The original aim of my PhD project was to study the writings of Marion and Levinas so as (1) to show how their conceptions of subjectivity are similar and (2) to draw from them a conception of subjectivity that can serve as the compelling alternative to modernist philosophical conceptions of subjectivity. As attested to by their shared intellectual background, their similar insights, and the influence of one on the other, engaging in a project such as this is not without basis. A number of commentators (like Drabinski, Horner, Gswandthner) have pointed out the “proximity” of some of the claims and moves of these two thinkers. And in fact, Marion himself acknowledges his debt to his former teacher and he claims that he has “the same relation to Emmanuel Levinas as that which Levinas himself acknowledged to Heidegger.”
However, put in this way, the articulation of the project may give one the impression that this is only a matter of exposing these philosophers' respective views on subjectivity, pointing out the shared characteristics of these views, and then suggesting that this is the best replacement for the traditional notion of the subject. However, a close study of the various texts of Levinas and a reading of the major works of Marion show that this is in fact a more complicated matter than it would first seem. There are not only two tasks (comparing the philosophers and showing that theirs is the best conception of subjectivity that there is), but several—and these are not entirely free from difficulties.
We provide below our initial attempts at accomplishing the tasks involved in considering conceptions of subjectivity in Levinas and Marion. We discuss below parallels between these two thinkers, the influence of Levinas on Marion, and the latter's criticisms of and divergences from his master Levinas. After our brief consideration of these matters, we will raise some questions that the research project faces.
I. Parallels
(a) The use of phenomenology
Apart from having studied under Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas claims not only in interviews and his philosophical works, but also in some of his confessional writings that he employs the phenomenological method. The use of this method is evident in early works (where one finds descriptions of the experience of shame, nausea, fatigue and indolence, pain and suffering, death or dying, among others) and also in his first major work Totality and Infinity, whose parts consist of accounts of the activities of the pre-self-conscious self through which it emerges as a separate and autonomous I.
It should be mentioned that though some basic insights of Husserl are certainly operative in Levinas, the latter is also critical of some key Husserlian ideas, like the apparent limitation of intentionality to perception and constitution, the notion of empathy, transcendental phenomenology and its epistemological character, and the primacy of transcendental consciousness. Levinas’ descriptions of the epiphany of the face of the other challenges the primacy accorded by Husserl to perception, the limits of intentionality, and the constituting capacity of consciousness—consciousness’ status as the source of sense. This is because the other is irreducible to anything that the I perceives; the other is not an object that the I constitutes on the basis of its own understanding of itself as consciousness having a lived body, and because the face itself signifies on its own, a signification that precedes the I’s acts of constitution. This then widens or gives a new meaning to intentionality (it is no longer limited to objects).
There is a shift in method and language in the second great work, Otherwise than Being, where Levinas resorts more to repetition and the use of hyperbolic words.
Marion on the other hand probably first became known as a Patristics scholar, a commentator on Descartes, and a theologian. But it is evident even in his early theological writings, and specially in his widely read and highly controversial book God Without Being that he uses the phenomenological method. In both God Without Being and in The Idol and Distance, there is for example, phenomenological descriptions of the the idol and the icon. These two books can be read as a contestation of metaphysics (and God Without Being as more of a contestation of Heideggerian ontology) in the name of certain theological concerns. Both works, moreover, are replete with engagements with philosophers like Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Aquinas, and Pseudo-Dionysius.
The later work of Marion can be seen as constituting a renewal and a broadening of phenomenology. In Reduction and Givenness, Being Given, and In Excess, Marion retrieves and examines what could be basic principles of Husserlian phenomenology, declares them insufficient, and then gives an account of his discovery of the first and last principle of phenomenology: “so much reduction, so much givenness.” This principle allows for the widening of the phenomenological horizon or the abolition of any pre-condition that may come from consciousness or being and which would get in the way of the self-giving of phenomena. Only this principle puts stress on the self-giving character of phenomena and allows for phenomena that cannot be contained by any concept. (This opens phenomenology to intentionalities directed otherwise than at objects. On this point, Marion is very close to Levinas.)
Marion believes that his predecessors Husserl and Heidegger imposed limits on the self-showing of phenomena, the former because of his preoccupation with the constitution of objects for consciousness, the latter because of his unwavering concern for being and the ontological difference. In Husserl and Heidegger, phenomena had to appear either according to the determinations from consciousness or within the horizon of the happening of being. This results in phenomena appearing only as either objects or as being and thus not as it gives itself.
