Jean-Luc Marion

BEING GIVEN

Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness

Jean-Luc Marion

Translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky

With a New Preface by the Author

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA

Notes for SSGO theory

CONTENTS

2012 Preface

Preface to the American Translation

Preliminary Answers

Book I: Givenness

1. The Last Principle
2. The Essence of the Phenomenon
3. Objectness and Beingness
4. The Reduction to the Given
5. Privilege of Givenness
6. To Give Itself, to Show Itself

Book II: The Gift

7. Two Objections
8. The Reduction of the Gift to Givenness
9. The Bracketing of the Givee
10. The Bracketing of the Giver
11. The Bracketing of the Gift
12. Intrinsic Givenness

Book III: The Given I: Determinations

13. Anamorphosis
14. Unpredictable Landing
15. The Fait Accompli
16. The Incident
17. The Event
18. The Being Given

Book IV: The Given II: Degrees

19. The Horizon and the I
20. Intuition as Shortage
21. Sketch of the Saturated Phenomenon: The Horizon
22. Sketch of the Saturated Phenomenon: I
23. Topics of the Phenomenon
24. To Give Itself, to Reveal Itself

Book V: The Gifted

25. The Aporias of the “Subject”
26. To Receive One’s Self from What Gives Itself
27. Two Calls in Metaphysics
28. The Call and the Responsal
29. The Nameless Voice
30. Abandon

Opening onto a Question

Notes

English Editions Cited

Index Nominum

§18 THE BEING GIVEN

Return to Givenness

“I took as my project to confirm the equivalence of showing itself and giving itself, according to the last principle–that the phenomenon shows itself only insofar as it gives itself (§§1, 6, and 12). This confirmation required that I fix determinations that would eventually permit translating phenomenality into the terms of givenness–in other words, reducing the phenomenon to the given or giving a phenomenon reduced to givenness. At the end of this path (Book 3), what remains is for me to verify whether or not the determinations thus laid out do indeed lead phenomenality back to givenness and whether they do indeed secure the mediation of the one…”

Continuing transcription:

§18 THE BEING GIVEN

“…for the other, as in the schema concept and intuition. I will therefore try to make the determinations of the given phenomenon (Book 3) correspond as closely as possible to the characteristics of the givenness of the gift (Book 2).

The determination of the phenomenon by anamorphosis (§13) indicates that it arises from an invisible to a visible form according to a precise axis of visibility, in such a way that the only one who can apprehend it is the one who puts himself at the precise point on the line where the coming forward imposes itself. One must expose oneself to the phenomenon to receive its form–as one receives a blow, a shock, or an emotion. We can thus easily see that anamorphosis determines the phenomenon in terms of its final arrival and describes it inasmuch as received, therefore from the point of view of the givee. It thus repeats, in the lexicon of manifestation (showing itself), the bracketing of the giver in the lexicon of givenness.”

“…ness (§13). The determination of the phenomenon as an event (§17) indicates that this same arising is accomplished without cause, that is to say, without dependence on any other term, according to an inaugural, absolute, and new possibility, origin without origin. As nothing precedes it that could account for it, nothing can recall its beginning; it thus gives itself without recall, irrevocably.

We see immediately that the event determines the phenomenon according as its beginning has come upon me and describes it as giving itself, therefore from the point of view of the giver. Determination by the event thus reproduces in the register of phenomenality the bracketing of the givee in that of givenness (§9).

The determination of the phenomenon as unpredictable landing (§14) lays bare the self of its arising and its unforeseeable initiative, in such a way that it succeeds in showing itself only with the halting steps of an essential contingency. We…”

“…can therefore admit that unpredictable landing determines the phenomenon in that it arrives to me by affecting me; that is to say, we can describe it inasmuch as it is a gift to receive, according to receivability. Consequently, as unpredictable landing describes the receivability of the phenomenon without ever being obliged to constitute it as an object or a being, it transposes into the field of phenomenality what the reduction of the gift had first indicated in the field of givenness (§11).

The determination of the phenomenon as incident (§16) confirms that of the unpredictable landing and refers in the same way to givenness. In effect, the incident appears at the outset as an already reduced phenomenon, since in it transcendent cause, theory, and essence have already been bracketed. By definition, the incident is reduced to its own appearances, suspends all objectness or beingness, and therefore remains in its own pure lived experiences such as they…”

“…can be received only in consciousness. Consequently, the incident repeats in the style of phenomenality the pure receivability of the reduced gift such as givenness had previously recognized it (§11).

Let us consider finally the determination of the phenomenon under the heading “fait accompli” (§15). It makes me undergo it as weighing down on me, rendering itself apparent by itself and at my expense, to the point of redirecting intentionality so that it goes from it toward me. The phenomenon not only shows itself insofar as it makes itself, but it has always already taken the initiative of making itself seen, and I always observe it with an insurmountable delay.

The fait accompli has always annulled, therefore bracketed, the probable transcendent conditions set for phenomenal arising. Therefore it is reduced to its pure initiative of appearing. In this way it transposes into terms of phenomenality (showing itself) what the reduction of the gift to its own giv-…”

OPENING ONTO A QUESTION
Several conclusions can be drawn from
the investigation I have just completed.
Phenomenology does not break deci-
sively with metaphysics until the mo-
ment when and exactly in the degree
to which-a degree that most often
remains in flux- names and thinks
the phenomenon (a) neither as an ob-
ject, that is to say, not within the
horizon of objectness such as, starting
with Descartes, it defines the epistemo-
logical project of constituting the world
and excludes from phenomenality, and
therefore from the truth, all that,
whether by lack (the pure sensible) or
by excess (the divine and the insens-
ible), does not fall under the order and
measure of the Mathesis Universalis; (b)
nor as a being, that is to say, within the

horizon of Being, whether we under-
stand this in the sense of the meta-
physical ontologia or claim to “destroy”
it in the name of the Dasein analytic
or protect it under the cover of Ereignis
-for a number of phenomena simply
are not, or just don’t appear inasmuch
as they are. To let phenomena appear
demands not imposing a horizon on
them, whatever the horizon might be,
since it would exclude some of them.
The apparition of phenomena becomes
unconditional only from the moment
when they are admitted as what they
give themselves-givens, purely.
The phenomenality of the given sug-
gests that the phenomenon does not
appear only when an other besides it
(the I) constitutes it (Kant, Husserl), but
first when it shows itself in itself and
from itself (Heidegger). What remains
is to take the most perilous step: think-
ing this self/itself-which alone permits
the phenomenon to show itself. For this
project, I turn to the phenomenology

of givenness because it opens at least
a way of access to the self/itself. The
phenomenon shows itself inasmuch as
it unfolds in it the fold of givenness;
it always keeps, at the end of this un-
folding, the mark of the passage, trajec-
tory, or movement that it accomplished
in order to come forward. The given
testifies, by the trembling with which it
still and always vibrates, not only to its
irreversible and intrinsic difference, but
also to its incessantly lost and repeated
happening. It therefore attests that if it
appears (shows itself), it owes this only
to itself, only to its self (which gives it-
self).
No doubt, the object can be received as
a phenomenon-but as a handicapped
or challenged phenomenon. Its intu-
ition is limited to its concept, and there-
fore hides its givenness. Its coming
forward submits to constitution, and
therefore represses the self according to
which its givenness would be outlined.
It’s apparently identical reproduction….

[break]

Being Given Quotes:

Book I GIVENNESS

§1 THE LAST PRINCIPLE

A Counter-Method

In all science–therefore in metaphysics–it is a question of proving. To prove consists in grounding appearances in order to know with certainty, leading them back to the ground in order to lead them to certainty. But in phenomenology–that is to say, at least in what it intends, in the attempt to think in a nonmetaphysical mode–it is a question of showing. To show implies letting appearances appear in such a way that they accomplish their own apparition, so as to be received exactly as they give themselves.

