Towards a Hermeneutical Modification of Jean-Luc Marion’s Givenness and the Gifted

The author argues that Jean-Luc Marion's later work attempts to incorporate hermeneutics into his phenomenology of givenness, but ultimately still subordinates meaning to givenness alone, compromising the perspective of the witness. The article defends this 'hermeneutic gaze' rooted in the witness's symbolic ground, showing how givenness and the gifted interact dynamically in call and response. In religious experience, the hermeneutic gaze modulates whether the divine word is received as an ecstatic illusion that turns the subject back to himself or as symbolic meaning that inscribes him into a faith community.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Whereas Marion’s earlier articulation of givenness has received a wide-spread hermeneutical critic justifiable within the framework of his two major initial texts on the issue (“Reduction and Givenness” and “Being Given”), in recent works he has reacted in diverse writings in view of repositioning hermeneutics within his phenomenology of givenness. Following Gadamer and Heidegger, this reaction culminated in the outline of an enigmatic structure of givenness where understanding is situated within the dynamic of call and response (Levinas, Chrétien). Yet, despite the reciprocity of call and response in hermeneutical understanding, Marion still seems to have reinforced his previous position in which meaning is that of the sole givenness, thereby compromising the point of view of the witness (the hermeneutic gaze). We shall defend not only this “hermeneutic gaze”—which is rooted in the symbolic ground of the witness as what s/he brings to bear on what is received in a network of relationships that transforms him,—but also demonstrate how the reciprocity between givenness and the gifted dynamically plays out in call and response (St. Paul). In addition, the hermeneutic gaze is indispensable since only it can explain an illusion that cohabits with givenness, i.e., with the phenomena. In the context of religious experience, the hermeneutical gaze is capable of modulating the way the divine word (aesthetic) is given: either as an illusion (ecstatic), which reverts him back to himself, or as meaning, which inscribes him into a faith community (symbolic).