Just as in God Without Being Marion endeavored to free our thinking of God from the constraints imposed by metaphysical thinking and ontology so as to enable us to approach God as God, in his phenomenological writings he wants to free phenomena from anything that hinders their self-showing. To do this, Marion proposes a third (and according to him, final) reduction, that is, the reduction to givenness. Phenomena, if they are to be allowed to show themselves, are to be understood from givenness. This last reduction does not mean making phenomena conform to certain conditions of consciousness, but rather the clearing away any such imposition, which allows phenomena to give themselves from themselves.
(b) The critique of Heidegger
For Levinas, Heidegger does not put into question a philosophical tradition that gives primacy to freedom but rather continues and thus confirms it with his concern for fundamental ontology and the analytic of Dasein. The thinking of being, moreover, hinders us from approaching the other human person as such, since the other person would have to be reached through a Neuter or first as a being. (Other Heideggerian ideas Levinas questions are care, death, authenticity.)
Marion, on the other hand, writes in his theological texts that though Heidegger opened up a path beyond metaphysics, his thinking remains an obstacle to thinking God as God. The thought of being does not escape idolatry as it pretends to set the conditions for the self-showing of God. In his later writings, Marion seeks to free phenomenology from both the Husserlian preoccupation with constitution and objective presence and the limits imposed by the thinking of being (what he calls the second reduction or the reduction to being) for the sake of opening phenomenology to excessive phenomena.
(c.) The attempt to think absolute alterity
Levinas is well-known for insisting on the recognition of the alterity of the other human person. Meanwhile, Marion’s early theological works are devoted to uncovering a non-metaphysical, non-ontological, and thus non-idolatrous approach to God as God. It can be said that in his later writings we can also find a concern for alterity, now in the figure of saturated phenomena. In the desire to do away with the limits of Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Marion proposes his own reduction, the reduction to givenness (which he claims is faithful to the original inspiration of phenomenology).
(d) The notion of a receptive self
The respective thoughts of Levinas and Marion are strikingly similar on two crucial points as regards the self. First, they both try to rethink subjectivity beyond or apart from the determinations it has received from modern philosophy, Husserlian phenomenology, Heideggerian ontology, and (at least in the case of Levinas) from contemporary anti-humanism in philosophy. Both Marion and Levinas reject the conception of subjectivity as epistemological (and largely wordless and “detached” subject), transcendental consciousness, and as Dasein (also man as openness to being, Shepherd of Being, etc.). Second, they re-describe the subject in a particular way, that is, at the very least as a self that cannot be its own ground or foundation. They both go about re-envisioning subjectivity by answering the question “Who comes after the subject?” and they answer the question by uncovering the self that precedes subjectivity as knowing subject, transcendental consciousness, and Dasein.
At least in Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being , Levinas speaks of a self that is allowed to become itself by another. In the former we find the idea of a self that emerges as an autonomous and separate I thanks not only to its enjoyment of things, but also to the other who first addresses it. In the latter work, the self is described as called to be responsible by the good; this is a self that cannot begin with and from itself for it is always already entangled in a plot with the other.
In the early work of Marion we can see how Marion abandons the metaphysical understanding of the subject as he speaks of the onlooker’s gaze being engulfed by the gaze coming from the icon. The self that finds itself in such an encounter cannot be a knowing subject or a transcendental consciousness that claims to constitute its objects. A very similar conception of subjectivity can also be found in Marion’s phenomenology: the self there is not so much constituting as constituted by the phenomena that give themselves, that befall the self and impact on it. The self is called the witness, the receiver, or the one who is given (over), the gifted or l’adonne.
II. Influences (of Levinas on Marion)
(a) Marion basically follows Levinas in the critique of Heidegger (being as an impediment; ontology constraining thought, confining it to being, keeping it from thinking alterity, which in the case of Marion would be God and phenomena)
(b) Levinas speaks of the need to think God apart from both onto-theo-logy and Heideggerian ontology in his preface to Otherwise than Being. What Marion does in God Without Being can be read as a positive response to this challenge.
(c) Marion accepts the ethical significance of the epiphany of the face of the other. In his early theological works, Marion speaks of the face in relation to the icon (through which the invisible God envisages the worshipper). Later, he discusses the face of the other in relation to the work of art and, perhaps more importantly, to the saturated phenomenon of the icon (the understanding of which has widened beyond its being the positive counter-point to the idol). Marion tells us that “It goes without saying that we owe it to Emmanuel Levinas to have ingeniously reconfigured phenomenology so as to let it finally reach the other as saturated phenomenon.” Marion’s own employment of the notion of the face will be discussed further below.
