Saturating the Phenomenon: Marion and Buber
- PDF / 221,737 Bytes
- 19 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 69 Downloads / 260 Views
Saturating the Phenomenon: Marion and Buber Brian Harding
Published online: 23 August 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Keywords Phenomenology . Jean-Luc Marion . Martin Buber . Saturated phenomenon The goal of this paper is to show that Buber’s I-Thou relationship is necessary and sufficient for a saturated phenomenon. The paper is split into three sections, plus this introduction. The first section begins by describing Marion’s account of the varying degrees of phenomenality. It argues that the givenness of phenomena alone does not account for these varying degrees and that while Marion sometimes admits this, he is vague about what does account for it. The second section of the paper argues that the distinction between the I-Thou and I-It attitudes maps onto Marion’s distinction between saturated phenomena on the one hand and common law and impoverished phenomena on the other. This claim is defended against three objections. Finally in the conclusion I argue that Buber’s I-Thou relationship provides necessary and sufficient conditions for saturation.
Marion and Degrees of Phenomenality According to Marion, there are degrees of phenomenality ranging from the impoverished phenomena to the fully saturated phenomena.1 Impoverished phenomena are epitomized in mathematics and formal logic, where ‘what shows itself in and from itself does not need much more than its concept alone… to give itself.’2 For example, the principles of excluded middle, (A v~ A), and non-contradiction, ~(A• ~ A), are 1
Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness (Trans. J. Kosky. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 2002), 221-225. 2
Marion, Being Given, 222.
B. Harding (*) Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Texas Woman’s University, PO BOX 425470, Denton, TX 76204-5470, USA e-mail: [email protected]
296
B. Harding
impoverished phenomena. Saturated phenomena are the antipodes of impoverished phenomena: there ‘intuition always submerges the expectation of the intention, in which givenness not only entirely invests manifestation, but surpassing it, modifies its common characteristics.’3 Marion summarizes the grades of phenomenality as follows: For (a) poor and (b) common-law phenomena, intention and the concept foresee intuition, make up for its shortage, and set limits for givenness; on the other hand, for the (c) saturated phenomena, or paradoxes, intuition surpasses the intention, is deployed without concept and lets givenness come before all limitation and every horizon.4 The saturated phenomenon overflows the boundaries assigned to phenomena by traditional phenomenology, appearing as (a) (b) (c) (d)
invisible according to quantity, unbearable according to quality, absolute according to relation, irregardable according to modality.
This in turn makes possible a classification of saturated phenomena into four sub-categories: (a) (b) (c) (d)
the event, especially the historical event; the idol, that is, the painting; the flesh, that is, passive bodily feeling, as in suffering; the icon, that is the face
Data Loading...
