné, Marion makes no claim to give an account of either the world or the worldliness of the adonné in respect to givenness. As was mentioned in Chapter 2, the problem of the world is described by Husserl as the “riddle of the world” (Welträtsel) for ­phenomenology.181 Heidegger’s subsequent attempt to describe Dasein’s openness to the world in opposition to Husserl’s intentionality adds another layer to this riddle. After Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty paid “meticulous attention to the world’s exceeding of consciousness” by insisting on “the unachievable nature” of the method of reduction.182 Both Heidegger’s articulation of the notion of the world and Dasein’s worldly characterisation, and Merleau-Ponty’s account 177 Romano, “Le Don, La Donation et Le Paradoxe,” 21. 178 It is worth recalling that some Husserlian philosophers claim that Marion’s reduction cannot really be a form of reduction for phenomenology, because of his claim to go beyond transcendental subjectivity. See, for example: Luft, “Husserl’s Method of Reduction,” 251–2. I think that what phenomenology is or can become should never be restricted by what Husserl did, and its methodology cannot be limited to Husserlian problematics. Here one might want to apply Heidegger’s famous line to phenomenology: “Higher than actuality stands possibility.” My critique of Marion’s reduction is distinct from the orthodox ­Husserlian critique. Rather than questioning whether Marion’s reduction is orthodox phenomenology or not, I attempt to show that his conception of the reduction is not able to achieve what he proposes, namely, performing the reduction without the transcendental ego. 179 Romano’s critique of Marion’s reduction leads him to address some other problematic approaches of Marion’s phenomenology in his article, “Le Don, La Donation et Le ­Paradoxe.” I will not present these criticisms here in order to avoid digressing. 180 See Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess, 41–53; Serban, “La méthode phénoménologique, entre réduction et herméneutique,” 84–88. 181 Husserl, Die Krisis, 100; The Crisis, 97. 182 Sebbah, Testing the Limit, 21.

198

CHAPTER 3

of “the unconstituted and irreducible a priori of the world”183 have helped pave the way for the later French phenomenologists, such as Claude Romano’s account of the world in At the Heart of Reason. Nevertheless, Marion’s conception of the world does not refer to any of these philosophers, and he actually prefers not to address the issue of the world at all. Both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty focus on the a priori primacy of the world for any conception of the structure of subjectivity, rather than relying on notions of intentionality and reduction. Claudia Serban argues that in contrast to Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the a priori primacy to the world, a new trend has arisen in contemporary phenomenology that “confronts us with a secondarisation or even a destitution of the world as a phenomenological theme” by highlighting its place within the Husserlian duality of reduction-constitution.184 In this context, the absence of the world as a phenomenological theme in Marion’s work finds its proper place. His emphasis on the reduction leads him to mostly overlook the riddle of the world because “the reduction of the phenomenon to givenness is not a return to the world, and self-givenness of the phenomenon is not givenness in a world.”185 Since Marion does not presuppose any kind of a priori for the self-givenness of phenomena, the world does not have any irreducible horizon for givenness.186 Nor does the world present any horizon for a hermeneutical approach to the phenomenon in the phenomenology of givenness. Moreover, Marion prioritises givenness over the world for the appearing of phenomena in general, and the adonné does not have to be in the world for its reception of the phenomenon and also receives itself in this reception. In this regard, the subordination or absence of the world comes from his insistence on the method of reduction and the primacy of givenness over everything else, thus one can think of the adonné as a subject without a world. As discussed above, in one way or another, the adonné performs a transcendental function in the reduction, 183 Serban, “La méthode phénoménologique, entre réduction et herméneutique,” 86. Serban also says that “in this, the ‘Merleau-Pontian family’ of contemporary French phenomenologists, like Merleau-Ponty himself, undoubtedly owes more to Heidegger than it is ready to admit.” 184 Ibid., 87. 185 Ibid. 186 Here one might see that Marion’s use of the reduction moves in a direction that resembles Michel Henry’s account of the reduction. Consequently, like Henry, Marion’s approach to the role of reduction leads him to appropriate the disqualification of the world in his phenomenology. In order to avoid digressions, here I don’t discuss this similarity between Marion and Henry.

The Adonné

199

so this renders the adonné incapable of regarding the world as a theme in phenomenology. Additionally, since Marion does not accept any splitting of the subject into transcendental and empirical egos in his conception of the adonné, it is not even possible to refer to the problem of the world as a riddle in the way Husserl did. This is because the tension that leads to an enduring and, for us, essential riddle only arises from the splitting of the subject into transcendental and empirical egos. In Reprise du donné, Marion begins to address the problem of the world as a theme for the first time in his phenomenology. In this book, he retrospectively reconsiders his work on phenomenology, starting with Reduction and Givenness. He also objects to some of the criticisms leveled against the phenomenology of givenness. As a hitherto absent theme in his oeuvre, the issue of the world is posed by Marion by discussing its role within the history of metaphysics, where it is one of three primordial and privileged beings – the others being God and ego. As a privileged being of metaphysica specialis, it is recognised as “the totality of objects” and also it never had any evidence for its existence in relation to God and ego in the history of metaphysics.187 Marion then argues that the world can only be defined in terms of excess: “If the phenomenality of the world escapes us, it is not because it does not appear, but on the contrary, because it keeps appearing, without end or possible totalisation, dispensing in advance any phenomenon that we will ever see, just as it has always already dispensed all the phenomena that we have been able to see and record.”188 In his account of the world, he follows Patocka who develops the question of the world as a “radicalising of the epochè to an a-subjective phenomenon.” His reprise or recovery (reprise) of the problem of the world comes from the abandonment (déprise) of the world owing to its irreducible eventness: The recovery [reprise] then consists in the abandonment [déprise], in the approach of the world as a dispensation [dispense] from phenomenality, in the double sense of dispensing phenomena, and of dispensing with their phenomenon in order to safeguard one’s own. This double dispensation concerns the givenness of the given and can only be conceived according to it. The world dispenses phenomena by giving them, and thus gives them to an adonné (or, to speak like Patočka, to a “realiser” [réalisateur]). The world dispenses with the phenomenality of the

187 Marion, Reprise du donné, 101. 188 Ibid., 102.

200

CHAPTER 3

phenomena which it dispenses by giving itself according to its irreducible eventness.189 Marion uses the double meaning of the word “dispense” in French, which also has the meaning of giving something to someone. He makes a double gesture of the phenomenality of the world for his phenomenology. Moreover, Marion objects to those criticisms concerning the absence of the theme of the world in his phenomenology with reference to the aforementioned work of Claudia Serban. As he does elsewhere in his phenomenology, Marion argues that Husserl and Heidegger do not provide an adequate approach for considering the problem of the world or how the world is phenomenologically given. Beyond ­Husserl and Heidegger, he thinks of the world as a possibility that makes possible everything in its happening. Thus, Marion defines the eventness of the world as follows: “Only the event can assure the possibility of its status as unthinkable given because it has always already been accomplished, unthinkable in advance (unvordenklich). In terms of radical possibility, that of the world, only the event has happened (one) times. Only eventness makes worldliness. The world moves from space to time. The world is having its time, but has no place – it gives it.”190 In this respect, Marion does not think that the world can be conceived as the totality of all facts, nor is it conceivable as an object or a being, or as the totality of objects or beings.191 Contrary to these earlier metaphysical and ­phenomenological accounts, he proposes that the world is not the totality of the actuality of objects, but it is an event and is given to the adonné without having a non-transcendental position by the reduction. In brief, one can say that Marion does not abandon the method of reduction for the phenomenology of givenness even in his late account of the phenomenality of the world. He tries to find a place for its phenomenality under the aegis of eventness. It will not be difficult to conclude that the problems mentioned above regarding his version of reduction will still haunt his account of the phenomenality of the world. 189 Ibid., 16–17. “La reprise consiste alors dans la déprise, dans l’approche du monde comme dispense de la phénoménalité, au double sens de dispenser les phénomènes, et de se dispenser de leur phénoménalité pour sauvegarder la sienne propre. Cette double dispense concerne la donation du donné et ne se conçoit que selon celle-ci. Le monde dispense les phénomènes en les donnant, et il les donne ainsi à un adonné (ou, pour parler comme Patočka, à un ‘réalisateur’). Le monde se dispense de la phénoménalité des phénomènes qu’il dispense en se donnant lui-même selon son événementialité irréductible.” 190 Ibid., 133. 191 Steven Delay, Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 201.

The Adonné

201

Finally, I wish to draw attention again to a point already raised in my discussion of Marion’s criticism of Dasein. According to Marion, an aporia of the subject persists in Dasein because of Heidegger’s argument for the self-constancy (Selbst-ständigkeit) of Dasein’s selfhood, though Heidegger does seem to distinguish his notion from that of “a subsisting ground for the self.” According to Heidegger, the self-constancy means anticipatory resoluteness, and this ontological structure reveals the existentiality of the selfhood.192 Marion maintains that Heidegger’s attempt to avoid the problem is unsuccessful because the issue of the subsistence of the self remains transcendental in nature, which shows itself in “the reflective characteristics of Dasein.”193 Marion’s approach to Dasein can prove instructive if we adopt it as a way to examine the adonné. Since the adonné never stops performing the reduction, which is “the transcendental method par excellence”,194 it cannot be emancipated from the transcendental elements. This means that these transcendental elements persist for the adonné even while Marion tries to detach his own version of the reduction from the transcendental version. In other words, I claim that one cannot extirpate the transcendental remnants from the adonné. It is therefore possible to criticise the adonné by echoing Marion’s critical account of Dasein. At the end of Being Given, Marion provides an analysis of his conception of the adonné by reiterating the general idea that the adonné goes beyond any transcendental conception of subjectivity. He argues that while this renewed understanding of the subject is still at the centre of phenomenology, it is so in a different way than the transcendental subject: The phenomenology of givenness has finished radically – in my eyes, for the first time – with the “subject” and all its recent avatars. It succeeds in this, however, precisely because it tries neither to destroy nor to suppress it … ​The “subject” therefore always rises again from each of its pretended destructions. To have done with the “subject,” it is therefore necessary not to destroy it, but to reverse it – to overturn it. It is posited as a center: this will not be contested, but I will contest its mode of occupying and exercising the centre to which it lays claim – with the title of a (thinking, constituting, resolute) “I.” I will contest the claim that it occupies this centre as an origin, an ego or first person, in transcendental “mineness.” I will oppose to it the claim that it does not hold this centre but is instead held there as a recipient where what gives itself shows 192 Heidegger, Being and Time, 308; Sein und Zeit, 322. 193 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 360. 194 Romano, “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné,” 11.

202

CHAPTER 3

itself, and that it discloses itself given to and as a pole of givenness, where all the givens come forward incessantly. At the centre stands no “subject,” but an adonné, he whose function consists in receiving what is immeasurably given to him, and whose privilege is confined to the fact that he is himself received from what he receives.195 Throughout this chapter, I did not hesitate to use the notion of “decentring” to describe Marion’s effort to find a new model of subjectivity for the phenomenology of givenness. This is not because I wanted to ascribe this role to the adonné, but because it accords with Marion’s own endeavour to eliminate all transcendental elements from the subject and to stress the priority of the self-givenness of the phenomenon and the aposteriority of the subject. Nevertheless, this passage from the conclusion of Being Given seems to declare that every attempt at “deconstructing” or decentring the subject is in vain because Marion believes that it “would rise again from each of its pretended destructions.” In this respect, Marion claims that the adonné is still in the centre of all phenomena, though it now has a different function than the earlier models of subjectivity. Its centrality is not determined by its being “an origin, an ego or first person, in transcendental mineness.” It is rather its receptivity that makes it a privileged being among others. The centrality of the adonné for the phenomenology of givenness undoubtedly reminds us of the central role of the ego that Descartes bequeathed to modern philosophy, including phenomenology. Although the adonné does not exercise the same function as the Cartesian ego or its counterparts in phenomenology, it still ultimately occupies its central position in the world. It is still a privileged being, despite the fact that this privilege no longer arises from the functions associated with those versions of the subject that Marion has criticised. Moreover, contrary to Marion’s claim to a non-transcendental method of reduction, I have argued that reduction cannot be completely free of the transcendental elements, regardless of how the agent of this reduction is characterised. Marion’s emphasis on receptivity, which differentiates his account of reduction from that of his predecessors, ascribes the adonné a privileged role and puts it at the centre of phenomena. It is worth recalling the famous dictum of Merleau-Ponty in his preface to Phenomenology of Perception: “the most important lesson which the reduction teaches us is the impossibility of a complete reduction.”196 In this way, Marion’s method of reduction can also be 195 Marion, Being Given, 322; Étant donné, 442. 196 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London and New York: Roudtledge, 2002), XV.

The Adonné

203

seen as incapable of fully performing the task that he assigned to it. Since he proffered a new mode of reduction that would make no appeal to the transcendental ego or any kind of subjectivity, I argue that his promissory note remains unfulfilled. As his own declaration makes clear, the adonné does not lose its centrality. In one sense, this centrality seems to repeat the transcendental pretensions of the Cartesian ego, even if the adonné who occupies this central role is defined in an a posteriori way and “emancipated from all subjectivity.”197 In another sense, the adonné aims to overcome the centrality of the subject in phenomenology. As was noted at the beginning of the chapter, Marion interprets Jean-Luc Nancy’s question as a task for phenomenology: “to confront [ … ] the determination of what – or possibly who – succeeds the subject.”198 Thus Marion attempts to position the adonné after the subject, and its subjectivation comes from and after the phenomenon. Nevertheless, what he proposes cannot succeed, because the adonné never loses its centrality in the constellation of phenomena and therefore retains something of the privilege and primacy of the subjectivity of the transcendental ego. Insofar as the event is not able to be the centre of phenomenality in the phenomenology of givenness, it must come after the subject. 3.3

Conclusion

In this chapter, I first dealt with aporias of the subject that are described by Marion. His notion of the subject refers to the egological tradition stemming from the Cartesian ego and its more systematised version in Kant’s transcendental subject. The idea of the transcendental subject is also operative in the constitution of the phenomenon in Husserl’s conception of phenomenology. Marion finds that Heidegger’s Dasein retains some characteristics coming from the tradition of subjectivity, even if it was designed to overcome the problems of subjectivity in Husserl. In Marion’s critique of subjectivity, the transcendental ego imposes a condition on givenness, which entails that the phenomenon can only appear according to the rules of the subject. When its appearance is governed by subjectivity in this way, the phenomenon only has a “limited” or “poor” mode of phenomenality, which corresponds to the phenomenality of objectness. This falls far short of the idea of givenness, however, according to which a phenomenon must be given without any condition or a priori principles. In rejecting this model, Marion comes to understand the phenomenon 197 Marion, Being Given, 261; Étant donné, 360. 198 Marion, “L’Interloque,” 236.

204

CHAPTER 3

in terms of the phenomenality of the event, which also affords him a new way to conceptualise the subject – the adonné. In this way, Marion claims that the conceptualisation of the adonné on the basis of givenness marks the end or overcoming of the subject. In the second part of this chapter, I provided a kind of analytic of the adonné that explicated Marion’s elaboration of its non-transcendental function in the experience of the phenomenon. For Marion, the main feature of the adonné is receptivity, and it is through this that the phenomenon is given to the adonné. Yet Marion also maintains that the adonné only receives itself in this process of receiving the given. Hence, receptivity achieves both the phenomenalisation of the phenomenon and the subjectivation of the adonné. This twofold gesture of receptivity means that the position of the adonné in relation to givenness is an a posteriori one. Thus, having an a posteriori position is the fundamental determination of the adonné. I then drew attention to the description of the adonné with respect to temporality, the call and response structure, and, finally, reduction. Although Marion does not provide a comprehensive account of time or the temporality of the adonné, one can find a detailed elucidation of the call and response, which also stems from receptivity. By providing an account of Marion’s insistence that the method of reduction is essential for his understanding of phenomenology, it was also possible to reveal the persistence of transcendental elements in his account of the adonné insofar as it functions as the operator of the reduction. The reduction always presupposes a transcendental conception of subjectivity, without which there cannot be an immanent sphere of consciousness. Concerning the reduction, I also addressed the problem of the world, which is largely absent as an issue in Marion’s phenomenology. I also considered his proposition on this problem in his last phenomenological work, Reprise du donné. I argue that Marion’s adonné does not fully achieve what it proposes and is thus not completely freed from transcendental subjectivity, because of the nature of the reduction and the central position of the adonné in the phenomenology of givenness. In this way, it seems that Marion is not properly able to do justice to the event insofar as his account of phenomenality and the adonné is limited by the operation of the reduction.

Chapter 4

The Advenant My goal in this chapter is to understand how Claude Romano reformulates subjectivity in light of his theory of the event. With his designation of the subject as the “advenant”, Romano is proposing a new way to conceive of the human being who is able to experience events. For Romano, as was discussed in ­Chapter 2, the event furnishes us with a new mode of phenomenality, one which is strictly distinguished from that of facts. His emphasis on the peculiarity of the phenomenality of the event leads to a reconsideration of the role of the human being in its relation to the event. The new model of experience that emerges requires a new understanding of the human being, one that differs from previous conceptions of the subject within phenomenology. Romano’s new name for the subject, the advenant, is intended to facilitate our understanding of events and the selfhood of the advenant in a hermeneutical context. Unlike the experience of facts, the experience of the event’s happening puts the selfhood of the advenant into play. The experience of the event is inseparable from selfhood and the world.1 The transformation of the selfhood of the advenant and its world by the event is at the centre of Romano’s evential hermeneutics: “[A]dvenant is the term of the human being as constitutively open to events, insofar as humanity is the capacity to be oneself in the face of what happens to us. [ … ​] A phenomenological hermeneutics of the advenant is the aim of this book.”2 The word of “advenant” is a nominalised from the verb “advenir,” which means “to happen” in English. The term “advenant” as a noun is the present participle of the verb “advenir,” and it has an etymological relation to the word “event.”3 In the previous chapter, the term “subjectivation” was used to express the role of the event for Marion’s adonné. The event shall 1 Claude Romano, Event and World, trans. Shane Mackinlay (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 31. For the French text, see Claude Romano, L’événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, 1998), 45. 2 Romano, Event and World, 20; L’événement et le monde, 33. 3 Romano, Event and World, “Translator’s note,” ix. The translator of the book Event and World prefers not to translate the term “advenant” into English because this helps to preserve its etymological relation to the word “event.” This etymological relation stems from the fact that “advenir” and “événement/event” share the same root, the verb “venir,” which means “to come.” The prefix “ad” means “towards” and “é” means “out of”, see “advenir,” Centre National de le Lexicales et Textuelles, accessed April 29, 2021, https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/advenir; © Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_008

206

CHAPTER 4

be seen to play a similar role for the advenant. The term “subjectivation” refers to the process of becoming a “subject,” to the way a “subject” becomes himself. Thus, events have a primordial significance for the subjectivation of the advenant. Romano states that “[a]n advenant ‘is’ nothing other than what comes to light, happens, or occurs from events; he ‘is’ simply the process of his own ‘subjectivation,’ a process that is continually on the way.”4 The event as a source of meaning thus makes it possible for the advenant to be a “process of his own” and to understand his selfhood. Romano’s account of the “subjectivation” that occurs through the event establishes a fundamental space for the notion of selfhood.5 The event’s happening to the advenant leads to a change and transformation of its selfhood.6 In reconceiving of the “subject” as the advenant, Romano is replacing the centrality of the subject in phenomenology with that of the event. The advenant can thus be seen to come after the subject in a historico-philosophical sense, though it stands before any conception of subjectivity insofar it is what comes to be through the process of “subjectivity” that is inaugurated by the event. It is worth noting once more that the use of the notions of “subject” and “subjectivation” in quotation marks above in the citation from Romano is intended to suggest a distance from the traditional sense of these notions. In an unnuanced sense, the subject refers to the most basic understanding of that aspect of the correlation between human beings and reality that pertains to humans.7 That being said, if the term subject is used in its traditional Cartesian or Kantian sense, then Romano considers it to be an obstacle for dealing with the event in its evential sense. As he sees it, insofar as the “subject”

4 5 6 7

“événement,” Centre National de le Lexicales et Textuelles, accessed April 29, 2021, https:// www.cnrtl.fr/definition/événement. Claude Romano, Event and World, 55; L’événement et le monde, 76. I will discuss in detail the notion of selfhood in the section 4.1.4. This notion and its importance for the advenant will be discussed in detail in section 4.1.4. Gonçalo Marcelo claims that Romano’s theory of the advenant goes further than either Ricœur or Foucault with regard to the critique and decentring of the subject: “Each in their own way, therefore, Ricœur and Foucault seem to forge singular paths between the total elimination of the subject, and his absolute self-positioning and mastery; each one seems to grant subjectivity the capacity to let itself be challenged by meaning and to contribute to its formation, without however assuming total control of this process. Now, in a certain way, it seems to us that we can understand the evential hermeneutics of Claude Romano as still being a possible way between the exalted subject and the eliminated subject … H ​ is critique of the traditional notion of subject implies a deepening of the description of our original dispossession and decentering, in favor of the centrality of events.” See Gonçalo Marcelo, “Claude Romano et la critique de la raison,” in L’évènement et la raison: autour de Claude Romano, ed. Philippe Cabestan (Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016), 170–1.

The Advenant

207

is “understood as what always lies ‘behind’ or ‘under’ what happens,” it “is excluded in principle by the phenomenological modalities according to which events show themselves.”8 For Romano, the subject in its traditional conception does not allow events to show themselves. A phenomenology of events must start from events, not from the subject which claims to be identical to itself in every experiential situation.9 Romano takes the traditional conception of the subject to be the idea of the subject as “hypokeimenon,” which means “underlying thing.” The term “subject” (hypokeimenon) is used by Aristotle in a number of different senses, and its main deployments are to be found in his Categories, Physics and Metaphysics.10 Aristotle’s use of the concept has three primary meanings of “genera”: “It is either matter (hulê) that is determined by form; or ousia in which passions and accidents are inherent, or the logical subject to which predicates are attributed.”11 The concepts of hypokeimenon and ousia are sometimes used as synonymous terms, but are also occasionally irreconcilable notions.12 The variety of meanings of hypokeimenon in the Aristotelian corpus indicates both commonalities and tensions between the meanings of the term. An important point regarding the identification of hypokeimenon with ousia comes from their translation into Latin. Boethius is the first philosopher who translates ousia as substantia rather than essentia, and does so because he “reads Aristotle from the text of the Categories; he tends to melt the notions of ‘essence’ and ‘subject’ into one and the same word (substantia).”13 The problem of the subject from Descartes’ conceptualisation of it to that of contemporary thought is conditioned to a certain extent by this translation.14 8 9 10

11 12 13 14

Romano, Event and World, 100; L’événement et le monde, 137. Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 7. Étienne Balibar, Barbara Cassin, and Alain de Libera, “Subject,” in Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, ed. Barbara Cassin, trans. Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski (Princeton, NJ: ­Princeton ­University Press, 2014), 1070–2. Hermann Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin: Reimer, 1870. Reprint, Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1955), 798, col. 1 cited in Balibar, Cassin, and De Libera, “Subject,” 1070. For a detailed discussion on the different meanings of ousia and its identification with hypokeimenon in Aristotelian corpus, see Werner Marx, Introduction to Aristotle’s Theory of Being as Being, trans. Robert S. Schine (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1977), 21–42. Claude Romano, “Sujet, subjectivité,” in Dictionnaire des Notions (Paris: Encyclopaedia universalis, 2005). Ibid. In this dictionary entry, Romano traces the notion of the subject from Aristotle to the contemporary criticism of the subject in Wittgenstein and Heidegger. He emphasises that the Cartesian problem did not remain a static issue, but was approached in different directions by and acquired different problematic formulations in thinkers such as Kant, Fichte Hegel, and Husserl. Romano describes this in the following citation: “The common problematic that prescribes its horizon to the determination of the s­ ubjectivity of Kant,

208

CHAPTER 4

It is important to note that, as Romano states, it is only in the work of Kant that the term subjectivity (Subjektivität) first gains the meaning it continues to have in contemporary philosophy.15 Kant’s conceptualisation of subjectivity in a transcendental way is a significant influence on Husserl’s conceptualisation of the transcendental ego.16 The understanding of the subject as substance is decisive for Romano’s criticism of the subject and for the alternative concept that he develops. In fact, the use of the concept of the subject in its ousiological sense refers to a substantial entity that does not change whatever the case, which means that events could effect no transformation on such a subject. Romano says that “this characterisation thinks of a human being as the one who always continues underneath what happens (to him) (sub-jectum), who exercises so great a mastery and control over events that he relegates them to simple attributes, the one who is identical with himself even in his alterations.”17 Nevertheless, Romano’s very starting point is the contestation of such an idea of the subject because he understands the event to open the subject to a transformation in which its selfhood changes. In this sense, one speaks no longer of the subject but of the advenant, which means “the one to whom something happens.”18 Romano’s conception of the advenant does not only offer an alternative to the concept of the subject, but also to any consideration of transcendental subjectivity in phenomenology. It is not a coincidence that L’aventure temporelle opens with the following question: “What can become of phenomenology once it abandons the transcendental perspective?”19 This guiding question orients his understanding of phenomenology from his books on Fichte, Hegel, Husserl, is, in fact, the following: is it possible to think of the subjectivity of the subject as such more radically than as ‘substance’? The history of the modern metaphysics of subjectivity is, in this sense, the history of the criticism of Descartes’ subjectsubstance. [ … ​] [T]he common feature of all these endeavours, as well as the Husserlian critique of the worldly apperception of the transcendental ego and of Descartes’ ‘historical error’ of interpreting the pure ‘I’ as res cogitans, lies precisely in this: subjectivity is only restored to its authentic meaning through a critique of its falsification as ‘substance.’” 15 Claude Romano, Être soi-même: Une autre histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Gallimard, 2019), 39. One can find a detailed historical and archaeological account of the term subjectivity in Alain de Libera’s project of Archéologie du sujet. He analyses the Kantian invention of “subjectivity.” See Alain de Libera, L’invention Du Sujet Moderne (Paris: Vrin, 2015), 53–59. 16 I have discussed the relation between Kant’s transcendental subjectivity and Husserl’s transcendental ego in Chapter 3. I will return to this point in the following pages. 17 Romano, Event and World, 51; L’événement et le monde, 71. 18 Romano, Event and World, 50–51; L’événement et le monde, 71. 19 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 7.

The Advenant

209

the event through to At the Heart of Reason.20 His critique of subjectivity can thus be seen as an attempt to cast off the transcendental perspective, that is to say, to leave behind the transcendental subjectivity at work in earlier models of phenomenology. The term “transcendental” acquires its meaning from Kant, for whom it denotes the subjective conditions of possibility of knowing. Kant’s transcendental perspective was adopted by Husserl and renewed in his phenomenology.21 For Husserl, the transcendental ego depends on the pure ego, and this sets up the pure ego as the condition of possibility for the world. Romano claims that Heidegger’s Being and Time also follows the transcendental approach, though in a different way than Husserl does. Although Dasein is not defined as a pure ego but as a being in the world whose way of being involves an understanding of being, Heidegger is criticised for making “Dasein and its transcendence the condition of possibility for the appearing of the world.”22 Furthermore, Romano assigns the advenant a position that is prior to any conception of the subject, including Dasein. Romano thinks that the advenant allows for a more primordial description of human being than Dasein affords us because of the latter’s lack of openness to events. He states that “a hermeneutic of the advenant is prior to a hermeneutic of Dasein. I use advenant to refer to that which comes before Dasein and which is in some sense the condition of possibility for Dasein.”23 I wish to argue that, throughout his philosophical itinerary, Romano attempts to decentre the subject by invalidating the claim that it is a condition of possibility for events and the world. He does this by challenging the very idea of the subject and criticising its different transcendental moments, which all conceal the experience of events. Thus, the advenant stands before any conception of the subject as the most comprehensive understanding of human being, one free from any kind of transcendentalism. In this chapter, Romano’s conceptualisation of the advenant in the context of the problem of “who comes after the subject?” is under investigation.24 This entails showing how the advenant as an alternative to the subject is supposed to go beyond any 20

There are more than a decade between L’événement et le monde (1999) and Au cœur de la raison: la phénoménologie (2010). 21 David Carr, The Paradox of Subjectivity: The Self in the Transcendental Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 99–100. 22 Claude Romano, There is: The Event and the Finitude of Appearing, trans. Michael B. Smith (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), xii. 23 Romano, Event and World, 20; L’événement et le monde, 32. 24 As discussed in the beginning of Part 2, it was Jean-Luc Nancy who originally posed this question to prominent philosophers in the 1980s. I think that it is still a valid question for contemporary philosophy and, in particular, phenomenology. See Jean-Luc Nancy,

210

CHAPTER 4

kind of transcendental subjectivity, including Dasein. Moreover, this chapter is guided by Romano’s more general proposal of a non-transcendental subject for phenomenology.25 This chapter consists of two main sections. In the first section of the chapter, I begin by examining the role of the event of birth in evential hermeneutics. Since it is the first and paradigmatic event for any human being, it plays a fundamental role in the “subjectivation” of the advenant in a non-transcendental way. I then will discuss how the advenant differs from both the subject and Dasein. Romano’s criticism of subjectivity can be seen to be guided by certain Heideggerian motives and to approximate Dasein in certain ways. Nevertheless, Romano aims to part ways with Dasein by showing how a proper account of evential hermeneutics cannot be achieved by establishing affinities between Dasein and the advenant. In contrast to any such identity, he strictly differentiates the advenant from Dasein by criticising the inability of Dasein to be open to events and, thereby, to experience them. I will subsequently focus on the notion of selfhood. This is because Romano’s configuration of the advenant gives a detailed analysis of the notion of selfhood in terms of the capacity to undergo the experience of events. He does so by highlighting the unique temporal character of the experience of events and their distinction from the ordinary temporality of facts. In this way, we can understand how the advenant responds to events and how the advenant’s temporal structure is made by events. The response structure and its temporality determine the “subjectivation” process of the advenant that is initiated by events. In the second section of the chapter, I will focus on the problem of transcendentalism and how Romano’s account of the advenant tries to overcome it. As was noted above, Romano’s philosophical project aims to repudiate all transcendental approaches in phenomenology. As Romano sees it, Heidegger’s

25

“­Introduction” in Who Comes After the Subject?, ed. Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor and Jean-Luc Nancy (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 5. Although I do not devote any time to directly discuss phenomenological anthropology in this chapter, Romano’s efforts can also be interpreted within the framework of the “phenomenological anthropology” developed by Hans Blumenberg. In Chapter 3, I drew on Christian Sommer’s interpretation in order to argue that Romano’s reinterpretation of subjectivity can be understood as a new way of thinking human being within the phenomenological tradition in the guise of a philosophical anthropology. Blumenberg suggests changing the question of philosophical anthropology from “What is man [the human]?” to “How is man [the human] possible?” See Hans Blumenberg, Beschreibung des Menschen, ed. Manfred Sommer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2006), 535. Such a change does not entail any ousiological understanding of human being, but rather focuses on its existence and its transformation through experience. In this respect, it accords with the idea of the advenant.