To show, to let appear, and to accomplish apparition do not imply any privilege of vision. Besides the fact that this so-called privilege often yields in phenomenology to the primacy of touch or hearing, such that it can hardly be invoked without taking sides in a muddled polemic, its disastrous presupposition must be contested. The primacy of one of the senses (vision, but also any other) is important only if perception finally determines appearance, therefore only if appearance itself in the final analysis falls under the jurisdiction of perception–in short, only if appearance refers at the outset to the apparition of the thing itself, where, as in trial by fire, the apparatus of appearance and even of perception is consumed in order to let arise what is at issue. Now, phenomenology has no other goal and no other legitimacy than to attempt to reach the apparition in appearance, therefore to transgress every perceived impression by means of the intentionality of the thing itself.

The issue in phenomenology is no longer exactly what subjectivity apperceives by one or the other of its perceptive tools, but what apparition–through, despite, indeed without them–gives of itself and as the thing itself. The distinction between seeing, listening, and feeling (but also tasting and smelling) becomes decisive only when perception is glued to a decidedly subjective determination of its role, as what filters, interprets, and deforms the appearance of the apparition. Inversely, as soon as apparition dominates appearing and revives it, the subjective specifications of appearance by this or that sense are no longer essentially important: whether I see, touch, feel, or hear it, it is always the thing that comes upon me each time in person. And the fact that it comes upon me only in parts and in outline does not stop it from coming to me in the very flesh of its apparition. This very imperfection would not be noticed if it did not already presuppose the apparition in person of the thing, which it limits.

The so-called privilege of vision therefore becomes decisive only once we miss the privilege of the apparition of the thing itself at the heart of its (sensible, perceptible, “subjective,” etc.) appearance–the sole truly decisive matter. The study of this privilege constitutes the business proper to phenomenology, which admits no other. I will stick strictly to this.

The privilege of appearing in its appearance is also named manifestation–manifestation of the thing starting from itself and as itself, privilege of rendering itself manifest, of making itself visible, of showing itself.

1. “Givenness produces the phenomenon absolutely reduced to what shows itself inasmuch as it gives itself; it reduces the ‘subject’ to what receives itself without remainder from what it receives–the given.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book V: “The Gifted,” §29.

2. “If one passes from the gift according to the natural attitude to the gift in the realm of the reduction, none of the transcendent terms, posited as indispensable by the thesis of the world, any longer offers even the least bit of usefulness or legitimacy.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book I: “The Phenomenon Reduced,” §12, p. 114.

3. “The phenomenon shows itself only insofar as it gives itself (§§1, 6, and 12).”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book I: “The Phenomenon Reduced,” §§1, 6, and 12.

4. “Phenomena give themselves absolutely only to the absolute of intuition–which reigns unquestioned.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, p. 37.

5. “Metaphysics… always already thinks the phenomenon from the starting point of being, thereby missing the phenomenon as such.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, p. 8.

6. “The breakthrough breaks beyond metaphysics.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, p. 126.

7. “The way of approaching God in metaphysica specialis is doomed to failure in the face of the revelation of God.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, p. 92.

8. “The phenomenon of givenness refuses to be reduced to ontology, yet it reveals that being itself is inseparable from the act of giving.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, p. 102.

9. “The divine act of giving surpasses all possible reception, yet it invites participation in its inexhaustible relational dynamism.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, p. 94.

10. “The gift depends only on itself to give itself. It imposes itself alternatively in the lived experiences of the givee or the giver, but without ever resulting from their crossed causalities; in short, it does not depend on their efficiency.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

11. “The gift is often not associated with even the lowest level of object. When it is a matter of making a promise or reconciliation (or a break), or enacting a friendship or a love (or hatred), the indisputable gift is not identified with an object or with its transfer; it is accomplished solely on the occasion of its own happening, indeed without object and transfer.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

12. “Transfer does not always have to assume the status of ceding ownership of a good (it can be a loan, a usufruct, rights to usage, etc.); it could even not involve the least juridical status (concerning a private agreement, a tacit accord, etc.). For that matter, in and of itself, such regulation would be enough to threaten the very status of the gift by leading it back, under the justice of the law, to that of exchange.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

13. “Far from being confused with the gift, the object either disappears from the game or is reduced to merely an extra, interchangeable, and optional support (souvenir, keepsake, or wage, etc.), in short, to a mere index of what’s really at stake in the gift, much more precious and serious than the object that conventionally represents it.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

14. “The gift is accomplished solely on the occasion of its own happening, indeed without object and transfer.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

15. “To give power is never equivalent to transmitting one or several objects, but rather to giving, on the occasion of an object transmitted (symbol), the unobjectifiable gift of rule over objects.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

16. “The phenomenon shows itself only insofar as it gives itself (§§1, 6, and 12). This confirmation required that I fix determinations that would eventually permit translating phenomenality into the terms of givenness–in other words, reducing the phenomenon to the given or giving a phenomenon reduced to givenness.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book I: “The Phenomenon Reduced,” §§1, 6, and 12.

17. “The determination of the phenomenon by anamorphosis (§13) indicates that it arises from an invisible to a visible form according to a precise axis of visibility, in such a way that the only one who can apprehend it is the one who puts himself at the precise point on the line where the coming forward imposes itself.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book II: “The Saturated Phenomenon,” §13.

18. “The determination of the phenomenon as an event (§17) indicates that this same arising is accomplished without cause, that is to say, without dependence on any other term, according to an inaugural, absolute, and new possibility, origin without origin. As nothing precedes it that could account for it, nothing can recall its beginning; it thus gives itself without recall, irrevocably.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book II: “The Saturated Phenomenon,” §17.

19. “We can describe it inasmuch as it is a gift to receive, according to receivability. Consequently, as unpredictable landing describes the receivability of the phenomenon without ever being obliged to constitute it as an object or a being, it transposes into the field of phenomenality what the reduction of the gift had first indicated in the field of givenness (§11).”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

20. “The phenomenon not only shows itself insofar as it makes itself, but it has always already taken the initiative of making itself seen, and I always observe it with an insurmountable delay.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book III: “The Gift,” §11.

1. “The phenomenon shows itself only insofar as it gives itself (§§1, 6, and 12).”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book I: “The Phenomenon Reduced,” §§1, 6, and 12.

2. “Not all phenomena, saturated though they are, offer the same degree of givenness.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §21.

3. “The question of determining the degree to which saturation can be deployed thus presents itself. Does it attain a maximum, or does it, by hypothesis, always transgress it?”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §21.

4. “This question arises inevitably from the mere fact that it alone permits all dimensions of phenomenality to be glimpsed, explores the region of saturated givenness, thoroughly inventories it, and cannot be dodged.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §21.

5. “What remains is to determine just how far such a possibility goes and if we can assign a maximum to it.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §21.

6. “The maximum of saturated phenomenality must remain an ultimate possibility of the phenomenon–the last, but still under the heading of possibility.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §21.

7. “The phenomenon of revelation not only falls into the category of saturation (paradox in general), but it concentrates the four types of saturated phenomena and is given at once as historical event, idol, flesh, and icon (face).”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §23.

8. “Thus, the phenomenon of revelation, insofar as it manifests as given in a phenomenality that reaches its maximum saturation, refers us back, in its possibility as such, to the givenness that made its very appearance possible.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §23.

9. “It reclaims and transforms phenomenology at the same time, since it proposes that the phenomenal be taken seriously in the very givenness that makes it appear.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book IV: “Saturated Phenomena,” §23.

10. “The gifted is exposed not only to what shows itself insofar as it gives itself (the phenomenon in general), but more essentially to a paradox (the saturated phenomenon), from which he receives a call and an undeniable call.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book V: “The Gifted,” §28: “The Call and the Responsal.”

