HAAS, ALEXANDER, M.A. August 2020 PHILOSOPHY MARION, HEIDEGGER, AND THE QUESTION OF GIVENNESS (74 pp.) Thesis Advisor: Gina Zavota In Being Given, Jean-Luc Marion claims that Heidegger errs in subordinating the givenness of phenomena to Ereignis, unduly restricting the ways in which phenomena can be said to “give themselves”. The problem, however, is that without this stricture, we are unable to make certain distinctions that are indispensable for understanding phenomena in the diversity of their appearing. Take, for example, technological phenomena (e.g., televisions, radios, computers, etc.) On Marion’s account, these phenomena give themselves; show themselves insofar as they give themselves. But is this really giving, or instead, a kind of intrusion, a permeating of our space by technological phenomena? What Marion is missing, is a robust account of the context, or better, the locus of apparition that allows us to differentiate the ways in which phenomena show up. I will argue that Heidegger’s notion of Ereignis is such a locus. MARION, HEIDEGGER, AND THE QUESTION OF GIVENNESS A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Alexander Haas August 2020 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Thesis written by Alexander Haas B.A., Kent State University, 2015 M.A. Kent State University, 2020 Approved by _______________________________, Advisor Gina Zavota _______________________________, Chair, Department of Philosophy Michael Byron _______________________________, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Mandy Munro-Stasiuk TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………...iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iv CHAPTERS 1. Jean Luc Marion’s Phenomenology of Givenness §1 Introduction……………....……..………...…………………………………………....1 §2 Phenomenology, Science, and Method…..…………………………………………….2 §3 Phenomenology and Principles………......…………….……………………………....6 §4 Husserl and Objectness……………..…………..……………………………………...8 §5 Heidegger and Being…………………………………………………………………...9 §6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….……..….18 2. Heidegger on Being and Ereignis §1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...20 §2 The Kerhe and Overcoming Metaphysics…………………………………………….20 §3 Es Gibt and the Givenness of Being and Time……………………………………….25 §4 Es Gibt as Ereignis……………………………………………………………………30 §5 Philosophy and Thinking……………………………………………………………..34 §6 Thinking and Metaphor………………………………………………………………39 §7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………43 3. Marion, Heidegger, and Givenness §1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...44 §2 Unconditional Givenness……………………………………………………………..44 §3 The Universality of Givenness………………………………………………………..51 §4 Equipmental Phenomena……………………………………………………………..53 §5 Technological Phenomena……………………………………………………………57 §6 Towards a Heideggerian Account of Givenness……………………………………...60 §7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………70 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………..72 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Gina Zavota, for all the time and effort she has put into this project. Her patience with me boggles the mind. I will always be grateful for the support and encouragement she has shown me. I would also like to thank my examining committee: Dr. Michael Byron, Dr. Benjamin Berger, and Dr. Joanna Trzeciak-Huss for reading and commenting on my work. I also want to thank Alex Martin. You’ll get over Camus. I also want to thank Zach Nickels. While he’ll never endorse the arguments contained herein, I hope he sees that we are working on the same problem from different sides. I also want to thank Will Fenton. We’ll make it through Kant together someday. I also want to thank Moad Aldabbagh. His singular focus is something I’ve tried to emulate. I also want to thank Kevin Lower. His friendship has meant the world to me. I also want to thank Dr. Kwang-Sae Lee, for whom I am still rewriting my seminar papers. Lastly, I would like to thank Václava Hazuková. That my idiosyncrasies have not driven her away is truly miraculous. iv 1 Jean Luc Marion’s Phenomenology of Givenness §1 Introduction In his 1997 monograph Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Jean-Luc Marion aims to “make possible a revival of phenomenology,” to demonstrate the relevance of this philosophical movement that has fallen out of favor in recent years.1 Marion attempts to make good on this aim by liberating phenomenology from the two horizons that have come to define it in the textbooks: objectness and Being.2 To move beyond these horizons, as Marion claims, is to acknowledge that not all phenomena show up as objects or beings. Consequently, the sort of phenomenological revival Marion has in