The Advenant

211

fundamental ontology also remains a transcendental approach, and, though Heidegger claims to go beyond Husserlian transcendentalism in many respects, Dasein can still be viewed as a milder version of the transcendental subject. In this regard, I will show how Romano criticises Heidegger and claims that the advenant has priority over Dasein by focusing on certain implicit suppositions regarding the sceptical problem. I will then address the idea of reduction as a sceptical problem in phenomenology and outline Romano’s alternative paradigm to this problem. Romano’s relational paradigm offers a holistic approach to experience, which leads him to introduce a phenomenological version of realism. His realist understanding of the world facilitates a new way of conceiving of the relationship between the advenant and the world, to the extent that the world is not defined according to the transcendentalism of the subject. Lastly, I will show how Romano’s phenomenological realism differs from contemporary versions of realism, such as those of Meillassoux and Harman. This will allow me to show how the criticism of phenomenology as correlationism by the latter two authors can attain no critical purchase on Romano’s phenomenological realism. 4.1

Before the Subject

The advenant is Romano’s attempt to establish a conception of a nontranscendental “subject” whose selfhood is vulnerable and exposed to events. It is only events that are able to put the selfhood of the advenant into play. In this way, to understand how the event turns the subject into an advenant or puts it before the subject, we first need to understand the first event of the advenant: birth. It is birth that initiates the adventure of an advenant in the world. Not only is it the first event for the adventure of the advenant, but it is also the paradigmatic event. The event reconfigures the possibilities of the advenant and opens a new world. Birth as “the first event cannot be understood as a reconfiguration of the world in the strict sense of the word since this first event discloses the world for the first time.”26 This paradigmatic character of birth is the central point of evential hermeneutics. Romano’s attempt to put forward a non-transcendental conception of “subjectivity” is significantly shaped by his analysis of birth and its fundamental place in human life. The analysis of birth will also allow Romano to move away from the fundamental ontology of Heidegger, who formulates the existential analytic of Dasein in terms of death. 26

Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014), 196.

212

CHAPTER 4

Romano’s account of the event of birth is the cornerstone for his restructuring of fundamental ontology into evential hermeneutics. In this regard, I will first explain the event of birth in evential hermeneutics and will then discuss how Romano distinguishes his conception of the advenant from Dasein. His account of the event of birth will guide us in the latter comparison. Finally, I will discuss his notions of selfhood, response to events, and temporality in light of the event of birth. 4.1.1 Birth In the novel Measuring the World, the famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss speaks about existence in the following way: “[i]t was both odd and unjust, said Gauss, a real example of the pitiful arbitrariness of existence [erbärmliche Zufälligkeit der Existenz], that you were born into a particular time and held prisoner there whether you wanted it or not. It gave you an indecent advantage over the past and made you a clown vis-à-vis the future.”27 In offering us these parodical words on birth, Daniel Kehlmann’s Gauss provides us with a negatively intoned example of the evential character of birth, which befalls us, shapes our existence, and lacks any causal explanation. The German word “Zufälligkeit” both literally and conceptually refers to the evential meaning of birth. The Cartesian spirit of Gauss describes birth in this sense as “pitiful arbitrariness” (or contingency or accidentality, Zufälligkeit), which turns the past into an “indecent advantage” and makes the human “the clown” of the future. There can be no better description of the event of birth from the C ­ artesian point of view. The event of birth threatens the very Cartesian dream of the subject that is to reign over existence by being closed off from all events. Nevertheless, the evential character of one’s birth is significant in how determinative it is for one’s life. Thus, Gauss cannot be ignorant of birth’s power of happening and its status of being beyond measure. The exposure to the bursting forth of the event of birth discomforts Gauss as a Cartesian subject, and disrupts the subject’s endless vision of “measuring the world” in a mathematical way. My subsequent discussion of birth does not reflect the Cartesian understanding of the subject. On the contrary, it aims to undermine such a conception of the subject, which is precisely the one that renders the fictional Gauss only capable of registering the event of birth in a negative way. 27

Daniel Fehlmann, Measuring the World, trans. Carol Brown Janeway (New York: P ­ antheon Books, 2006), 4–5; Die Vermessung der Welt (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 2005), 8. “Seltsam sei es und ungerecht, sagte Gauß, so recht ein Beispiel für die erbärmliche Zufälligkeit der Existenz, daß man in einer bestimmten Zeit geboren und ihr verhaftet sei, ob man wolle oder nicht. Es verschaffe einem einen unziemlichen Vorteil vor der Vergangenheit und mache einen zum Clown der Zukunft.”

The Advenant

213

What Gauss cannot be silent about is the radical exposure that birth embodies. Everybody dies, because everybody was born. Humans are mortal and finite because before dying, we are first born. We are born into the world. Birth happens to each person, to our parents, to the people around them. It is as central as death for a human being; indeed, it is even more central than death, since it is the first event; birth is more primordial. At the same time, it is not an exaggeration to say that birth has not been discussed adequately in the history philosophy, even in comparison to death. Existentialist philosophers are particularly prone to overemphasising death, in contrast to birth, in their accounts of existence. Thus, the issue of birth has been mostly omitted by philosophers.28 The omission of birth is not the only such omission – one might also make a list of subjects overlooked by every philosopher – but it is an omission that significantly restricts our understanding of human beings.29 For Romano, this omission is evident in the fundamental ontology of Heidegger. In the existential analytic of Dasein, events have no place in the evential sense, and they are reduced to the rank of mere facts, which are related to inauthentic Dasein.30 This ignorance of the event in Being and Time, Romano suggests, explains the failure to account for the birth of Dasein. He states: There is a price for reducing events so as to bring existence to light: there is no place for birth in this existence, because birth refers to the original nonoriginarity of existence and mineness with respect to the impersonal event that is their condition. More exactly: what we are compelled to think 28

29

30

Claudio Tarditi, “Notes pour une phénoménologie de la naissance: En dialogue avec Claude Romano,” Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française 21, no. 2 (2013): 68–71. It is important to note that Hannah Arendt’s notion of natality is an exception to the general tendency in the contemporary philosophy. Arendt presents an important account of natality in The Human Condition. In Margaret Canovan’s introduction of the book, we are reminded of this: “The most heartening message of The Human Condition is its reminder of human natality and the miracle of beginning.” See Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), XVII. For a study of the relation between Arendt’s natality and finitude within the context of figures such as Heidegger and Dilthey, see Anne O’Byrne, Natality and Finitude (Bloomington, IN: ­Indiana University Press, 2010). Anthony Steinbock’s attempt to define the transcendental subjectivity in Husserl from the point of natality is worth mentioning here. It serves as an example of the discussion on natality and its relation to subjectivity in contemporary phenomenology. By emphasising natality over mortality, Steinbock presents a Husserlian account of natality that is contrasted with Heidegger’s notion of facticity. See Anthony J. Steinbock, “From ­Phenomenological Immortality to Natality,” Rethinking Facticity, ed. François Raffoul and Eric Sean Nelson (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008), 25–40. In Chapter 2, I have provided a detailed account of the absence and downgrading of events in fundamental ontology.

214

CHAPTER 4

about by birth, the complex phenomenon to which it refers, and whose meaning is, in a fashion, the sole object of this book, is the original disparity between the originary [l’originel] and the original [l’originaire] that on its own introduces a rupture in the origin, a hiatus, an opening, a fissure that will never be filled. To be born is to be a self originally, but not originarily; it is to be free originally, but not originarily; it is to understand the meaning of one’s adventure originally, but not originarily. This gap between the original and the originary precludes any attempt to think Being itself as origin. At the same time, because it is itself original, the gap fundamentally modifies Dasein’s existentials and urges us to think differently about the very meaning of its existence.31 The absence of birth in fundamental ontology is not merely one missing phenomenon among others, such as flesh and love, within Heidegger’s thought. While Romano thinks the general failure of fundamental ontology to take the event seriously results in the omission of birth, he thinks that this specific omission then determines Heidegger’s views on the phenomenality of the event and the selfhood of Dasein. Romano is so concerned with this issue, that he claims the meaning of birth to be the “sole object” of his book. By putting the phenomenon of birth at the centre of evential hermeneutics as a proto-event, he aims to think about the existence of human beings, that is to say, the human adventure, on some other ground than the analytic of Dasein.32 Whereas death serves as the axis of fundamental ontology, evential hermeneutics can be seen to have changed this to birth. The centrality of birth for evential hermeneutics provides a reformulation of Dasein and “separates evential hermeneutics from the existential analytic” because “birth, indeed, is the signal event responsible for irrevocably disrupting the autarkic economy of Dasein.”33 It must be said, however, that the term “birth” (Geburt) is in fact not entirely missing from Being and Time. In section 72, almost at the end of Being and Time,34 Heidegger defines the factical being of Dasein as being “the way Dasein stretches along between birth and death,” but maintains that this ­understanding 31 Romano, Event and World, 19; L’événement et le monde, 31. 32 Romano, Event and World, 21; L’événement et le monde, 33. 33 Steven DeLay, Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2019), 159. 34 Prior to section 72, Heidegger mentions the term “birth” only once in Being and Time, when he refers to the everydayness of Dasein as “being [Sein] ‘between’ birth and death.” See Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), 233. For the English translation, see Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 223.

The Advenant

215

of Dasein prevents a proper ontological analysis. This is because “Dasein does not exist as the sum of the momentary realities of experiences that succeed each other and disappear.”35 Heidegger thinks that such a conception of birth and death would amount to a vulgar understanding of Dasein that merely adds together “the momentary realities of experiences.” He then describes the existence of factical Dasein using the notion of “being born” (gebürtig), which is related to being-towards-death within the care structure of Dasein. The full quotation is as follows: “Factical Dasein exists as being born [existiert gebürtig], and in being born it is also already dying [gebürtig stirbt es] in the sense of being-towards-death. Both ‘ends’ and their ‘between’ are as long as Dasein factically exists, and they are in the sole way possible on the basis of the being of Dasein as care. In the unity of thrownness and the fleeting, or else anticipatory, being-towards-death, birth and death ‘are connected’ in the way appropriate to Dasein. As care, Dasein is the ‘between.’”36 Heidegger’s account of birth here is notable, as the only inquiry regarding this phenomenon in Being and Time, because it does not consider birth to be a constituent of Dasein. Since no event can happen to Dasein, birth cannot be an event that puts Dasein’s selfhood into play. It is for this reason that Romano states that “only an advenant is born.” Birth for the advenant is neither a “contingent feature” of its adventure nor thought within the horizon of death.37 The phenomenon of birth marks Romano’s point of departure from fundamental ontology towards evential hermeneutics. Why, then, is birth such a constitutive phenomenon for human existence? First of all, it is the first event of a human being, by which we mean not only first but also the primary event, one that “opens an advenant’s world for the first time and that alone gives rise to all the events that come after it.”38 Yet, this does not make the advenant the origin of its own adventure. Through the event of birth, an advenant comes to itself. While it is the pure beginning and makes the advenant whom he is, the advenant cannot be his origin. Since birth brings forth a “hiatus” and a “deferral” in the origin, the origin reveals itself “after the fact, nonoriginally.” Birth as the “original nonoriginarity of the origin” involves “a constitutive delay and a nonempirical a posteriori that belongs to its character as origin.”39 The constitutive delay in the event of birth for the advenant determines the temporality of other events. The advenant’s projections are only possible in terms of this 35 Heidegger, Being and Time, 356–7; Sein und Zeit, 373–5. 36 Heidegger, Being and Time, 357; Sein und Zeit, 374. 37 Romano, Event and World, 69; L’événement et le monde, 95. 38 Romano, Event and World, 70; L’événement et le monde, 96 39 Romano, Event and World; L’événement et le monde, 96.

216

CHAPTER 4

delay opened by birth, which always lies in the past as an impersonal and nonappropriable event. The “nonempirical a posteriori” character of birth designates its paradigmatic trait, which opens the world to the advenant. Birth has a transcendental quality, but not one that places it beyond temporality. By and in birth, the advenant is in the world for the first time. Birth’s “original nonoriginarity” does not permit an understanding of the subject as the condition of possibility. It is rather that the apriority of birth that enables the advenant to be structured by possibilities. This happens a posteriori, but, at the same time, it is an a priori for the adventure of the advenant. This unique characteristic of birth leads us to understand the advenant in a non-transcendental way because by being born, the advenant is not his own origin. This paradoxical disparity in the event of birth means that while birth opens the world to an advenant by making it originally a self, the hiatus involved in birth does not, at the same time, allow the advenant itself to be “originary.” This means that it is not an a priori source of its own being. Being born is the a priori of the advenant’s adventure, but this event is also a posteriori because the totality of possibilities opened by the event of birth is “conferred on him.” In emphasising this disparity within the event of birth between the originary and the original, Romano is articulating the advenant’s origin’s split from itself as a delay determining the character of the event of birth.40 Romano states that this disparity refers to the relationship between the world and birth: “the world’s a priori itself appears only a posteriori, according to an ‘a-posteriority’ that intrinsically belongs to the meaning character of its a-priority. This a-priority is made possible in its turn by an event, since birth alone is the source of its possibility and meaning.”41 In this sense, the apriority of the world for the advenant arises in an a posteriori way from the very event of its birth. With regard to this relation between the world and the birth of the advenant, one should recall Heidegger’s notion of the being-in-the-world. Whereas for Heidegger “being-in-the-world is one of the conditions of Dasein’s being, he [Romano] notes that being-in-the-world is itself conditioned by the birth of 40

It is worth remembering Jean-Luc Marion’s account of birth as an event in this context. His explanation of the event of birth relies directly on Romano’s account of the disparity between the originary and the original. See Jean-Luc Marion, Negative Certainties, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 191. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes negatives (Paris: Éditions Grasset, 2010), 294. Romano’s understanding of the event of birth also inspired Emmanuel Falque’s interpretation of resurrection and the birth of Christ. See Emmanuel Falque, The Metamorphosis of ­Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection, trans. George Hughes (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012). 41 Romano, Event and World, 71–72; L’événement et le monde, 98–99.

The Advenant

217

the advenant.”42 Romano urges us to think of the event of birth as prior to being, existence, and the world, that is to say, prior to any of the conditions of Dasein. The event of birth is the a posteriori condition of the advenant and the world opened by its possibilities. Romano states that “the impersonal event of birth always comes before an advenant, and it is through birth that he is given the possibility of advening himself precisely as advenant. Before any of his projections and before any understanding, this event makes possible all his possibilities and the world.”43 The impersonal character of the event of birth leads us to understand it as non-appropriable and immemorial. This is because the advenant does not have any account of his birth other than being able to acknowledge that “there was a birth.” Since the event of birth is never present to a subject, it cannot be appropriated or committed to memory. It “radically exceeds any power of appropriation” and so precedes any subjective act.44 Birth is the first event that befalls the advenant impersonally, before he “can take charge of it in the first person. It is an event that makes possible all my possibilities, and consequently it cannot be inherited as one of my factical possibilities, since it founds any possibility of inheritance.”45 Romano emphasises how I have a passive status in the event of my birth, which happens to “me” without any appropriation. In this context, one might want to object to Romano’s claims about the neglect of the event of birth in Being and Time by appealing to the notion of thrownness (Geworfenheit). The root of this term, “werfen” in German (and “werpen” in Dutch), is also used idiomatically to designate animal birth. For instance, from this meaning, Van der Heiden argues that Geworfenheit can have “the very sense of an animal form of being born,” and it can thus be read as “birth and more precisely that of the human being born as a human animal, as an infant, ‘naked, unshod, unbedded, and unarmed.’”46 With reference to this notion of thrownness, the birth of the human being can be understood on the basis of bare existence as belonging to “the constitution of Dasein as a constituent of its disclosedness. In thrownness it is revealed that Dasein is in each instance always mine and that this Dasein is always already in a definite world and together with a definite range of definite innerworldly

42 Van der Heiden, Ontology After Onto-theology, 196. 43 Romano, Event and World, 70; L’événement et le monde, 96. 44 Romano, Event and World, 75; L’événement et le monde, 102. 45 Romano, Event and World, 73; L’événement et le monde, 101. 46 Gert-Jan van der Heiden, The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), 214.

218

CHAPTER 4

beings.”47 In Dasein’s thrownness, “facticity can be seen phenomenally,”48 so that Dasein’s thrownness can be thought of as a kind of factical birth. For Heidegger, facticity is the fact of existence’s thrownness and is a part of beingin-the-world. Dasein is marked by its thrownness. Facticity is determined by thrownness as an ontological characteristic of Dasein, and being-in-the-world is rooted in the projection (Entwurf) of Dasein. If one reads thrownness as an alternative for birth in Being and Time, it should be noted that, as facticity, “birth” can be “taken over” (übernehmen) by Dasein. This means that the ground of Dasein’s existence does not come from Dasein itself but “by projecting [entwirf] itself upon the possibilities into which it is thrown.”49 As a thrown being, Dasein relies on its possibilities in order to be its own ground by existing. Heidegger states that “[N]ot through itself, but released to itself from the ground in order to be as the ground. Dasein is not itself the ground of its being, because the ground first arises from its own project, but as a self, it is the being [Sein] of its ground. The ground is always ground only for a being whose being has to take over being-the-ground [Grundsein zu über-nehmen].”50 In this regard, Dasein can take over its birth as thrownness by projecting its possibilities, and this act of taking over its birth then becomes its own ground. Nevertheless, Romano’s presentation of the event of birth exhibits a different structure than thrownness. He emphasises that birth is an impersonal event and cannot be thought of in terms of the factical possibilities of Dasein. He states: It is an event that makes possible all my possibilities, and consequently it cannot be inherited as one of my factical possibilities, since it founds any possibility of inheritance. Birth, as an impersonal event that cannot be taken over, radically transcends my thrownness and therefore also my own potentiality-for-Being; it is not an inherited possibility that I would be able to take over, but that by which I inherit myself and all my possibilities, consequently situated prior to these.51 47 Heidegger, Being and Time, 212; Sein und Zeit, 221. 48 Heidegger, Being and Time, 172; Sein und Zeit, 179. 49 Heidegger, Being and Time, 272; Sein und Zeit, 284. 50 Heidegger, Being and Time, 273; Sein und Zeit, 285. At another point in Being and Time, when addressing the historicity of Dasein, Heidegger argues the following: “In the fateful repetition of possibilities that have-been, Dasein brings itself back ‘immediately,’ that is, temporally and ecstatically, to what has already been before it. But then, when its heritage is thus handed down to itself, ‘birth,’ in coming back from the insuperable possibility of death, is taken into [eingeholt] existence, so that existence may accept the thrownness of its own there freer from illusion.” See Heidegger, Being and Time, 371; Sein und Zeit, 391. 51 Romano, Event and World, 73; L’événement et le monde, 101.

The Advenant

219

Birth’s status as a primary event precludes its appropriation by the subject and means it cannot be classed alongside factical possibilities. It does not lie in a person’s past as something that can be inherited, because it establishes the very possibility of inheritance. In this way, Romano defines birth as “happening to me according to a total innocence” because this impersonal event which is “‘older’ than any past that can be taken over” cannot be appropriated by me; it is “a past that has never been present for the advenant.”52 The advenant “is in the world only inasmuch as he is born into it”;53 thus birth in the evential sense is not an ontological structure of being-in-the-world, but rather “what is in play in it [birth] is the very eventness of the world.”54 Romano aims to displace birth from the economy of the existential analytic of Dasein in order to reconsider it in a totally new framework. The main point in his account of the event of birth is that it has priority over every subjective structure of Dasein but, at the same time, is characterised as a posteriori and therefore eliminates any idea of transcendental subjectivity. The advenant’s priority over Dasein stems from the event of birth, which makes every conception of Dasein possible. This means that even in its capacity to question the meaning of being, Dasein has first to be born, and its existential modalities should therefore be understood in terms of its birth, rather than its death. The structural delay of eventness associated with birth determines the selfhood of the advenant. The advenant is not himself at the moment when the event happens. Birth inscribes this delay into every subsequent event through which the advenant understands itself, which is to say the advenant always understands itself in a belated way. This delay determines the structure of understanding for the advenant, or, as Romano puts it: “Thus, the original delay of all understanding arises from the fact that, far from being an a priori structure of existence, understanding is structured by an original delay; it is essentially belated and therefore necessarily a posteriori, with an a posteriori that is not empirical but rather transcendental.”55 In light of the original delay associated with understanding, it is important to draw attention to the selfhood of the advenant. The transcendental aposteriority of understanding allows us to understand the advenant himself not in the moment of his birth but in a retrospective way. Romano asserts: In front of his originary undergoing of his origin, in front of the event of birth itself, an advenant is not himself. This original nonoriginarity 52 Romano, Event and World, 75; L’événement et le monde, 103. 53 Romano, Event and World, 71; L’événement et le monde, 98. 54 Romano, Event and World, 71; L’événement et le monde, 98. 55 Romano, Event and World, 155; L’événement et le monde, 209.

220

CHAPTER 4

of selfhood is inscribed in the evential character of birth. It is why, even though selfhood is original, this originality is laid out only in the delayed movement of its temporalization; that is, necessarily after the fact, such that this ‘delay’ belongs to the origin in its evential sense. Selfhood advenes to itself only with this original delay after the origin – a delay that is inscribed in the very meaning of origin such that this origin never coincides with itself and is accessible only after the fact, according to a necessary retrospection. Consequently, selfhood can only grasp itself starting from this impersonal event and, rather than opening to this event, it is originally anticipated and exceeded by it.56 The event of birth enables the advenant to be himself. His selfhood originates from this proto-event in a belated way. Its constitutive deferral makes birth immemorable, impersonal, and inappropriable for the advenant. At the same time, this does not prevent the advenant from being himself. Yet selfhood can only be understood by taking into account the inappropriable event of birth. In relation to his selfhood, this structure of birth shows how the advenant becomes capable of understanding himself in light of possibilities that are opened and reconfigured by events.57 The nature of birth means that the advenant cannot become the origin of his own possibilities. This conception of the meaning of birth for the advenant furnishes us with a new way to understand human being, namely, in a finite and temporal way, prior to any subjectivity.58 The account of birth in evential hermeneutics seeks to establish a nontranscendental approach to subjectivity in phenomenology. Thus, Romano, first of all, explains the event of birth through which the advenant advenes to the world in an a posteriori way. In this context, my account of the advenant has begun with a phenomenological description of birth in order to understand the advenant properly. 4.1.2 The Subject and the Advenant As was noted at the beginning of Part 2, Heidegger’s reformulation of Dasein has served as a starting point for many a critique of subjectivity within twentieth-century philosophy. This includes Romano’s notion of the advenant. This is evident, first of all, in Romano’s act of assigning a new name to the human being within his philosophical project, which is a central gesture of 56 Romano, Event and World, 76; L’événement et le monde, 104. 57 I will return to the issue of the selfhood below. 58 For a detailed analysis of the finite and temporal character of birth, see Romano, Event and Time, 213–8; L’événement et le temps, 274–80.

The Advenant

221

Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Thus, Romano’s act of renaming the subject as the advenant no doubt indicates the Heideggerian influence on evential hermeneutics. Romano follows the Heideggerian trait of redefining the human being in his evential hermeneutics. In a section of Chapter 2 entitled “The Heideggerian Shadow,” I have already emphasised that Romano’s evential hermeneutics bears an affinity to fundamental ontology though there is evidently a great divergence on the role of the event – as Van der Heiden puts it, Romano “rewrites Sein und Zeit in light of the primacy of event for human existence.”59 Evential hermeneutics aims not at the discovery of the meaning of being through interpretation as an ontological investigation, but instead at an evential understanding of events in human existence – that is, to use ­Romano’s term to designate the notion of existence, in the human “adventure.” Evential hermeneutics puts the event before the subject, it is even prior to being: “Events before anything” is the motto of the evential hermeneutics.60 Romano’s approach to the subject also bears a resemblance to Heidegger’s criticism of the traditional understanding of the subject. Nevertheless, in contrast to Heidegger’s Dasein, the advenant is not responsible for uncovering the meaning of being but is instead tasked with revealing the evential aspect of adventure. Furthermore, Romano argues that the subject causes the threefold concealment of events, the world, and understanding.61 This concealment is threefold according to evential hermeneutics, because events open the world to the advenant, and understanding is the central mode of comportment of human being towards the world. It will be necessary to explain these three concealments effected by the subject in light of Heidegger’s account. First, the concealment of events by the subject means that it does not permit events to show themselves in their proper phenomenality. Since the event brings forth a radical newness, it cannot be considered an accident of substance, as Nietzsche argued in his Notebooks.62 The idea of the subject as hypokeimenon, which lies behind every experience and substance, and which is “a thing capable of existing independently,”63 presupposes its ontological 59

Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 188. For Van der Heiden’s interpretation of the event of birth in Romano, see Ibid., 196–200. 60 Romano, Event and World, 2; L’événement et le monde, 7. 61 Romano, Event and World, 131; L’événement et le monde, 179. 62 Friedrich Nietzsche, Writings from Late Notebooks, trans. Kate Sturge (Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press, 2003), 75–76, 2 [84]. For the German text, see Friedrich Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885–1887, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag & de Gruyter, 1999), 103–4, 2 [84]. 63 René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 30.

222

CHAPTER 4

priority over anything that happens to it. Within this framing of the subject, an event must be seen as an attribute or accident, which means the subject can never undergo a transformative encounter with the event. Romano states that “here, subjectivity signifies the capacity not to be implicated oneself in what happens to us, to hold oneself always behind or under what comes to pass, by exercising an unlimited ontological prerogative over events.”64 What Romano contests is the position of the subject as the “fundamentum inconcussum,” that is, as an unshakable foundation for phenomenology.65 Heidegger states that Descartes reduces “the being of Dasein” into “the being as res extensa, as substance.”66 He emphasises that the Cartesian “ego and subject” cannot be a starting point for the existential analytic of Dasein because it “fails to see the phenomenal content of Dasein.” This is because, for Heidegger, every idea of a “subject” posits a “subjectum” ontologically.67 In this way, Romano explicitly follows Heidegger’s destruction of the subject, but he does so for the purpose of developing an evential hermeneutics, which emphasises that the subject as substance ontologically reduces the status of events into that of mere facts such that they appear as accidents happening to the subject. Whereas Romano claims that the subject is responsible for the concealment of events, Heidegger points out that it fails to reveal the phenomenal content of Dasein. This difference is significant in that it shows what Romano and Heidegger put at the centre of their projects: for Romano, it is the event, whereas in the case of ­Heidegger, it is Dasein. Second, according to Romano, the subject’s concealment of the world arises from the a-cosmic character of the subject. Since the subject is an “immutable substratum of lived experiences,” it cannot be exposed to any changes from outside of itself, therefore it implies “a corresponding concealment of the world in the evential sense.”68 Whatever happens to the subject remains within the range of facts that can be presented as knowledge. In this sense, the subject is not in the world.69 Romano’s criticism of the subject as worldless or 64 Romano, Event and World, 132; L’événement et le monde, 180. 65 Heidegger, Being and Time, 23; Sein und Zeit, 22. Here I should note that the determination of the subject as “fundamentum inconcussum” is also applicable to Husserl’s usage. Although Husserl’s notion of transcendental subjectivity involves some modifications of the Cartesian subject, as shall be discussed in due course, it remains the heir to the ­Cartesian conception of the subject. 66 Heidegger, Being and Time, 96; Sein und Zeit, 98. 67 Heidegger, Being and Time, 45; Sein und Zeit, 46. 68 Romano, Event and World, 132; L’événement et le monde, 180 69 This problem is a dominant issue in Husserl’s phenomenology, especially after the transcendental turn. Husserl calls the problem of the world the “riddle of the world” (­Welträtsel), which was discussed in Chapter 2.

The Advenant

223

a-cosmic reminds us of Heidegger’s criticism of the Cartesian ego as a worldless subject. Heidegger contests the Cartesian characterisation of the world as res extensa, and he makes the following claim: “If the ‘cogito sum’ is to serve as the point of departure for the existential analytic, we not only need to turn it around, but we need a new ontological and phenomenal confirmation of its content. Then the first statement is ‘sum’ in the sense of I-am-in-a-world. As such a being, ‘I am’ in the possibility of being towards various modes of behaviour (cogitationes) as ways of being together with innerworldly beings. In contrast, Descartes says that cogitationes are indeed objectively present and an ego is also objectively present as a worldless res cogitans.”70 The ontological status of the subject as substance determines its relation to the world and puts it into a “worldless” position. Hence, Romano’s criticism of the subject is in this respect similar to Heidegger’s criticism of the “worldless subject.” Third, the subject is bereft of understanding, and it conceals this characteristic of the human being. The subject has epistemological priority, which leads Romano to make the following claim: “What characterises a subject is not the understanding in which the world’s totality of meaning already necessarily gleams but rather knowledge as pure theoretical face-to-face with an object.”71 The configuration of the subject is oriented towards the objective presence (Vorhandenheit) of things so as to secure knowledge of them, which means that the subject does not need to understand for its epistemological orientation. Romano’s insight here indicates another Heideggerian aspect to his critique of the subject. In Chapter 2, I discussed how Romano appropriates yet transforms Heidegger’s hermeneutical notion of understanding. For Heidegger, in contrast to the epistemological priorities of the subject, Dasein is ontologically determined by its understanding of being. Heidegger defines Dasein as follows: “Dasein understands itself in its being in some way and with some explicitness. It is proper to this being that it be disclosed to itself with and through its being. Understanding of being is itself a determination of being of Dasein. The ontic distinction of Dasein lies in the fact that it is ontological.”72 Understanding as the existential mode of Dasein is not part of any epistemology. Heidegger states that “the mode of being of Dasein as a potentiality of being lies existentially in understanding.”73 Similarly, Romano follows the Heideggerian revolution of the determination of Dasein as understanding of being, but redirects the understanding in question to the event.

70 Heidegger, Being and Time, 203; Sein und Zeit, 211. 71 Romano, Event and World, 132; L’événement et le monde, 180. 72 Heidegger, Being and Time, 11; Sein und Zeit, 12. 73 Heidegger, Being and Time, 140; Sein und Zeit, 148.