11. “The gifted, thus letting the given arise unreservedly, receives it so radically (receiver) that in addition, he frees givenness as such.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book V: “The Gifted,” §28: “The Call and the Responsal.”

12. “He is completely achieved as soon as he surrenders unconditionally to what gives itself–and first of all to the saturated phenomenon that calls him.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book V: “The Gifted,” §28: “The Call and the Responsal.”

13. “The gifted is privileged to surrender to the evidence–in the double sense of bearing the burst of the given and of not denying the undeniable.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book V: “The Gifted,” §28: “The Call and the Responsal.”

14. “The receiver can no longer claim to possess or produce phenomena.”

Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Book V: “The Gifted,” §25: “The Aporias of the ‘Subject.'”

1. “The phenomenon shows itself only insofar as it gives itself (§§1, 6, and 12).”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §§1, 6, and 12.

1. “Not all phenomena, saturated though they are, offer the same degree of givenness.”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §21.

1. “The question of determining the degree to which saturation can be deployed thus presents itself. Does it attain a maximum, or does it, by hypothesis, always transgress it?”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §21.

1. “This question arises inevitably from the mere fact that it alone permits all dimensions of phenomenality to be glimpsed, explores the region of saturated givenness, thoroughly inventories it, and cannot be dodged.”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §21.

1. “What remains is to determine just how far such a possibility goes and if we can assign a maximum to it.”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §21.

1. “The maximum of saturated phenomenality must remain an ultimate possibility of the phenomenon–the last, but still under the heading of possibility.”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §21.

1. “The phenomenon of revelation not only falls into the category of saturation (paradox in general), but it concentrates the four types of saturated phenomena and is given at once as historical event, idol, flesh, and icon (face).”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §23.

1. “Thus, the phenomenon of revelation, insofar as it manifests as given in a phenomenality that reaches its maximum saturation, refers us back, in its possibility as such, to the givenness that made its very appearance possible.”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §23.

1. “It reclaims and transforms phenomenology at the same time, since it proposes that the phenomenal be taken seriously in the very givenness that makes it appear.”

• Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, §23.

The Book Ends with this section so keep it ready at hand for generating word for word quotes from it:

OPENING ONTO A QUESTION

Several conclusions can be drawn from the investigation I have just completed.

Phenomenology does not break decisively with metaphysics until the moment when and exactly in the degree to which–a degree that most often remains in flux–it names and thinks the phenomenon (a) neither as an object, that is to say, not within the horizon of objectness such as, starting with Descartes, it defines the epistemological project of constituting the world and excludes from phenomenality, and therefore from the truth, all that, whether by lack (the pure sensible) or by excess (the divine and the insensible), does not fall under the order and measure of the Mathesis Universalis; (b) nor as a being, that is to say, within the horizon of Being, whether we understand this in the sense of the metaphysical ontologia or claim to “destroy” it in the name of the Dasein analytic or protect it under the cover of Ereignis–for a number of phenomena simply are not, or just don’t appear inasmuch as they are. To let phenomena appear demands not imposing a horizon on them, whatever the horizon might be, since it would exclude some of them. The apparition of phenomena becomes unconditional only from the moment when they are admitted as what they give themselves–givens, purely.

The phenomenality of the given suggests that the phenomenon does not appear only when an other besides it (the I) constitutes it (Kant, Husserl), but first when it shows itself in itself and from itself (Heidegger). What remains is to take the most perilous step: thinking this self/itself–which alone permits the phenomenon to show itself. For this project, I turn to the phenomenology of givenness because it opens at least a way of access to the self/itself. The phenomenon shows itself inasmuch as it unfolds in it the fold of givenness; it always keeps, at the end of this unfolding, the mark of the passage, trajectory, or movement that it accomplished in order to come forward. The given testifies, by the trembling with which it still and always vibrates, not only to its irreversible and intrinsic difference, but also to its incessantly lost and repeated happening. It therefore attests that if it appears (shows itself), it owes this only to itself, only to its self (which gives itself).

No doubt, the object can be received as a phenomenon–but as a handicapped or challenged phenomenon. Its intuition is limited to its concept, and therefore hides its givenness. Its coming forward submits to constitution, and therefore represses the self according to which its givenness would be outlined. Its apparently identical reproduction…

Here is the OCR-processed text from the three images combined into one coherent section:

dissimulates its coming forward since its extrinsic finality as equipment destroys its anamorphosis and fait accompli. No doubt, too, all beings appear only as given–even though their submission to the concept of being imposes on them the yoke of representation, which hides their determinations as event and incident. But not every given shows itself reciprocally as a being. The majority of the time, it manifests itself precisely beyond or without the ontic categories. From now on, it is necessary that we learn to see what shows itself simply and strictly inasmuch as it shows itself, in the absolute freedom of its apparition. There is nothing easy about this apprenticeship, for what shows itself first gives itself and to see what gives itself, we must first renounce constituting and “grasping” it (in the Cartesian sense), in favor of simply receiving it. But to receive, in philosophy as elsewhere–what could be more arduous?

Along this way, however, opens the possibility of reintegrating into an official phenomenology saturated phenomena or paradoxes. In contrast to the classic doctrines of phenomenality, which were constructed according to the paradigm of phenomena poor in intuition (logical utterances, mathematical objects, the doubting ego, the I of the reduction, indeed Dasein in anxiety), the phenomenology of givenness follows the paradigm of the unconditional given, quite possibly saturated with intuition and therefore unobjectifiable. It can therefore do justice to the unconstitutable, which constitutes for us what is essential in our world (the idol, event, flesh, and face), indeed in what passes beyond it. Far from underestimating the most recent advances in phenomenology–hermeneutics, differance, auto-affection, and the gaze of the Other–I am only trying to confirm them by assigning each a precise site within givenness. These advances

have actually accomplished such triumphant breakthroughs that they have gone almost too far, almost to the point of cutting themselves off, so to speak, from their foundations. Pressed by the thing itself, they have not always taken care, first, to reach a decisive decision about their rupture with the horizons of the object or Being and, next and especially, to justify this rupture by elaborating the definition of phenomenality that permitted them in each case to accede to phenomena as radically new as theirs. For it is not enough to win new territories; it is still necessary to justify one’s right to occupy them. I dare to propose that the definition of the phenomenon as what shows itself only inasmuch as it gives itself is the sole one to secure this justification.

A new question follows. 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, how-

Here is the OCR-extracted and compiled text from the three provided images:

…have actually accomplished such triumphant breakthroughs that they have gone almost too far, almost to the point of cutting themselves off, so to speak, from their foundations. Pressed by the thing itself, they have not always taken care, first, to reach a decisive decision about their rupture with the horizons of the object or Being and, next and especially, to justify this rupture by elaborating the definition of phenomenality that permitted them in each case to accede to phenomena as radically new as theirs. For it is not enough to win new territories; it is still necessary to justify one’s right to occupy them. I dare to propose that the definition of the phenomenon as what shows itself only inasmuch as it gives itself is the sole one to secure this justification.

A new question follows. 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. For such attempts have all failed; indeed, they have reinforced the return of the repressed, because no knowing, however positivistic it might pretend to be, can do away with such a supposedly knowing and seeing x. To tear down this x would be a performative contradiction since whoever says or understands the apparently triumphant attack (and it is triumphant only for such a witness) annuls it by the very movement by which he consecrates it. Destroying the “subject” by denying it all actuality amounts to assigning it all the more an ideal definition; but the ideas of reason remain “inevitable” and continually stake a claim to existence in objectivity. 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 center to which it lays claim–with the title of a (thinking, constituting, resolute) “I.” I will contest the claim that it occupies this center as an origin, an ego or first person, in transcendental “mineness.” I will oppose to it the claim that it does not hold this center but is instead held there as a recipient where what gives itself shows itself, and that it discloses itself given to and as a pole of givenness, where all the givens come forward incessantly. At the center stands no “subject,” but a gifted, 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.