(d) Marion's description of how phenomena are given bears similarities to the Levinasian account of the epiphany of the face.
Marion discusses four traits of phenomena: anamorphosis, contingency, fait accompli, “incidentality” or “accidentality.” This description of phenomena follows the contours of the Levinasian account of the epiphany or self-showing of the face of the other. (Givenness gives apart from or beyond being. Phenomena give themselves from themselves, as they are, and from a distance.) (a) The self-showing of phenomena has its own direction, it determines the form of its own happening or arrival. (Like the other who shows himself from himself and as himself; in expressing himself the other needs no assistance.) (b) A phenomenon is given contingently. It arrives on its own, imposed upon me, not needing any initiative on my part for its self-giving, allowing me only to receive or absorb the shock of its arrival. Now it is this arrival that constitutes he who receives precisely as a recipient (and not the other way around—and this is like the call of the other in Levinas which surges up and stops my force, precedes and invests freedom with responsibility). (3) This arrival is already an accomplished fact, a fait accompli that involves me. It has neither past nor future, cause or duration. The phenomenon’s self-giving exposes me, has already preceded me and constitutes me. This brings to mind Levinas’ description of the epiphany of the face as a first address which allows the self to emerge as a separate and autonomous I. (4) Finally, a phenomenon is an incident, an event that befalls me. Its appearance is something I can neither expect nor control. Phenomena are given as events and not as some object or thing, just as the other approaches me neither as thing nor as a being, but as he or she who puts me into question.
Another theme that is central in the thought of Levinas occupies a prominent place in Marion's account of phenomena whose self-giving is so excessive that no one concept can contain them. In describing five types of saturated phenomena, Marion makes use of and inverts the Kantian categories of quantity, quality, relation, and modality. There are traces of Levinas’ influence in Marion’s description of saturated phenomena (particularly in his account of the flesh and the face).
(1) The first kind of saturated phenomena is the event (historical or cultural event) that occurs in its phenomenal enormity (it is not simply the sum of elements combining; this phenomenon cannot be predicted as regards its quantity). It is not produced (or its occurrence cannot be traced back to a single cause), it cannot be foreseen or predicted, and it cannot be repeated.
(2) Now, inverting the category of quality is the phenomenon of the idol. The saturated phenomenon cannot be foreseen as regards its quality or intensity, making its manifestation unbearable for the gaze. The idol, in its excessive manifestation, exhausts but also blinds or bedazzles the gaze.
(3) The saturated phenomenon according to relation is the flesh (or the lived body), which gives itself as absolute and unique. It is impossible for this phenomenon to have any analogy with experience. There is, moreover, no need to put me in relation to the flesh because I am always already flesh. Marion's explanation of the flesh as that to which I am given (over), and which undergoes suffering and aging, is reminiscent of the Levinas’ phenomenological descriptions of the I's being riveted to itself (to be more concretely understood as the I’s rivetedness to its body), which we find in works like On Escape and the essay “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” and likewise of some of the descriptions of the passive self in Otherwise than Being.
(4) The fourth phenomenon saturates and inverts the Kantian category of modality (where correspondence between object and our cognition is secured). This saturated phenomenon appears as a counter-experience in the sense that before it the I is no longer in any position to constitute what it confronts. The self finds itself submerged in this phenomenon, constituted by it as the recipient of its meaning. This saturated phenomenon Marion calls the icon, in relation to which Marion discusses the face of the other, the other who I do not really see (and thus know) but whose intention aims at me.
This is obviously a heavily Levinasian theme and Marion relies on some devices of Levinas in explaining how the invisible other gives himself as such. (We should note, however, that Marion goes beyond Levinas on this point by not only extending, but also shifting the focus in the account of the encounter with the face. Marion speaks of the crossing of gazes (in the encounter of love) and he appears to give more weight to the appeal as such than to the ethical injunction that arises from the face for Levinas.)
(e) Marion also makes use of the idea of the call, clearly present in other thinkers like Heidegger and Chretien. But the call in Marion brings Levinas particularly to mind because of the manner this idea is articulated: the call signifies only in the response of the witness or the one called. This is something very close to the Levinasian idea of the Good's command to and election of the self to be responsible for the other, which can only be seen in the response of this chosen self.