224

CHAPTER 4

4.1.3 Dasein and the Advenant Romano’s criticisms of these three concealments by the subject are no doubt reminiscent of the Heideggerian destruction of the subject. On these three points, Heidegger’s destruction of the traditional concept of the subject influences Romano’s criticism of the subject, but Romano adds a twist in that his criticisms are made from the perspective of evential hermeneutics. Romano seems aware of this affinity between Dasein and the advenant, and thus he needs to warn the reader about it: “It also makes any summary identification of Dasein and the advenant quite mistaken. Indeed, despite certain analogies, which can be grouped under three headings – (1) openness to the world, (2) primacy of understanding, and (3) thinking about the ‘Self’ and selfhood as against thinking about ‘I’ or egoity – evential hermeneutics is not set out on the same bases as Dasein-ontology but is rather prior to it.”74 Romano aims to distinguish the advenant from Dasein and attempts to assign the advenant priority over Dasein. In this way, he raises the question of Dasein’s affinity with the subject. Romano argues that Dasein can be seen to share the same function as the subject, which conceals events that happen to it. Just as the subject lies behind any given happening of events and precludes possible transformations of its selfhood, so too can there are no events in the evential sense for Dasein. As I have pointed out in Chapter 2, fundamental ontology reduces the whole multiplicity of events to the rank of facts, with the one exception being the event of being, which means that “no other event happens to Dasein than the event which it is itself, insofar as it understands being – insofar as it is itself understanding of being, transcendence.”75 Emmanuel Falque compares Dasein to the advenant in the following way: “The notion that Dasein opens the event on the basis of its own horizon reifies the phenomenalisation of the event, keeping it within the a priori conditions of Dasein’s phenomenality; hence, Dasein fails to receive itself from that which it receives – as advenant.”76 Dasein is not capable of experiencing events in the evential sense. Nevertheless, even if the Heideggerian destruction of the subject is at work in Romano’s conception of the advenant, Romano claims that Dasein remains haunted by the traditional biases of subjectivity in the way it ignores events. Thus, Romano asks: “Does not its closedness with

74 Romano, Event and World, 134; L’événement et le monde, 184. 75 Romano, Event and World, 134; L’événement et le monde, 184. 76 Emmanuel Falque, The Loving Struggle: Phenomenological and Theological Debates, trans. Bradley B. Onishi and Lucas McCracken (London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 224.

The Advenant

225

respect to events in general reproduce at another level substance’s radical autarchy?”77 This question leads us to investigate the three aforementioned affinities between Dasein and the advenant: openness to the world, understanding, and selfhood. It is how these notions are understood differently by Romano that constitutes the advenant’s departure from Dasein. I have chosen the word “departure” with some consideration because I believe it can well illustrate the relationship between Dasein and the advenant. The word “depart” comes from the Latin word “dispertire” which means “to divide,” “to separate.”78 In the ordinary use of the word, it means to leave somewhere, to set out for some place. It also indicates that the point of departure is a starting point for leaving. When I depart from Istanbul for Nijmegen, I start from Istanbul and leave it behind in order to arrive at Nijmegen. However, by the use of this word, the focus is not on the starting point, rather on the arrived place. In this double sense of the word, the advenant’s departure from Dasein assumes Dasein as a starting point for its purposes to the extent that the advenant appropriates Dasein’s achievements. At the same time, the advenant aims to leave Dasein behind in order to reach its own achievement and thereby effects a distance between them. Here, rather than Dasein, the advenant matters in this departure. In this respect, Romano attempts to highlight how his account differs on these three points in order to show the extent of his departure from Dasein.79 I will first deal with Romano’s reception and transformation of these issues and then elaborate on the notion of selfhood in detail. First, being-in-the-world is an essential determination of Dasein. This does not denote a spatial characteristic of Dasein but its openness to the world as an understanding being through the understanding of the being of readyto-hand entities. The world is an ontological constituent of the existence of Dasein. Since the existence of Dasein is also determined by its thrownness and ­being-ahead-of-oneself, this means that for Dasein “being anxious is a way of being-in-the-world; that about which we have anxiety is thrown beingin-the-world; that for which we have anxiety is our potentiality-for beingin-the-world. The complete phenomenon of anxiety thus shows Dasein as factical, existing being-in-the-world.”80 Through anxiety, Dasein experiences 77 Romano, Event and World, 135; L’événement et le monde, 184. 78 C. T. Onions, G. W. S. Friedrichsen and R. W. Burchfield, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 257. 79 In Chapter 2, I have presented a detailed discussion of how notions of the world and understanding are differentiated in evential hermeneutics. My account here presents a shorter version of this. 80 Heidegger, Being and Time, 185; Sein und Zeit, 191.

226

CHAPTER 4

its thrownness, and anxiety thus refers to Dasein’s death. In this sense, the horizon of the world is the horizon of death in the sense of the possibility of Dasein’s own death. Thus, Dasein’s self-understanding from the horizon of its death determines its world as its horizon.81 Just as the being of Dasein is always mine,82 is always constituted by its mineness, so one can conclude that being-in-the-world makes the world “the world of Dasein,” that is to say, “the world is always my world, like death is always my death.”83 Romano considers Heidegger’s use of the world of Dasein to be a problematic approach because it sets up an “ontological a priori.” For the advenant, unlike Dasein, the world does not refer to an ontological constituent. The advenant is no doubt in the world but this world originates in birth. As our earlier discussion of birth made clear, the thrownness of Dasein cannot account for Romano’s understanding of birth as impersonal and non-appropriable. Thus, the advenant’s being in the world means that the a priori character of the world is given a posteriori by birth.84 Romano proposes to show that the world does not belong to Dasein’s mineness but happens to the advenant through the event of its birth. The 81 Heidegger, Being and Time, 347; Sein und Zeit, 364. Heidegger states the following: “Dasein exists for the sake of a potentiality-of-being of itself. Existing, it is thrown, and as thrown, it is delivered over to beings that it needs in order to be able to be as it is, namely for the sake of itself. Since Dasein exists factically, it understands itself in this connection of the for-the-sake-of-itself in each instance with an in-order-to. That within which existing Dasein understands itself is “there” together with its factical existence. The wherein of primary self-understanding has the kind of being of Dasein. Existing, Dasein is its world.” 82 In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger explains the “subjective” character of the world as follows: “The world is something ‘subjective’, presupposing that we correspondingly define subjectivity with regard to this phenomenon of world. To say that the world is subjective is to say that it belongs to the Dasein so far as this being is in the mode of being-in-the-world. The world is something which the ‘subject’ ‘projects outward’, as it were, from within itself. But are we permitted to speak here of an inner and an outer? What can this projection mean? Obviously not that the world is a piece of myself in the sense of some other thing present in me as in a thing and that I throw the world out of this subject-thing in order to catch hold of the other things with it. Instead, the Dasein itself is as such already projected. So far as the Dasein exists a world is cast-forth with the Dasein’s being. To exist means, among other things, to cast-forth a world [sich Welt vorherwerfen], and in fact in such a way that with the thrownness of this projection, with the factical existence of a Dasein, extant entities are always already uncovered. With the projection, with the forthcast world, that is unveiled from which alone an intraworldly extant entity is uncoverable.” See Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), 168. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (Frankfurt am Main: ­Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 238–9. 83 Romano, Event and World, 136; L’événement et le monde, 185. 84 Romano, Event and World, 71; L’événement et le monde, 98.

The Advenant

227

world is “­subjective” for Dasein when the subject is understood “ontologically as existing Dasein.”85 Since birth is omitted in fundamental ontology and does not play a role for Dasein’s selfhood, the world does not originate from birth for Dasein. In contrast to this, it is birth that brings forth the advenant into the world for evential hermeneutics. In this way, Romano claims that evential hermeneutics “takes a further step prior to the analytic of Dasein, by bringing its presuppositions to light. By filling the absence of a conception about birth, it leads us to rethink Dasein’s principal existentials.”86 Second, Romano needs to distinguish his own conception of the mode of understanding that pertains to advenant from Dasein’s understanding. In Chapter 2, I explained how understanding has a central place in the work of both philosophers, though they attribute significantly different roles to the source of meaning. For Heidegger, all understanding is a self-understanding of Dasein in its possibility, and possibility is only offered to Dasein against the background of death. In this sense, all meaning comes from “the horizon of death” because only an understanding of being-towards-death makes it possible for “the whole of Dasein [to be] completely ‘given.’”87 Nevertheless, for evential hermeneutics, it is not Dasein’s interpretative projection of possibilities but the event that is the source of meaning. As Romano puts it: “The interpretative possibilities from which an understanding-projection aimed at meaning becomes possible are not in our possession; they are allotted to us, in excess of any projection, by events themselves. This is what happens in the first of them, birth, by which a human adventure is opened to the excess of a meaning that goes beyond it. Understanding cannot make this meaning possible; rather, this meaning comes to understanding from elsewhere than the horizon that closes an adventure back on itself: my death.”88 Romano here attempts to change the structure of the existential analytic of Dasein by prioritising birth over death, so that understanding is no longer taken to originate from 85 Heidegger, Being and Time, 349; Sein und Zeit, 366. Heidegger states: “If the ‘subject’ is conceived ontologically as existing Dasein, whose being [Sein] is grounded in temporality, we must say then that the world is ‘subjective.’ But this ‘subjective’ world, as one that is temporally transcendent, is then “more objective” than any possible ‘object’.” In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger also claims: “It is a determination of being-in-the-world, a moment in the structure of the Dasein’s mode of being. The world is something Dasein-ish [Daseinsmäßiges], it is not extant like things but it is da, therehere, like the Dasein, the being-there [das Da-sein] which we ourselves are: that is to say, it exists.” See Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 166; Die Grundprobleme der ­Phänomenologie, 237. 86 Romano, Event and World, 137; L’événement et le monde, 187. 87 Heidegger, Being and Time, 296; Sein und Zeit, 309. 88 Romano, Event and World, 137–8; L’événement et le monde, 188.

228

CHAPTER 4

the p ­ rojection of possibilities within the horizon of death. Rather, it is events which make possibility possible. For Romano, neither thrownness nor projection can account for the possibilities that are opened by events. He aims to dislocate possibilities from the mineness of Dasein and to rethink them, outside of the existential analytic, as that which characterises events in their opening of new worlds to the advenant. This is especially evident with regard to the first event, birth, where “understanding can bring meaning to light only by appropriating interpretative possibilities of which it is not the origin.”89 Birth also establishes the delayed character of the understanding of the advenant. Since birth posits an original delay for the advenant by being non-appropriable and immemorial, “an advenant can understand himself, in his selfhood, only according to a constitutive delay on himself.”90 Possibilities opened by the event of birth cannot be taken over by the advenant for understanding. The constitutive delay characterising birth leads the advenant to understand its possibilities as not its own. It does not understand the possibilities arising from birth in terms of mineness, as Dasein would, but comes to understand them only in a retrospective way because of this constitutive delay. Moreover, as was noted above, the event of birth is a paradigmatic case for all subsequent events, so its belated character is also evident in other events in the adventure of the advenant. The event exceeds any horizon of meaning that coheres with the factual possibilities of the world as it currently appears. The world that arises from the event opens new possibilities for the advenant. The advenant gets new projective possibilities from the event. In this way, understanding for the advenant depends on events that retrospectively open possibilities. There is one more aspect that can lead to the incorrect identification of Dasein with the advenant. Before elaborating their affinity regarding the notion of selfhood, it should be noted that Romano aims to decentre Dasein with respect to the world and understanding. Neither the world nor understanding are to be thought to stem from Dasein’s mineness, they are rather to be seen as owing their existence to the event. The advenant is never the origin of the world in which he is, nor is he the author of his possibilities for understanding. Romano maintains that both concepts are constituted by the event and therefore proposes that their evential aspect should take priority over their existential one. This is also true for selfhood, over which evential hermeneutics stakes its claim prior to any existential analytic of Dasein.

89 Romano, Event and World, 138; L’événement et le monde, 188. 90 Romano, Event and World, 77; L’événement et le monde, 105.

The Advenant

229

4.1.4 The Selfhood of the Advenant The notion “selfhood” or “ipseity” (Selbstheit in German, ipséité in French) plays a central role in Romano’s oeuvre,91 that is, it is fundamental for the reformulation of human beings that occurs in his thought.92 In one of his definitions of the event, Romano highlights that the event puts selfhood into the play in such a way that it entails a transformation of the selfhood.93 It is important to note here that Romano distinguishes the concept of “the self” (le moi, le soi) used in the sense of “ego” from the notion of selfhood.94 Romano’s appeal to this concept is also a decisive moment in his reception of Heidegger. Romano explicitly emphasises that Heidegger’s engagement with the notion of Selbstheit marks a revolutionary turn in the history of modern philosophy.95 As 91

For example, one of Romano’s most recent books rereads the history of Western philosophy through the lens of selfhood rather than that of subjectivity. The aim of such a rereading is to determine what being oneself means with regard to personal truth. See Romano, Être soi-même: Une autre histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Gallimard, 2019). I will use “­selfhood” instead of “ipseity” in this study. 92 In French, the word “soi” means “self,” and it is rendered “moi” in its first-person pronoun form. The notion of “ipséité” comes from the Latin word “ipse,” which has the same meaning as “self.” Unlike German and English, there is no French equivalent to the concept of “selfhood” (like “soiité” coming from “soi” (self)) in French, rather “ipséité” is used as an equivalent to this notion. Nevertheless, the first-person pronoun form of “soi”, the word “moi,” is used as a philosophical concept. This can be traced back to its use by Descartes and Pascal as a translation of the Latin, “ego.” Moreover, according to Romano, “le soi” enters the French philosophical lexicon through the French translation of Locke, which saw Pierre Coste translate the term “the self” into French as “le moi” on some occasions and as “le soi” on others. See Claude Romano, “L’énigme du ‘Selbst’ dans l’ontologie fondamentale heideggérienne,” Studia Phaenomenologica 17 (2017), 330. 93 Romano, Event and World, 31; L’événement et le monde, 45. 94 Romano thinks that the concept of “the self” (le moi) is an invention that was not used philosophically prior to Descartes, see Romano, Être soi-même, 39. “The invention of the self” is not a new theme in contemporary scholarship. For some detailed studies on this theme, see Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (­Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992); Vincent Carraud, L’invention du moi (Paris: PUF, 2010). 95 Romano also points out that Foucault’s final studies on the self reveal traces of the Heideggerian notion of selfhood. For Romano, the revolution Heidegger initiates with his notion of selfhood affords us an heuristic tool through which to investigate the history of philosophy without appealing to the metaphysics of the subject. He also criticises Foucault’s references to “the hermeneutics of the subject” because seeks to investigate ­something other than the subject in his work. See Claude Romano, “L’ipséité et non le moi: promesses et potentialités d’un concept,” Phänomenologische Forschungen, no. 1 (2019): 155–6. Foucault can be seen to directly address the influence of Heidegger on his research in the following statement: “What is the relationship of the subject to the truth?

230

CHAPTER 4

shall be seen, Romano’s “ambivalent and complex” relation to Heidegger is also evident in his reception of the Heideggerian notion of selfhood. In order to elaborate Romano’s notion of selfhood, three related concepts that concern the advenant need to be distinguished from each other. These are egoity (égoïté), selfhood (ipséité) and singularity (singularité). Egoity refers to the Cartesian understanding of the subject, which assumes the subject to be a substance that remains unchanged by any events that happen to it. Nonetheless, the notion of egoity strictly contradicts the very idea of the event because the event transforms whomever it happens to. In contrast to egoity, Heidegger does not define the notion of selfhood in terms of an idea of substantiality but as “a way of existing” and a capacity: “With the expression ‘self’, we answered the question of the who of Dasein. The selfhood of Dasein was defined formally as a way of existing, that is, not as a being objectively present. I myself am not for the most part the who of Dasein, rather the they-self is.”96 In this definition, Heidegger strictly distinguishes “self” from any understanding of an ego that is determined as substance or Vorhandenheit. Rather than defining the self along the lines of the traditional egologies that are evident in thinkers from Descartes to Husserl, Heidegger effects a total paradigm shift with his definition of Dasein: “Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence, in terms of its possibility to be itself or not to be itself.”97 The question of being oneself or not being oneself is what distinguishes the discourse on selfhood from egologies. Since the ego – or whatever term is deployed, “le moi.” “I” (je), the “self” – that is at the foundation of human identity from Descartes to Husserl takes the form of a “principium individuationis”, there cannot be any possibility of “not being oneself” (nicht es selbst zu sein) in the sense of ceasing to be the ego.98 It is important to note that Heidegger emphasises that the self of Dasein can become the self of the they (das Man), which is defined as What is the subject of truth, what is the subject who speaks the truth, etcetera? As far as I’m concerned, I see only two. I see only Heidegger and Lacan. Personally, myself, you must have heard this, I have tried to reflect on all this from the side of Heidegger and starting from Heidegger.” See Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 189. 96 Heidegger, Being and Time, 257; Sein und Zeit, 267. “Mit dem Ausdruck ‘Selbst’ antworteten wir auf die Frage nach dem Wer des Daseins. Die Selbstheit des Daseins wurde formal bestimmt als eine Weise zu existieren, das heißt nicht als ein vorhandenes Seiendes.” 97 Heidegger, Being and Time, 11; Sein und Zeit, 12. “Das Dasein versteht sich selbst immer aus seiner Existenz, einer Möglichkeit seiner selbst, es selbst oder nicht es selbst zu sein.” 98 Romano, “L’ipsiété et non le moi: promesses et potentialités d’un concept,” 137. Romano states the following : “Le moi est le fondement de notre identité nous-mêmes, que cette identité soit pensée comme une identité substantielle (Descartes), comme une simple continuité psychologique (Locke), comme l’unité formelle d’un ‘je pense’ qui a­ ccompagne

The Advenant

231

the inauthentic way of being a self. Rather than having a fixed identity, these modes of Dasein indicate that selfhood is open to transformation according to its existential situation.99 In spite of Heidegger’s revolutionary achievement, Romano claims that his conception of the selfhood of Dasein is insufficiently radical to enable a complete break from the traditional sense of the subject. Romano aims to remove selfhood from its existential context and reconsider it without any existential determination. He breaks with the Heideggerian notion of selfhood for two reasons. First, selfhood in the existential sense remains closed to every event except death according to the account of Dasein’s resoluteness. Romano argues that Heidegger subordinates selfhood to the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity due to the resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) of Dasein. Resoluteness means the way of relating to its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) that comes from Dasein’s potentiality-of-being in the light of its anticipation of death. With regard to its temporal meaning, resoluteness determines the structure of care for Dasein on the basis of the future. It is “an eminent mode of the disclosedness of Dasein,” and this disclosedness is “an essential constituent of being-in-the-world as such.”100 Dasein’s existence is based on its understanding of the world, which is disclosed to Dasein in terms of its possibilities, through its projections of the future.101 Since death is the ownmost possibility of Dasein, being-towards-death “discloses to Dasein its ownmost potentialityof-being in which it is concerned about the being of Dasein absolutely.”102 It is the decision of authentic Dasein about its own being that determines its toutes nos représentations (Kant), comme un pôle ou un foyer à partir duquel rayonne l’intentionnalité (Husserl), etc.” 99 For a detailed approach to reading the notion of selfhood with regard to the problem of identity, see Romano, “L’ipsiété et non le moi: promesses et potentialités d’un concept,” 135–56. 100 Heidegger, Being and Time, 284; Sein und Zeit, 297. 101 Heidegger, Being and Time, 140; Sein und Zeit, 144. “Understanding is the existential being [Sein] of the ownmost potentiality of being of Dasein itself in such a way that this being [Sein] discloses in itself what its very being is about.” 102 Heidegger, Being and Time, 252; Sein und Zeit, 263–4. Heidegger explains it as follows: “Dasein can authentically be itself only when it makes this possible of its own accord. But if taking care and being concerned fail us, this does not, however, mean at all that these modes of Dasein have been cut off from its authentic being a self. As essential structures of the constitution of Dasein they also belong to the condition of the possibility of existence in general. Dasein is authentically itself only insofar as it projects itself, as being together with things taken care of and concernful being-with … ​primarily upon its ownmost potentiality-of-being, rather than upon the possibility of the they-self. Anticipation of its nonrelational possibility forces the being that anticipates into the possibility of ­taking over its ownmost being from itself of its own accord.”

232

CHAPTER 4

authentic way of being oneself. Dasein’s difference from the they, that is to say the authenticity of Dasein, stems from its anticipation of death because it is only in such an anticipation that Dasein can understand itself as resolute: it is “the mode of a potentiality-of-being existentielly attested to in Dasein, which it demands of itself, if indeed it authentically understands itself as resolute.”103 In this respect, the anticipation of death becomes determinative for the selfhood of Dasein. Romano argues that death remains the only event for Dasein because authentic selfhood becomes dependent upon Dasein’s ownmost possibility of death: “To die in the existential sense – that is, to bear with the possibility of one’s impossibility without covering it over and modifying it into a mere future event, without ‘realising’ it in a pure future actuality – is at the same time Dasein’s ownmost possibility and the possibility of the authentic as such, the origin of all self-authenticity and all selfhood … ​Therefore, selfhood is based entirely on mortality as a way of being (Seinsart) of Dasein.”104 For Romano, the Heideggerian understanding of selfhood serves to close off other events for Dasein. Death becomes the sole event for anticipatory resoluteness, and all other events turn into mere facts to be encountered within inauthentic ways of being. The selfhood of Dasein in this existential framework lacks any vulnerability or exposure to other events, and this closure can thus be seen to exclude the possibility of a transformation of Dasein’s selfhood. Romano’s conclusion is as follows: “Existence’s closedness on itself and Dasein’s radical autarchy prohibit any evential conception of my history as what singularises me. Far from determining myself in my singularity from the array of possibilities articulated in a world that are deployed for me in each event, I determine myself one time for all from one single and unique possibility: my death. Such a state of affairs derives, once again, from the fact that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology absorbs all evential plurality into existing as dying.”105 This existential determination of selfhood has too constrained an approach to be able to furnish the selfhood of the advenant with the requisite openness to events. The second reason for Romano’s disquiet about the Heideggerian notion of selfhood is the issue of the self-constancy (Selbst-ständigkeit) of Dasein. ­Heidegger describes the self-constancy of Dasein as follows: If the ontological constitution of the self can neither be reduced to a substantial I nor to a “subject,” but if, on the contrary, the everyday, fleeting saying-I must be understood in terms of our authentic 103 Heidegger, Being and Time, 295; Sein und Zeit, 309. 104 Romano, Event and World, 133–4 and 139; L’événement et le monde, 182 and 190. 105 Romano, Event and World, 140; L’événement et le monde, 191.

The Advenant

233

potentiality-of-being, the statement still does not follow that the self is the constantly objectively present/subsisting ground of care. Existentially, selfhood is only to be found in the authentic potentiality-of-beinga-self, that is, in the authenticity of the being of Dasein as care. In terms of care the constancy of the self [die Ständigkeit des Selbst] as the supposed persistence of the subject, gets its clarification. The phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-of-being, however, also opens our eyes to the constancy of the self in the sense of its having gained a steadiness. The constancy of the self in the double sense of constancy and steadfastness is an authentic counter-possibility to the unself-constancy [Unselbstständigkeit] of irresolute falling prey. Existentially, the self-constancy [Selbst-ständigkeit] means nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. Its ontological structure reveals the existentiality of the selfhood of the self.106 In this passage Heidegger explicitly distinguishes his understanding of selfconstancy from the egological one, which comes from an understanding of the self as objective presence (Vorhandenheit).107 In contrast to the latter, the determination of the self of Dasein as constant results from the temporal structure through which future possibilities are projected. The distinction between authentic and inauthentic resoluteness determines the difference between the self-constancy of Dasein and that of the they. Nevertheless, for Romano, the evential understanding of selfhood is prior to “the alternative of constancy and instability which reproduces, on the existential level, the traditional opposition of identity and change.”108 With this conception of selfhood as constant, 106 Heidegger, Being and Time, 308 (translation modified); Sein und Zeit, 322. In Chapter 3, I also discussed how Jean-Luc Marion criticises the self-constancy of Dasein. 107 The term “Selbstständigkeit” means “autonomy” or “independence” in everyday German. The translator, Joan Stambaugh preferred to translate it in two ways, in some cases as “the constancy of the self” and sometimes as “self-constancy.” In the passage quoted above, I changed the English translation of “the constancy of the self” for the notion “Selbstständigkeit” into “self-constancy.” In the other translation of Sein und Zeit, the translators mainly use “self-subsistence” and also sometimes “self-constancy” to translate the term, see Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 381. I think that the translators of both editions wanted to retain the meaning of the word “ständig,” that is, constant, subsistent, in their translations of Selbstständigkeit. For my argument here, I prefer to use this translation. Nevertheless, one should keep in mind that Heidegger’s term has a common, everyday usage as “independence” and that the term should also be seen to denote a certain independence in one’s self-understanding with respect to the They and innerworldy beings. 108 Romano, Event and World, 100; L’événement et le monde, 136.

234

CHAPTER 4

Dasein cannot be exposed to any otherness that could arise from events. Since its potentiality of being comes from the projection of its ownmost possibilities, the self-constancy of Dasein excludes the possibility of self-renewal by way of otherness. Between birth and death, Dasein “is already and unconditionally itself in the enduring and supremely ‘transparent’ [durchsichtig] instant.”109 Nevertheless, the selfhood of the advenant is determined by his very capacity “to refashion himself, to happen to himself by differing from himself. This is why selfhood is only fully manifested where an advenant is called upon to integrate an event by transforming his projections and understanding himself differently.”110 In this way, the self-constancy of Dasein precludes events from happening and constrains selfhood by the limitations that are imposed by resoluteness. Romano’s general critique of the existential analytic of Dasein is also seen in his approach to the issue self-constancy: only the event of death matters for Dasein. Unlike Dasein, the selfhood of the advenant has the capacity to undergo self-transformation through the experience of events. Selftransformation is a process in which there is a passage in the advenant. By experiencing events that put his selfhood at play, the advenant acquires his singularity. In this regard, it is worth recalling Romano’s emphasis on experience and trial or test (épreuve). As was explained in Chapter 2, the notion of experience is etymologically related to the Greek verb peiro meaning “to traverse,” and Romano indicates that the experience of the event is peril, danger, and traversal. The exposure to events puts selfhood in a danger as it sets in motion a traversal from one selfhood to another. The singularity of the advenant is formed through the experience of events; it is the unique way we must understand ourselves based on the foundational role of events.111 In this sense, the singularity of the advenant is transformed throughout his history by his encounters with events. At different points in his history, the advenant can be characterised by singularities that conflict and contradict each other. This point also indicates a difference from Heidegger’s approach to selfhood. The advenant’s singularities do not imply a totalisation, but rather a d­ ispersion; for Heidegger, in contrast, it is the “keystone of his thought of the selfhood” 109 Romano, Event and World, 140; L’événement et le monde, 191. In using the phrase, “transparent instant,” Romano is referring to Heidegger’s description of the way resolution discloses, see Heidegger, Being and Time, 286; Sein und Zeit, 299. “Even resolutions are dependent upon the they and its world. Understanding this is one of the things that resolution discloses, insofar as resoluteness first gives to Dasein its authentic transparency in resoluteness, Dasein is concerned with its ownmost potentiality-of-being that, as thrown, can project itself only upon definite, factical possibilities.” 110 Romano, Event and World, 100; L’événement et le monde, 136. 111 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 38.

The Advenant

235

that assumes a “‘totalisation’ of the own existence.”112 The singularity of the advenant remains open throughout his history to the ability of events to transform this singularity. The selfhood of the advenant is the very capacity of being open to events. The advenant comes to understand himself through the possibilities that are conferred upon him and reconfigured by events. By his transformed singularities, the advenant therefore understands who he is in his own history.113 In reflecting on Romano’s account of the singularity of the selfhood of the advenant, one might be struck by a resemblance between it and Heidegger’s notion of mineness (Jemeinigkeit). The mineness of Dasein stems from Dasein’s appropriation of its own existence. Dasein is characterised by mineness because it provides its ownmost potentiality of being by being-towards-death. Heidegger thus defines death as follows: “Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as one’s ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable possibility … ​Its existential possibility is grounded in the fact that Dasein is essentially disclosed to itself, and it is disclosed as being-ahead-of-itself.”114 Heidegger makes dying (sterben) the main constituent of the mineness of Dasein’s existence. This is because he takes death to be the impossible possibility of Dasein. In its orientation towards death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality of being. In this respect, death as a singularising possibility of Dasein constitutes the very mineness of Dasein because its death each time belongs to him (Jemeinigkeit) as an “ownmost potentiality of being.” Heidegger’s conception of mineness implies that nobody can die in place of me. Nevertheless, the mineness of Dasein does seem to suppose the ontological primacy of death. In fact, nobody can love, become sick, have an accident, or be born, in place of me, so the primacy Heidegger attributes to death can be seen to arise from Dasein’s incapacity to experience events. Romano articulates this in stark terms: “The sole individualising event for Heidegger is the very event of individuation: existing as dying.”115 In this respect, the mineness of Dasein can only offer a limited approach for evential hermeneutics; its only event is dying. In short, Romano points out that the Heideggerian notion of Selbstheit achieves a radical break by allowing us to reconsider the human being without any need to appeal to any substantial conception of the subject. Heidegger’s definition of selfhood as “a way of being” or “a capacity of existing” presents 112 Ibid., 38. 113 Romano, Event and World, 130; L’événement et le monde, 177. 114 Heidegger, Being and Time, 241; Sein und Zeit, 251. 115 Romano, Event and World, 139; L’événement et le monde, 190.

236

CHAPTER 4

an approach that is largely new. Yet, Romano tries to develop this notion by deploying it in the context of the event. In this way, he aims to strip it of its existential trappings in order to make it amenable to the possibility of being transformed by events. Romano’s renewal of the notion of selfhood broadens its scope and definition in the service of evential hermeneutics, thus, prior to the ascription of any existential function, selfhood can be defined as a capacity to experience events. 4.1.5 How Does the Advenant Respond to Events? Romano’s alteration of the Heideggerian notion of selfhood serves to redefine the history of the advenant. It is not a succession of events that can be conceived as innerworldly facts according to a causal chain. Rather, the history of the advenant is composed of his events in the evential sense. The a­ dvenant’s history arises “in each case from events,” which entails that his history is defined by “the ‘taking place’ of events that gives place to history by giving it meaning.”116 Thus, the advenant understands himself from his history through his capacity for undergoing events. The singularity of the advenant is transformed and changed throughout the history of the advenant. This structure of the singularity and the history of the advenant is determined by “passibility” (passibilité).117 This notion implies the advenant’s openness to events. As the source of possibilities, events happen to the advenant to the extent that he is open to them. One can say that passibility is the point at which the advenant and the event intertwine, but it is not something that the advenant can escape. By passibility, the advenant is able to appropriate events in his singularity. Through the openness of passibility, the advenant is “implicated in what happens to him,” so that “he is able to advene singularly starting from impersonal possibilities, arising from events, which punctuate his adventure.”118 Romano aims to distinguish passibility from passivity and even suggests that the former should be put before any determinations of passivity and activity because these latter terms refer to aspects of subjectivity. Passibility comes from the event, but it is through passibility that the event reaches the advenant and the advenant is opened to the event: This passibility cannot be conceived as a prior structure “in the subject,” preparing the reception [accueil] of events, since events in their radical unpreparedness constitutively escape any structure of reception 116 Romano, Event and World, 92; L’événement et le monde, 125. 117 Romano, Event and World, 92; L’événement et le monde, 126. 118 Romano, Event and World, 92; L’événement et le monde, 126.