A new question follows. 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. For such attempts have all failed; indeed they have reinforced the return of the repressed, because no knowing, however positivistic it might pretend to be, can do away with such a supposedly knowing and seeing x. To tear down this x would be a performative contradiction since whoever says or understands the apparently triumphant attack (and it is triumphant only for such a witness) annuls it by the very movement by which he consecrates it. Destroying the “subject” by denying it all actuality amounts to assigning it all the more an ideal definition; but the ideas of reason remain “inevitable” and continually stake a claim to existence in objectivity. 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 center to which it lays claim–with the title of a (thinking, constituting, resolute) “I.” I will contest the claim that it occupies this center as an origin, an ego or first person, in transcendental “mineness.” I will oppose to it the claim that it does not hold this center but is instead held there as a recipient where what gives itself shows itself, and that it discloses itself given to and as a pole of givenness, where all the givens come forward incessantly. At the center stands no “subject,” but a gifted, 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.

The institution of the gifted by the given immediately implies reconsidering in new terms the question of access to the Other. The conditions in which the “subject” was instituted raise many obstacles to such access. For, if the “subject is defined as constituting objects, then it can only objectify the Other (Descartes, perhaps Sartre) or appresent him in ordinary inter-objectivity and therefore miss him as such (Husserl). If, by contrast, he accomplishes this purely by his own self-resolution, he only comes across the Other according to his own for-the-Other, without joining him (Heidegger). It’s entirely different with the gifted: defined as he who receives and receives himself from the given, he can receive, according to the ordinary procedures of givenness (no predetermined horizon, no a priori principle, no constitution), among other givens, the paradox classified as icon, the face. For in the realm of givenness, the phenomenon of the Other, for the first time, no longer counts as anything like an extraterritorial exception to phenomenality, but belongs to it officially, though with the title paradox (saturated phenomenon). To receive the Other–that is equivalent first and before all to receiving a given and receiving oneself from it; no obstacle stands between the Other and the gifted. There is more: the gifted himself belongs within the phenomenality of givenness and therefore, in this sense, gives itself, too, in a privileged way. (i) It gives itself first inasmuch as, like every phenomenon, it arises from the given. (ii) It gives itself next par excellence, since it alone can and should respond in turn to the givens that appear as such only by showing themselves to it. (iii) Above all, the gifted can glimpse the possibility of giving itself to an exceptional given–the given that would show itself in the mode of the gifted, it too accustomed to receiving itself from what gives itself to it. When the Other shows itself, it is a case of one gifted giving itself to another gifted: first as a common given (a phenomenon given), next as a gifted (to whom givens are given). The difficulty no longer consists therefore in deciding if the Other can appear (traditional solipsism, the supposedly definitive “non-communicability of consciousnesses”), but in grasping how the Other shows himself by giving himself to the gifted that I remain. And it could be that much attention and effort is needed to describe and understand the exceptional phenomenological situation in which a gifted shows himself, therefore gives himself, to another gifted according to several levels of the one and only givenness. This would no longer concern intersubjectivity or interobjectivity, but intergivenness–less an exception to ordinary phenomenality than one of its most advanced developments and, perhaps, its completion.

This situation, still unspoiled by exploration, not only allows and requires reconsidering the thematic of ethics–of respect and the face, obligation and substitution–and confirming its phenomenal legitimacy. It would also perhaps authorize broaching what ethics cannot attain: the individuation of the Other. For I neither want nor should only face up to him as the universal and abstract pole of counter-intentionality where each and every one can take on the face of the face. I instead reach him in his unsubstitutable particularity, where he shows himself like no other Other can. This individuation has a name: love. But we have for a long time now been without the concept that would do it justice, and this name remains the most prostituted of words. Nonetheless, phenomenology claims to make it its privileged theme–“Love, as basic motive for phenomenological understanding” (Heidegger). Could the phenomenology of givenness finally restore to it the dignity of a concept?

Here are the relevant direct quotes from Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness that demonstrate resistance to metaphysics, along with their respective sections and books:

1. “Phenomenology does not break decisively with metaphysics until the moment when… it names and thinks the phenomenon… neither as an object… nor as a being.”

• Being Given, Book IV: Saturated Phenomena, “Opening Onto a Question”

1. “To let phenomena appear demands not imposing a horizon on them, whatever the horizon might be, since it would exclude some of them.”

• Being Given, Book IV: Saturated Phenomena, “Opening Onto a Question”

1. “The phenomenon shows itself only insofar as it gives itself.”

• Being Given, Book I: The Phenomenon Reduced, §§1, 6, and 12

1. “The determination of the phenomenon as an event… indicates that this same arising is accomplished without cause, that is to say, without dependence on any other term.”

• Being Given, Book II: The Saturated Phenomenon, §17

1. “The phenomenon not only shows itself insofar as it makes itself, but it has always already taken the initiative of making itself seen.”

• Being Given, Book III: The Gift, §11

Givenness, in Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology, is the self-manifestation of a phenomenon as it gives itself, requiring no external grounding, causation, or subjective constitution, and instead showing itself entirely on its own terms and in its own mode of appearing.

The openness at the end is trying to express the notion of relational fulfillment and individuation through love as a phenomenological concept. Marion is suggesting that phenomenology, particularly through the lens of givenness, can rehabilitate and restore the concept of love to its proper dignity. This concept of love is not abstract or universal in a detached sense but deeply relational and personal. It emphasizes individuation in the face of the Other–where the Other is encountered in their absolute particularity, beyond objectification or substitution.

This openness reflects the phenomenological culmination of givenness as an ethical and existential horizon. It moves beyond traditional notions of intersubjectivity or objectivity, into a relational dynamic–what Marion calls intergivenness–where love operates as the ultimate phenomenological motive. In doing so, it invites a rethinking of love not as a diluted or overused concept, but as an essential phenomenological event, grounded in the mutuality of giving and receiving between persons.

[next book]

Foreword

The 2013 Père Marquette Lecture in Theology is the forty-fourth in a series commemorating the missions and explorations of Père Jacques Marquette, SJ (1637–1675). This series of lectures was begun in 1969 under the auspices of the Marquette University Department of Theology. The Joseph A. Auchter Family Endowment Fund has endowed the lecture series. Joseph Auchter (1894–1986), a native of Milwaukee, was a banking and paper industry executive and a long-time supporter of education. The fund was established by his children as a memorial to him.

Jean-Luc Marion

Jean-Luc Marion is known for his idea of the “saturated phenomenon,” which states that “there are phenomena of such overwhelming givenness or overflowing fulfillment that the intentional acts aimed at these phenomena are overrun, flooded–saturated!” Marion also discusses intentionality in his book Prolegomena to Charity, in which he explores the human idea of love and its lack of definition; in Being Given; and, in particular, in In Excess: Studies in Saturated Phenomena.

Several of his publications have recently appeared or are forthcoming in English: The Reason of the Gift (University of Virginia Press, 2011), Negative Certitudes (forthcoming, University of Chicago Press, 2012–13), Instead of Self: The Approach to St. Augustine (Stanford University Press, forthcoming, 2013), Descartes’ Grey Ontology (forthcoming, St. Augustine Press, 2013), and Le croire pour le voir (English translation forthcoming, 2014, Fordham University Press). Additionally, two new books have just been published or are forthcoming in French this year: Figures de phénoménologie (J. Vrin, Paris, 2012) and Sur la pensée passive de Descartes (P.U.F., Paris, 2012).