III. Differences, Marion’s Criticisms of Levinas, and some Questions
(a) First of all, the basic projects of Levinas and Marion in his theological writings are different. Whereas Levinas wanted to articulate the experience of confronting the human other, Marion looks for a way out of onto-theo-logical metaphysics and Heideggerian ontology in order to reach a non-idolatrous way of thinking and speaking of God. The one thinker is thus is concerned with ethics, the other with theology. Now it can indeed be argued that in Totality and Infinity and the early theological works of Marion we can find conceptions of self that are very similar in the sense that these do not have a central and transcendental status. Yet, it should be noted that we find in the Levinasian texts not one but several conceptions of self that are quite distinct from one another. The emergent subjectivity in Totality and Infinity is certainly different from the self-positing I in On Escape, Existence and Existents, and Time and the Other. Aside from this, there is the affected, vulnerable subject in Otherwise than Being, a radically conceived subjectivity that is certainly different from the two earlier ones of Levinas.
Though it can be said that Levinas and Marion's conceptions of subjectivity are similar insofar as in both of them we find a self that is constituted or given to itself by another, these selves seem to be called by or answer to different things. In Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being, the self responds to the appeal of the other (and not directly to God—though the self in the second major work is called to be responsible originally by the Good), while in God Without Being, Marion appears to seek a direct relationship between self and God. We cannot but stress that though the encounter with the face of the other no longer occupies such a central place in Otherwise than Being, Levinas remains to make ethical subjectivity answer primarily to the human other. Marion, on the other hand, appears in his phenomenological writings to make the self receptive and responsive to self-giving phenomena first, and thus also, to the pure anonymous call whose origin cannot be determined. Thus, while there are very similar notions of self in Marion and Levinas, their respective positions as regards to what or to whom the self answers difffer.
(b) Apart from these undeniable differences, we should likewise take into consideration the fact that Marion has early on criticized (if his critique is justified is of course another question) his former teacher Levinas. In The Idol and Distance, Marion accuses Levinas of (1) merely inverting the priority of being over beings, thereby (in Marion’s view) relying on and confirming the notion of ontological difference, one of the most fundamental concerns of the thinking Levinas professes to escape. Though Levinas was able to show that not everything is determined by being with his account of the epiphany of the face, Levinas nonetheless fails to go beyond the thinking of being.
Marion likewise alleges in the same work that (2) the other in Levinas is not sufficiently individualized. It should also be noted that in both an early essay (“The Intentionality of Love”) and some later writings (like “A Note Concerning the Ontological Indifference” and “From the Other to the Individual”), Marion reads Levinas in a manner that makes the latter's ethics parallel Kant's, so much so that Levinas becomes open to the charge of not sufficiently individualizing the self and the other. Marion believes that the face in Levinas belongs to nobody in particular and that it gives rise to the universal law, the ethical injunction to respect the other as such. It is only in love, Marion argues, that both self and other can be individuated.
Closely related to this last charge is Marion's other claim that (3) Levinas fails to make a clear enough distinction between the human and the divine other in his works.
Apart from this, Marion appears to go beyond the meaning Levinas ascribes to the call of the face, as Marion articulates a notion of the call as such. (Marion even claims, questionably I believe, that the idea of the appeal is the most significant contribution of Levinasian thought.) The call need not always be ethical (or religious for that matter) and the ethical appeal of the other human person is only a particular instance of the pure call.
(c.) Now if part of the research project is the need to articulate a notion of self that is not only faithful to how we experience ourselves but also one that can serve as alternative to modernist, Husserlian, and Heideggerian notions, the problem is which understanding of self are we to use? Which among the several notions of self in Levinas? Why prefer Levinas’ notions of self over those of Marion?
Apart from these questions, there are still others that are equally difficult and crucial: Is it the case that the subjectivity in Otherwise than Being is difficult to accept because it relies on the idea of the Good? Can we then say that Marion succeeds where Levinas fails: the re-thinking of phenomenology and thus the re-thinking of the human person without reliance on the idea of the Good (while Marion at the same time opens the possibility for thinking God and revelation)? Can it be claimed that the self in Marion's phenomenology of givenness is more basic than the ethical subjectivity in the thought of Levinas? Or perhaps we can situate the ethics of Levinas within what seems to be the larger and more ambitious project of Marion? Will this do justice to Levinas?
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