The Advenant

237

[accueil]. It is thus the very concept of “subjectivity” that is insufficient for grasping passibility’s meaning. Passibility is instead a characteristic of events themselves, in that it is only by its own prevenient initiative that an event reaches an advenant, opening the playing field where it can occur, and inversely in that an advenant can advene to himself in his selfhood only out of events. This is why an advenant can neither constitute nor make possible this opening, which is instead opened to him by the event of birth – this passibility that is irreducible to any passivity and that hence holds itself “prior” to the latter.119 Passibility is related to both the unpredictable character of the event and how it touches human beings. The advenant’s openness to the event does not inhere to the advenant as a substantial characteristic but results from the event of birth. It belongs to the originality of birth. It is important to remember here to whom events happen, in particular the event of birth. First of all, “I” am the one who is born in this event. Birth happens to me. Nevertheless, I am not able to say “I” or understand this event during my birth. To say “I” regarding my birth is not to refer to any sense of egoity, because birth precedes the emergence of subjectivity and any capacity to appropriate it.120 I am not capable of being a subject or an I before my birth, so it cannot be the case that birth involves the emergence of some kind of unchanging subjectivity. As was discussed above, birth’s immemorial character comes from its non-appropriable feature. Selfhood is not even implied in birth. Birth exceeds my capacity for understanding, that is, it is beyond being appropriated by the advenant. Romano states that “in the passibility of this original event, I am aimed at and assigned, without being able to grasp the possibility of holding myself facing what exceeds me from the outset.”121 In this regard, it should be noted that the event of birth is not only a primary but also a paradoxical event, because the a priori character of the world is given a posteriori by birth.122 The event of birth is a non-empirical a posteriori. Moreover, understanding my birth always involves a structural delay. Since I am never contemporary with my birth, this delay determines the understanding of the advenant. Romano makes this point clear in the following statement: “Thus, the original delay of all understanding arises from the fact that, far from being an a priori structure of existence, understanding is structured by an original delay; it is essentially belated and therefore 119 Romano, Event and World, 72; L’événement et le monde, 99–100. 120 Romano, Event and World, 74; L’événement et le monde, 101. 121 Romano, Event and World, 74; L’événement et le monde, 102. 122 Romano, Event and World, 71; L’événement et le monde, 97.

238

CHAPTER 4

necessarily a posteriori, with an a posteriori that is not empirical but rather transcendental.”123 In this regard, the passibility of birth does not lead to a kind of passivity. It determines the advenant’s becoming himself in an a posteriori way, but, at the same time, it is also transcendental in a paradoxical manner. In this context, Romano also mentions the term “implication,” which, alongside singularity and passibility, refers to another of the co-determinative moments of selfhood. The term “implication” means what the event makes of the advenant, that is to say, the advenant is implicated in possibilities that are opened by the event. Romano describes it in the following way: “It is only in virtue of such an implication that an advenant can appropriate events and illuminate himself in their light [ … ​] – that he can understand himself in his singularity, starting from the possibilities configured by events.”124 Through the implications of the event for the advenant, the advenant comes to understand what happens to him in his selfhood. In light of these three features – singularity, passibility and implication – the phenomenon of selfhood gets an evential characterisation, which Romano defines as follows: “to be open to events, thereby responding to what happens to him, and appropriating the possibilities that events assign to him [lui destinent], so as to be able to advene himself singularly across a destiny.”125 The selfhood of the advenant implies that he can respond to events by openness. Responding to the event is something that shakes our existence from top to bottom by configuring possibilities. But how can the advenant respond to events? Romano designates this capacity of relating oneself to openness as “responsibility,” though the sense the term has in this context “should not be confused with ethical or juridical imputability.”126 In the evential sense, responsibility does not mean that the advenant is responsible for his acts because he causes them. This is because the event does not occur within a causal chain. Since its bursting forth is anarchic, it does not have any cause, and the advenant cannot be the cause of the event. The capacity to respond to events determines the advenant’s relation to the world on the basis of possibilities. In this way, the singularity of the advenant “is wholly founded in his capacity to be responsible for what happens to him (by being transformed).”127 In the measureless exposure of events, this capacity makes openness to events possible in the passibility of the advenant. Romano also describes this capacity as that of being “exposed to more than he 123 Romano, Event and World, 155; L’événement et le monde, 209. 124 Romano, Event and World, 93; L’événement et le monde, 127. 125 Romano, Event and World, 93; L’événement et le monde, 127. 126 Romano, Event and World, 94; L’événement et le monde, 128. 127 Romano, Event and World, 98; L’événement et le monde, 133.

The Advenant

239

[the advenant] is capable of” in the face of events.128 It is possible to state outright that Romano has the event of birth in mind whenever he is presenting a description of events and modalities of selfhood, because the event of birth is the proto-event for the advenant. Thus, the event of birth can be seen to influence his account of responsibility. His claim about holding open to the measureless exposure that arises with the event signifies the event of birth, which does not impute the advenant in an ethical way but in the evential sense. We can try to understand this notion of responsibility from some counterexamples, that is to say, in light of some situations which do not allow the advenant to respond. For instance, in the experience of trauma, one’s selfhood is alienated and lost.129 Trauma signifies an event that the advenant can never appropriate, because this event does not let the advenant respond to it. This leads to a loss of selfhood being incurred in the advenant’s encounter with trauma. The capacity to be opened to what happens to the advenant and its possibilities is foreclosed in such experiences. Romano claims that events are always coloured by feelings as they happen to the advenant, for example, feelings of joy or sadness.130 Nevertheless, the feeling that accompanies the event is not a reflexive characteristic of the subject, rather “it simply indicates that in any feeling, what is at stake is selfhood as responsibility.”131 In this sense, the feeling of a traumatic event is one of total despair in which all possibilities are lost. Such an event happens in a negative way, and it negates what the event opens, so that it cannot be appropriated by the advenant. It detaches selfhood from the self of the advenant by letting passibility sink in the shipwreck of the world.132 This means the advenant is deprived of those possibilities that configure the world, thus the future modalities of responsibility for the advenant become “encysted” and suspended in trauma.133 What this closure of possibilities means, then, is that the advenant cannot respond to what happens to him. Non-responsibility to the event leaves the advenant unable to appropriate 128 Romano, Event and World, 94; L’événement et le monde, 128. 129 Concerning “trauma” as an event, see Paola Lorelle’s discussion of the similarity between Romano’s and Levinas’s phenomenological approaches to trauma: Paola Lorelle, “L’expérience traumatique: Emmanuel Levinas et Claude Romano,” in L’évènement et la raison: autour de Claude Romano, ed. Philippe Cabestan (Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016), 47–72. For a general discussion of the relation between trauma and subjectivity from the phenomenological point of view, see Rudolf Bernet, Conscience et Existence (Paris: PUF, 2004), 264–93, chapter “Le sujet traumatisé.” 130 Romano, Event and World, 102; L’événement et le monde, 138. 131 Romano, Event and World, 102; L’événement et le monde, 139. 132 Romano, Event and World, 105; L’événement et le monde, 142. 133 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 39.

240

CHAPTER 4

what happens. This counter-example of the traumatic event shows that the responsibility of the advenant is a fundamental capacity. The selfhood of the advenant becomes open and vulnerable to events through his responsibility. Thus, the selfhood of the advenant can also be described as his responsibility for what happens to him. This understanding of responsibility requires us to discuss the temporality of the event because the advenant is unthinkable independently of the event’s temporalising. 4.1.6 The Temporality of the Adventure Evential hermeneutics does not consider time as a phenomenon and assumes that there can be no experience of time as such. From this perspective, there can only be a mediated understanding or phenomenology of time through the modalities of the experience of change.134 In this way, Romano understands temporality as a determination of experience, rather than time. He states that “‘[T]emporality’ is nothing other than the name given to the way in which events happen for us by giving rise to an ex-per-ience.”135 Romano’s engagement with temporality is hardly surprising given that his project endeavours to rewrite fundamental ontology in the light of the event. In one of his definitions of evential hermeneutics, he claims that “evential hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of temporality.”136 The issue of time and temporality plays a very central role in evential hermeneutics and its description of the advenant. Furthermore, with the aid of his new definition of the “metaphysics of time,” Romano’s account of time and temporality aims to effect a radical break not only with fundamental ontology, but also with the history of philosophy as such.137 Romano’s use of the term “metaphysics of time” is intended to provide a unitary identification of the history of Western philosophy. He thus notes “the tendency of Western philosophy from Aristotle onward to reduce time to an inner-temporal phenomenon – a tendency that also leads to a subjectivisation of time, i.e. a renewal of time to internal changes of consciousness (from Augustine to Husserl).”138 This metaphysical understanding of time 134 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 71. 135 Romano, Event and Time, 150; L’événement et le temps, 195. 136 Romano, Event and World, 54; L’événement et le monde, 76. 137 In Chapter 2, I have discussed the temporality of the event in relation to that of facts. In what follows I will rather focus on the temporality of the adventure and the advenant. Since the event is the source of temporalisation, my earlier explanation will prove helpful for this section. While my brief account here will include the former one but I aim to not repeat it. 138 Claude Romano and Kadir Filiz, “Phenomenology with Big-Hearted Reason: A Conversation with Claude Romano,” trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner, Philosophy Today 65, no. 1 (2020): 190.

The Advenant

241

therefore considers time as an inner-temporal phenomenon, which means it thinks time in time. This tendency characterises time as a process and flow in which time itself also becomes a temporal phenomenon. In addition to this, Romano argues against another characteristic of the metaphysics of time: the “subjectivisation/spiritualisation of time,” which he claims reduces the newness of time to changes in the mind and “is accomplished first in Augustine and reigns up to and through Husserl and Heidegger.”139 His deployment of the concept of metaphysics in his description of the history of philosophy in respect to time is no doubt a Heideggerian gesture. Nevertheless, his recourse to a new definition of metaphysics arises from the inadequacy of the Heideggerian definition. The Heideggerian conception of metaphysical time (or time within traditional ontologies) claims that “time is understood as a sequence, as the ‘flux’ of nows, as the ‘course of time’” in the mode of being “constantly present” (vorhanden) throughout the history of metaphysics.140 Romano argues, however, that “[s]uch a concept of time is rather difficult to attribute to thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Husserl, or Bergson; it is, more fundamentally, that such a characterisation of time – supposing that it can be historically attested – represents only a consequence of the more general specification.”141 In this sense, Romano’s definition of the metaphysics of time aims to unite a broader spectrum of thinkers from the history of Western philosophy, including Heidegger himself. Romano’s evential hermeneutics is proposed as a way to overcome the metaphysics of time. Nevertheless, his style of overcoming does not only suggest a critical encounter with the history of metaphysics. Romano thinks that a phenomenology of time becomes possible in light of events, one which will enable us to properly recognise the temporal character of the advenant. As noted, he argues that the event does not happen in time but unfolds and “temporalises time.”142 A phenomenology of time can only deal with the experience of changes happening in time. Time as such cannot be experienced, and the phenomenology of time is therefore only possible through the modalities of the experience of change.143 Time as such cannot be a starting point for 139 Romano, Event and Time, xii. Moreover, Romano also claims that the metaphysics of time cannot understand inner-temporality properly, because the newness attributed to events can also be valid for facts to some extent. Although facts do not exhibit the radicality and anarchic bursting forth of events, they do share somewhat in the characteristic of being unforeseeable, though to a much lower degree than events. See Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 74. 140 Heidegger, Being and Time, 401; Sein und Zeit, 422. 141 Romano, Event and Time, xii. 142 Romano, Event and Time, 136; L’événement et le temps, 179. 143 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 71.

242

CHAPTER 4

any phenomenology of time, since it is the condition of all possible descriptions of phenomena. Romano thus takes “the event” as a guiding thread for any possible phenomenology of time. Furthermore, he wishes to “change horizon entirely” in order to think of time, that is to say, in order to think time outside of the subject (hors-sujet). Since the subject persists behind everything that occurs to it, that is to say, from the evential perspective, nothing can happen to the subject, “an interpretation of time itself hors-sujet, can and must be accomplished on behalf of a phenomenology centered on the event.”144 In this new framework of thinking about time and temporality, the advenant, despite not being a subject in the traditional sense, is also defined temporally. The advenant has temporal modalities due to the very transcendence of time in its experience of events, but this same transcendence means that time is without a subject. Romano claims that the adventure of the advenant is based on the temporality opened by events: “The openness of the human adventure is therefore temporality.”145 As applicable to the advenant, the process of “subjectivation” arises from temporality. The advenant is not a subject, and, therefore, it also cannot be the source of temporalisation. Romano sums this up as follows: An advenant “is” nothing other than what comes to light, happens, or occurs from events; he “is” simply the process of his own “subjectivation,” a process that is continually on the way. “Eventials” are therefore the phenomenologically diverse modes according to which this “subjectivation” is brought about. Now, such processes of subjectivation are already temporal through and through. Or rather: for an advenant to happen to himself in this way is already to open himself to time, and to open time as such. On the one hand, time is not something that is, so to speak, “added” to an event as a simple property. Rather, an event can only occur temporally; it “is” intrinsically time. On the other hand, if human adventure is simply the event of my own advent to myself, which event is constantly on the way, the human adventure is itself indexed temporally: from the outset, time is its essential plot. Because of this, the question of the procedures according to which an advenant advenes to himself, or the modalities of his adventure (evential hermeneutics), can open in a second moment on the question of the phenomenological meaning of time itself. Thus it will no longer be a matter of understanding the temporality of events on the horizon of an interpretation of the advenant in his adventure but rather 144 Romano, Event and Time, 6–7; L’événement et le monde, 8. 145 Romano, Event and World, 54; L’événement et le monde, 76.

The Advenant

243

of grasping the evential meaning of time itself, by freeing the temporal phenomenon from the formal frameworks to which it is limited by its metaphysical understanding.146 The transcendence of time is opened to the advenant by its experience of the event. In this context, Romano does not hesitate to state that time is the event. Through the experience of the event, the advenant is exposed to the radical novelty of the event, and, in the light of this novelty, time is opened and temporalised for the advenant but not by the advenant. The temporalising feature of the event is not comprised of any contributions from the subject, that is to say, it is comprised hors-sujet. It is not the advenant but the event that temporalises time. Romano makes a distinction between time and temporality, which is “time’s way of appearing [ … ]​ according to which the advenant is related to the temporalising occurrence of events while himself ­experiencing [l’ex-pér-ience] them.”147 This distinction does not refer to two distinct times such as o­ bjective and subjective time, but is the apprehending of “a single and same phenomenon” according to “two complementary orientations of ­understanding: the evential pole and the experiential pole are only two aspects of a single dramatics.”148 The temporality of the advenant derives from its response to the event in experience. As discussed in Chapter 2, Romano’s conception of experience assumes a hiatus, a fracturing, and also a structural delay. In this sense, the temporality of experience relies on the responses of the advenant, so temporality does not come from any subjective moment of presenting the temporality of experience, but rather from the event’s temporalising. The advenant’s contribution or relation to temporalisation is nothing more than its being exposed to it according to modalities of temporality. In contrast to the case of inner-temporal facts, the event does not have temporal flow from first “to come,” then “present,” then “past,” and it is consequently not “in time.” This means that, in relation to experience, the temporalisation of time by the event must provide different kinds of modalities than those of inner-temporal facts. Romano calls these modalities or “vistas [échappées] (the having-taken place, the present, the future) according to which events can appear in a­ ccordance with the manner in which the advenant relates to them in response: memory, 146 Romano, Event and World, 55; L’événement et le monde, 76–77. 147 Romano, Event and Time, 208; L’événement et le temps, 268. 148 Romano, Event and Time, 153; L’événement et le temps, 198. Romano also mentions the ­priority of time over temporality, which is derived from time: “[T]hus, time, from the phenomenological point of view, precedes temporality by right; it is grounded in the still neutral priority of the event over the advenant, who must respond to it, and over the temporality of his modes of response.”

244

CHAPTER 4

availability, transformation.”149 Nevertheless, the advenant’s relation to them does not mean that the event’s temporalising of time can be reduced to the modalities of the subject in time. They are rather to be understood as modes of responding to events by experiencing them. These three modalities of experience determine the advenant’s response to temporality. The first one, memory, is related to the event’s temporalising dimension of the having-taken place. As has been noted already, the event is always understood after the fact, and it “is lost from the first moment. ‘As soon as’ it occurs, it is ‘always already past’ [ … ]​ in occurring, it brings with itself its own horizon of past, of an absolute past, irreducible to the present and to the presence of the advenant across time.”150 In this way, memory in the evential sense cannot be a collector of the past. Its relation to the event’s temporalising is not equivalent to the succession of inner-temporal phenomena according to which memory renders past into present. Since the event “is only present as a past in light of its future,” the event’s “retention does not succeed its apprehension in the present and this does not succeed its expectation as to come.”151 What, then, is memory in the evential sense? How does it work with respect to events? It is not memory that preserves the event, but the event that gives rise to memory insofar as the “memory preserves possibility, that is to say, the future.”152 Romano equates memory with the preservation of possibility, rather than the preserving of past actuals. He removes memory from the service of the subject and posits it as something that is opened towards the future by the event. The memory of the event does not come from a conscious act of the subject but occurs along with the very happening of the event. Thus, memory is not a possession or faculty of the advenant. The advenant “‘is’ the taking place of a memory. Memory indicates the very manner in which events, even those concluded as facts, happen for us from the having-taken-place by lavishing on us a future: it is an evential.”153 The memory which is opened to the advenant by the event is capable of putting the selfhood of the advenant into play as 149 Romano, Event and Time, 208; L’événement et le temps, 268. The notion of “vista” is used as an alternative to the term of “horizon” because “‘horizon’ is always a de-limitation (in the double sense of that which encloses the gaze, poses a limit, and, by this very fact, indicates a beyond of the limit), whose closure refers to the subjective modalities of ­presentation or of the re-presentation of what can enter into presence under such horizons, the vista is constitutively open – that is, it eludes the measure of a subject’s presence … t​ hat would condition its access.” See Romano, Event and Time,154; L’événement et le temps, 200. 150 Romano, Event and Time, 156; L’événement et le temps, 202. 151 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 82 152 Ibid., 83–84. 153 Romano, Event and Time, 161; L’événement et le temps, 208.

The Advenant

245

a “capacity to respond.” Romano calls memory “a modality of responsibility” of the advenant. Memory in this way “opens the possibility of an availability to the future and of a possible transformation of the advenant in the present” by the response of the advenant.154 The second term, “availability,” refers to the advenant’s capacity to be open to events. It is through this openness that the advenant is able to respond. As was discussed above, the event is not contemporary with itself, and it is always retrospective. According to the radical novelty of the event, it can never be predicted and will have been an event only in the light of its future. As Romano puts it, the time of the event is “the future perfect [le futur antérieur].”155 This retrospective character of the event makes it unpredictable at the moment of its happening. At the same time, it is never actual in its happening. In this regard, the availability of the advenant makes the coming of possibilities possible in the future perfect of the event. Since possibilities opened by the event do not come from any subjective projection, the event’s temporalising of time becomes available for the advenant on the basis of possibilities that are oriented towards the future. Romano states this in the following way: “Availability is, then, the evential according to which the advenant holds himself open to the future and brings himself to its encounter, according to a disposition that is neither of the order of expectation nor of the order of a projection.”156 We can understand the third term, “transformation,” in much the same way. Transformation denotes the change in the advenant’s selfhood that occurs because he understands himself differently in the present than he did before. This takes place within a hermeneutical structure because it derives from the advenant’s understanding of himself, which changes due to his experience of the reconfiguration of possibilities by the event. Romano asserts that “It [transformation] means a change in understanding that is through and through [du tout au tout] insofar as this change bears on the Whole [le Tout] itself and on its meaning, on the world, starting from which only the advenant can understand who he is and advene to himself in his singularity.”157 This transformation of the advenant occurs in the present, but it does not mean that the event happens in the present. Rather, “the present opens itself starting from the transformation as modality of response of the advenant to the event.”158 In the present, the selfhood of the advenant can be opened “to the possibility of the transformation, 154 Romano, Event and Time, 164; L’événement et le temps, 212. 155 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 79. 156 Romano, Event and Time, 181; L’événement et le temps, 234. 157 Romano, Event and Time, 186; L’événement et le temps, 240. 158 Romano, Event and Time, 192; L’événement et le temps, 247.

246

CHAPTER 4

which is opened, in turn, only through the original transformation of the possible starting from the instant-on-the-way of the event. Only there, where the transformation takes place, ‘is’ the present in its evential sense.”159 In short, the  hermeneutical transformation of the selfhood of the advenant happens in the present by his opening to possibilities. These three features of the advenant are directly related to three modalities of temporality that stem from the event’s temporalising of time. According to this analysis of temporal dimensions of experience, the interpretation of the selfhood of the advenant provides a temporal meaning and explains how selfhood is transformed singularly in the history of the advenant throughout the adventure. The evential determination of the singularity of selfhood reflects how the event unfolds time in the experience of the advenant. By opening a new world to the advenant through the reconfiguration of possibilities, the advenant understands his selfhood singularly in light of the renovated totality of his possibilities, that is to say, the world. In this sense, selfhood means “the capacity to relate in person to events in order to undergo them in unsubstitutable ex-per-ience. Relating oneself (ipse) to that which happens to one is here the condition of possibility for every transformation from oneself to oneself of the advenant in his singularity.”160 The temporal analysis of selfhood posits once more the a posteriori character of the advenant. The event sets up the advenant in an a priori manner, but this is structured a posteriori because of the temporal dimensions of ­experience. From this we can conclude that the advenant and its temporal dimensions of experience do not operate within a transcendental frame. Time is not considered to be something that is constituted in the horizon of the subject. On the contrary, it is understood as completely distinct from the subject, and any projections of the subject are deemed incapable of furnishing us with an understanding of the temporality opened by events. The newness of events necessitates a new framework for how we should think about the link between the event and its experience by the advenant. This section of the chapter sought to present Romano’s endeavour to understand time and temporality without any reference the subject, that is, in a non-transcendental way. I now wish to focus on his criticism of transcendentalism as a general problem of phenomenology and his alternative conceptualisation of this problem as it relates to subjectivity.

159 Romano, Event and Time, 192; L’événement et le temps, 247. 160 Romano, Event and Time, 196; L’événement et le temps, 252.

The Advenant

4.2

247

Transcendentalism and the Advenant

Overcoming the transcendental perspective, as was noted at the beginning of this chapter, is the preeminent theme of Romano’s entire project of phenomenology, and it provides, moreover, the main impetus for his conception of the advenant. The advenant does not determine any conditions of possibility for phenomena. Nor does the advenant have any ontological priority over the world. The world does not depend on the advenant. On the contrary, as explained in Chapter 2, Romano reaches a realist understanding of the world according to which the world exists independently of any subject. It would not be an exaggeration to say that thinking phenomenology outside the transcendental frame is at the centre of Romano’s thought. Whereas his books on the event do not conceptualise an alternative paradigm as such,161 but only establish a perspective beyond transcendentalism, we can find the conceptualisation of this new paradigm in lieu of the transcendental in At the Heart of Reason and subsequent works. This new paradigm is called the “holism of experience,” and it assumes an interplay between the world and human being.162 This new perspective in phenomenology paves the way for a realism according to which the existence of the world does not depend on the advenant. In what follows, I will first discuss Romano’s claims about the transcendentalism at work in Being and Time and will then explain the Husserlian 161 Romano, Event and Time, 152; L’événement et le temps, 197. Moreover Romano explains this relation between the event and the advenant in a “realistic” manner. This shows us that his realist understanding of phenomenology has its roots in his evential hermeneutics, even if he does not conceptualise it as such. This is evident in the following quotation: “More ‘exterior’ to the advenant than every fact in the world, and more ‘real’ than every empirical given, the event is thereby also the vehicle of a radical empiricism where no subjective instance set up in a transcendental position can harbour the condition of what, in this way, gives itself. Its givenness exceeds from the outset every ‘constitution’ (in the Husserlian sense) as well as every ontological understanding that would furnish the condition for its manifestness. But, at the same time, the event is never ‘purely exterior’; it is never objective as a fact in the world. The concept of ‘exterior event’ is actually a contradiction in adjecto. The event is never an objective fact that would, in addition, exert a causal efficacy on a subject distinct from it, but the way, in each case incomparable, in which the ‘encounter’ between a fact and a ‘subject’ takes place. Thus, the event causes nothing, and is not caused by anything: instead, it is of the order of meaning. It is more ‘exterior’ than every factual objectivity exactly insofar as it is also more ‘interior,’ conditioning for the advenant every ‘self-intimacy’ and every singularity. If the event, consequently, is indeed ‘real’ – and therefore we might say, the vehicle of a certain ‘realism’ – this reality is that of a meaning inseparable from its interpretation, where interpretation and phenomenon are one.” 162 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 355–402; Au cœur de la raison, 642–726.

248

CHAPTER 4

origin of this problem: the problem of scepticism. Returning to the origin of the problem will guide us towards an understanding of how Romano develops his non-transcendental approach to phenomenology, and how, as a result, his version of phenomenology achieves descriptive realism. 4.2.1 The Transcendentalism of Dasein As was noted in Chapter 2, Romano’s overall engagement with Heidegger is indicative of a complex and ambivalent relationship between the two thinkers. On the one hand, Romano adopts the hermeneutical structure of Being and Time and transforms some of Heidegger’s notions in order to develop his own account of evential hermeneutics. On the other hand, by emphasising how Heidegger’s fundamental ontology overlooks events, especially the event of birth, and also sharply criticising the priority of Dasein therein, Romano seeks to develop a new phenomenological inquiry for the proper experience of events. In a further break from Heidegger, Romano develops his own notion of the advenant, which is his term for the human individual capable of experiencing events and of being determined by events in a non-transcendental way. I think one of the primary aims of Romano’s critical engagement with Heidegger is to show that Heidegger is still attached to a version of transcendentalism in Being and Time. In light of my earlier comparative analysis of Dasein and the advenant, I can conclude that Romano’s intention in developing the advenant is to leave this transcendental perspective of Dasein behind.163 This association of Heidegger’s thought with transcendentalism is not the invention of Romano’s evential hermeneutics. In the retrospective account of Being and Time that Heidegger provides in his Nietzsche book, it seems that he was not pleased with the transcendentalism that characterised Being and Time, which he describes as adopting a “hermeneutical-transcendental” approach that “was not yet thought in terms of the history of being.”164 Moreover, Heidegger’s 163 Since I have discussed the meaning of the transcendental perspective in p ­ henomenology and its origin in Kant and Husserl already in Chapter 3, I will not repeat such an explanation here. Nevertheless, my account in Chapter 3 was mostly concerned with the ­Husserlian aspect of transcendental philosophy and not with Heidegger’s transcendentalism, which will be examined in this section. 164 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche II (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997), 415. “Die als ‘Metaphysik’ verlaufende Überlieferung der Wahrheit über das Seiende entfaltet sich zu einer sich selbst nicht mehr kennenden Anhäufung von Verdeckungen des anfänglichen Wesens des Seins. Darin liegt die Notwendigkeit der ‘Destruktion’ dieser Verdeckung begründet, sobald ein Denken der Wahrheit des Seins nötig geworden ist (vgl. ‘Sein und Zeit’), Aber diese Destruktion ist wie die ‘Phänomenologie’ und alles hermeneutischtranszendentale Fragen noch nicht seinsgeschichtlich gedacht.”

The Advenant

249

t­ ranscendental approach has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly interest by Heidegger specialists.165 This is not to suggest that Heidegger adopted a version of the transcendental ego that claims absolute primacy over the world in the manner of Husserl’s notion of epoché.166 Heidegger rejected the idea of constitution and developed a different way to conceptualise the relation between Dasein and the world into which it is thrown. Dasein is defined not as an a-cosmic subject but as being in the world.167 This means that Dasein discovers the meaning of the being of the world by having another mode of being than that of the rest of beings. Dasein exists as being-in-the-world, and this establishes its openness to the world as the ontological structure of its being.168 Heidegger assigns an “ontic-ontological priority” to Dasein, which means that Dasein has an understanding of being: “the way the world is understood is ontologically reflected back upon the interpretation of Dasein.”169 By doing so, Heidegger establishes a radical distance between the ego who is closed to itself, which is a solipsistic subject and Dasein who is by definition being-in-the-world, and thereby sustains an ontological openness to the world in which it exists. According to Romano, however, this break of Dasein from the substantial understanding of ego was insufficiently radical because it followed another version of transcendentalism: “There can be beings only for a Dasein inasmuch as Dasein is determined in its being by the understanding of Being. Thanks to its transcendence, being-in-the-world is the condition of possibility for the appearing of all beings. It is itself the ontological openness 165 See Steven Crowell, Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space of Meaning: Paths towards Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001). Daniel Dahlstrom, “Heidegger’s Transcendentalism,” Research in Phenomenology 35 (2005), 29–54. Steven Crowell and Jeff Malpas, ed., Transcendental Heidegger (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007). Eric S. Nelson, “Heidegger’s Failure to Overcome Transcendental Philosophy,” in Transcendental Inquiry: Its History, Methods and Critiques, ed. Halla Kim and Steven Hoeltzel (London: Palgrave Macmillan: 2016), 159–80. Chad Engelland, ­Heidegger’s Shadow: Kant, Husserl and the Transcendental Turn (London: Routledge, 2017). 166 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), 21; Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1973), 60. Husserl makes the following claim: “The epoché can also be said to be the radical and universal method by which I apprehend myself purely: as Ego, and with my own pure conscious life, in and by which the entire Objective world exists for me and is precisely as it is for me.” 167 I have already discussed this aspect of the advenant with reference to Dasein in the ­section entitled, “Dasein and the Advenant.” 168 Heidegger, Being and Time, 176; Sein und Zeit, 182. Heidegger claims that “[a]n understanding of being belongs to the ontological structure of Dasein. In existing, it is disclosed to itself in its being.” 169 Heidegger, Being and Time, 16; Sein und Zeit, 16.

