The phenomenon and the transcendental

Jean-Luc Marion, Marc Richir, and the issue of phenomenalization

Florian Forestier

pp. 381-402

in: Alexander Schnell (ed), Contemporary French phenomenology, Continental Philosophy Review 45 (3), 2012.

Abstract

After reviewing the status of the concept of the phenomenon in Husserl's phenomenology and the aim of successive attempts to reform, de-formalize, and to widen it, we show the difficulties of a method that, following the example of Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology, intends to connect the phenomenon directly to the revelation of an exteriority. We argue that, on the contrary, Marc Richir's phenomenology, which strives to grasp the phenomenon as nothing-but-phenomenon, is more likely to capture the "meaning" of the phenomenological, and hence to help us orient in the field of problems that phenomenology encounters without always knowing how to tackle them. Yet, this extension of the phenomenon's domain does not thereby encompass everything: there may well be certain issues that require a phenomenology without phenomenon; but the meaning of this cannot be determined before the complete reenvisioning of transcendental phenomenology.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Marion Jean-Luc

Richir Marc