Marion has been awarded the Grand Prix de Philosophie de l’Académie Française and the Karl-Jaspers Prize of the city and University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 2008. In 2008, he was elected to, and in 2010 inducted into, the Académie Française as an immortel (member). In 2009, he was elected to the Academia dei Lincei (Rome).

To Professor Marion’s distinguished list of publications, Marquette University Press is pleased to add Givenness and Hermeneutics.

GIVENNESS

AND

HERMENEUTICS

I. HOW TO START?

A question cannot be avoided in phenomenology–whether we can and if we must admit an irreducible, whatever it is. This question itself rests on two grounds.

On the one hand, the reduction, which, even as it occurs and is radicalized, highlights, if only by contraposition, the possibility, even the necessity, of an exception, of an irreducible. Whether we understand it as a finally “unreduced” phenomenon, or whether it is directly about the way the reduction itself operates. Both assumptions, however, face two strong objections, at least in appearance. Either it will not be accepted that the reduction may accept the least exception, or it will be argued that the phenomenological enterprise is always and absolutely related to the exercising of the reduction. This is a strength, but indeed only apparent strength of the objections, since they contradict themselves up front: the first is based on the absolute and transcendental authority of the reduction, while the second involves the suspension of the initiating role of that same reduction;

Therefore

We cannot reconcile the two objections, and, between them, we must choose, and of this choice, the objectors are not always aware. In fact, we must choose. Either, the more reduction there is, the less irreducible (and givenness) there will be, as M. Richir would like to think, or there will be even as more phenomenality (i.e., givenness) that one will waive the transcendental status of the reduction (as C. Romano and probably Benoist, in line with Merleau-Ponty, are claiming). We perhaps cannot bypass as easily the fourth principle of phenomenology, as much reduction as much givenness, by abstract negations or by inflationist attenuations.

There is more. This dilemma is itself based on assumptions that must at least be identified, probably before challenging them. First, the assumption that the reduction keeps a transcendental, hence metaphysical, status, leaning on an “I” which is itself unconditioned; while it could be plausible that the whole development of phenomenology, and this starting with Husserl, has consisted in putting aside (or in brackets) the assumed transcendentality of the Kantian and post-Kantian “I” in order to make it the result as well as the origin of the reduction–to modify it according to each type of reduction that it implements only by first exposing itself to the type in question. The debate on the reduction remains abstract and therefore pointless, as long as its feedback

The Issue

And, starting in 1919, had clearly identified it: “What do you mean given, givenness–that magic word of phenomenology and stumbling block to others?” It is not enough to debase givenness to what it has precisely the function of transcending (intuition and sensitivity) and consequently to idle it in order to transcend it. Again, the fourth principle of phenomenology, as much reduction as much givenness, holds, at least as a question.

To look again at these issues, we will focus on the terms of a now well-established debate, which is however fragile and ill-posed as to its main thesis, that of the relationship, most often suspected as being an exclusion, between givenness and hermeneutics.

II. Not Intuition, but Givenness

It is therefore necessary to admit the fact of givenness as the ultimate authority, not backing off from this facticity as if it were an abuse or an impropriety, since givenness indeed, as facticity, remains still absolutely to be determined, hence neutral. In this sense, the fact of givenness is valid de jure.

Husserl casts no doubt on this de facto and inseparably de jure character, of a de jure norm: “Absolute Gegebenheit ist ein Letztes. […] Anderseits Selbstgegebenheit überhaupt zu leugnen die, das letzte Norm beißt, der alles Erkenntnis Sinn gebende Grundma

Hermeneutics

“Die absolute Gegebenheit ist ein Letztes. […] Anderseits Selbstgegebenheit überhaupt zu leugnen, heißt, die letzte Norm zu leugnen, der alles Erkenntnis Sinn gebende Grundmaß”–“The absolute givenness is an ultimate term. […] On the other hand, denying in general the givenness of self means denying the ultimate norm, the fundamental norm that gives any meaning to fundamental knowledge!”

Also, the problem of a pure knowledge can be solved only “…in der Sphäre der letztnormierenden, weil absoluten Gegebenheit”–“in the sphere of the ultimately normative givenness, because it is absolute.” Such a norm attests its primordiality even with respect to the difference, in another sense, which is impassable between the regions of the world and consciousness, that everything separates (immanence/transcendence, certainty/contingency, absolute/relation, etc.), but that do deploy themselves inside the unique givenness:

“We thus consider as well proved that, while it belongs to the essence of the givenness (Zum Wesen der Gegebenheit) by sketches that none gives (gibt) the thing as an absolute, but instead, gives it only in a one-sided presentation, it belongs to the essence of the immanent givenness (der immanenten Gegebenheit) to also give an absolute (ein Absolutes zu geben).”

Whatever is the most cardinal difference that is given (es gibt) between consciousness and reality, it remains an originary difference of givenness mode (der Gegebenheitsart).

In his own, of course essentially different way, Heidegger makes a similar scenario by ultimately

Hermeneutics

Using the Es gibt. We have argued, somewhere else, whether the transition to Ereignis does not conceal or erase too quickly the enigmatic indeterminacy (“rätselhaftes Es”) of the “es,” of the “that” which gives by debasing it to an “undetermined power” (unbestimmt macht) as well as translations such as the common translations il y a or there is! But it remains, however, that the “es” gives, not as this word “es,” but as the word, as itself, gives: and as a word, it gives without argument, without context, without pre-text, without hermeneutics: “Of the word, in order to be rigorous, one should never say: it is, but it gives/that gives (es gibt)–this not in the sense that ‘that’ would give a word, but where the word itself gives. The word: that which gives–… daß das Wort selber gibt. Das Wort: das Gebende.”

Here the givenness has the last word, because the word alone gives, and givenness is fulfilled in words. Strictly thinking, about givenness, there is nothing to say, and one should not say anything about it, because it alone speaks, and that is what ends the debate.

Givenness is necessary, to follow the two greatest teachers of phenomenology, as a factum, but in the sense of a factum rationis, ultima ratio rerum, which, as the last and the first givenness, stands out as a de jure norm. Twice unquestionable, irreducible (result of the reduction, it resists it or becomes itself the residue). It is therefore understandable that givenness seems to contradict and to prohibit any mediation, any hermeneutics.

NEVER GIVES THINGS

There is probably the lengthy recurrence of a critique, a complaint which denounces the fetishism of the “given” for help in the direction of hermeneutics, in order to restore, according to the sufficient expression of a critique, its supposedly violated rights–a phenomenology smartened from the purity of the givenness.

This objection was introduced as evidence by J. Grondin and J. Greisch and widely reported by public rumor. It ended up providing shelter even for theologians. But, when reading one of the latest formulations of the objection, we see immediately the limit of it:

“The real touchstone of phenomenology proposed by Étant donné is this unconditional universality of the givenness, to which nothing is lacking and which invalidates, in particular, the need for a recourse to hermeneutics.”

However, the whole issue is precisely whether… the unconditional universality of givenness being admitted, it also renders obsolete … (the) recourse to hermeneutics: no analytic link connects the two terms, and one cannot see how givenness as such would prohibit hermeneutics, nor why it would not call for it earlier, would even demand that call. The objection assumes here exactly what has to be proven: the incompatibility of the phenomenality core with the differentiated enunciation of its figures of meaning. This inconsis–

Hermeneutics

Would immediately a phenomenon which can be objectified–that is, a phenomenon which is constituted by its specific meaning, which would bear no interpretation, since it would already be included in a meaning or concept which would be identified and specific?

But does givenness always, and even ever, give (and claim to give) such an object of univocal and specific meaning? Is givenness identical to the efficient causality that produces a univocal object? Is giving equivalent to placing an object under one’s eyes or to having it on (at?) hand?