250

CHAPTER 4

(Erschlossenheit) making possible all ontic discoveredness (Entdecktheit); it is itself ‘truth’ in the first and originary sense.”170 Dasein’s ontic-ontological priority grants it the sole authority for understanding being inasmuch as it understands itself. The openness stemming from Dasein’s being-in-the-world entails that truth depends on Dasein’s being the condition of possibility for the understanding of beings. In its mineness, Dasein becomes the ontological condition of appearing for all phenomena in the world. Heidegger states that “[w]orld is only, if, and as long as a Dasein exists.”171 Dasein’s understanding of being presents a kind of ontological version “idealism.” Since Dasein has onticontological priority and its understanding of being is a condition of possibility for beings and the world, Heidegger does not hesitate to make recourse to the notion of “idealism,” but he gives the term an ontological twist so as to justify the ontological transcendentalism of Dasein: “If the term idealism amounts to an understanding of the fact that being is never explicable beings, but is always already the ‘transcendental’ for every being, then the sole correct possibility of a philosophical problematic lies in idealism.”172 For Romano, this aspect of Heidegger’s analysis reduces the world to a transcendental moment of Dasein. The above citation from Being and Time highlights how Dasein’s being-in-theworld drifts away from realism and the reality of the external world by emphasising Dasein’s ontological idealism. Since being-in-the-world already assumes the existence of Dasein’s world, the sceptical challenge regarding the existence of an external world does not even need to be refuted by Heidegger.173 Heidegger considers the problem of scepticism concerning the reality of the external world to be meaningless because being-in-the-world lies behind any questioning about the reality of the external world.174 He argues that this problem is related to conceptions of the objective presence of things and that any access to innerworldly beings assumes their disclosedness to Dasein. This ontic problem concerning the reality of the external world is not seen to be a problem, because of Dasein’s ontological understanding. Heidegger states “[e]very access to such beings is ontologically based on the fundamental constitution of Dasein, on being-in-the-world.”175 Although Heidegger criticises the problem of the external world as a poorly understood and unreal philosophical problem, and also claims that scepticism is meaningless for Dasein, Romano argues that Heidegger does not expound 170 Romano, There is, 20. 171 Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 170; Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, 241. 172 Heideger, Being and Time, 200; Sein und Zeit, 208. 173 Heidegger, Being and Time, 219; Sein und Zeit, 229. 174 Heidegger, Being and Time, 195; Sein und Zeit, 202. 175 Heidegger, Being and Time, 195; Sein und Zeit, 202.

The Advenant

251

on his reasons, because “he continues to maintain some grounds that might suggest that the sceptic problem, after all, is well-posed.”176 These “grounds” is the transcendental approach of Being and Time. For him, Heidegger presupposes two worlds in his account of the reality of the external world. This reminds us of the very problem of transcendentalism and the consequence of assuming the derivation of the world from the natural attitude by reduction. As was discussed in the first section of Chapter 3, according to the transcendental approach in phenomenology, it is possible to distinguish two modes of the world. The first mode is the realistic account of the empirical world that is posited by the natural attitude. The second mode is established through the reduction, whereby the world is constituted by the transcendental ego and is not the same one that is given in the natural attitude. Although fundamental ontology does not follow such a transcendental approach and does not assume a transcendental ego, an analogy between them can be made by focusing on Dasein’s priority as an ontic-ontological condition.177 Romano claims that the world which belongs to Dasein’s ontological structure as being-in-the-world is not the actual or factual world in which Dasein really exists.178 In this sense, he comes to the conclusion that “anxiety remains analogous to epoché.”179 Since the world of being-in-the-world depends on Dasein’s understanding and comes from the transcendentalism of Dasein, scepticism is meaningless for this world. According to Romano, however, the same does not hold for the factual world that is the issue for the problem of scepticism. Romano discusses a passage from Heidegger in order to show how Heidegger distinguishes the ontological world, which belongs to Dasein, from the factual one, which implies the actuality of Dasein. Let us first turn to the original passage from Heidegger: If I say of Dasein that its basic constitution is being-in-the-world, I am then first of all asserting something that belongs to its essence, and I thereby disregard whether the being of such a nature factually exists or 176 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 98. This chapter of the book has been translated into ­English, see Claude Romano, “Challenging the Transcendental Position: the holism of experience,” Continental Philosophy Review 44 (2011), 7. 177 Heidegger, Being and Time, 12; Sein und Zeit, 13. 178 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 98; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 7–8. Romano states the following: “The world that belongs to the ontological constitution of Dasein as being-in-the-world is not, then, the ‘world’ (in a derivative sense) in which Dasein exists or does not exist de facto, no more than the facticity of that entity (Faktizität) is reducible to its factuality (Tatsächlichkeit), no more than its existence (Existenz), qua ontological determination, signifies its reality (Wirklichkeit) in such a ‘world’.” 179 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 99; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 8.

252

CHAPTER 4

not. In other words, the statement, “Dasein is, in its basic constitution, being-in-the-world,” is not an affirmation of its factual existence; I do not, by this statement, claim that my Dasein is in fact extant, nor am I saying of it that, in accord with its essence, it must in fact exist. Rather, I am saying: If Dasein in fact exists, then its existence has the structure of beingin-the-world, i.e., Dasein is, in its essence, being-in-the-world, whether or not it in fact exists.180 Romano understands this passage from Heidegger to be a consequence of his decision to position Dasein within the framework of transcendentalism. On the one hand, the factual existence of the world remains a sceptical problem, on the other hand, Dasein’s ontological understanding of the world is free from this problem. Romano articulates the issue in the following way: But then the world has sort of split into two, and the one about which the sceptical problem has no meaning is no longer the one the sceptic was aiming for through the expression of his doubt. The “subjective” world of the ontologically well-understood subject still remains a “configuration” (Bildung) of the latter [the world], as Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik will say.181 It is no coincidence that reduction, the transcendental procedure par excellence, can still play a role, however discreet and largely implicit, in the economics of fundamental ontology.182

180 Martin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. Michael Heim (­Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), 169. For the German text, see Martin Heidegger, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007), 217. 181 Romano here refers to one of the definitions of Dasein. Heidegger uses the notion of the subject for Dasein while also emphasising its different ontological sense from the egoic subject. This can be seen in the following quotation: “Being-true is unveiling, unveiling is a comportment of the ego, and therefore, it is said, being-true is something subjective. We reply, ‘subjective’ no doubt, but in the sense of the well-understood concept of the ‘subject,’ as existing Dasein, the Dasein as being in the world.” See Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 216; Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, 308. It is also worth mentioning here that Romano refers to Heidegger’s definition of Dasein as “weltbildend” in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. While he defines animals as “poor in world” (weltarm) throughout this book, he refers to “man” (Mensch) as “worldforming/configurator” (weltbildend). See Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. William McNeill (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995); Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt-Endlichkeit-Einsamkeit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983). 182 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 98–99; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 8.

The Advenant

253

Romano’s point is that a version of the bifurcation of the world into the subjective and objective still persists in Being and Time and that this split comes from the transcendental structure of Dasein. This is evident in Heidegger’s admission that “Dasein is, in its essence, being-in-the-world, whether or not it in fact exists.”183 Moreover, Romano suggests that the problem of the reality of the external world, that is, the sceptical problem, lies at the centre of transcendentalism in phenomenology. This claim relies on Husserl’s account of reduction, which Romano describes as “the transcendental method par excellence.”184 In the final analysis, transcendental phenomenology leads to the emergence of two worlds. Whereas one is secured by the transcendental subject, the other is the factual world. Even if fundamental ontology does not present such a strict two world view as the transcendental approach evinces elsewhere in phenomenology, one is forced to conclude that Dasein’s priority seems to lead to an analogous situation, one which has also been confirmed by Heidegger’s own statements. In this sense, what Romano seeks is a non-transcendental approach for phenomenology. Such an approach can consider the problem of scepticism as an ill-posed problem that underlies any idea of reduction and consequent splitting of the world. Overcoming this problem, thus, helps Romano to achieve a realistic understanding of the world. It is important to note that such achievements result from the non-transcendentalism of the advenant. 4.2.2 Reduction as the Sceptical Problem Let us recall what the method of reduction does and see how it is related to the problem of scepticism in transcendental phenomenology. The method of reduction as an achievement of Husserlian phenomenology lies at the basis of the transcendental subject.185 It can be defined as follows: “Phenomenology as transcendental idealism asserts that the world must be construed as constituted in transcendental consciousness. Transcendental consciousness (or subjectivity) is absolute to which every worldly entity is relative. The reduction is the method of leading back (from the Latin reducere) to this sphere of origin.”186 By reduction, the transcendental ego reaches a certainty of itself 183 Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 169; Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik, 217. 184 Claude Romano, “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné,” Annales de Philosophie (Beirut) 21, no. 1 (2000): 11. 185 In the section of Chapter 3 entitled “Aporias of the Subject”, I have explained the method of reduction in detail. 186 Sebastian Luft, “Husserl’s Method of Reduction,” in The Routledge Companion to ­Phenomenology, ed. Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard (London and New York: ­Routledge, 2012), 243.

254

CHAPTER 4

and its objects, which are constituted by the absolute subject. For Romano, the Cartesian starting point behind the method of reduction is evident in its goal of attaining an absolute sphere in the face of doubt about the existence of the world. Romano attempts to show that the doubt about the external world regulates the method of reduction because it always aims to reach the certainty of ego and its constituted world in reduction. He claims that scepticism about the external world comes from the inference as follows: “since one can doubt any perception, one can always doubt perception as a whole.”187 Husserl’s Cartesian motivation leads him to settle for the separation of two spheres. For Romano, the Cartesian separation of “a sphere of absolute certainty, that of the ego and its cogitationes, and a sphere subject to doubt, that of transcendent objects” is still at work in reduction, even if the method of reduction attempts, in part, to move away from such a framing.188 In this way, Husserl can be seen to reflect an understanding of pre-transcendental notions of immanence and transcendence in his account of the reduction.189 Thus, in reduction, the immanence of pure ego renders the world into a constituted object of the ego. What reduction maintains is the transcendental ego as the absolute sphere and the world as “the world as a noematic correlate, the horizon of its constituent operations.”190 Romano comes to argue that, as a result of reduction, the 187 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 93; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 5. 188 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 94; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 5. Romano’s claim that the Cartesian split of the world remains evident in Husserl’s approach even after his transcendental phenomenology is drawn from the work of Rudolf Boehm. In the article to which Romano refers, Boehm states the following: “Plus précisément, l’ambiguïté et les ambiguïtés des concepts husserliens d’immanence et de transcendance naîtront donc des faits suivants: d’une part, une transformation importante de l’idée d’une phénoménologie pure donnera lieu au besoin d’attribuer un sens nouveau à ces deux termes; d’autre part, un emploi parallèle de ces mêmes termes dans le sens traditionnel (d’immanence et de transcendance ‘réelles’) s’avérera indispensable et sera conservé.” See Rudolf Boehm, “Les ambiguïtés des concepts husserliens d’‘immanence’ et de ‘transcendance’,” Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger 149 (1959), 486. 189 For a detailed discussion of this argument, see Claude Romano, “Must Phenomenology Remain Cartesian?,” Continental Philosophy Review 45 (2012), 425–45. 190 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 95; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 5. Romano’s interpretation here rests on the perceived failure of the notion of intentionality, in spite of its attempts to go beyond representationalism. Husserl does not fully incorporate the Cartesian doubt into phenomenology, but he does set out with such a motivation. Husserl’s renovated notions of transcendence, immanence and reality still contain the traditional senses of these notions. On the same page, Romano explains this as follows: “Indeed, that entire conceptuality rests on the separation between a realm of absolute certainty – the ego and its cogitationes – and another one that is subject to doubt – the realm of transcendent objects. More precisely, despite the ‘breakthrough’ of intentionality beyond a philosophy of representation, Husserl continues to contrast the domain of

The Advenant

255

transcendentalism of phenomenology leads to three main results with regards to the relation between the ego and the world: 1. the epistemic primacy of the ego over the world. [Since the ego is] given to oneself in absolute evidence, the ego is the first knowable in law and the only knowable apodictically, while knowledge of the world remains forever subject to doubt. 2. This epistemic disparity of the ego and the world is extended into an ontic disparity: consciousness forms a sphere of autonomous being (selbständig), absolutely closed on itself, while the world only exists relatively to consciousness, its [the world] being is a dependent being.[ … ​] 3. The double primacy, epistemic and ontic, of the ego over the world leads to making subjectivity the place of primary truths absolutely free from doubt, offered to a transcendental philosophy, and preceding the truths only derived from other sciences. In other words, adherence to sceptical inference results in an epistemology of absolute foundations by virtue of which transcendental phenomenology is conceived as capable of providing a foundation for all sciences, whether they are a priori or empirical.191 These three points illustrate how the method of reduction shapes the hierarchical duality between the subject and the world. As the inevitable result of transcendentalism in phenomenology, the ego gains an epistemological and ontological primacy over the world in order for it not to doubt itself and its constituted world. This primacy means that the ego does not need to doubt itself, because it is self-evident, and, as a consequence, it is able to constitute the world. Moreover, Husserl’s dream of phenomenology as the foundation of the other sciences paves the way for the idea of the transcendental subject. The idea of the transcendental subject establishes an undoubtable and selfevident ground through which the knowledge of the other sciences is made possible. In this way, transcendental subjectivity always needs to presuppose absolute givenness (that is, the absolutely given, which he thinks of in the first phase of his thought as real immanence, before enlarging that immanence, at the time of his transcendental turn, to immanence in the intentional sense, which includes within it all the real transcendences) with the domain of real existences ad extra, the things of nature, the evidence of which remains forever ‘presumptive,’ that is, subject to sceptical doubt. [ … ​] Husserl continues to maintain that the external world can collapse into illusion at any moment, and that transcendental consciousness alone is exempt from doubt. But, through the transcendental turn, this consciousness from now on includes the world as a noematic correlative, as the horizon of its constitutive operations.” See also Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 25–26; Cartesianische Meditationen, 64–65. 191 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 95–96; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 6 (translation modified).

256

CHAPTER 4

the splitting of the world into the empirical world (naturalistic world) and the transcendental one. In Romano’s view, the transcendentalism of phenomenology can never liberate itself from this split and it remains bound to the problem of scepticism. As has been discussed above, even if Heidegger considers doubt about the external world to be meaningless, the transcendental structure of Dasein repeats in some way this duality by positing Dasein’s world as the ultimate horizon for beings. According to Romano, as long as phenomenology retains the Cartesian idea of doubt about the external world and the consequent transcendental framework, it will also assert, in some form or another, the absolute and superior position of the subject over the world. He proposes rejecting the very idea of scepticism and the inference upon which it relies, that is, its assumption that a transition from a local doubt to the general one regarding the world is justified. 4.2.3 The Advenant in the “Real” World Concerning the sceptical problem which lies behind any transcendental understanding of the subject, Romano focuses on Husserl’s conception of illusion and perception. The same inference is at work in Husserl’s idea of illusion, which presupposes that the mere possibility of any perception of an object being illusory warrants the idea that all perceptions can be illusory. Romano argues that this comes from Husserl’s understanding of the isolated and conjunctive view of perception according to which “one and the same experience could just as well be a perception as an illusion, depending on how it is coordinated with other experiences.”192 This view assumes that the adumbrations or silhouettes (Abschattungen) are common elements for an illusion and a perception in an object of lived experience, so that a lived experience can be both illusion and perception. They differ from each other “only by the way it [a lived experience] is coordinated with other lived experiences.”193 In the case of perception, silhouettes are concordant with each other, but for an illusion, they are in conflict. This conjunctive approach supposes that they can differ according to the coordination of the silhouettes. It means that the same lived experience can be both illusion and perception because “an illusion and a perception can be indiscernible on all points while they are being experienced.”194 From this perspective, one can say that an illusion is a false perception and a perception is a true illusion. As a result, in the moment of experiencing, one cannot discern an illusion from a perception or vice versa. As opposed 192 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 104; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 10. 193 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 104; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 11. 194 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 104; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 11.

The Advenant

257

to ­Husserl’s conjunctive view of perception,195 one can have recourse to a disjunctive approach that allows him to propose that perception and illusion cannot be thought according to the same modality of givenness and the same structure. For the disjunctive approach, an experience must be “either perception or illusion, but never both at once” because “there is nothing in common between the true apparition in person and the mere appearance, [ … ​] strictly speaking, there are no illusory perceptions.”196 In this sense, the disjunctive conception of the experience does not contrast perception with illusion but offers different frames for each kind of givenness. However, Romano argues that both conjunctive and disjunctive approaches share a common understanding of the perceptive experience: “our perceptive experience could be adequately described as made up of ‘building blocks’ that are always isolable in principle, and will be superimposed on one another and assembled in such as way as to form a totality.”197 Rather than understanding experience as made up of building blocks isolated from each other, Romano offers an holistic approach which assumes a common property between the whole and parts. In this regard, he wants to show that any idea of the illusory world has no sense. An experience cannot be doubted with respect to its openness onto the world because it always has to presuppose the world. His alternative paradigm of the holism of experience supposes that doubt about any particular perception cannot be the basis for doubt about perception as a whole, that is to say, about the world.198 Rather than adopting the isolated and conjunctive understanding of perception, there must be a structural cohesion between the part and the whole, between any given perception and 195 One should note here that Andrea Staiti rejects Romano’s claim that Husserl is committed to a conjunctive understanding of perception, see Andrea Staiti, “On Husserl’s Alleged Cartesianism and Conjunctivism: A Critical Reply to Claude Romano,” Husserl Studies 31, no. 2 (2015): 123–41. 196 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 104; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 11. 197 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 108; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 13. 198 Romano here refers to an experiment of Zucker’s that is used by Merleau-Ponty in The Phenomenology of Perception. This experiment investigates how a schizophrenic patient can easily discern his hallucination of a man from the imitation of same man in the real world. Merleau-Ponty comes to conclusion that an illusion and a perception cannot be thought according to the same mode of givenness. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 334. Romano follows Merleau-Ponty’s use of this experiment in order to show how an illusion and a perception have totally different modes of givenness, and that they cannot be thought within the same structure. He also claims that a phenomenology of illusions would need to employ different tools to investigate illusions. See Romano, “L’aventure temporelle, 105–6; Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 11–12.

258

CHAPTER 4

the world. This is because any perception must already presuppose the existence of the world: An experience is only an experience if it is integrated in a coherent way to the whole of experience – if it possesses cohesion with experience as a whole. Or to speak in terms of “perception”: An experience is only a perception if it is integrated into the whole of perception, so that an experience that fails to meet this criterion is not a deceptive perception – it is not a perception at all (but a hallucination, illusion, etc.). In short, it makes no sense to attribute to an isolated experience the property of being a perception (and therefore also the property of not being a perception), in the absence of its integration into the whole of perception. [ … ​] The property of being perceived is a property of the whole, that is, of the world, before being a property of its parts.199 In a holistic system of experience, the property of being a perception is a necessarily holistic property because the world is the milieu of the whole of experience. A perception must be in the world, and, thus, perception as the primary experience of things always opens onto the world itself. For the holism of ­experience, the whole of perception cannot be an object of doubt. An experience must always open to the world as such in the totality of experiences because perceiving the world in its structural cohesion necessitates a property that is shared between the parts and the whole they comprise, that is to say, the perception of the world as such. There can be no perception without an opening to the world as such. Romano notes that “only a world endowed with structural cohesiveness is perceived (and is by that very fact a world) and only a thing that is integrated into such a world can be perceived.”200 This dependency of experience on the world presents a new framework, one that differs from the transcendental one, which assumes the independent being of consciousness and a dependent being of the world. This realistic understanding of the world proposes a new relationship between the advenant and the world, to the extent that the world is not defined according to the transcendentalism of the subject. Rather than assuming two spheres of being, the holistic understanding of experience maintains a basic openness to the world which is not configured according to the subjective understanding. Romano expresses this relation with the notion of beingin-the-world, but he does so without appealing to the transcendentalism of 199 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 110; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 14. 200 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 110; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 14.

The Advenant

259

Dasein. In light of the holism of experience, the relational paradigm supposes a “co-belonging” of the “subject” with the world. The character of this cobelonging can be explained as a new kind of being in the world: this means being in the world both practically and bodily because the “subject” is in the world with his body and it is through his body that he has the capacity to perceive and experience the world. The capacity for perceiving the world is a practical ability. “Such ability is only given to a ‘subject’ that constitutively belongs to the world through its body and is situated and corporeally embedded in it.”201 Here, being in the world is not the result of Dasein’s transcendental understanding, but instead refers to “a structural characteristic of a system, the one [is] formed by a ‘subject’ endowed with practical capacities and the world.”202 The relational paradigm as a structural totality of possibilities forms a system with the advenant, who has practical capacities to access these possibilities. The embodied “advenant” in the world has the practical capacities to respond to the possibilities of the world, which are relationally meaningful to him. The world always has to “exist” for a perception without any mediation in a holistic structure.203 This account of the holism of experience inevitably leads Romano to develop a new approach to realism, which is called “descriptive realism.” Romano distinguishes this kind of realism from the metaphysical one that assumes a network of causal relations.204 However, the relation between us and the world cannot be reduced to a causal relation, because a causal realism assumes that “all causal relations are atomic.”205 Rather than an atomic relation, “our experimental relation to the world possesses a holistic constitution.”206 In the light of this relation, for descriptive realism, it is not possible to assume the systematic possibility of doubt about the external world. It instead enables phenomenology to consider the reality of the external world in a way that is not 201 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 113; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 16. 202 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 113; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 16. 203 Romano’s claim is criticised by Charles Larmore. He maintains that the phenomenological idea of “things themselves” is never clear and that Romano’s criticism of the causal relation does not present a sufficient account. See Charles Larmore, “Expérience et ouverture au monde: remarques sur la phénoménologie de Claude Romano,” in L’évènement et la raison: autour de Claude Romano, ed. Philippe Cabestan (Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016), 151–66. 204 For the detailed analysis of the difference between metaphysical realism and phenomenological realism, see Claude Romano, “Réalisme métaphysique et réalisme descriptif,” in Choses en soi: Métaphysique du réalisme, ed. Emmanuel Alloa and Élie During (Paris: PUF, 2018), 117–33. 205 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 112; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 15. 206 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 112, “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 15.

260

CHAPTER 4

dependent on consciousness. Furthermore, it does not understand the world in the conceptual manner that characterises the transcendental approach that posits conditions of possibility. Rather, the co-belonging of the world and the advenant that results from the relational paradigm means that they are like two sides of the same coin, thus experience and perception cannot be without the world, and the subject or advenant belongs to the world. Such an understanding of realism suggests a detachment from the transcendental view of subjectivity and its conception of the world. I wish to draw attention to the fact that Romano distinguishes his version of realism from other contemporary perspectives, such as “speculative realism.” Speculative realism is a philosophical movement named after a workshop that was held at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2007. Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, Graham Harman, and Quentin Meillassoux were speakers at the conference. The notion of speculative realism does not, however, mean entirely the same thing for each of these philosophers. Although they present different contemporary versions of realism and materialism, they are largely unanimous in their contention that “correlationism” is the common enemy to be overcome within their individual philosophical projects.207 Correlationism is the critical term they adopt for their radical attack on Kantian and post-Kantian philosophies, particularly phenomenology. The term refers to “the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. [ … ​] Consequently, it becomes possible to say that every philosophy which disavows naïve realism has become a variant of correlationism. [ … ​] Correlationism consists in disqualifying the claim that it is possible to consider the realms of subjectivity and objectivity independently of one another.”208 In this way, phenomenology is called “strong correlationism”209 because it does not even permit thought of the thing in itself, as opposed to the “weak correlationism” of Kant who supposes that the thing in itself can be thought. Moreover, in light of Meillassoux’s criticism of correlationism, Tom Sparrow in his The End of Phenomenology claims that phenomenology is methodologically anti-realist from the beginning. Although one can find realist moments in phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, Sparrow maintains that the methodology of phenomenology precludes the possibility

207 Graham Harman, Speculative Realism: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018), 3. 208 Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of the Contingency, trans. Ray Brassier (New York: Continuum, 2008), 5. 209 Ibid., 35–36.

The Advenant

261

of realism that is based on speculative thinking.210 According to Sparrow, this is because whatever phenomenologists call “realism” or “real” must always be given in lived experiences so that phenomenology cannot address reality without assuming its dependency on humans.211 My aim here is not to assess the merits of the phenomenological view vis-à-vis speculative realism,212 but to understand how Romano distinguishes his version of realism from the speculative one, particularly the realism of Meillassoux, which originates in materialism. Nevertheless, I argue that all versions of speculative realism share a common disquiet about the transcendentalism of phenomenology and that this, to some extent, lies behind their criticism of phenomenology as a correlationism that assumes the dependency of the world on human cognition.213 It should first be noted that the aim of Romano’s descriptive realism is not to reach the thing in itself or the absolute and that this is one of the main aims of Meillassoux’s project.214 Romano does not even aspire to set up a phenomenological realism as such, but is led to it by his holistic understanding of experience. Thus, he claims that “[d]escriptive realism is a consequence of the holistic approach to experience, and not the other way around.”215 As a result of thinking of experience as a relation between the advenant and the 210 Tom Sparrow, The End of Phenomenology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), 3. 211 Ibid., 12–13. 212 Some phenomenologists have strongly criticised the notion of correlationism because of its misconception of phenomenology, see Dan Zahavi, “The end of what? Phenomenology vs. speculative realism,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 24, no. 3 (2016): 289–309; Alexander Schnell, Was ist Phänomenologie? (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2019), 137–62. Van der Heiden also provides a close reading of Meillassoux and shows his resemblance to Heidegger in some respects, see Van der Heiden, Ontology after Ontotheology, 207–24. 213 It should also be noted that realism in phenomenology is not something new. Husserl’s Logical Investigations adopts a neutral position between realism and idealism. Moreover, some of the first-generation phenomenologists from the Göttingen Circle, such as Adolf Reinach, Edith Stein, Johannes Daubert, Theodor Conrad, Jean Hering, Max Scheler and Roman Ingarden, have realist views of phenomenology and are opposed to the transcendental-idealist turn Husserl effects with Ideas. On Husserl’s neutral position before Ideas, see Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Transcendental Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 51–76. On the realistic elements in Husserl’s Logical Investigation and the first-generation realist phenomenologists, see Claude Romano, Les repères éblouissants: Renouveler la phénoménologie (Paris: PUF, 2019), 10–11 and 108. See also Barry Smith, “Realistic Phenomenology,” in Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, ed. Lester Embree and others (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic ­Publishers, 1997), 586–90. 214 Meillassoux, After Finitude, 7. 215 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 112; “Challenging the Transcendental Position,” 15.

262

CHAPTER 4

world within a holistic frame, the world is recognised to have an existence independent from the human mind as the milieu of all experience. Although repudiating a subjective approach, Romano’s account of the co-belonging of the world and the advenant would no doubt fall under, in one way or another, Meillassoux’s concept of correlationism. The intention of Romano’s holism of experience is never that of a return to pre-critical thought. The break with speculative thinking about the idea of absolute is irrevocable, which Romano clearly indicates in his identification with the “Kantian” approach of rejecting any “absolutist” turn within metaphysics: This type of realism does not rely on any attempt to transcend the phenomenal order and to enter into relation with “the thing in itself”; it is only the result of a critical deconstruction of the representational theory of the mind, with all the dichotomies on which it relies. In this sense, I continue to tread a “Kantian” path of questioning the presuppositions of a dogmatic metaphysics and I refuse any “absolutist” turn of a metaphysics that would be freed from any limitations and that would pretend to tell us something in regard to the in-itself of things.216 Evential hermeneutics and the holism of experience track the finitude of human being without any appeal to the thing in itself or the absolute. In this sense, Romano’s approach can be labelled a version of correlationism, but only partially. It cannot be so completely, because descriptive realism does not follow any transcendental-idealistic conception of the world and the subject. The world in which the advenant exists is the one and only world. It is neither constituted by the transcendental ego nor disclosed by Dasein. This idea of the world is also expressed in the naïve understanding of the world, which remain meaningful to us in our practical capacities. Nevertheless, in Husserl’s reduction, the naïve understanding of the world is characteristic of the natural attitude and everydayness and this necessitates the use of the phenomenological epoché, which allows us to reach the realm of the transcendental ego through the suspension of the natural attitude. Consequently, the transcendental ego’s existential status and its world are taken to be self-evident and primary, contrary to the naturalistic or naïve world.217 In this sense, descriptive realism, on 216 Romano and Filiz, “Phenomenology with Big-Hearted Reason,” 188. 217 Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 21; Cartesianische Meditationen, 61. He explains it as follows: “Thus the being of the pure ego and his cogitationes, as a being that is prior in itself, is antecedent to the natural being of the world – the world of which I always speak, the one of which I can speak. Natural being is a realm whose existential status [Seinsgeltung]

The Advenant

263

the one hand, aims to dissolve the dualism of worlds that has arisen as a result of reduction. On the other hand, its conception of the world relies upon the pre-scientific world to which humans show a fundamental openness in their practical abilities. It is the world in which we are, we act, we love, and we suffer. Romano states the issue clearly: “Far from constituting the opposite of a pernicious ‘correlationism’ that would veil our access to the absolute, true realism consists, on the contrary, in drawing all the consequences from the fundamental correlation of the embodied spirit and the world, and in pushing them to their end so that the certainty of the world becomes indissociable from the existence of consciousness. It consists of a return to the naïve and unproblematic world that forms the cradle of our lives, beyond the great dichotomies that underlie classical realism and idealism.”218 This brings us to the second point that distinguishes descriptive realism from Meillassoux’s conception of realism. As discussed above, descriptive realism proposes a non-causal relationship between the world and the human being. This differs from the metaphysical understanding of scientific realism, which relies on a conceptualisation of causality. In an article entitled “The end of what? Phenomenology vs. speculative realism,” Dan Zahavi emphasises that Meillassoux’s understanding of realism relies on a form of scientific realism due to his account of ancestrality: “In After Finitude, Meillassoux seems to take it for granted that scientific realism is the only available option.”219 By ancestrality, Meillassoux refers to the existence of reality prior to the appearance of the human race, which is an argument that relies on scientific evidence. It means that before human thought, before the existence of the human being, the world existed.220 Romano’s account of realism, in this sense, radically differs from Meillassoux’s realism. This is because Romano proposes non-causal relations that stand outside the scientific or physical conception of reality

is secondary; it continually presupposes the realm of transcendental being. The fundamental phenomenological method of transcendental epoché, because it leads back to this realm, is called transcendental-phenomenological reduction.” 218 Romano, Les repères éblouissants, 143. 219 Zahavi, “The end of what? Phenomenology vs. speculative realism,” 302. Scientific realism is not only problematised in the context of Meillassoux’s thinking, but can generally be seen as a problem for analytical philosophers. In this context, Zahavi also argues that Meillassoux’s approach does not provide any detailed account of scientific realism, or at least does not offer us one that could not already be found in any textbook on the philosophy of science. For Meillassoux’s account of science and ancestrality, see Meillassoux, After Finitude, 17. 220 Meillassoux, After Finitude, 10.

