Ontotheological Turnings? , livre ebook

SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought
Douglas L. Donkel, editor

Ontotheological Turnings?
The Decentering of the Modern Subject in Recent French Phenomenology
JOERI SCHRIJVERS

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schrijvers, Joeri.
Ontotheological turnings? : the decentering of the modern subject in recent French phenomenology / Joeri Schrijvers.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in theology and Continental thought)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3893-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Phenomenological theology. 2. Marion, Jean-Luc, 1946– 3. Lacoste, Jean-Yves. 4. Lévinas, Emmanuel. I. Title.
BT40.S365 2011
230.01—dc22                                                                                                                                           2011003138
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory of Saskia Vermeulen

Acknowledgments
I should like to offer my gratitude to my promoter, Lieven Boeve, who supported this work in a manifold of generous ways. A word of thanks also to Jean-Yves Lacoste and Kevin Hart who were so kind as to participate in the jury and commented upon earlier versions of this text.
This work has benefited much from the encouragement of and conversations with my colleagues. I would like to thank the members of the research group Theology in a Postmodern Context for the inspiring environment from which this work sprang and for the friendship they have given me. Special mention also to Michael Funk Deckard for taking so much care with the text. Finally, my gratitude to FWO-Flanders, for granting me the scholarship that enabled me to write this work. Thanks also to Nancy, Eileen, Anne, and Doug at SUNY for the smooth cooperation with this volume.
Chapter 1 , “Some Notes on a French Debate,” is a revised and extended version of New Blackfriars 87 (2006), pp. 302–14, “On Doing Theology ‘after’ Ontotheology: Notes on a French Debate.”
Chapter 2 is a revised and extended version of two articles that have appeared earlier: “Phenomenology, Liturgy, and Metaphysics: The Thought of Jean-Yves Lacoste,” in God in France: Eight Contemporary French Thinkers on God , eds. P. Jonkers and R. Welten (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 207–25, and “Jean-Yves Lacoste: A Phenomenology of the Liturgy,” Heythrop Journal 46 (2005), pp. 314–33.
Portions of chapters 4 and 6 are taken from “Ontotheological Turnings? Marion, Lacoste, and Levinas on the Decentering of the Modern Subject,” in Modern Theology 22 (2006), pp. 221–53, and “Marion on Miracles: Of Insufficient Reason and a New Enlightenment,” in Faith in the Enlightenment? The Critique of the Enlightenment Revisited ed. Lieven Boeve, Joeri Schrijvers, Wessel Stoker and Henk Vroom (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006).
Chapter 7 is a corrected version of “ ‘And There Shall Be No More Boredom’ Problems with Overcoming Metaphysics (Heidegger, Levinas, Marion),” in C. Cunningham and P. Candler (eds.), Transcendence and Phenomenology (London: SCM Press, 2007).

Abbreviations

Levinas OB Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2002), trans. A. Lingis AqE Autrement qu'être, ou au-delà de l'essence (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974) TI Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2002), trans. A. Lingis TeI Totalité et infini: Essai sur l'extériorité (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961) BPW Basic Philosophical Writings (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996), eds. A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, and R. Bernasconi GDT God, Death, and Time (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), trans. B. Bergo DMT Dieu, la mort et le temps (Paris: Grasset, 1993) GP “God and Philosophy,” in E. Levinas, Of God Who Comes to Mind (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), trans. B. Bergo. Pp. 55–78 HAM Humanism of the Other (Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), trans. N. Poller

