Paradoxes of Experience: Questioning the Limits of Phenomenality in E. Levinas and J.-L. Marion
Problemos December 27, 2022 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.15388/problemos.priedas.22.9 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
The article examines how philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion expand the limits of phenomenology by focusing on everyday experiences that standard approaches overlook. Rather than distorting the method, their work re-centers the subject and rethinks what can appear in experience. The author argues that these thinkers build on ordinary, not mystical, experiences.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Levinas and Marion ground their phenomenology in ordinary experience, not mystical phenomena, challenging the idea that their work represents a theological turn that abandons phenomenological method. |
Abstract
The article deals with the problem of the limits of phenomenality in the phenomenology of E. Levinas and J.-L. Marion. D. Janicaud attributes their positions to a “theological turn” in French phenomenology. Without polemicizing directly with Janicaud, the article does not treat that turn as a distortion or neglect of the phenomenological method and its principles. On the contrary, the author sees it as focusing on those aspects of experience that do not fit into the scope of Husserlian phenomenology, decentering the experiencing subject and forcing us to rethink the very question of phenomenality and its limits. The article aims to show that, despite quite radical and controversial transformations in phenomenology, Levinas and Marion base their phenomenological projects by analysing not a special or “mystical” but accessible to all, in a sense, a banal experience.