264

CHAPTER 4

with his theory of the holism of experience.221 It does not rely on any representationalism but a perceptual openness to the world. Romano also calls his version of realism the “realism of the lifeworld,” and thereby challenges the transcendentalism of the notion of the lifeworld in Husserl.222 His goal is to understand the world in a non-transcendental framework, to avoid the splitting of the world in reduction, while, at the same time, attempting to do justice to Husserl’s basic conceptualisation of the lifeworld. The lifeworld refers to the pre-scientific and pre-theoretical understanding of the world.223 Romano interprets this notion for his project as follows: The Lebenswelt is this world-for-us as the familiar place of our lives, a world prior to the idealizations of science and autonomous with respect to them, a world presupposed by all scientific theory, which is unable to free itself entirely from it, a world escaping the distinction between the pure objectivity of the physical universe and the pure subjectivity of appearances understood as interfaces between the “facts” and us. The “enigma” [Rätsel] towards which the life-world beckons is precisely that of this interconnectedness necessary to all description of experience as such between a bodily subject that is always already in the world and a world that is always already open to this subject.224

221 Romano, Les repères éblouissants, 118–19. Romano’s arguments against the scientific realism do not only concern speculative realism. In fact, he more often refers to the analytical tradition than to speculative realism in his account: “Un grand nombre des réalismes qui occupent aujourd’hui le devant de la scène sont des réalismes naturalistes ou réductionnistes. Ils affirment que la réalité indépendante de l’esprit dont le réalisme affirme que nous pouvons la connaître est en fait la réalité définie dans les termes de la ‘science fondamentale’, la physique. Il en résulte que notre conscience du monde en tant qu’ordre phénoménal ne peut être une conscience de la réalité même-, elle ne peut être ‘en contact’ avec cette dernière que par l’entremise de processus causaux sous-jacents qui prennent place dans la nature. Or penser la perception en termes de relation causale, c’est postuler une dualité de principe entre la cause et l’effet, entre le stimulus et sa représentation, puisque deux événements doivent être distincts l’un de l’autre pour pouvoir entretenir une relation causale. Dans une telle conception, ce qui ‘est’ au sens fort, ce qui est réel au sens plein du terme, ce sont donc les systèmes de particules de la physique et leurs interactions causales avec le système nerveux (les stimuli).” 222 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, 504–26; Au cœur de la raison, 907–46. 223 Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 138. For the German text, see Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 141. 224 At the Heart of Reason, 525; Au cœur de la raison, 944.

The Advenant

265

The world of descriptive realism thus comes before any scientific approach or account of causal relations. Romano argues that the realism of the lifeworld presents a middle way between “absolutist (or metaphysical) realism and idealism.”225 In this sense, Meillassoux’s approach presupposes a strict contrast between his own realism and transcendental-idealist philosophies in order to emphasise the radicality of his thinking. Nevertheless, by upholding the Kantian spirit of anti-absolutism and the emphasis on human finitude, descriptive realism remains in the phenomenal realm. This is a world in which human beings exist as embodied beings. Romano invokes the following quotation from Wittgenstein: “A phenomenon isn’t a symptom of something else: it is the reality.”226 Romano invokes these words for his project phenomenological realism, which leaves the transcendentalism of phenomenology behind and arrives at an account of phenomenal reality that does not depend on thinking or mind. The term “correlationism” no doubt encompasses every version of phenomenology. Moreover, it must also be stated that phenomenology is not simply reducible to what Meillassoux understands by “correlationism” in his criticisms of Husserl and Heidegger. In this respect, Romano’s attempt to develop a phenomenological realism suggests more productive path than Meillassoux’s reading of phenomenology as correlationism in that it attempts to find a middle way. 4.3

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have focused on how Romano reconsiders the human being in his project of evential hermeneutics. His renovation of the phenomenality of the event entails a discussion of the role of the subject in the face of events. According to Romano, both the traditional conception of the subject, the transcendental subject, and Dasein distort the phenomenality of the event. They do not have any openness to the happening of events. In this sense, his notion the advenant seeks to fill the lacuna by providing a new model of the “subject,” one which is able to experience events in their proper phenomenality. In the name of the advenant, Romano presents a sharp criticism of transcendentalism. On the one hand, Romano attempts to repudiate Heidegger’s conception of Dasein by showing how Dasein has some problematic similarities to a transcendental account of the subject. On the other hand, Heidegger’s 225 Romano, Les repères éblouissants, 124. 226 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks, trans. Raymond Hargreaves and Roger White (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), 283.

266

CHAPTER 4

notion of Dasein remains crucial for the way Romano formulates his account of the advenant. Dasein functions as the starting point for the critique of the subject and subsequently serves as the point of departure for the development of the advenant as an alternative to the subject. In this chapter, I have also sought to reflect on this close relationship between Dasein and the advenant without reducing the advenant to a kind of renewal of Dasein. Romano’s attempt to think the advenant offers a unique approach to thinking about the human being in terms of the event, which has been disregarded not only by fundamental ontology but also throughout the history of philosophy. In seeking to understand the human being in the light of events, Romano has put the event of birth at the heart of his account of the advenant. The significance of birth also allows us to decentre the subject in order to focus on the event. The analysis of the advenant dislocates the position of priority maintained by the transcendental subject and Dasein, and locates the advenant in the world but not at its centre. The advenant does not have the status of being a condition of possibility for the world. Throughout his account of the advenant, Romano thus seeks to leave the model of transcendentalism behind. In its place, he suggests a new “relational” paradigm to describe the essential relationship between the advenant and the world. I think that the advenant achieves what Romano proposes. The advenant is neither a transcendental subject nor something that subordinates events to its subjective powers. The happening of events is not reliant on the advenant. Rather, the advenant’s capacity to be himself originates from the event. In the face of events, the advenant comes to the world, is in the world, and becomes himself. As cited at the beginning of the chapter, Romano defines the advenant in the following terms: “[A]n advenant ‘is’ nothing other than what comes to light, happens, or occurs from events; he ‘is’ simply the process of his own ‘subjectivation,’ a process that is continually on the way.”227 I have attempted to show how this process of “subjectivation” takes place by leaving behind transcendentalism and rejecting any kind of superiority or primacy over the world. To my mind, the advenant embodies a unique understanding of phenomenological “subjectivity” that is not articulable within the old framework of the notion of the subject, an understanding which was also promised, but never properly attained by Heidegger. To conclude the two chapters of this second part, I want to compare the ­conceptual achievements of the advenant and the adonné. Throughout this chapter, I have largely avoided direct comparisons of the adonné and the 227 Romano, Event and World, 55; L’événement et le monde, 76–77.

The Advenant

267

advenant despite their affinities in some respects.228 One could say that the main similarity between the adonné and the advenant is their “subjectivation” by the event. The adonné and the advenant receive themselves and become themselves by the event’s happening. Nevertheless, how this subjectivation takes place for the advenant and the adonné distinguishes them in some respects. A comparison of these two notions can help us to understand how and to what extent they succeed in overcoming the transcendental subject. As answers to the question, “Who comes after the subject?”, the adonné and the advenant each attempts to present a new philosophical understanding of the human being. This means that they belong within the sphere of what Blumenberg terms “phenomenological anthropology”229 and stand beyond Cartesian and transcendental frameworks. My inquiry into them seeks to understand the role of the event in their subjectivation. Within a philosophical tradition that emphasises the first-person perspective, that is to say, within phenomenology, it is a challenging task to put the subject after the event and decrease its autonomy. I have argued that the phenomenology of the event has sought to rise to this challenge by distinguishing the phenomenality of the event from earlier models of phenomenality and the adonné and advenant from previous models of subjectivity. Having done so, I can now discuss their main differences and relative achievements. First, as was explained in Chapter 1, Marion’s conception of the adonné relies on his account of givenness. While Marion treats givenness as an allencompassing horizon of phenomena, Romano does not make use of the concept of givenness at all. Indeed, Romano aims to detach the phenomenality of the event from the “phenomenological ‘syntax,’” wherein the characteristics of being and givenness make sense, in order to highlight the unique phenomenality of the event.230 This fundamental difference even determines their neologisms. The word adonné comes from the verb “donner”, that is to say, it is related to givenness (donation), whereas the word advenant is the present participle of the verb “advenir,” which means “to happen.” Moreover, their relation to hermeneutics can be understood in terms of this phenomenality of the event. The adonné is not primarily a hermeneutical subject, but one for whom the horizon of givenness has primacy and interpretation is of secondary importance. In contrast to this, the advenant understands phenomena within a hermeneutical horizon. The role of hermeneutics within these philosophies 228 Shane Mackinlay’s work makes such a comparison, see Shane Mackinlay, Interpreting Excess (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 47–54. 229 Blumenberg, Beschreibung des Menschen, 897. 230 Romano, There Is, xvii.

268

CHAPTER 4

does not only have a bearing on how they conceive the phenomenality of the event, but also on the alternative model of subjectivity that is understood to result from it. The advenant is defined by understanding events, which are the origin of meaning, and by understanding himself through events. In contrast to this, the adonné is described as receiving phenomena and receiving himself, and it is only subsequently that understanding and interpreting become an issue for the adonné.231 Thus, one can say that the advenant is a hermeneutical subject that experiences in an entirely hermeneutical horizon, but that the description of the adonné only attributes a secondary role to hermeneutics. Second, these neologisms are introduced in order to decentre the subject: human “subjectivity” is an effect of and response to the event, that is to say, it originates in the event. Their criticisms of Dasein shed light on Dasein’s centrality with respect to other beings, so that Marion even comes to claim that “the aporias of the ‘subject’ forever haunt Dasein.”232 Nevertheless, as discussed in Chapter 3, while Marion explicitly rejects the centrality of the subject, he does propose to locate the adonné there instead: “at the centre stands no ‘subject,’ but an adonné.”233 The aim of decentring the subject, then, only addresses the status of the subject but not the idea of subjectivity as such, which always has a privileged position. This means that the adonné can then function as the centre of phenomenality while claiming to overcome the aporias of the subject. Nevertheless, the advenant does not occupy such a privileged position. Although Romano wishes to treat evential hermeneutics as “a phenomenological hermeneutics of the advenant,”234 his overall endeavour displaces the privileged position of subjectivity in every possible form, including that of the advenant. As far as I can see, Romano does not explicitly or implicitly aim to have the advenant usurp the role of the ousted subject. His evential hermeneutics seeks to reverse the very centrality of subjectivity by instead privileging the event. As a result, the advenant does not have any privileged or central position. It always comes after the event, is made possible by the event, is temporalised by the event, acquires its being in the world in the wake of the event. I think that this difference between the adonné and the advenant is the most important 231 Since Marion does not renovate the role of hermeneutics for the adonné as he did for phenomenality in Negative Certainties, I presume that this hermeneutical shift has no relevance for the adonné. 232 Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 261. For the French text, see ­Jean-Luc Marion, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1998), 360. 233 Marion, Being Given, 322; Étant donné, 442. 234 Romano, Event and World, 20; L’événement et le monde, 33.

The Advenant

269

one in that it determines the outcomes of Marion’s and Romano’s respective projects on subjectivity. Third, one can trace this fundamental difference back to the role of the reduction in the phenomenologies of Marion and Romano. Whereas Marion insists that there cannot be any phenomenology without reduction, Romano proposes to totally abandon any idea of reduction in phenomenology.235 Although Marion thinks that a renovated understanding of reduction can serve to remove any conditions on the appearing of phenomena and to intensify givenness, the very idea of reduction seems to inherently privilege the status of transcendental subjectivity and to lead one to downgrade the world to a secondary position after the subject. Thus, Marion’s attachment to reduction – in his updated sense – forces him to define reduction according to the reception of givenness and the subject as a recipient analogous to a “screen” and a “filter.”236 Marion continues his above cited claim about the centrality of the adonné by describing its new position in the following way: “… [the adonné] whose function consists in receiving what is immeasurably given to him, and whose privilege is confined to the fact that he is himself received from what he receives.”237 Since the central status of the adonné results from its function of receiving and this function is performed in the reduction, one can conclude that Marion’s insistence on reduction paves the way for the privilege role of the adonné. Even though the adonné is not supposed to be understood as substance, Marion’s characterisation of the receptive capacities of the adonné, which result from the reduction, indicates that the adonné cannot altogether evade such an identification. What Marion said of Dasein would also seem to be true for the adonné: it is haunted by transcendental subjectivity. As was noted in Chapter 3, the issue of reduction is one of the unique moments where Romano directly addresses Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. For Romano, reduction is “the transcendental method par excellence.”238 If one appeals to the method of reduction in phenomenology, there cannot be any way out of transcendentalism. In order to perform the reduction, a transcendental account of the subject must be presupposed, which means that no understanding of the transcendental ego cannot be overcome by reduction. In developing his idea of the advenant without any reference to reduction, Romano can steer clear of

235 See section 3.2.4 of Chapter 3. 236 Marion, Being Given, 265; Étant donné, 365–66. 237 Marion, Being Given, 322; Étant donné, 442. 238 Claude Romano, “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné,” Annales de Philosophie (Beirut) 21, no. 1 (2000): 11.

270

CHAPTER 4

(any remnants of) transcendentalism. This difference places a strict demarcation line between the adonné and the advenant. Fourth, as a consequence of the role of reduction, one arrives at the question of the status of the world in these philosophies. Romano pays a great deal of attention to the issue of the world in his evential hermeneutics. In a way, he defines the relationship between the event and advenant on the basis of the problem of the world, and he even concludes by limiting his evential hermeneutics with respect to this problem at the end of Event and Time.239 Moreover, the subsequent works he has published since developing evential hermeneutics aim to reconsider this problem within a new paradigm in which he achieves a realistic understanding of the world.240 In contrast, Marion’s phenomenology of givenness does not provide us with any detailed account of the world, even if he does later return to this problem in Reprise du donné.241 I think that Marion’s insistence on the method of reduction moves the phenomenology of givenness away from a detailed discussion of the problem of the world and turns the adonné into a kind of worldless subject. Their accounts of temporality can be discussed in the same vein. Although the analyses of the adonné and the advenant share some points with regard to the temporalising role of the event and its irreducibility to presence, there is no discussion of the temporal modes of the adonné with regard to the experience of the event.242 By contrast, Romano puts the issue of time and temporality at the centre of evential hermeneutics. Under his new definition of the “metaphysics of time”, Romano provides a rich historical account of the problem of time and subjectivity. Moreover, in his explanation of the subjectivation of the advenant, temporality can be seen to play a decisive role in the detailed accounts he offers of the temporal modes of the advenant. In short, the issue of time and temporality makes a strict demarcation visible between the adonné and the advenant. Whereas for the former, we encounter a lack of discussion about the temporal modes of the experience of the event, in the latter we are provided with a rich attempt to rethink time and temporality in the light of the event. Finally, it is necessary to mention the emphasis on the notion of selfhood (Selbstheit in German, ipséité in French) in Romano’s account. Romano claims that this notion serves as an alternative to subjectivity that allows one to refer to the human being in a non-metaphysical way and define it as “a way of existing” 239 Romano, Event and Time, 236–9; L’événement et le temps, 303–7. 240 See Chapter 2.3.4 and 4.3.3. 241 Jean-Luc Marion, Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016), 99–146. Also for my discussion, see Chapter 3.4.2.2. 242 See 3.2.2.

The Advenant

271

without any appeal to a substantialist view. As discussed earlier, the notions of subject and subjectivity have historically privileged the substantialist view and Romano’s advenant aims to avoid such an understanding of human beings at all cost. Heidegger’s invention of the notion of selfhood guides Romano’s approach. Insofar as his theory of the event emphasises that the event puts selfhood into the play and thereby brings about a transformation of selfhood,243 his account of the advenant fundamentally relies on the concept of selfhood. The adonné, however, does not offer another conceptual framework through which to define itself. This difference addresses an important comparative point between the adonné and the advenant. Romano’s positing of the notion of selfhood aims to reconsider human being in the history of philosophy. With the aid of this notion, he proposes to shed new light on human beings in history without referring to notions of the subject and subjectivity.244 On the one hand, Romano’s account of the advenant aims to be as radical as possible with respect to the history of philosophy without engaging in dialogue with any figures from this history apart from Heidegger. Thus, it is not a coincidence that Romano appeals to an alternative conception for his account of the advenant. On the other hand, Marion’s phenomenology of givenness and his account of the adonné are more open to philosophical dialogue, he does not refrain from going back to other figures in order to define the adonné, and he even makes recourse to Romano’s account.245 In this respect, Marion can be understood as a historian of philosophy who does not intend to effect a radical rupture in the history of philosophy by introducing something completely new. One can even interpret his account of the centrality of the adonné to be related to his style of philosophy, insofar as it still assumes a central position for the subject and simply aims to change its content. Although Marion’s phenomenology of givenness has a more limited relation to hermeneutics than Romano’s project, his way of philosophising is much more in line with the practice of hermeneutics than evential hermeneutics. In sum, we face two different conceptions of “subjectivity”, two new ways of understanding how the human being is configured in the light of the event. This difference is evident notwithstanding the fact that Marion and Romano each wish to address largely similar problems regarding the metaphysics of the subject. Nevertheless, the alternatives they develop are significantly different 243 Romano, Event and World, 31; L’événement et le monde, 45. 244 Romano, Etre soi-meme. 245 Marion refers to Romano in his account of the event, and in a footnote he even calls the adonné the “advenu” in reference to the advenant, see Marion, Negative Certainties, 261 (fn. 68); Certitudes négatives, 294.

272

CHAPTER 4

and achieve different results. As far as I see, Marion’s account of the centrality of the adonné ultimately repeats the signature gesture of the subject. He cannot truly distance himself from the transcendentalism of the subject, although this is what he aimed to do. The adonné cannot make good its promissory note, but it nonetheless offers a rich and nuanced phenomenological anthropology. Romano’s theory of the advenant does seem to fulfil its original goals and to extend our understanding of ourselves in an entirely new way than had hitherto been afforded by the history of philosophy, namely, in the light of events. Blumenberg reframed the basic anthropological question – “What is man [the human]?” – as the basic question of phenomenological anthropology – “How is man [the human] possible?”246 It seems that Romano has provided an answer to this basic question of phenomenological anthropology in the guise of the advenant. It is hardly an exaggeration, then, to assert that the advenant affords us a way to genuinely think about subjectivity within a non-transcendental phenomenological framework. 246 Blumenberg, Beschreibung des Menschen, 535.

Conclusion The aim of this study was to secure answers to two questions: “What is the event?” and “Who experiences the event?” These questions led me to inquire into the phenomenology of the event in the work of two prominent contemporary thinkers. Due to the limits of a book, the scope of my questions could not include broader aspects of the event, which is one of the most significant themes and determinants of contemporary philosophy. Nevertheless, by only focusing on two philosophers, this study does not simply ignore the centrality of the event for contemporary philosophical discourse. Indeed, this narrower focus can help to provide us with a more detailed understanding of the field of questioning that is opened up by the notion of the event in contemporary philosophy. As this study has shown, Marion’s and Romano’s approaches offer profound ways of rethinking the event and identifying the most appropriate description of human being for phenomenology. Moreover, the focus on the phenomenon of the event brings about a transformation in phenomenology as such. This invites us to rethink some fundamental tenets of phenomenology. In light of this transformation, I want to conclude this study by showing how their accounts of the event and subjectivity also promise us a revised and renewed way of understanding reality and rationality. Before doing this, I wish to make some brief remarks about the general issues raised in the chapters of the book. This section serves to show how the phenomenology of the event gives rise to a rethinking of reality and rationality. 1

Some General Remarks about the Event in Phenomenology

Events happen in our lives. They befall us, sometimes they shock us, and often they put us in situations that we would have thought impossible prior to their occurrence. Every life, every adventure comes into existence through an event and is composed of events. Whenever one starts to speak about one’s past, it is inevitable to narrate it without remarking on events. Nevertheless, the history of philosophy has been inattentive to and unwilling to elaborate on events. It is no exaggeration to say that events have been largely overlooked by philosophical discourse, and one needs only recall its neglect of the event of birth, through which a human being comes into the world, to appreciate this. The silence about the event throughout the history of philosophy disturbs Romano and Marion and serves to motivate their accounts of the event. They

© Kadir Filiz, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004689541_009

274

Conclusion

both focus on the mode of appearing of the event in phenomenology.1 More precisely, their efforts aim to make phenomenology capable of understanding the phenomenality of the event. In this way, the logos of phenomenology – in the Husserlian and Heideggerian senses – excluded the phenomenality of the event, so the event was seen as external to phenomenology, remaining an “apeiron” (boundless) as Romano suggests.2 Likewise, Marion notes that events were viewed as failing to properly satisfy “the criterion of rationality” because this criterion was established in terms of the status of objects.3 Nevertheless, this does not mean that events are without reason or that they are irrational. It simply means that they do not happen in terms of the mode of objects, which has set the rules of rationality for phenomenology, but in terms of their own mode of phenomenality. In this respect, both philosophers distinguish the phenomenality of the event from the phenomenality of non-event-like phenomena. In the case of Marion, eventness is distinguished from objectness, whereas in Romano’s work, events are distinguished from innerworldly facts. Romano’s “innerworldly facts” resemble the object in Marion’s definition. Essentially, both object and fact are causally determined and can be constituted by a s­ ubject.4 For Romano, the notion of fact refers to the most general range of phenomenality including any happening or taking place. For instance, the s­ unrise is a 1 Romano also discusses the meta-ontological status of the event in the Stoics, see Claude Romano, Event and World, trans. Shane Mackinlay (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 5–10. For the French text, see Claude Romano, L’événement et le monde (Paris: PUF, 1998), 11–19. He also reads Aristotle’s account of the notion of “tukhe” as an indirect phenomenology of the event, see Claude Romano, There Is, trans. Michael B. Smith (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 3–25. 2 Claude Romano, L’aventure temporelle (Paris: PUF, 2010), 13. Regarding the “apeiron”, Romano reminds us of Husserl’s claim that phenomenology cannot recognise it, see Edmund ­Husserl, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” in Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, ed. and trans. Quentin Lauer (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 116; Edmund Husserl, Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921), ed. T. Nenon and H. R. Sepp (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 36. 3 Jean-Luc Marion, Negative Certainties, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015), 160. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes negatives (Paris: Éditions Grasset, 2010), 250. 4 In some instances, Romano discusses the relation between the object and the fact in regard to the event, for example, when he states that “an event [ … ​] unlike a fact can never be an ob-ject (understood etymologically as pure vis-a-vis Gegen-stand).” See Romano, Event and World, 31; L’événement et le monde, 46. At another point, he also contrasts the object and the event, saying that “in no way is an event an ob-ject in the sense of something ob-stant, standing before us as the vis-a-vis (Gegen-stand) of a ‘subject’.” See Romano, Event and World, 158; L’événement et le monde, 212.

Conclusion

275

fact that happens to everybody under the sun, but, unlike an event, it does not happen to any person in particular, so it is rather an impersonal event. In this respect, a fact can be an object and an innerworldly occurrence. For Marion, as discussed in Chapter 1, the definition of the object relies on Kant’s account of objects and its modification by Husserlian phenomenology.5 Furthermore, Marion claims that the definition of the object can be traced back to Aristotle, and that the border between the object and that which does not suit “the criteria of objectness can be formulated in different ways, depending on which era of metaphysics one privileges, but it always remains legible and identifiable.”6 Marion’s focus on Kant and Husserl regarding the definition of the object helps him to renovate the phenomenality of the event within the margins of phenomenology. For Marion, the definition of phenomenality in general thus relies on the rules of objectness, and the event cannot be considered according to these rules. In this respect, a common discomfort with the definition of the event in previous accounts of phenomenology is evident in the phenomenology of Marion and that of Romano. Although they each develop different notions through which to think the event and its accompanying subjectivity, they position and develop these notions against the background of similar modes of phenomenality (fact and object).7 The mode of phenomenality of the event also requires a reinterpretation of the form of subjectivity capable of experiencing events without distorting their unique way of happening. Because earlier accounts of the subject are shaped by the phenomenality of the object and the fact, they cannot understand the event in its happening and reduce its peculiar phenomenality to the range of objects and facts. In fact, the event determines how the “subject” becomes itself. The conditions of possibility thus do not come from the subject but from the event. In this way, the event becomes the source of “subjectivation.” The

5 See Chapter 1 (section 2.2). 6 Marion, Negative Certainties, 157; Certitudes negatives, 245. 7 It is important to note here that Steven DeLay outlines a similar approach with regard to the relation between Marion and Romano. DeLay argues that there are two different pathways apparent here, even if they sometimes follow parallel routes: “If Romano’s characterisation of the advenant is sometimes incorrectly seen as a straightforward continuation of Heidegger’s Dasein, it is equally true that Romano’s own analysis of the event is sometimes misleadingly seen simply as a development of Marion’s conception of the saturated phenomenon. Against this presentation of things that would only see Romano’s notion of the event as derivative of Marion’s, it might be more accurate to say that there are two different (but sometimes parallel) pathways.” See Steven DeLay, Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2019), 171 (fn. 2).

276

Conclusion

second part of the book extensively discussed this relation between the phenomenality of the event and the form of subjectivity appropriate to it. It is important to note that the question of the subject is an eminent issue for contemporary philosophy and phenomenology. I started the second part of this study with the question raised by Jean-Luc Nancy: “Who comes after the subject?” Furthermore, François-David Sebbah analyses French phenomenology in terms of this renewal and recovery of subjectivity, which goes hand in hand with determining the nature of phenomenology.8 In this respect, my inquiry into the character of the phenomenological subject in light of the event also serves to illuminate this particular transformation of phenomenology. Although in conventional philosophical language, the term “subject” is used to understand the agency of human beings, historically the term does not connotate such an innocent and general meaning. It carries with it much philosophical baggage from the history of metaphysics, wherein the subject is equated with ousia (substance) and hypokeimenon (underlying thing).9 This meaning of the notion reveals that mode of the subjectivity through which events are reduced to the rank of objects and facts. In this sense, Romano’s and Marion’s efforts to formulate new designations for the human being are meaningful in the context of the question, “Who comes after the subject?” They aim to reconfigure the phenomenological sense of subjectivity, or in another words, they want to transform the idea of the subject in light of the event and to propose new names that reflect their event-oriented model. Thus, the adonné and the advenant are, in a way, the consequence of their attempts to avoid using the term “subject.” Both philosophers can be seen to offer a desubjectivised understanding of the human being in the form of the new designations in place of the subject. In their new conceptions of the human being, the human is marked by a fundamental openness to the event. They both define human beings as beings who are open to the happening of the event, which means neither the adonné nor the advenant are indifferent to the occurrence of the event. This means that they are vulnerable and exposed to events. Since they become themselves through events and are transformed by further events, this process of receiving themselves supposes an openness to events. This is one of the fundamental characteristics of both the adonné and the advenant. This openness 8 François-David Sebbah, Testing the Limit: Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the Phenomenological Tradition, trans. Stephen Barker (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 131. 9 For a detailed discussion of the term, see Chapter 4. My use of the concept in this study does not ignore its conventional meaning; I have also highlighted its meaning as a historical concept. In this respect, this study has adopted two ways to make use of this notion with respect to Romano and Marion.

Conclusion

277

results from the idea that the subject in the traditional sense of the notion is incapable of experiencing events. The idea of substance thus does not allow the event to show itself, and thus events are reduced to mere accidents of the subject, to mere object and facts. In this respect, eventness transgresses any idea of the subjectivity. This can be seen in the way Marion defines the adonné as receiving itself in receiving phenomena. Such an understanding defies the split into transcendental and empirical ego that is necessitated by transcendental subjectivity, because the adonné comes to itself by way of its exposure to phenomena. Similarly, Romano’s account of the advenant provides a nontranscendental approach by putting the unconditional event at the centre. Both philosophers are focused on going beyond the idea of transcendental subjectivity in order to secure a proper understanding of the phenomenality of the event. 2

What Do the Event and Its “Subjectivities” Bring Forth?

Rethinking phenomenality and subjectivity in light of the event is decisive for determining the logos and “phenomenon” of phenomenology. I have argued that the broadened understanding of the phenomenality of the event and its accompanying replacement of the subject pave the way for the transformation of phenomenology. In this section of the conclusion, I want to make some general remarks about thinking the event in phenomenology. I argue that thinking the event in phenomenology not only enables phenomenology to describe the experience of events and develop new understandings of – so to speak – non-subjective “subjects”, but also leads to some radical conclusions. In this respect, I want to ask: “What do the event and its ‘subjectivities’ bring forth?” I have two possible answers to this question: a realist conception of phenomenality and a new way of phenomenological rationality. Rather than reaching a fixed conclusion here, I propose to point to these answers as open-ended issues. 2.1 A Realistic Conception of Phenomenality Realism has become a hot topic for philosophical discourse in the twentyfirst century. The new realisms that have emerged are mostly associated with the philosophical movement called “speculative realism,” which made the stringent criticism of phenomenology its point of departure.10 As mentioned in the previous chapter, although “speculative realism” does not have a 10

Graham Harman, Speculative Realism: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018), 3.

278

Conclusion

unitary philosophical agenda and presents different forms of materialism as well, their approach to phenomenology can be summarised under the term “correlationism.”11 The aim here is not to initiate a discussion between speculative realism and phenomenology,12 but rather to argue that the phenomenality of the event sets the scene for a kind of realistic understanding of phenomena – even if this “realism” does not meet the standards of “realism” set down by speculative realists. My point is that the event’s unique way of showing itself does not entail any transcendental frame in which its conditions are determined. The event takes place without any condition or a priori rule and without any subjective constitution, so that the theory of the phenomenality of the event gives all the initiative for its appearing to the phenomenon itself. These features of the event no doubt demote the subject to a secondary position, removing from the subject any claim to govern the self-showing of phenomena. I think that such an understanding of phenomenality brings forth a realistic conception of phenomena because the event happens to human beings independently of any subjective priority. Let us follow closely this claim in Marion and Romano. As discussed in previous chapters, Romano offers a phenomenological version of realism through his conception of the holism of experience. What Romano calls “descriptive realism” is not formulated as such in his books on the event, but emerges rather in his later At the Heart of Reason. Moreover, in his book L’aventure temporelle, which was published at almost the same time as At the Heart of R ­ eason, he connects evential hermeneutics with descriptive realism by discussing them under the same guiding question: “What can become of phenomenology once it abandons the transcendental perspective?”13 With this in mind, I want to argue that Romano’s account of the phenomenality of the event shares a certain realistic understanding of phenomena from the beginning. His later formulation of descriptive realism can be considered as a continuation 11

It is defined by Quentin Meillassoux as follows: “the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. [ … ]​ Consequently, it becomes possible to say that every philosophy which disavows naïve realism has become a variant of correlationism. [ … ]​ Correlationism consists in disqualifying the claim that it is possible to consider the realms of subjectivity and objectivity independently of one another.” See Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of the Contigency, trans. Ray Brassier (New York: Continuum, 2008), 5. 12 For a detailed discussion by important figures of both movements, see “New Realism and Phenomenology,” ed. Diego D’Angelo and Nikola Mirković, special issue, META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy (2014). 13 Romano, L’aventure temporelle, 7.