Who does not see that, thus reduced to production and efficiency, givenness would not give anything anymore, precisely because it would no longer give, but produce? Heidegger perfectly denounced this misunderstanding which, beforehand, jeopardizes any correct approach to givenness. This jeopardy also confirms that the Gegebenheit intervenes, especially as a “stumbling block,” more like an enigma than a solution; in all cases, never as something easy:

“Gibt es überhaupt eine einzige Sache, wenn es nur Sachen gibt? Dann gibt es überhaupt keine Sachen; es gibt nicht einmal nichts, weil es bei einer Allherrschaft der Sachensphäre auch kein ‘es gibt’ gibt. Gibt es das ‘es gibt’?”

“Does that give even one thing, if it gives only things? Then it gives absolutely no thing; it does not even give nothing, because in the absolute domination of the realm of things, this does not give also the least ‘that gives.’

Here is the corrected word-for-word transcription based on the provided image:

Give the “That Gives”

“Gibt es ein ‘es gibt,’ wenn es nur ein ‘es gibt’ gibt?” — “Does this give the ‘that gives,’ when and if this gives only a ‘that gives’?” In other words, givenness and the es gibt disappear or dissolve when they are devaluated into a pure and simple production of things (that is, of objects already constituted and with unequivocal meaning), and it is on this condition that they probably prohibit an opening toward an interpretation. But this condition of prohibiting hermeneutics exactly coincides with the time of the disappearance of givenness, and not at all with its appearance.

IV. The Given Never Gives Itself Immediately

That the given is immediate and gives, however, an object already prepared for theoretical knowledge–this is the contradiction that the “myth of the given” presupposes, but also its constantly repeated criticism:

“… the concept or as I call it, the myth of the given is invoked to explain the possibility of a direct account of immediate experience” (Sellars).

Thus understood, the given would first be non-mediated, as “The philosophical idea of givenness or, to use the Hegelian term, immediacy” and it is thus conceived as a sense datum, according to the meaning of classical empiricism (Locke). It then draws to it-

Hermeneutics

…self the inevitable objection that, remaining immediate, it does not yet offer an object and remains below the standards of any epistemological validity; for if it had any epistemological validity, then it would not be immediate, being an already constructed object.

But this same given would also be, at the same time as immediate, a non-dependent, self-sustaining, non-inferential knowledge. Hence the final argument by Sellars: such a given cannot be constituted by itself immediately but receives its validation from constitution, therefore attests contingent dependency, as it happens in an epistemological becoming.

This twofold objection is unified in Quine’s single objection: the connection between the immediate supposed data (what x is at time t, and location l, etc.) and the elementary proposition (according to semantic rules) can never be assured, except by a composition–we would rather say a constitution–which would inevitably be mediate. Strict reductionism cannot be conceived without a constitution.

In other words, to speak like Neurath, there is no immediate protocolary statement: “The fiction of the ideal language constructed from pure atomic statements is as metaphysical as the fiction of the Spirit of Laplace.”

Or: “There is no way that would allow making protocolary enunciations, of which we would definitely be sure of its purity, the starting point of sciences. There is no tabula rasa. We are like sailors forced to rebuild their ship on the high seas,”–

…without ever being able to dismantle it in a dock and to rebuild it anew with better parts. Criticism of the “myth of the given” makes clear a precise but contradictory definition of this given: it would put together, on one hand, the immediacy of a sense datum, limited to intuition, itself restricted to sensible intuition, and would be summarized in a purely subjective, individual, indubitable as well as incommunicable affect (for private language, in fact deprived of language); and, on the other hand, it would benefit from the epistemological validity of a first object, an intelligible atom of evidence.

Besides the contradiction of these two properties (Neurath), the impossibility of each of them can be argued as well. It would first be assumed that the given is always found immediately in the vicinity of the object, and it does not matter here if that object is already constituted or still in the process of being constituted, since it is a being included in advance in the way of being of the Vorhandenheit, of the substantial permanence of a support of objectifying knowledge.

It is not necessary here to repeat the demonstration that C. Romano has just recently made. We retain its positive conclusion: the given can be thought only as being outside (or beyond) the mode of being of the object which it does not yet constitute and in which it does not necessarily have the vocation to complete; as soon as the objecthood appears, with its character–

Here is the corrected transcription based on the provided image:

Characteristics and Requirements

(Permanence, definition, universalization, etc.), the given is already gone. The given can be thought only in its irreducibility to objecthood.

Since the criticism inflicted upon it by the rhetoric of the “myth of the given” is based on its inability (rightly assumed) to satisfy objecthood, we must conclude that it never addressed itself to the given as such, but precisely to a myth.

But the criticism of the “myth of the given” also assigns a second property–which is essential to mark its contradiction–namely, that it stays immediate. In that, it finds an assumption which is widespread in the most common reading in phenomenology of the notion of given and givenness. Now one should, on the contrary, emphasize the paradox that, from the point of view of a rigorous phenomenology, it is in the nature of the given not to give itself immediately, especially not in the immediacy of the sense data, although it gives itself in perfect facticity–or rather because it gives itself as an unconditioned and inherent factum.

Consider a first argument from Husserl:

“Nicht das psychologische Phänomen in der psychologischen Apperzeption und Objektivation ist wirklich eine absolute Gegebenheit, sondern nur das reine Phänomen, das reduzierte.”

“This is not the psychological phenomenon in the apperception and psychological objectification which is indeed an absolute givenness, but only the pure phenomenon, the reduced one.

Absolute Givenness and the Reduced Phenomenon

Absolute givenness is not the psychological phenomenon but the pure phenomenon, the reduced phenomenon. *Or: “About a singular case of cogitatio, for example, a feeling that we are currently experiencing, one could say: this is given, but in no way would be allowed to risk the more general proposition: the givenness of a generally reduced phenomenon is absolutely undisputed–die Gegebenheit eines reduzierten Phänomens überhaupt ist eine absolute zweifellose.”

As long as the phenomenon comes from and comes only from what is lived, thus bearing the character of immediacy, it remains doubtful, indeterminate, and therefore not actually given. Because it is not enough to be felt and feel to be found a given. (If this were true, the color of a tie, varying according to the light that illuminates it, would already be enough to provide a given.) The “felt” and “experienced” become an absolute and unmistakable given only when they are subjected to reduction, that is to say, as long as they are mediated.

This obviously does not mean that the given, because it is mediated and not only experienced in intuition, should, for all that, be constituted into an object. Let us consider, to understand this, a second argument, which comes from a precise question by Heidegger.

“The sphere of the problem of phenomenology is therefore not simply immediately given beforehand (unmittelbar schlicht vorgegeben); it must be mediated (vermittelt werden). What does indeed…

What Does It Mean for Something to Be Simply Given in Advance?

What does it mean: something is simply given in advance? In what sense is it usually possible, and what does it mean: something must be immediately, “firstly,” put forth to givenness (allererst zur Gegebenheit gebracht werden)?

Here comes an apparently very simple analysis, but one that should be considered paradigmatic, because it was so crucial for the young Heidegger, who was wondering about this:

“The naive consciousness […] makes immediately many, too many assumptions and presuppositions, instead of considering what is given immediately, primitively. What is given immediately! Each word has its meaning here. What does mean immediately?–… statt sich darauf zu besinnen, was unmittelbar gegeben ist. Was unmittelbar gegeben ist! Jedes Wort ist hier von Bedeutung. Was besagt unmittelbar?”

For example, consider a teacher speaking while standing behind a pulpit. What do the students perceive? Or more exactly, what phenomenon does appear to them, is giving itself to them? Contrary to the assumptions of constructivism and the prejudices of empiricism, sense data are not given as isolated, immediate entities, abstracted and derived.

