Marion's
phenomenological work is set out in three volumes which together form a
triptych or
trilogy.
Réduction et donation: Etudes sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phénoménologie (1989) is an historical study of the phenomenological method followed by
Husserl and
Heidegger, with a view towards suggesting future directions for phenomenological research. The unexpected reaction that
Réduction et donation provoked called for clarification and full development. This was addressed in ''Étant donné: Essai d'une phénoménologie de la donation
(1997), a more conceptual work investigating phenomenological givenness, the saturated phenomenon and the gifted—a rethinking of the subject. Du surcroît'' (2001) provides an in-depth description of saturated phenomena.
Givenness Marion claims that he has attempted to "radically reduce the whole phenomenological project beginning with the primacy in it of givenness". What he describes as his one and only theme is the givenness that is required before phenomena can show themselves in consciousness—"what
shows itself first
gives itself. This is based on the argument that any and all attempts to lead phenomena back to immanence in consciousness, that is, to exercise the phenomenological reduction, necessarily results in showing that givenness is the "sole horizon of phenomena" Marion radicalizes this argument in the formulation, "As much reduction, as much givenness", and offers this as a new first principle of
phenomenology, building on and challenging prior formulae of
Husserl and
Heidegger. The formulation common to both, Marion argues, "So much appearance, so much Being", adopted from
Johann Friedrich Herbart, erroneously elevates
appearing to the status of the "sole face of Being". In doing so, it leaves appearing itself undetermined, not subject to the
reduction, and thus in a "typically metaphysical situation". The Husserlian formulation, "To the things themselves!", is criticized on the basis that the things in question would remain what they are even without appearing to a subject—again circumventing the reduction or even without becoming phenomena. Appearing becomes merely a mode of access to objects, rendering the formulation inadequate as a first principle of phenomenology. A third formulation, Husserl's "Principle of all Principles", states "that
every primordial dator Intuition is a source of authority (Rechtsquelle) for knowledge, that
whatever presents itself in intuition...is simply to be accepted as it gives itself out to be, though
only within the limits in which it then presents itself." Marion argues that while the Principle of all Principles places givenness as phenomenality's criterion and achievement, givenness still remains uninterrogated. Whereas it admits limits to intuition ("as it gives itself..., though only within the limits in which it presents itself"), "givenness alone is absolute, free and without condition" Givenness then is not reducible except to itself, and so is freed from the limits of any other authority, including intuition; a reduced given is either given or not given. "As much reduction, as much givenness" states that givenness is what the reduction accomplishes, and any reduced given is reduced to givenness. The more a phenomenon is reduced, the more it is given. Marion calls the formulation the last principle, equal to the first, that of the appearing itself. By describing the structures of phenomena from the basis of givenness, Marion claims to have succeeded in describing certain phenomena that previous metaphysical and phenomenological approaches either ignore or exclude—givens that show themselves but which a thinking that does not go back to the given is powerless to receive. In all, three types of phenomena can be shown, according to the proportionality between what is given in
intuition and what is
intended: • Phenomena where little or nothing is given in intuition. Examples include the
Nothing and death, mathematics and logic. Marion claims that metaphysics, in particular
Kant (but also
Husserl), privileges this type of phenomenon. • Phenomena where there is adequation between what is given in intuition and what is intended. This includes any
objective phenomena. • Phenomena where what is given in intuition fills or surpasses intentionality. These are named saturated phenomena.
The saturated phenomenon Marion defines "saturated phenomena," which contradicts the Kantian claim that phenomena can only occur if they are congruent with the
a priori knowledge upon which an observer's cognitive function is founded. For example, Kant would claim that the phenomenon "three years is a longer period of time than four years" cannot occur. According to Marion, "saturated phenomena" (such as divine revelation) overwhelm the observer with their complete and perfect givenness, such that they are not shaped by the particulars of the observer's cognition at all. These phenomena may be conventionally impossible, and still occur because their givenness saturates the cognitive architecture innate to the observer.
"The Intentionality of Love" The fourth section of Marion's work
Prolegomena to Charity is entitled "The Intentionality of Love" and primarily concerns
intentionality and
phenomenology. Influenced by (and dedicated to) the French philosopher
Emmanuel Levinas, Marion explores the human idea of love and its lack of definition: "We live with love as if we knew what it was about. But as soon as we try to define it, or at least approach it with concepts, it draws away from us." He begins by explaining the essence of consciousness and its "lived experiences." Paradoxically, the consciousness concerns itself with objects transcendent and exterior to itself, objects irreducible to consciousness, but can only comprehend its 'interpretation' of the object; the reality of the object arises from consciousness alone. Thus the problem with love is that to love another is to love one's own idea of another, or the "lived experiences" that arise in the consciousness from the "chance cause" of another: "I must, then, name this love
my love, since it would not fascinate me as my idol if, first, it did not render to me, like an unseen mirror, the image of myself. Love, loved for itself, inevitably ends as self-love, in the phenomenological figure of self-idolatry." Marion believes intentionality is the solution to this problem, and explores the difference between the
I who intentionally sees objects and the
me who is intentionally seen by a counter-consciousness, another, whether the
me likes it or not. Marion defines another by its invisibility; one can see objects through intentionality, but in the invisibility of the other, one
is seen. Marion explains this invisibility using the
pupil: "Even for a gaze aiming objectively, the pupil remains a living refutation of objectivity, an irremediable denial of the object; here for the first time, in the very midst of the visible, there is nothing to see, except an invisible and untargetable void...my gaze, for the first time, sees an invisible gaze that sees it." Love, then, when freed from intentionality, is the weight of this other's invisible gaze upon one's own, the cross of one's own gaze and the other's and the "unsubstitutability" of the other. Love is to "render oneself there in an unconditional surrender...no other gaze must respond to the ecstasy of
this particular other exposed in his gaze." Perhaps in allusion to a theological argument, Marion concludes that this type of surrender "requires faith." ==Publications==