Conclusion

279

of evential hermeneutics even if he achieves such a realism by appealing to different philosophical arguments and styles than those deployed in evential hermeneutics. The idea that the event has a different kind of phenomenality than other kinds of phenomena bolsters this realist tendency. The event does not require any already established horizon of the subject or any conditions of possibility. It bursts forth independent of any subjective conditions, but it happens to the advenant.14 Moreover, a subject comes into the world through the event of birth. Before any kind of ontology, before the subject’s claim to priority over the world, the event chronologically and constitutionally comes first. It never becomes dependent on subjectivity. Although Marion does not directly formulate a kind of realism, we can find a realistic understanding of the phenomenality of the event in his work. At the beginning of Chapter 3, I discussed Marion’s emphasis on the self of the phenomenon. For him, the self-giving of the phenomenon is the origin of givenness, and there is no principle or origin besides the phenomenon itself.15 His focus on the self of the phenomenon attributes a radical feature to phenomena. Thus, one can say that, for Marion, a phenomenon is given on the basis of itself as itself from itself, nothing but itself. In his account of the self of the phenomenon, it should be remembered that Marion as a phenomenologist does not aim to awaken a kind of thing in itself in phenomenology. On this matter, I wish to briefly discuss one of his recent articles, which sheds light on his understanding of realism and the thing in detail.16 His article starts with the idea that realism concerns what a thing means: The thing in itself would rather constitute the nostalgia of modern philosophy, even more of postmodern philosophy. But the title and the formulation of “realism,” that one assigns to it too quickly, do not do it justice. Because the concept of “realism” does not recover what the ­crisis 14

15 16

In this regard, it can be said that the event assumes a kind of correlation between the subject and object. There is no need to accept that “correlation” is something inherently pejorative or treat it as a taboo that is to be avoided in phenomenology. It should instead be seen as something fundamental for phenomenology. Nevertheless, one can also claim that the novel understanding of the phenomenality of the event makes it less susceptible to the criticism of “correlationism” than speculative realism assumes, because the event defies transcendental-idealist claims about the subject. Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 20. For the French text, see ­Jean-Luc Marion, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1998), 33. Jean-Luc Marion, “Le réalisme réel: l’objet ou la chose,” in Choses en soi: Métaphysique du réalisme, ed. Emmanuel Alloa and Élie During (Paris: PUF, 2018), 79–100.

280

Conclusion

of the thing-in-itself has concealed decisively: it remains itself deeply indeterminate, inconstant and, to this very extent, carries the mark of the difficulty indicated by the question of the thing-in-itself, far from answering it. “Realism” should be considered, strictly speaking, as a question, not as an answer. For, obviously, realism depends on what res can mean, and on what differs from it.17 In this way, Marion avoids applying the concept of realism to his phenomenological project, but he does highlight how things differ from objects. He argues that metaphysics reduces every “thing” to the rank of objectness and that things must be thought of in a different way than objects. In this respect, he opposes eventness to objectness and argues that the self of phenomenon can only be manifested by eventness on the basis of givenness because of its irreducibility to objects.18 Marion comes to conclude that rather than the thing in itself, the self of the phenomenon is given in the mode of eventness. Thus, he does not reach a phenomenological realism as such, but he argues that the self of phenomenon – in some way a kind of realist tendency – is the central issue of givenness and that it can be understood as eventness. In sum, the phenomenality of the event frees phenomenality from all conditions, all a priori principles and subjectivities. The event needs neither reason nor subject in order to happen. Eventness requires that the phenomenon not be subjected to anything for its self-showing. This renovation of phenomenality by the event leads us to consider the phenomenon in a more realistic way, where the event comes first. It is a “real” encounter with reality, much more so than any speculative approach. The phenomenon’s right to show itself as itself from itself is sanctioned by the phenomenality of the event. It reminds us that we are not at the centre of phenomena or the source of all possibility. 2.2 A New Way of Phenomenological Rationality If one were to ask what the most complex and difficult task of philosophy is, then perhaps one of the first suggestions would concern the definition of “reason” or “rationality.” That which is called philosophy can be equated with reason, because philosophy is always at work within the borders of reason. Philosophy’s field of thinking comes basically from what philosophers define as rational. This all-encompassing term is at the heart of any philosophical 17 18

Marion, “Le réalisme réel: l’objet ou la chose,” 79. Ibid., 97–99.

Conclusion

281

activity. Any attempt to elaborate rationality poses the never-ending question of philosophy. One can say that to define reason is philosophy’s own act of reflecting on itself. It is a self-determining activity of philosophy through which it both draws its own limits and broadens its borders. In a way, it includes its own critique and reformulation at the same time. The critique of reason seeks to formulate another understanding of reason by drawing the border between what is rational and what is irrational. What the Greeks call “logos” means reason along with its other related meanings of language, discourse, word, being etc. At the same time it serves to restate the separation between the one who speaks the logos and the one who cannot, or who speaks sounded like “blah, blah” instead of logos, that is to say, the “barbarian.”19 The separation of what is inside and outside of logos is the very limits of philosophy where being rational is determined. While the definition of reason has been reshaped and reformulated by philosophers throughout history, reason is always prescribed by an emphasis upon the borders of rationality and what lies beyond, where thinking is suspended. The problem of reason is the very issue by which philosophy determines its own conditions of possibility. Any philosophical project can be seen as an attempt to redefine reason, regardless of whether or not it involves an explicit discussion about reason as such. In this way, phenomenology from the beginning has set out to reformulate a new understanding of reason. As Romano reminds us: What is at stake in phenomenology is not only the status of experience as such, nor the status of language and its meanings, but their problematic unity and, through it, the problem of reason itself. Phenomenology did not invent the idea of descriptive philosophy; it cannot be reduced to a new Cartesianism; it does not necessarily end up being a thought of Being; nor does it exhaust itself in a renewed characterization of the world, the subject, or experience. What it attempts to elaborate first and foremost is a new image of reason.20 19

20

Barbara Cassin, “More Than One Language,” e-flux Journal 80 (March 2017). See Barbara Cassin, Clara Auvray-Assayas, Frédérique Ildefonse, Jean Lallot, Sandra Laugier and Sophie Roesch, “Logos,” in Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, ed. ­Barbara Cassin, trans. Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 581–94. Claude Romano, At the Heart of Reason, trans. Michael B. Smith and Claude Romano (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2015), xii. For the French text, see Claude Romano, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), 13–14.

282

Conclusion

The question of reason is no doubt an issue not only for Husserl, as a founder of phenomenology, but also for later phenomenologists who attempt to pursue this question in their own discourses. Phenomenology as the logos of the phenomenon has always striven to grasp this logos of the phenomenon. It is the structure and “rules” of how phenomena appear and show themselves to the subject, and also of how the subject experiences phenomena. The determination of this structure and these rules always goes hand in hand with any phenomenological description, thus phenomenology is never bereft of methodological reflection on itself, is always regulating its borders, disclosing and enclosing what is rational. In this sense, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Husserl’s overall endeavor was to use phenomenology to present a new image of reason, which becomes particularly evident in his last works, where he attempts to rescue the “honor of rationality” at a time when the sciences, philosophy and politics were in crisis.21 In his conception of rationality, however, there was no unique place for the phenomenality of events. Rather than having their own unique phenomenality, events were considered under the phenomenality of the object. Husserl’s conception of reason thus excluded the phenomenality of the event, and it was considered to be outside of the logos of phenomena. In this way, the event as a “barbarian” of phenomenology does not fit the rules of phenomenality that have been drawn by Husserl. Of course, the barbarian-status of the event is not only the case with respect to phenomenology but with respect to much of the history of philosophy. As has been discussed in Chapters 1 and 3, Marion understands Husserl to have inherited the definition of the object from Kant, for whom it was a determinant of reason: “In both [theoretical and practical reason] the pure part, [is] the part in which reason determines its object wholly a priori.”22 These a priori rules govern objectness, that is to say, a phenomenon can only appear as an object under these conditions. Kant states that “reason is the faculty of the unity of the rules of understanding under principles. Thus it never applies directly to experience or to any object, but instead applies to the understanding, in order to give unity a priori through concepts to the understanding’s

21

22

Edmund Husserl, “The Vienna Lecture: Philosophy and the Crisis of European ­Humanity,” in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 289; Edmund Husserl, “Die Krisis des europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie,” in Die Krisis der europäischen ­Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 337. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 107. Bx.

Conclusion

283

manifold cognitions …”23 In this regard, for Kant, reason rules and determines objectness and is the faculty of the unity of the a priori rules of the understanding. Husserl’s idea of the constitution of phenomena reappropriates some aspects of the Kantian idea of synthesis under a priori rules of reason and transcendental phenomenology is a continuation of Kantian philosophy. In Crisis, when he defines his concept of the “transcendental” in comparison to Kant’s concept, Husserl states that “a transcendental philosophy is the more genuine … ​only when the philosopher has penetrated to a clear understanding of himself as the subjectivity functioning as primal source” and in such a manner, subjectivity becomes “the primal locus of all objective formations of sense and ontic validities, undertakes to understand the existing world as a structure of sense and validity.”24 Just as Husserl renews the sense of the transcendental in regard to Kant, so he differentiates his own understanding of reason from Kant’s by claiming that it is not a faculty: “Reason is not an accidental de facto faculty [Vermögen], not a title for possible accidental matters of fact, but rather a title for an all-embracing essentially necessary structural form belonging to all transcendental subjectivity.”25 Husserl sets up phenomenological reason on the basis of transcendental subjectivity.26 Rather than being a faculty, reason stems from the structural form of transcendental s­ ubjectivity. 23 Ibid., 389; A302, B359. 24 Husserl, The Crisis, 99; Die Krisis, 102. 25 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), 57; Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1973), 92. In German: “Vernunft ist kein zufälligfaktisches Vermögen, nicht ein Titel für mögliche zufällige Tatsachen, vielmehr für eine universale wesensmäßige Strukturform der transzendentalen Subjektivität überhaupt.” In the English text, “Vermögen” is translated as “ability.” I prefer to use “faculty” in accordance with the standard English translation of Kant’s terminology in CPR. 26 It should be noted that the problem of reason in Husserl has many layers regarding critique, teleology and its relation with history etc. For a detailed study on Husserl’s multilayered understanding of reason, see Andrea Cimino, “Husserl’s Project, Critique, and Idea of Reason,” Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 1, no 2 (2020), 183–217. Jacques Derrida also discusses the tension between reason and history according to Husserl in one of his very early texts, see Jacques Derrida, Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, trans. John P. Leavey, Jr (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 141–53. For other works on Husserl’s understanding of reason and rationality, see Daniel O. Dahlstroom, “Reason and Experience: The Project of a Phenomenology of Reason,” in Commentary on Husserl’s ‘Ideas I’, ed. Andrea Staiti (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2015), 273–86; Thomas Nenon, “Husserl’s Conception of Reason as Authenticity,” in “­Networks,” edited by Steven Crowell and Kelly Oliver, supplement, Philosophy Today 47, no. 1 (2003): 63–70; Danilo Manca, “Hegel and Husserl on the History of Reason,” in Hegel and ­Phenomenology, ed. Alfredo Ferrarin, Dermot Moran, Elisa Magrì and Danilo Manca (Cham: Springer, 2019), 45–60; Dominique Pradelle, “La doctrine phénoménologique de

284

Conclusion

As discussed in Chapter 3 (3.2.4), the transcendental reduction plays a crucial role in determining the structural forms of transcendental subjectivity. The question of reason in Husserl is thus related to the transcendental ­reduction because subjectivity assumes its transcendental function by means of the transcendental ­reduction.27 The constitution of the object is based on the structures of the transcendental reduction, which ensure the objective validity of an object. Husserl states that “any ‘Objective’ object, any object whatever (even an immanent one), points to a structure, within the transcendental ego, that is governed by a rule.”28 As a source of the objectivity of the object, the transcendental ego provides certainty of itself and its objects by performing the transcendental reduction. In this regard, it can be claimed that “the ­question of reason is essentially nestled within the transcendental problems of the object-constitution.”29 Since transcendental subjectivity and its constitution of the object is central to understanding Husserl’s phenomenological reason, the event’s phenomenality and its replacement of subjectivity by other conceptions of human being contradict the very idea of reason in Husserl. The event is not an object and so it is not constituted by a priori rules of objectness governed by reason. Nor does any version of transcendental subjectivity constitute it. The understanding of reason that is based on objectness and the transcendental ego does not view events as an issue of philosophical discourse because of their so-called irrationality and unreason. The desire to position events within the “rational” discourse of phenomenology is common to the philosophical projects of Marion and Romano. ­Nevertheless, the rationalisation of the event does not mean viewing the event through the lens of the previous understanding of rationality. It is rather a broadening of rationality that is at stake, one in which events are no longer considered as irrational or as a kind of apeiron. In this way, thinking about the event in phenomenology transforms the logos of the phenomenon, that is to say, phenomenological reason. This transformation achieves a more expansive understanding of rationality for phenomenology. We can follow how phenomenological rationality undergoes this transformation in the light of the phenomenality of the event in parallel, but different, ways in the work of Marion and Romano. la ­raison: rationalités sans faculté rationelle,” in Husserl. La science des phénomènes, ed. Laurent Perreau and Antoine Grandjean (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2012), 243–63. 27 Cimino, “Husserl’s Project, Critique, and Idea of Reason,” 197. 28 Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 53; Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, 90. 29 Cimino, “Husserl’s Project, Critique, and Idea of Reason,” 209.

Conclusion

285

Marion points out that “the enlargement of rationality depends first of all on the horizon that we assign to phenomenality, or rather that it assigns to itself.”30 Marion’s effort to consider the event outside the sphere of objectness entails changing the horizon of phenomenality to eventness. Moreover, Marion lays stress on the formation of metaphysical rationality, which is determined by two principles: the principle of identity and the principle of sufficient reason. Marion shoes how the event contrasts with these in the following statement: “The event contradicts the principle of identity because it differs from the state of affairs that preceded it. It contradicts the principle of sufficient reason because there is no conceivable reason that triggers it: The event is not foreseeable, it has no a priori, it is not repeatable, in contrast to the technical object, which in principle always is all of those things. It is also no longer measurable but immeasurable, incomprehensible, and irreducible to metaphysics in general as to its final form of nihilism.”31 Marion is here noting the consequence of the phenomenology of givenness, rather than outlining a project that solely aims to transform rationality. His attempt to consider the event in phenomenology by pointing out its unique phenomenality and showing how the adonné’s experience of it differs from the experience of an object gives rise to a broadened understanding of rationality. The event’s phenomenality is thus capable of excluding both of the metaphysical principles that dominate rationality. Since the self-showing of events suspends them, it does not need these principles in order to happen. The metaphysical conception of rationality cannot govern the phenomenality of the event, so in order to understand it, as this book has tried to do, we need to adopt a broader understanding of rationality that is guided by the event itself. In a parallel way, Romano’s elucidation of the event’s happening out of the horizon of the world aims to reveal that the event cannot be thought of within another kind of horizon or the former horizon of the world.32 The event opens 30 31

32

Marion, “Le réalisme réel: l’objet ou la chose,” 94. Jean-Luc Marion, The Rigor of Things: Conversations with Dan Arbib, trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 170. For the French text, see Jean-Luc Marion, La rigueur des choses (Paris: Flammarion, 2012), 272. One should note here that Marion’s ideas on the suspension of the principle of identity by the event needs more elaboration. He does not give a detailed account of this suspension. He mentions briefly it in an interview. One can claim that his understanding of the principle of identity as a metaphysical principle presents a partial aspect of this principle, and that it is related to the ontology of substance. It is possible to consider the role and function of this principle more than Marion’s explanation. It should be added that Marion argues that Heidegger’s conception of the horizon of being also delimits phenomenality. Romano’s criticism of Heidegger also stresses the need to abandon the question of being as an approach to thinking the event. While M ­ arion’s and

286

Conclusion

totally a new horizon of the world, thus no a priori principle can govern its phenomenality. For Romano, in contrast to the phenomenality of innerworldly facts, events have their unique way of happening. They distinguish themselves from facts, which are governed by prior modes of rationality. Moreover, as discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, Romano is keen to abandon the phenomenological reduction in his phenomenology because he thinks it is the transcendental method par excellence. The transcendentalism of phenomenology stems from the operation of phenomenological reduction. Romano indicates that the idea of reduction has a direct relation to the Cartesian starting point. The method of reduction seeks to secure an absolute sphere in the face of doubt in the existence of the world. Romano attempts to show that the doubt about the external world underpins the method of reduction because its constant aim is to achieve certainty about the ego and the world it constitutes. In this regard, it is worth recalling how Husserl points to the Cartesian project as the beginning of transcendental philosophy and emphasises its relation to phenomenological reason. In Crisis, he states: I myself use the word “transcendental” in the broadest sense for the original motif, [ … ]​ which through Descartes confers meaning upon all modern philosophies, the motif which, [ … ​] seeks to attain the genuine and pure form of its task and its systematic development. It is the motif of inquiring back into the ultimate source of all the formations of knowledge, the motif of the knower’s reflecting upon himself and his knowing life in which all the scientific structures that are valid for him occur purposefully [ … ​] The whole transcendental set of problems circles around the relation of this, my “I” – the “ego” – to what it is at first taken for granted to be – my soul – and, again, around the relation of this ego and my conscious life to the world of which I am conscious and whose true being I know through my own cognitive structures.33 Husserl’s aim to secure the certainty of the transcendental ego determines the function of the method of reduction. In this sense, Romano’s detailed account of Cartesian doubt and its role in the transcendental problem helps us to understand the foundation of phenomenological reduction and the Cartesian

Romano’s respective criticisms of Husserl are influenced by those of Heidegger in certain respects, they both also reject the horizon of being as a way to approach the question of the phenomenality of the event. 33 Husserl, The Crisis, 97–98; Die Krisis, 100–101.

Conclusion

287

presuppositions it inherits.34 Thus, his wish to abandon the phenomenological method of reduction also aims at transforming phenomenological rationality. Romano maintains that phenomena cannot be governed by the transcendental subject. Marion’s and Romano’s reconceptualisations of the human being under new names also furnish phenomenology with a new understanding of rationality. Whereas Husserl’s conception of reason relies on transcendental subjectivity, the adonné and the advenant do not conform to the criterion of transcendental subjectivity, so they reveal another version of reason. The rationality of experiencing and understanding the event cannot be the same as the rationality associated with transcendental subjectivity. Insofar as the event redetermines what is called a phenomenon and what the subject is (or who comes after the subject), it also puts phenomenology on a new path, with new rules of thinking that can now include what the previous understanding of reason had excluded. The revolutionary aspect of the event comes from the transformation of rationality. This renovated and broadened rationality does not rely on principles of transcendental subjectivity but comes from the world and the way phenomena appear therein. Finally, I would like to note that the rationality of the event could also be thought of as a continuation of what Husserl attempted to achieve in his final work, Crisis.35 As was seen in the earlier citation from Romano, from its beginning, phenomenology can be characterised as an attempt “to elaborate first and foremost [ … ​] a new image of reason.” Romano calls this “big-hearted 34 35

See Chapter 4 (section 2.2). Although it is not an issue for this study, it should be noted that Husserl’s account of reason in Crisis only concerns itself with European man. While he does not limit his account to Europe alone, he does stress that his primary concern is the highest version of reason belonging to Europe. This problematical approach is today called “Eurocentrism,” and it assumes the centrality of Europe and its priority and domination over the rest of the world. In this regard, even some of the ways Husserl refers to non-Europeans in this text can be read as “racist” in a spiritual sense. He states that non-Europeans lack this kind of European reason and that the only way for them to reach reason is through some process of Europeanisation. I think that Husserl’s account cannot be excused by the claim that he was a man of his time, nor can we simply assume the application of labels such as “Eurocentric” to figures like Husserl to be anachronistic. As I see it, Husserl’s Eurocentrism and ideas about “non-Europeans” cannot be accepted at all. Indeed, they can be read as the continuation of a colonising philosophical approach that has been adopted towards “non-Europeans” since Hegel. In this respect, Husserl’s account of reason and universality should be interrogated from a decolonial perspective in order to achieve a global and “deeuropeanised” understanding of phenomenology. It seems to me that the future of phenomenology requires not only the transformation of its concepts and methods but also the critical examination of its Eurocentric claims.

288

Conclusion

reason,”36 and he uses this term as a point of contrast to what Husserl called “narrow-hearted and bad rationality” (engherzige und schlechte Rationalität), which referred to the neo-Kantian conception of reason that overshadowed sensibility.37 What Husserl contested and considered as a crisis was such a manifestation of rationality governing the sciences. This form of rationality is “limited to logic, to mathematics, and to the methods at work in the empirical sciences.”38 The alternative form of reason is one broadened to “include its other, namely sensibility, experience, the prepredicative: a big-hearted reason that rehabilitates the sensible world as being necessary to its very existence.”39 This is the Husserlian impetus that animates the core of phenomenology. While Husserl’s effort was in one sense an abortive one, unfulfilled perhaps because it remained tied to transcendentalism, he did nevertheless provide a guiding map for phenomenology and set it apart from the other philosophical movements of the time. Of course, phenomenology as the logos of the sensible world does not have to be a transcendental form of philosophy in order to realise a big-hearted reason. As Romano reminds us, “it is to an enlarged reason that Husserl intends to lead us back, by bringing us back to the ‘things themselves’. It is this big-hearted reason, which situates the heart of reason in the relationship between thought and the sensible world.”40 The event thus makes it possible to conceive of such a relationship between thought and the sensible world without reducing the world to thought. It does so without appealing to any form of transcendentalism. It is the opening of the sensible world to us through a form of rationality that is proper to this world. To be opened to the event is to appropriate what happens to us in the light of nontranscendentalism. A phenomenology that is capable of doing justice to the experience of the event is a sign of big-hearted reason, thus, the capacity to account for events as phenomena is integral to an extended logos of a phenomenology with a big-hearted reason. 36 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, xiii; Au cœur de la raison, 14. 37 Husserl, The Crisis, 16; Die Krisis, 14. 38 Romano and Filiz, “Phenomenology with Big-Hearted Reason,” 189. 39 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, xiii; Au cœur de la raison, 14. 40 Romano, At the Heart of Reason, xiii; Au cœur de la raison, 15.

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Translated by Patricia Dailey. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005. Alvis, Jason. “Subject and Time: Jean-Luc Marion’s Alteration of Kantian Subjectivity.” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 14, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 25–37. Alwis, Jason W. Marion and Derrida on The Gift and Desire: Debating the Generosity of Things. Cham: Springer, 2016. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998. Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Arendt, Hannah. “On Violence.” In Crises of the Republic, 105–98. New York: Harcourt Brace Company, 1972. Aristoteles, Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Translated by David Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924. Backman, Jussi. “Transcendental Idealism and Strong Correlationism.” In Phenomenology and the Transcendental, edited by Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen, 276–94. New York: Routledge: 2014. Badiou, Alain. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. London: Continuum, 2007. Badiou, Alain. Logic of Worlds. Translated by Alberto Toscano. London: Continuum, 2009. Badiou, Alain. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism. Translated by Ray Brassier. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Balibar, Étienne, Barbara Cassin, and Alain de Libera. “Subject.” In Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, edited by Barbara Cassin. Translated by Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski, 1069–91. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Barash, Jeffrey Andrew. Collective Memory and the Historical Past. Chicago, IL and ­London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016. Barbaras, Renaud. “De L’Introduction à une phenomenologie de la vie a la Dynamique de la manifestation.” In Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, edited by Christian ­Sommer, 127–36. Paris: Hermann, 2014. Barbaras, Renaud. Dynamique de la manifestation. Paris: Vrin, 2013. Barbaras, Renaud. “The Event of Finitude.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 37, no. 1 (2016): 3–13. Barbaras, Renaud. “The Phenomenology of Life.” In Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett, 145–75. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016.

290

Bibliography

Barbaras, Renaud. “Reponses aux questions d’Etienne Bimbenet.” In Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, edited by Christian Sommer, 145–48. Paris: Hermann, 2014. Bennington, Geoffrey. Lyotard: Writing the Event. New York: Manchester University Press and Columbia University Press, 1988. Benoist, Jocelyn. L’idée de phénoménologie. Paris: Beauchesne, 2001. Benveniste, Emile. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. Bernet, Rudolf. Conscience et Existence, Paris: PUF, 2004. Bernet, Rudolf. “The phenomenological reduction: from natural life to philosophical thought.” Metodo 4, no. 2 (2016): 311–33. Bernet, Rudolf. “Subjectivity: From Husserl to his Followers (and Back Again).” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology, edited by Dan Zahavi, 492–510. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Blumenberg, Hans. Beschreibung des Menschen. Edited by Manfred Sommer. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2006. Blumenberg, Hans. Zu den Sachen und zurück. Edited by Manfred Sommer. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002. Boehm, Rudolf. “Les ambiguïtés des concepts husserliens d’‘immanence’ et de ‘transcendance’.” Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger 149 (1959): 481–526. Bonitz, Hermann. Index Aristotelicus. Berlin: Reimer, 1870. Reprint, Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1955. Capelle-Dumont, Philippe, ed. Philosophie de Jean-Luc Marion: Phénoménologie, ­théologie, métaphysique. Paris: Hermann, 2015. Capobianco, Richard. Engaging Heidegger. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2010. Capobianco, Richard. Heidegger’s Way of Being. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2014. Carr, David. The Paradox of the Subjectivity: The Self in the Transcendental Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Carraud, Vincent. L’invention du moi. Paris: PUF, 2010. Cassin, Barbara, Clara Auvray-Assayas, Frédérique Ildefonse, Jean Lallot, Sandra ­Laugier and Sophie Roesch. “Logos.” In Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, edited by Barbara Cassin. Translated by Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski, 581–595. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Cassin, Barbara. “More Than One Language,” e-flux Journal 80 (March 2017). https:// www.e-flux.com/journal/80/100018/more-than-one-language/. Cavallaro, Marco. “Ego-Splitting and the Transcendental Subject. Kant’s Original Insight and Husserl’s Reappraisal.” In The Subject(s) of Phenomenology, edited by Iulian Apostolescu, 107–131. Cham: Springer, 2020. Centre National de le Lexicales et Textuelles, “advenir.” Accessed April 29, 2021. https:// www.cnrtl.fr/definition/advenir/.

Bibliography

291

Centre National de le Lexicales et Textuelles, “événement.” Accessed April 29, 2021. https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/événement/. Cimino, Andrea. “Husserl’s Project, Critique, and Idea of Reason.” Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 1, no. 2 (2020): 183–217. Cimino, Antonio, and Cees Leijenhorst, “Phenomenology and Experience: A Brief Historico-Philosophical Introduction” in Phenomenology and Experience: New Perspective, edited by Antonio Cimino and Cees Leijenhorst, 1–12. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Courtine, Jean-François. “French Phenomenology in Historical Context.” in Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett, 24–39. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016. Crowell, Steven. Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space of Meaning: Paths Towards Transcendental Phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001. Crowell, Steven and Jeff Malpas, ed. Transcendental Heidegger. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007. Dahlstrom, Daniel O. “Heidegger’s Transcendentalism.” Research in Phenomenology 35 (2005): 29–54. Dahlstrom, Daniel O. “Reason and Experience: The Project of a Phenomenology of Reason.” In Commentary on Husserl’s ‘Ideas I’, edited by Andrea Staiti, 273–86. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2015. D’Angelo, Diego, and Nikola Mirković, eds. “New Realism and Phenomenology.” Special issue, META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy (2014). Dastur, Françoise Questions of Phenomenology. Translated by Robert Vallier. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017. Dastur, Françoise. La phénoménologie en questions. Paris: Vrin, 2004. Dastur, Françoise. “Phenomenology and Anthropology.” In “Recenterings of Continental Philosophy,” edited by Cynthia Willett and Leonard Lawlor. Supplement, Philosophy Today 54 (2010): 5–14. Dastur, Françoise. “Phenomenology of the Event: Waiting and Surprise.” Hypatia 15, no. 4 (2000): 178–89. Dastur, Françoise. “Pour une phénoménologie de l’événement: l’attente et la surprise.” Études phénoménologiques 25, no. 1 (1997): 59–75. Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. De Libera, Alain. L’invention du sujet moderne. Paris: Vrin, 2015. De Warren, Nicolas. Husserl and The Promise of Time: Subjectivity in Transcendental Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. DeLay, Steven. Phenomenology in France. New York: Routledge, 2019. Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense. Translated by Mark Lester and Charles Stivale. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

292

Bibliography

Derrida, Jacques. “A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event.” Critical Inquiry 33, no. 2 (2007): 441–61. Derrida, Jacques. Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry: An Introduction. Translated by John P. Leavey, Jr. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Derrida, Jacques, and Jean-Luc Marion. “On the Gift.” In God, Gift, Postmodernism, edited by John Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon, 54–78. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. Derrida, Jacques. Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Derrida, Jacques. Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Translated by Leonard Lawlor. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010. Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham. ­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Dika, Tarek R., and W. Chriss Hackett. “Introduction: Phenomenology and the Concept of Reason.” In Quiet Powers of the Possible Interviews in Contemporary French ­Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and W. Chriss Hackett, 1–25. New York: Fordham ­University Press, 2016. Dosse, François. Renaissance de l’événement: Un défi pour l’historien: entre sphinx et ­phénix. Paris: PUF, 2010. Engelland, Chad. Heidegger’s Shadow: Kant, Husserl and the Transcendental Turn. ­London: Routledge, 2017. Escudero, Jesús Adrián. “Existential (Existenzial) and Existentiell (Existenziell).” In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Mark Wrathall, 300–302. Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press, 2021. Falque, Emmanuel. The Loving Struggle: Phenomenological and Theological Debates. Translated by Bradley B. Onishi and Lucas McCracken. London and New York: ­Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. Falque, Emmanuel. The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection. Translated by George Hughes. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012. Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Fehlmann, Daniel. Measuring the World. Translated by Carol Brown Janeway. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006. Fehlmann, Daniel. Die Vermessung der Welt. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 2005. Filiz, Kadir. “Eine andere Beziehung – eine andere Offenbarung: Berührungspunkte zwischen Jean-Luc Marion und der islamischen Philosophie.” In Der Primat der Gegebenheit, edited by Michael Staudigl, 398–426. Freiburg and Munich: Karl Alber Verlag, 2020.