Not the immediate entities: not the color of the wood, not the size of the support, not the effects of morning light, not the resonance of voice sounds–none of these appear first. Rather, in the experience of the pulpit (im Kathedererlebnis), what is immediately given to me is the pulpit as such, i.e., as meaning, before any sensorial explanation.

Experiences and Independent Meaning

Even those who would not know what a pulpit is, nor a course, nor a teacher, nor listeners, nor a university, would nevertheless immediately see a meaning–probably another meaning (that of a ceremony podium, a celebration totem, etc.), but a global meaning (Bedeutung)–would always be first and immediately given to them, a meaning within which the sense data could then, later, take place and meaning, mediately and abstractedly recognizable a posteriori.

Only the phenomenon with a meaning is literally giving itself–the phenomenon which is mediated by its own meaning. Only what occurs by itself is given, hence with its literal meaning, mediated by reduction (Husserl), or by its own meaning (Heidegger), unless the proper meaning accomplishes de facto and de jure the most radical possible reduction–the reduction of that thing to itself.

It is therefore necessary to consider “the issue of givenness” as an enigma, which places it outside the common dichotomies of naive consciousness: neither immediate in the sense of the sense data of the subjective impression, nor mediate in the sense of objecthood built for knowledge.

It is not about choosing between words that are all inadequate, or even about finding a middle-way solution: it would be even better to know how to “fail” in solving this “problem” the right way. If its enigmatic character, Rätselhaftigkeit,…

The Path of Original Understanding

As putting us on the path of original understanding (Verstehen), original because it is anchored in the “being in the world” itself. Again, you have to understand the question: Was heißt gegeben, Gegebenheit – dieses Zauberwort der Phänomenologie und der Stein des Anstoßes bei den Anderen–“What does ‘given’ mean, givenness–this magic word of phenomenology and the stumbling block for others?”–and therefore remain in the enigma.

The indeterminacy of the given offers perhaps the only proper determination, the one which distinguishes it from all that follows–sense data, objects, knowledge–the offspring of its event (apparition?). Because, for once, Valéry saw and expressed this question well:

“The nature, that is to say, the Data [the given]. And that’s all. Everything inceptive; the eternal given of any mental transaction, regardless of data and transaction, this is nature, and it is nothing else.”

Here, before this indeterminate beginning, neither mediate nor immediate, in front of this enigma, another enigma intervenes–the enigma of hermeneutics.

V. Interpretation

The enigmatic character of the given, neither immediate nor mediate (as an object), its enigmaticity (Rätselhaftigkeit), lies therefore, according to the text of Sein und Zeit just mentioned, in an understanding (Verstehen). But the question of the interpretation (Auslegung) depends in turn on the interpretation of this Verstehen. And therefore, it too shares the enigmatic character of the given through the Verstehen.

Two Essential Remarks and Tasks

One has to make here two essential remarks, and there are two tasks to face.

First, we should not–and we cannot–take the instance of hermeneutics as the universal solution to the determination of the meaning of the given, as if it were self-evident and fell from the intelligible sky upon a given that would remain obscure and problematic. The act of interpretation is no more obvious than the reception of the given, with which it shares its enigmatic character.

For hermeneutics does not operate on objects or on sense data, modifying them at will by arbitrary authority–such an attitude would rather define ideology. Hermeneutics practices a givenness of meaning on the given, from an appropriate meaning to the given, in such a way that the latter, instead of returning to its anonymity and remaining hidden, is deliberately released and freed in its manifestation.

Hermeneutics does not give a meaning to the given by securing and deciding it; rather, it gives its meaning–that is to say, the meaning that shows that given as itself, as a phenomenon that is shown in itself and by itself. The self of the phenomenon rules, in the final instance, all the givenness of meaning.

It is not a givenness by which a meaning is constituted by it into an object or ascribed to this very object but rather a way to let its own meaning come to the object, acknowledged more than known. The meaning given by hermeneutics does not come so much from the decision of the hermeneutic actor,

The meaning given by hermeneutics arises not from the hermeneutic actor’s decision but from the phenomenon itself, awaiting interpretation. In this process, the hermeneutic actor remains a discoverer and servant, revealing the phenomenon by attributing the most appropriate meaning inherent to it. This reciprocal interpretation requires the hermeneutic actor to be influenced by the given, allowing it to manifest as a phenomenon.

Hans-Georg Gadamer articulates this reciprocal structure through two key concepts:

1. Fusion of Horizons: Gadamer addresses Nietzsche’s historical aporia, where interpretation either imposes the interpreter’s horizon onto the subject, distorting it, or loses its own perspective by fully adopting the subject’s horizon. Gadamer proposes that true understanding occurs when the horizons of the present and the past merge. He asserts, “The horizon of the present is not formed without the past. There is no horizon that exists apart from historical horizons that one should conquer. Understanding (Verstehen) is, instead, the process of the fusion of these horizons, which are supposedly independent of one another.”
2. Reciprocal Process: This fusion involves a dialogue between the given (e.g., the past horizon) and the interpreter’s present horizon. Gadamer emphasizes that understanding is not a one-sided act but a mutual process where both the interpreter and the subject matter influence each other, leading to a shared horizon.

In summary, Gadamer’s hermeneutics highlights the dynamic interplay between the interpreter and the phenomenon, where meaning emerges through the fusion of horizons and reciprocal engagement.

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The Question and Answer Structure

The phenomenon (the present horizon, in this case); how to define this reciprocity, which will reduplicate the interpretation of the hermeneutic person with the interpretation of the hermeneutic person itself?

“We are back to what we agree upon here: the hermeneutic phenomenon also carries with it the originarity of the dialogue and the question and answer structure.”

It is, in the historical interpretation which ultimately led to the interpretation of texts, about a dialogue:

“Because the question-answer dialectics, which we highlighted, shows understanding as a reciprocal relationship such as found in dialogue. Admittedly, a text does not speak to us as a ‘you.’ It is always to ‘us,’ who understand, and of us, to make it talk. Now, as we have seen, this way of giving a voice in the understanding is not any intervention of a personal initiative: it refers in turn as a question to the expected response of the text.”

Thus, the question (which asks the meaning of the given) receives this meaning, which will provoke the apparition of the given, only as the answer not of the interpreter, but of what is interpreted, the text. It will be, in this sense, the meaning of the given, of the answer.

Thus, hermeneutics depends on the question and answer structure, that is to say, the call and response structure, hence of the structure of the given articulated on the visible: hermeneutics itself is a special case of the play between what is given and what is shown, between the call of the given and the response (through the meaning) of what shows up.

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…without any phenomenological legitimacy. This failure of the articulation between the logical and the ontical comes from misunderstanding the ways of being of both, ways of being which will never appear as long as we remain at “the leveling … of the original ‘as’ of the circumspect interpretation at the level of the ‘as’ of the determination of beingness at hand (Nivellierung des ursprünglicher ‘Als’ der umsichtigten Auslegung zum Als der Vorhandenheitsbestimmung).”

In this case, the hermeneutic is degraded into a single, arbitrary and illegitimate utterance (Aussage).

Understanding, at least in its phenomenological (and hence logical) legitimacy implies, on the contrary, the possible-being of the Dasein, in the sense where the Möglichsein has the existential primacy in Dasein, not the rank of a modality or a category of non-daseinmäßige being (possibility as a bare, not yet effective contingency).

Far from the (positive) indifference of free will, the Dasein frees itself for its most typical possibility, because, as geworfen, it is following the project mode, the view (and not the vision) mode.

Therefore, hermeneutics never deals first with the text (vision of its meaning), but with the intra-worldly being opened to and by the possibility (the avenue for the coming of the interpreter).

Thus, in the yet still inappropriate situation (uneigentlich) of maneuverable being (zuhanden), there is no pre-given (vorgegeben), no pieces, no fragments, but always the meaning already, this character of Dasein and not the property of the in-…

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…tra-worldly being.