Marion BG Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), trans. J. Kosky ED Étant Donné: Essai d'une phenomenologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1998) IE In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), trans. R. Horner and V. Berraud DS De surcroît: Essai sur les phénomènes saturés (Paris: PUF, 2001) GWB God without Being: Hors-Texte (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991), trans. T. A. Carlson DsE Dieu sans l'être (Paris: PUF, 2002) RG Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998), trans. T. A. Carlson RD Réduction et donation: Recherches sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phénoménologie (Paris: PUF, 1989) EP The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007), trans. S. E. Lewis DMP On Descartes' Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-Theology in Cartesian Thought (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), trans. J. L. Kosky ID The Idol and Distance: Five Studies (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), trans. T. A. Carlson IeD L'idole et la distance: Cinq études (Paris: Grasset, 1991) CV The Crossing of the Visible (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), trans. J. K. A. Smith CdV La croisée du visible (Paris: Ed. De la Différence, 1991) VR The Visible and the Revealed (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), trans. C. Gschwandtner VeR Le visible et le révélé (Paris: CERF, 2005)

Lacoste EA Experience and the Absolute: Disputed Questions on the Humanity of Man (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), trans. M. Raftery-Skehan EeA Expérience et absolu: Questions disputées sur l'humanité de l'homme (Paris: PUF, 1994) NT Note sur le temps: Essai sur les raisons de la mémoire et de l'espérance (Paris: PUF, 1990) MO Le monde et l'absence de l'œuvre et autres études (Paris: PUF, 2000) PP Présence et Parousie (Genève: Ad Solem, 2006) Carmel “De la phénoménologie de l'Esprit à la montée du Carmel,” Revue Thomiste 89 (1989), pp. 5–39, 569–98 BHP “Batîr, habiter, prier,” in Revue Thomiste 87 (1987), pp. 357–90, 547–78
All references will be to the English editions, although translations have occasionally been modified. Unless otherwise noted, all italics are mine. For the works in French of these authors of which no translation is available, I have provided my own.
Introduction
This book is launched from one simple thesis that it then, somewhat tirelessly, explores: that which Marion, Lacoste, and Levinas present as a ‘decentering of the subject’ is, for reasons that I hope will become obvious, in fact, no such decentering, for their accounts of the decentering of the subject seems simply to reverse the subject-object dichotomy. If the subject may not see any object, then the best thing to do is to look for one or the other instance that takes on the contours of a subject—the candidates are ‘God,’ ‘givenness,’ and ‘the Other’—that turns us, the human being, into an object. We will see, then, that for Lacoste the I “becomes the object of God's intention,” that for Marion the I “becomes the object and objective of givenness,” and that the I, for Levinas, stands “without secrets”—somewhat like an object indeed—before this or that other.
Some readers might be surprised by the decidedly nonchronological way of presenting the authors in this work. Such a chronology would have been easy: Levinas influenced Marion, Marion influenced Lacoste, and so on. There would have been, if you like, a story-line. But, in fact, this nonchronological way of presenting Lacoste, Marion, and Levinas suits the purposes of this book very well: the problem toward which it tries to point might be present in these thinkers precisely because it is, in a certain way, ‘ahistorical’ in the sense that it concerns everyone at all times and all places. For, if ontotheology will turn out to be inevitable, the eternal recurrence of the subject, and of the subject-object distinction, comes as no surprise. In effect, what I will advance, with Levinas and Heidegger, is that ontotheology, and thus the subject-object distinction, is part and parcel of our ontological make-up, and therefore its recurrence cannot be avoided.
The understanding of ontotheology and metaphysics here is fueled by a reading of Heidegger, and of course by Marion's, Lacoste's, and Levinas' reading of him. First, if the subject-object distinction and representational thinking are part of the metaphysical tradition, because the subject, as some sort of highest being would, accounts for and justifies all there would be to the object to such an extent that the object would be defined clearly and distinctly and in such a transparent manner that the object would yield its essence and perhaps even its ‘unknown,’ then such a subject is indeed to be avoided. Now, if that which is supposed to avoid such a subject takes on the form of precisely such a subject by robbing immanence and finitude of its mute mysteriousness by considering it as merely an object that could in principle be determined in a transparent manner— all I am is for the Other, all I am is given to me, all I am, I am before God—then it seems justified to take into account a return of the subject and thus also of ontotheology. Second, if such a reversal