Bibliography

293

Flynn, Thomas R. “The Career of the Historical Event.” In Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason, Volume Two, A Poststructuralist Mapping of History, 48–80. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2005. Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Frank, Manfred, Gérard Raufet, and Willem van Reijen, eds. Die Frage nach dem ­Subjekt. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998. Frank, Manfred. “Subjekt, Person, Individuum.” In Individualität, edited by Manfred Frank and Anselm Haverkamp, 1–20. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1988. Frank, Manfred. Ansichten der Subjektivität. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012. Gabriel, Gottfried. “Solipsismus.” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, edited by J. Ritter and K. Gründer. Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 1995. DOI: 10.24894/HWPh.3931. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity, Subject and Person.” Continental Philosophy Review 33, no. 3 (2000): 275–87. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. Geniusas, Saulius. The Origin of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Springer, 2012. Gondek, Hans-Dieter, and László Tengelyi. Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011. Gondek, Hans-Dieter, László Tengelyi, and Tobias Nikolaus Klass, eds. Phänomenologie der Sinnereignisse. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2011. Greisch, Jean. “Ce que l’événement donne à penser.” Recherches de Science Religieuse 102, no. 1 (2014): 39–62. Greisch, Jean. “L’herméneutique dans la ‘phénoménologie comme telle’: Trois questions à propos de Réduction et Donation.” Revue de métaphysique et morale 96, no. 1 (1991): 43–63. Grondin, Jean. “In Any Event? Critical Remarks on the Recent Fascination with the Notion of Event.” In Being Shaken: Ontology and the Event, edited by Michael Marder and Santiago Zabala, 63–69. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Grondin, Jean. “L’herméneutique dans Sein und Zeit.” In Heidegger 1919–1929: De L’herméneutique de la facticité à la métaphysique du Dasein, edited by Jean François Courtine, 179–192. Paris: Vrin, 1996. Grondin, Jean. “The Hermeneutical Circle.” In The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics, edited by N. Keane and C. Lawn, 299–305. Oxford: Blackwell, 2016. Grondin, Jean. “La tension de la donation ultime et de la pensée herméneutique de l’application chez Jean-Luc Marion.” Dialogue 38, no. 3 (1999): 547–59. Gschwandtner, Christina M. Degrees of Givenness On Saturation in Jean-Luc Marion. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2014.

294

Bibliography

Gschwandtner, Christina M. “The Excess of the Gift in Jean-Luc Marion.” In Gift and Economy: Ethics, Hospitality and the Market, edited by Eric R. Severson, 20–32. ­Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Gschwandtner, Christina M. Reading Jean-Luc Marion: Exceeding Metaphysics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007. Gschwandtner, Christina M. “Turn to Excess: The Development of Phenomenology in Late Twentieth-Century French Thought.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology, edited by Dan Zahavi, 445–67. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Hagenbüchle, Roland. “Subjektivität: Eine historisch-systematische Hinführung.” In Geschichte und Vorgeschichte der modernen Subjektivität, edited by Reto Luzius Fetz, Roland Hagenbüchle, and Peter Schulz, 1–40. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2012. Harman, Graham. Speculative Realism: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2018. Hart, Kevin. “Introduction.” In The Essential Writings, edited by Kevin Hart, 1–40. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. Hart, Kevin, ed. Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion. Notre Dame, IN: ­University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward ­Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. Heidegger, Martin. Beiträge Zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). Frankfurt am Main: ­Vittorio Klostermann, 1989. Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event). Translated by Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012. Heidegger, Martin. Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt – Endlichkeit – Einsamkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983. Heidegger, Martin. Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Frankfurt Am Main: ­Vittorio Klostermann, 1989. Heidegger, Martin. Der Satz vom Grund. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997. Heidegger, Martin. Einführung in die Metaphysik. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio ­Klostermann, 1983. Heidegger, Martin. Holzwege. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977. Heidegger, Martin. History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena. Translated by ­Theodore Kisiel. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Bibliography

295

Heidegger, Martin. Identität und Differenz. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2006. Heidegger, Martin. Identity and Difference. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row Publishing, 1969. Heidegger, Martin. Introduction to Metaphysics. Translated by Gregory Fried and ­Richard Polt. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2000. Heidegger, Martin. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007. Heidegger, Martin. Nietzsche II. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997. Heidegger, Martin. Nietzsche, Vol. 4. Translated by Frank A. Capuzzi and edited by David Farrell Krell. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991. Heidegger, Martin. Off the Beaten Track. Translated and edited by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Heidegger, Martin. On the Way to Language. Translated by Peter D. Hertz. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1971. Heidegger, Martin. On Time and Being. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972. Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967. Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated by Albert ­Hoftstadter. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988. Heidegger, Martin. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Translated by William McNeill. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995. Heidegger, Martin. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Translated by Michael Heim. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992. Heidegger, Martin. The Principle of Reason. Translated by Reginald Lilly. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991. Heidegger, Martin. Unterwegs zu Sprache. Frankfurt am Main: Vittoria Klostermann, 1985. Heidegger, Martin. Zur Sache des Denkens. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007. Heinämaa, Sara, Mirja Hartimo, and Timo Miettinen. “Introduction: Methodological, Historical, and Conceptual Starting Points.” In Phenomenology and the ­Transcendental, edited by Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen, 1–18. New York: Routledge: 2014. Horner, Robyn. Jean-Luc Marion: A Theo-logical Introduction. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Horner, Robyn. Rethinking God as Gift. New York: Fordham University Press, 2001. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1960. Husserl, Edmund. Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921). Edited by T. Nenon and H. R. Sepp. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987.

296

Bibliography

Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations. Translated by Dorion Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982. Husserl, Edmund. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. The Hague: ­Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1973. Husserl, Edmund. Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Edited by Walter Biemel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973. Husserl, Edmund. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Edited by Walter Biemel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Translated by F. Kersten. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983. Husserl, Edmund. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. Edited by Karl Schuhmann. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. Husserl, Edmund. “Philosophy as Rigorous Science.” In Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, edited and translated by Quentin Lauer, 71–148. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Husserl, Edmund. Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the ­Confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Edited and translated by Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer. Dordrecht: Springer, 1997. Husserl, Edmund. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Translated by David Carr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970. Husserl, Edmund. The Idea of Phenomenology. Translated by Lee Hardy. Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic Publishing, 1990. Janicaud, Dominique. Phénoménologie et théologie de la phénoménologie française. Paris: Criterion, 1992. Janicaud, Dominique. Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’: The French Debate. Translated by Bernard G. Prusak. New York: Fordham University Press. Jay, Martin. Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a ­Universal Theme. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005. Jones, Tamsin. A Genealogy of Marion’s Philosophy of Religion: Apparent Darkness. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis, IN and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Alen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Translated by Gary Hatfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Bibliography

297

Kearney, Richard. The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001. Khurana, Thomas. “‘… besser, daß etwas geschieht’ Zum Ereignis bei Derrida.” In Ereignis auf Französisch: Von Bergson bis Deleuze, edited by Marc Rölli, 235–56. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004. Lewis, Charlaton T. and Charles Short. “ad.” A Latin Dictionary, 26–7. Oxford: C ­ larendon Press, 1958. Lewis, Charlaton T. and Charles Short. “ē-vĕnĭo.” A Latin Dictionary, 666–7. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. Lewis, Charlaton T. and Charles Short. “ex-pĕrĭor.” A Latin Dictionary, 693–4. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. Lewis, Charlaton T. and Charles Short. “vĕnĭo.” A Latin Dictionary, 1969. Oxford: ­Clarendon Press, 1958. Larmore, Charles. “Expérience et ouverture au monde: remarques sur la phénoménologie de Romano, Claude.” In L’évènement et la raison: autour de Claude Romano, edited by Philippe Cabestan, 151–66. Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Monadology. Translated, commented and edited by Nicholas Rescher. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Philosophical Essays. Translated by Roger Ariew and ­Daniel Garber. Indianapolis, IN, and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. The Philosophical Works of Leibniz. Edited and translated by George Martin Duncan. New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1908. Levinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2006. Levinas, Emmanuel. Unforeseen History. Translated by Nidra Poller. Urbana, IL: ­University of Illinois Press, 2004. Lorelle, Paola. “L’expérience traumatique: Emmanuel Levinas et Romano, Claude.” In L’évènement et la raison: Autour de Claude Romano, edited by Philippe Cabestan, 47–72. Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016. Luft, Sebastian. “From Being to Givenness and Back: Some Remarks on the Meaning of Transcendental Idealism in Kant and Husserl.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 15, no. 3 (2007): 367–94. Luft, Sebastian. “Husserl’s Method of Reduction.” in The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology, edited by Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard, 243–53. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Lyotard, Jean-François. Discourse, Figure. Translated by Antony Hudek and Mary Lydon. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

298

Bibliography

Mackinlay, Shane. “Alterity and Relationship in Recent French Phenomenology.” In Being Human: Groundwork for a Theological Anthropology for the 21st Century, edited by David G. Kirchhoffer, Robyn Horner, and Patrick Joseph McArdle, 123–39. Melbourne: Mosaic Press, 2013. Mackinlay, Shane. Interpreting Excess: Marion, Jean-Luc. Saturated Phenomena and Hermeneutics. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010. Mackinlay, Shane. “Phenomenality in the Middle: Marion, Romano, and the Hermeneutics of the Event.” In Givenness and God: Questions of Marion, Jean-Luc, edited by Ian Leask and Eoin Cassidy, 167–81. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005. Maldiney, Henri. Penser l’homme et la folie. Grenoble: Editions Jérôme Millon, 2007. Manca, Danilo. “Hegel and Husserl on the History of Reason,” In Hegel and Phenomenology, edited by Alfredo Ferrarin, Dermot Moran, Elisa Magrì and Danilo Manca, 45–60. Cham: Springer, 2019. Marcelo, Gonçalo. “Claude Romano et la critique de la raison.” In L’évènement et la raison: autour de Claude Romano, edited by Philippe Cabestan, 167–94. Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016. Marion, Jean-Luc. Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness. Translated by Jeffry L. Kosky. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Marion, Jean-Luc. Cartesian Questions: Method and Metaphysics. Translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Marion, Jean-Luc. Certitudes négatives. Paris: Grasset, 2010. Marion, Jean-Luc. Courbet ou la peinture à l’œil. Paris: Éditions Flammarion, 2014. Marion, Jean-Luc. De surcroît: Études sur les phénomènes. Paris: PUF, 2010. Marion, Jean-Luc. Dieu sans l’être: Hors-Texte. Paris: Communio/Fayard, 1982. Marion, Jean-Luc. Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation. Paris: PUF, 1998. Marion, Jean-Luc. Givenness and Revelation. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Marion, Jean-Luc. God without Being: Hors-Texte. Translated by Thomas A. Carlson. Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 1991. Marion, Jean-Luc. In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena. Translated by Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002. Marion, Jean-Luc. “L’Interloque.” In Who Comes After the Subject?, edited by Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor and Jean-Luc Nancy, 236–245. New York and London: ­Routledge, 1991. Marion, Jean-Luc. La rigueur des choses. Paris: Flammarion, 2012. Marion, Jean-Luc. “Le phénomène saturé.” In Phénoménologie et théologie, edited by Jean-François Courtine, 79–128. Paris: Criterion, 1992. Marion, Jean-Luc. “Le réalisme réel: l’objet ou la chose.” In Choses en soi: Métaphysique du réalisme, edited by Emmanuel Alloa and Élie During, 79–100. Paris: PUF, 2018.

Bibliography

299

Marion, Jean-Luc. Negative Certainties. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Marion, Jean-Luc. On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought. Translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Marion, Jean-Luc. “Quelques précisions sur la réduction, le donné, l’herméneutique et la donation.” In Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, edited by Christian Sommer, 215–34. Paris: Hermann, 2014. Marion, Jean-Luc. Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology. Translated by Thomas A. Carlson. Evanston, IL: Northwestern ­University Press, 1998. Marion, Jean-Luc. Reprise du donné. Paris: PUF, 2016. Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Banality of Saturation.” In The Visible and the Revealed. ­Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner, 119–44. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Marion, Jean-Luc. The Crossing of the Visible. Translated by James K. A. Smith. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Marion, Jean-Luc. The Erotic Phenomenon. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 2003. Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Phenomenology of Givenness.” In Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology, Tarek R. Dika and Chris W. Hackett, 40–64. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016. Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Phenomenon of Beauty.” Translated by Gerald Cipriani, Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology 5, no. 2 (2018): 85–97. Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Reduction and ‘The Fourth Principle.’” Analecta Hermeneutica 8, no. 1 (2016): 41–63. Marion, Jean-Luc. The Rigor of Things: Conversations with Dan Arbib. Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017. Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Saturated Phenomenon.” In Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’: The French Debate, edited by Dominique Janicaud and Jean-François Courtine, 176–216. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000. Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Saturated Phenomenon.” In The Visible and the Revealed. ­Translated by Thomas A. Carlson, 176–216. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Marion, Jean-Luc. The Visible and the Revealed. Translated by Christina M. ­Gschwandtner. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Marion, Jean-Luc. “Un moment français de la phénoménologie.” Rue Descartes 35, no. 1 (2002): 9–13. Marrati, Paola. Genesis and Trace: Derrida Reading Husserl and Heidegger. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.

300

Bibliography

Marx, Werner. Introduction to Aristotle’s Theory of Being as Being. Translated by Robert S. Schine. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1977. Mauss, Marcel. Essai sur le don. Paris: PUF, 1950. Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. ­Translated by W. D. Halls. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of the Contingency. Translated by Ray Brassier. London and New York: Continuum, 2008. Meillassoux, Quentin. “Decision and Undecidability of the Event in Being and Event I and II.” Translated by Alyosha Edlebi. Parrhesia 19, no. 1 (2014): 22–35. Meillassoux, Quentin. “History and Event in Alain Badiou.” Translated by Thomas Nail. Parrhesia 12, no. 1 (2011): 1–11. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Montaigne, Michael. Essais I. Paris: Gallimard, 1965. Moran, Dermot. Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2005. Moran, Dermot, and Joseph Cohen. The Husserl Dictionary. London and New York: Continuum, 2012. Moran, Dermot. “The Personal Self in the Phenomenological Tradition.” In Identity and Difference: Contemporary Debates on the Self, edited by Rafael Winkler, 3–35. ­London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Nancy, Jean-Luc. Being Singular Plural. Translated by Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. Nancy, Jean-Luc. “Introduction” in Who Comes After the Subject?, edited by Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor, and Jean-Luc Nancy, 1–8. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. Nelson, Eric S. “Heidegger’s Failure to Overcome Transcendental Philosophy.” In ­Transcendental Inquiry: Its History, Methods and Critiques, edited by Halla Kim and ­Steven Hoeltzel, 159–180. London: Palgrave Macmillan: 2016. Nenon, Thomas. “Husserl’s Conception of Reason as Authenticity.” In “Networks,” edited by Steven Crowell and Kelly Oliver. Supplement, Philosophy Today 47, no. 1 (2003), 63–70. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885–1887, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag & de Gruyter, 1999. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Writings from Late Notebooks. Translated by Kate Sturge. ­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. O’Bryne, Anne. Natality and Finitude. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010. Onions, C. T., G. W. S. Friedrichsen, and R. W. Burchfield, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Bibliography

301

Parker, Rodney. “Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism and the Problem of Solipsism.” PhD diss., The University of Western Ontario, 2013. Pirktina, Lasma. Das Ereignis: Heidegger, Martin. Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion. Munich: Karl Alber Verlag, 2019. Pradelle, Dominique. “La doctrine phénoménologique de la raison: rationalités sans faculté rationelle.” In Husserl. La science des phénomènes, edited by Laurent P ­ erreau and Antoine Grandjean, 243–63. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2012. Raffoul, François. Heidegger and the Subject. Translated by David Pettigrew and ­Gregory Recco. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1998. Raffoul, François. “The Incompletion of Being and Time and the Question of Subjectivity.” In Division III of Heidegger’s Being and Time: The Unanswered Question of Being, edited by Lee Braver, 249–55. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016. Raffoul, François. Thinking the Event. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2020. Ricœur, Paul. “Événement et sens.” Raisons pratiques 2, no. 1 (1991): 41–56. Ricœur, Paul. “Le retour de l’événement.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 104, no. 1 (1992): 29–35. Ricœur, Paul. Time and Narrative I. Translated by Kathleen Mclaughlin and David ­Pellauer. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press: 1984. Rölli, Marc, ed. Ereignis auf Französisch: Von Bergson bis Deleuze. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004. Romano, Claude. Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie. Paris: Gallimard, 2010. Romano, Claude. At the Heart of Reason. Translated by Claude Romano and Michael B. Smith. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2014. Romano, Claude. “Challenging the Transcendental Position: The Holism of Experience.” Continental Philosophy Review 44 (2011): 1–21. Romano, Claude. Être soi-même: Une autre histoire de la philosophie. Paris: Gallimard, 2019. Romano, Claude. Event and Time. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014. Romano, Claude. Event and World. Translated by Shane Mackinlay. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009. Romano, Claude. “From Event to Selfhood: An Intellectual Journey.” Academia. Accessed April 1, 2021. https://www.academia.edu/41990694/From_Event_to_­Selfhood_an _Intellectual_Journey_1. Romano, Claude. L’aventure temporelle. Paris: PUF, 2012. Romano, Claude. L’événement et le monde. Paris: PUF, 1999. Romano, Claude. L’événement et le monde. Paris: PUF, 2020. Romano, Claude. L’événement et le temps. Paris: PUF, 1999. Romano, Claude. “L’énigme du ‘Selbst’ dans l’ontologie fondamentale heideggérienne.” Studia Phaenomenologica 17, no. 1 (2017): 329–54.

302

Bibliography

Romano, Claude. “L’ipséité et non le moi: promesses et potentialités d’un concept.” Phänomenologische Forschungen, no. 1 (2019): 135–56. Romano, Claude. “Le Don, La Donation et Le Paradoxe.” In Philosophie de Jean-Luc ­Marion: Phénoménologie, théologie, métaphysique, edited by Philippe CapelleDumont, 11–30. Paris: Hermann, 2015. Romano, Claude. “Le possible et l’évènement.” Philosophie 40 (December 1993) and Philosophie 41 (March 1994): 68–95 and 60–86. Romano, Claude. Les repères éblouissants: Renouveler la phénoménologie. Paris: PUF, 2019. Romano, Claude. “Love in Its Concept: Jean-Luc Marion’s The Erotic Phenomenon.” In Counter Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion, edited by Kevin Hart, 319–38. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Romano, Claude. “Must Phenomenology Remain Cartesian?” Continental Philosophy Review 45, no. 1 (2012): 425–45. Romano, Claude. “Réalisme métaphysique et réalisme descriptif.” In Choses en soi: Métaphysique du réalisme, edited by Emmanuel Alloa and Élie During, 117–33. Paris: PUF, 2018. Romano, Claude. “Remarques sur la méthode phénoménologique dans Étant donné de Marion, Jean-Luc.” Annales de philosophie (Beirut) 21, no. 1 (2000): 6–14. Romano, Claude. “Sujet, subjectivité” in Dictionnaire des Notions. Paris: Encyclopaedia Universalis, 2005. Romano, Claude. There is: The Event and the Finitude of Appearing. Translated by Michael B. Smith. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016. Romano, Claude, and Kadir Filiz. “Phenomenology with Big-Hearted Reason: A ­Conversation with Claude Romano.” Translated by Christina M. Gschwandtner. ­Philosophy Today 65, no. 1 (2021): 183–200. Schnell, Alexander. Was ist Phänomenologie?. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2019. Schrijvers, Joeri. Ontotheological Turnings? The Decentering of the Modern Subject in Recent French Phenomenology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012. Sebbah, François-David. Testing the Limit: Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the Phenomenological Tradition. Translated by Stephen Barker. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012. Serban, Claudia. “La méthode phénoménologique, entre réduction et herméneutique.” Les Études philosophiques 100, no. 1 (2012): 81–100. Serban, Claudia. “La ‘nouvelle phenomenologie en France’ et les événements de sens (Sinnereigmisse): Un prolongement de la lecture de László Tengelyi.” In L’événement et la raison: Autour de Claude Romano, edited by Philippe Cabestan, 31–46. Paris: Le Cercle Herméneutique, 2016.

Bibliography

303

Serban, Claudia. “Marion als Leser Kants.” In Jean-Luc Marion. Studien zum Werk, edited by Gerl-Falkovitz and Hanna-Barbara, 199–215. Dresden: Text & Dialog, 2013. Simmons, J. Aaron, and Bruce Ellis Benson. The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction, London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Slaby, Jan. “Ontic.” In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Mark Wrathall, 542–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Slomkowski, Paul. Aristotle’s Topics. Leiden, New York and Köln: Brill, 1997. Smith, Barry. “Realistic Phenomenology.” In Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, edited by Lester Embree and others, 586–90. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. Sommer, Christian. “Le sujet sans subjectivité. Après le ‘tournant théologique’ de la phénoménologie française.” Revue germanique internationale 13, no. 1 (2011): 149–62. Sommer, Christian. “Transformations de la phénoménologie.” In Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, edited by Christian Sommer, 7–21. Paris: Hermann, 2014. Sparrow, Tom. The End of Phenomenology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. Staiti, Andrea. “Event and Time.” In Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2014.05.31. URL https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/event-and-time/. Staiti, Andrea. “On Husserl’s Alleged Cartesianism and Conjunctivism: A Critical Reply to Claude Romano.” Husserl Studies 31, no. 2 (2015): 123–41. Staudigl, Michael, and Jürgen Trinks, ed. Ereignis und Affektivität: Zur Phänomenologie sich bildenden Sinnes. Wien: Truia+Kant, 2007. Steinbock, Anthony J. “From Phenomenological Immortality to Natality.” In Rethinking Facticity, edited by François Raffoul and Eric Sean Nelson, 25–40. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008. Steinbock, Anthony. “The Poor Phenomenon: Marion and the Problem of Givenness.” In Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology, edited by Bruce Benson and Norman Wirzba, 120–34. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010. Stevenson, Angus, ed. “anamorphosis.” Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Şan, Emre. “La réhabilitation de la rationalité phénoménologique du monde : Jean-Luc Marion et Renaud Barbaras.” In Considérations phénoménologiques sur le monde, edited by Jean Leclercq and Paula Lorelle, 103–15. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2020. Taminiaux, Jacques. Heidegger and the Project of the Fundamental Ontology. Translated and edited by Michael Gendre. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991. Tarditi, Claudio. “Notes pour une phénoménologie de la naissance: En dialogue avec Romano, Claude.” Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française 21, no. 2 (2013): 68–71. Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

304

Bibliography

Tengelyi, László. “Le rôle de l’histoire de la philosophie dans la constitution de la nouvelle phénoménologie en France.” In Nouvelle phénoménologie en France, edited by Christian Sommer, 35–42. Paris: Hermann, 2014. Tengelyi, László, and Hans-Dieter Gondek. Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011. Terzi, Roberto. “L’Événement et le (Non-)Phénomène: Marion/Derrida.” Phenomenon 26, no. 1 (2017): 155–83. Vallée, Marc-Antoine. “Par-delà le principe de raison: la phénoménologie de l’événement chez Jean-Luc Marion et Claude Romano.” In L’événement et la raison: Autour de Claude Romano, edited by Philippe Cabestan, 17–30. Paris: Le Cercle ­Herméneutique, 2016. Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014. Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. “Poverty and Promise: Towards a Primordial Hermeneutical Experience.” In Phenomenology and Experience: New Perspective, edited by Antonio Cimino and Cees Leijenhorst, 63–80. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019. Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019. Vinolo, Stéphane. “L’apostrophe de l’événement: Romano à la lumière de Badiou et Marion.” Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 21, no. 2 (2013): 51–67. Viri, Federico. “Essai d’une cartographie de la notion d’‘événement’ dans la ­phénoménologie française contemporaine.” Methodos: savoirs et texte [Online] 17, no. 1 (2017): e4776. https://doi.org/10.4000/methodos.4776. Virilio, Paul. A Landscape of Events. Translated by Julie Rose. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000. White, Hayden. “The Historical Event.” Differences: A Journal of Critical Feminist Studies 19, no. 2 (2008): 9–34. Winkler, Rafael. Philosophy of Finitude: Heidegger, Levinas and Nietzsche. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Remarks. Translated by Raymond Hargreaves and Roger White. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975. Zabala, Santiago. “Being at Large: The Only Emergency Is the Lack of Events.” In Being Shaken: Ontology and the Event, edited by Michael Marder and Santiago Zabala, 77–84. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Zahavi, Dan. Husserl’s Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Transcendental ­Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Zahavi, Dan. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Zahavi, Dan. Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective. ­Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005.

Bibliography

305

Zahavi, Dan. “The end of what? Phenomenology vs. speculative realism.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 24, no. 3 (2016): 289–309. Zarader, Marlène. “The Event – between Phenomenology and History.” In The Past’s Presence: Essays on the Historicity of Philosophical Thinking, edited by Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback, and Hans Ruin, 25–54. Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2005. Žižek, Slavoj. Event: A Philosophical Journey through a Concept. New York, NY and ­London: Melville House Publishing, 2014.

Index adaequatio 54–57 adumbrations 256 Agamben, Giorgio 2, 10 ancestrality 263 Anscombe, Elizabeth 135 anthropology 156, 157, 210, 267 anxiety 39, 99, 173, 225 apeiron 274, 284 aposteriority 132, 133, 154, 170, 202 apperception 70, 165–66 a priori rules 56, 81, 282, 284 Arendt, Hannah 2, 104, 213 Aristotle 127, 275 Badiou, Alain 2, 3, 10, 11, 146 Barbaras, Renaud 3, 14, 15, 289, 290, 303 barbarian 281 being-in-the-world 89–91, 99, 135, 171–173, 216, 218, 219, 225–227, 249–258 beingness 36, 39 being-with 108 big-hearted reason 288 birth 89, 133–136, 212–220, 226–228, 236–239 Blumenberg, Hans 157, 210, 272 Boethius 207 categories 58, 71 causality 66, 72, 111, 114, 128 co-belonging 118, 259, 260, 262 collective event 77, 107–110 conjunctive 257 correlation 279 correlationism 260, 261, 278 counter-experience 46, 62, 76 Dastur, Françoise 2, 13, 157 Deleuze, Gilles 2 Derrida, Jacques 2, 10, 11, 38, 41, 49, 146, 184, 283 descriptive realism 119, 120, 149, 248, 259, 261–263, 265, 278 disjunctive 257 distanciation 130

egoity 230 empeiríā 126, 127 empirical me 168, 169 empiricism 120, 128, 186, 247 epoché 162, 163, 249, 251, 262, 263 Erfahrung 126 es gibt 40, 41, 182 eurocentrism 287 eventness (événementialité) 26, 29, 67, 69, 77, 81, 200 facticity 131 Falque, Emmanuel 216, 224 Faulkner, William 108 Foucault, Michel 2, 206, 229, 293 fundamentum inconcussum 156, 222 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2, 131, 134 Gauss, Carl Friedrich 212 gift 49–51, 53 givenness (Gegebenheit) 25, 30, 40, 49, 51 Göttingen Circle 261 Grondin, Jean 15, 64, 90, 131 Harman, Graham 260 Henry, Michel 146, 191, 198 hermeneutical circle 131, 132 hermeneuticisation 125, 130 holism 117–119, 257–262 horizon 35–37 hors-sujet 95, 242, 243 Hume, David 127, 128 hypokeimenon 155, 158, 207, 221, 276 illusion 256–258 inner-temporal 94, 95, 121–124 intentionality 38, 44–46, 61, 153, 171, 179 ipseity 229 irrational 274, 281, 284 Jesus Christ 61, 63 Kehlmann, Daniel 212

307

index lifeworld 264, 265 linguistic idealism 135, 138 Meillassoux, Quentin 260 memory 127, 243, 244 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 11, 191, 197, 198, 202, 257, 260 metaphysics 14, 61, 72, 94, 95 metaphysics of time 94–95, 240–241 mineness 101, 172–174, 176, 201, 202, 213, 226, 228, 235, 250 Montaigne 180 Nancy, Jean-Luc 145, 276 natural attitude 162 Nietzsche, Friedrich 1, 96, 97, 221 non-transcendental 20, 148, 177, 200, 210, 211, 248, 264 noumena 78, 79 objectification 62 objectivity 38, 48, 53, 67, 73 objectness (objectité) 26, 36, 37, 62, 74, 77, 153, 275, 284 ousia 48, 96, 97, 155, 207, 276 ousiological ontology 96, 97, 208 paradox 62, 73, 163 188, 195 passibility 236–238 perception 59, 117, 118, 256–258 phenomenalisation 16, 179, 187, 192, 193, 204, 224 phenomenological realism 119, 211, 259, 261, 265, 280 pre-linguistic 135, 136 preunderstanding 131–136 principle of identity 69, 285 principle of principles 32, 35, 36, 54, 85, 159 principle of sufficient reason 9, 66, 69, 72, 139, 140, 285 problem of the world 110, 117, 197, 199, 200, 204, 222, 270 rationality 273, 274, 280, 282, 284, 285, 287, 288 realism 20, 250, 278, 280 reason 283, 284 receptivity 186, 192

reduction 33–37, 42, 163, 202, 253, 269, 287 third reduction 34, 36, 44, 45, 81, 194 relational paradigm 117–119, 211, 259, 260 representationalism 254, 264 revelation 61, 63 Ricœur, Paul  2, 34, 134, 135, 206 saturated phenomenon 25, 26, 53–63 scepticism 149, 249–253 scientific realism 263 Sebbah, François-David 146, 276 self 21, 152, 229, 280 self-constancy 173, 174, 201, 232–234 self-giving 82, 152, 159, 279 selfhood 20, 21, 93, 106, 173, 229, 230, 270 singularity 230, 234, 238 solipsism 167 speculative realism 260, 261, 277 Steinbock, Anthony J. 54, 213 subjectivation 14, 16, 20, 21, 95, 121, 122, 149, 154, 155, 158, 177–179, 181, 182, 188, 193, 203–206, 210, 242, 266, 267, 270, 275 subjectivation of time 95, 122 temporalisation 95, 112, 120, 182, 184, 240, 242, 243 temporality 93, 240 Tengelyi, László 6, 7, 9 test (épreuve) 124, 126, 127, 234 the future perfect 245 the they 100, 230 thrownness 110, 131, 215–218, 225–228 transcendental a posteriori 133, 136 transcendentalism 149, 194, 210, 247–249, 253–258, 264–266, 286–288 transcendental tradition 161 trauma 239 tukhe 274 unreason 284 Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan 10, 66, 87, 139 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 265 world-configuring 114, 134 Zahavi, Dan 263 Žižek 3, 305

26mm

studies in contempor a ry phenomenology — 25

At the same time, Event and Subjectivity is the first book on Claude Romano’s understanding of phenomenology in English. It also offers a fresh reading of the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion by highlighting the phenomenon of the event. Kadir Filiz completed his Ph.D. (2023) at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has published articles and translations into Turkish.

Event and Subjectivity Kadir Filiz

Event and Subjectivity presents a rich phenomenological analysis of the event in contemporary phenomenology by focussing on the work of Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion. Although the event is a major topic of contemporary philosophy, its centrality has not been acknowledged enough in the phenomenological movement. The book starts with the idea that the event cannot find a proper place in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology. It proposes a phenomenological version of the event that transforms the definition of phenomenon, subjectivity and phenomenology itself in order to do justice to the phenomenality of the event.

scp 25

studies in contempor a ry phenomenology — 25

Event and Subjectivity The Question of Phenomenology in Claude Romano and Jean-Luc Marion

Kadir Filiz

brill.com/scp issn 1875-2470

ISBN 978 90 04 68953 4