“The understanding, as opening of the Da-, always concerns the opening of the totality of the ‘being for the world.'”

Therefore, it becomes clear that the apophantic ‘as’ (Aussage) presupposes and by repercussion derives from the existential ‘as’:

“We call the originating ‘as’ of the circumspect interpretation (ermhneiva) the hermeneutics-existential ‘as’ as different from the apophantic ‘as’ of the enunciation.”

The circle is not vicious, but rather than avoiding entering into it, it is necessary to enter it correctly. Hence the second thesis: if hermeneutics is rooted in understanding, if that understanding always means the pre-understanding, hence the opening of Dasein to its possibility, but if, in addition, the possibility opens to the call and response play, then we can have a glimpse of how hermeneutics can be articulated on the issue of givenness.

It is only if the way the given is received and the identification of the given imply that this given is always to be interpreted as a phenomenon, that the hermeneutic instance sets the locus of the given, because this instance sets there itself.

For we need to understand hermeneutics itself in view of the way the given is received and identified. Hence the last step: not any more to know how to understand (interpret) hermeneutics itself, but how to understand it so that it understands itself (in it) (regarding) the given.

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VI. Four Hermeneutic Moments in Givenness

No given gives itself immediately, nor either mediately as an object already constituted. For the given does not show itself just because it gives itself up. This necessary condition has nothing sufficient about it. Sure, the phenomenon appears only if it befalls as a given, but this is not enough for it to appear as showing itself, in full phenomenality.

Starting with Étant donné, from which it was one of the conclusions, we noted that “…if all that is showing itself must first give itself, it sometimes happens that what gives itself does not succeed at showing itself.”

The given shows itself only in its reflection, in its reflexive return, in short in the response of the “adonné,” who sees it, but only as it receives itself from this given.

In other words, it is “…precisely because the principle that ‘what gives itself, shows itself’ remains intact, that it becomes possible to see the finitude of phenomenality, in the context of givenness: for what gives itself shows itself only as much as it is received by the ‘gifted’ (adonné), whose proper function is to give back to the given, the possibility of showing itself.”

But if the given gives itself as a call, if it shows itself only in the response of the “adonné,” and if the “adonné” is by definition finite, then what is shown always stays behind and late in comparison with what gives itself. The finitude of the manifestation…

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…(of the self-manifestation of phenomena) emerges, by contrast, against the infinity of the obscure givenness of what still remains out of sight:

“I’m therefore obsessed because I cannot or do not want to let show itself the night of the invus, data but without species, which surrounds the huge day of what shows already itself.”

The gap between what gives itself and what is shown about it irremediably characterizes the phenomenality of the givenness, because it is a direct result of the finitude of the adonné.

Hence the required area and function of hermeneutics: hermeneutics manages the gap between what gives itself and what shows itself by interpreting the call (or intuition) by the response (concept or meaning).

Intuition, given and received, stays blind–still shows nothing–as long as the adonné does not recognize in it the meaning or meanings (or concepts) which will allow a phenomenon to show legitimately itself.

The hermeneutic power of the adonné therefore measures ultimately the possibility for what gives itself to show itself, in short, calibrates the scale of phenomenalization of the givenness.

Not only does “…the unconditional universality of givenness” not “invalidate the recourse to hermeneutics,” but, on the contrary, a phenomenology of the givenness reveals phenomena as given only as far as there is in it the use of a hermeneutics of the given as shown and showing itself, as visible and seen by adonnés.

De facto, our attempts toward a phenomenology of givenness have not stopped using the help of hermeneutics. Let us highlight at least four of its interventions.

• First, the call is defined by its sensible or semantic anonymity. Not only because of the silence of the call–not everyone hears voices, always because of lack of its physical sound–but mostly because the call involves the intention and assignment of a signal (sonorous or other, silent or visible). So that such (non-) sounds must first be interpreted as calls (and not background noises, etc.), then be interpreted as calls addressed to such and such adonnés; what only one interpretation can assume. Finally, it will be necessary to determine the identity of the called party (to take the call as mine, as sent toward one’s self), which will finally allow the response. Interpretations again, which confirm that the call is only heard in the response. This answer determines not only the content of the call, but also its reality (or its illusory character).
• The same applies to the gift (the phenomenon of the gift, as opposed to exchange and trade): no being or object offers in itself a gift; it can only be about an unrefined state of a thing, a something ventured or available, of something which is available or ventured, without any intention which would destine it to anyone: this is decided by interpretation. And even once decided that it is indeed something destined to be received by someone as a gift, it is still necessary to interpret what recipient

…must benefit from it. Deciding whether or not there is a given can be possible only by interpreting if that shows itself.

Second, what is worth of a phenomenon in general has even more worth of a saturated phenomenon, whose intuitive height requires the assignment of several concepts or meanings, obtained by hermeneutics. The gap, in fact, never filled, between saturated intuition and the scarcity of meanings or concepts, must be lived, failing to be filled, by the invention of many, if not of all the possible interpretations of intuition. You can say as Mallarmé did:

“Oh! know, spirit of litigation / At this hour when we are silent, / That from multiple lilies the stalk / Grew too much for our reasons…”

The inadequacy of noesis to its noema (in Levinas’s sense) is generalized and becomes the rule of saturated phenomenality. We can also generalize what we argued about the face of the other, i.e., the saturated phenomenon of the icon, where “…the face of others requires […] an infinite hermeneutics.”

Third, how to distinguish between degrees of intuition, that is, between poor phenomena, phenomena of common law, and saturated phenomena? And besides, should we distinguish the three cases as being categories which are set, decidedly different and always irreducible? Or, rather, should we consider transitions from one to the other, so that the saturation is not confined to exceptional and marginal

…cases, possibly not liable to qualify or legitimately outside norm? In fact, we must admit the banality of the saturation, since the same given may show itself (to appear, to phenomenalize itself) as more or less saturated depending on the hermeneutics that looks at it. What hermeneutics, if not the one exerted by the “adonné?” The “adonné” has nothing passive in it, because, by its (hermeneutic) response to the (intuitive) call, it allows [it] and it alone, to what gives itself to becoming, only partially but really, what shows itself.

The passage from a poor or common law phenomenon to a saturated phenomenon remains a matter of hermeneutics: the three horizontal stripes of a flag and a painting by Rothko, sound as signal (information, communication, concept, meaning) and sound as music (meaningless concert), wine in its taste and its chemical formula, odor and perfume.

The saturated phenomenon therefore requires also a hermeneutics, where the existential “as” agrees to expose itself to the counter-experience, and to thus enter into a battle with the inevitably objectifying experience expressed by the apophantic “as.” And they revolve in an inversely proportional way.

Finally, fourth, the basis of the final distinction of all phenomena into objects or events has its origin in the hermeneutic operation, which, by radicalizing the banality (already hermeneutic) of the saturation, transforms the object into event and return. We are following here the famous analysis of the difference

…between the phenomenality of the present-at-hand (vorhanden) and of the “ready-to-hand” (zuhanden) developed by Heidegger, namely on the example of the hammer.

And we are generalizing it to the inversion of objecthood into its hidden “événementialité.” However, as Heidegger said, it is about seeing the hammer as something handy and usual, rather than an inert subsisting object; it is about having it play the existential “as,” that Dasein’s “as,” open to the world, which sees it as it is used, in a radical hermeneutics.

Probably our distinction between these two modes of phenomenality in general offers other features. *”But the essential remains: the distinction between modes of phenomenality (for us, between object and event) can be based on hermeneutic variations, which […] have authority over the phenomenality of étants.”

The phenomenology of givenness is managing the gap between what gives itself and what shows itself, whose challenge sets the self of the phenomenon, only by the exercise of a properly phenomenological hermeneutics…