mind hinges on the possibility of a departure, our being able to dispense with, and get along without, the strictures one finds in the work of both Husserl and Heidegger.3 But there is a danger in this, of which Marion is no doubt acutely aware, that in dispensing with these horizons, one may also be dispensing with phenomenology itself.4 Marion’s task then is a fairly straightforward one: he must demonstrate the way in which phenomenology is thinkable apart from both objectness and Being; that is, he must demonstrate the inability of objectness and Being to exhaust the essence of phenomenology.5 As the title of his book indicates, Marion conceives of the essence of phenomenology in terms of “givenness,” and the task of phenomenology as attending to phenomena as they give 1 Marion, Jean Luc. Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffery L. Kosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. xiv; BG hereafter. 2 Ibid., xiv. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 1 themselves in experience.6 Towards the beginning of this text, Marion explains that we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that givenness constitutes the essence of phenomenology, for givenness is a theme that we find running through the work of both Husserl and Heidegger.7 Despite the prevalence of this theme, however, Marion’s position received quite a bit of opposition, with thinkers such as Ricoeur and Derrida contesting his claim.8 In order to firmly establish its legitimacy, Marion traces the genesis of the concept of givenness in the work of Husserl, and explores its modification and development in the work of Heidegger. Challenging Marion’s reading of Heidegger, this essay pushes back on his suggestion that Heidegger consigns givenness to the horizon of Being. While he might appear to do so, a careful consideration of his later work shows Heidegger to have abandoned the sort of ontological inquiry that would justify Marion’s claim. Anticipating a bit, Marion accuses Heidegger of forsaking givenness insofar as he interprets the idiomatic expression ‘es gibt’9 by way of the term ‘Ereignis’.10 11 Failing to appreciate his nuanced use of ‘Ereignis,’ Marion mistakenly asserts that Heidegger understands the phenomenality of phenomena ontologically.12 But this is not the case. Throughout the course of this essay, I will defend Heidegger against Marion’s charge. Specifically, I will argue that Heidegger not only abandons the horizon of Being, but also provides us with a non-metaphysical conception of givenness, one that does justice to the things whose antics give rise to world. §2 Phenomenology, Science, and Method 6 Ibid., 3. 7 Ibid., 2. 8 Ibid., 3. 9 In German, ‘es gibt’ is an idiomatic expression roughly equivalent to the English ‘there is’. Literally, however, the phrase means ‘it gives’. 10 The German term ‘Ereignis’ is similar to the English ‘event’. But as we will see, Heidegger does not always use the term this way. 11 Ibid., 34. 12 Ibid. 2 Before we tread this ground, however, it may prove useful to start with a brief sketch of Marion’s take on phenomenology. Doing so will put us in a better position to make sense of the way in which he both stands in a certain proximity to, and yet, ultimately distances himself from, Heidegger. Marion begins by distinguishing phenomenology from the natural sciences.13 In Ideas, Husserl had described phenomenology as the science of consciousness.14 According to Marion, this sort of determination on the part of Husserl, and his followers, radically misconstrues the nature of phenomenology; losing sight of what is decisive, they miss the breakthrough that it makes possible.15 Science, Marion claims, is inseparable from proving, and is inextricably tied up with rigorous demonstration.16 Fixing phenomena in place so as to make them indubitable, science situates their appearance in a rational foundation that is beyond dispute.17 Phenomenology, on the other hand, breaks with this familiar procedure. Marion explains that while science contents itself with proving, phenomenology concerns itself with showing.18 Instead of prejudging phenomena by the benchmark of certainty, phenomenology attempts to let “appearances appear in such a way that they accomplish their own apparition,” that is, it aims at receiving phenomena as they give themselves in experience.19 Consequently, Marion argues that “phenomenology has no other goal and no other legitimacy than to attempt to reach the apparition in appearance”.20 Here, according to Marion, we hit upon the fundamental paradox of phenomenology: “that it takes the initiative in losing it;” more precisely, that it effaces itself before phenomena, 13 Ibid., 7. 14 Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 63; I hereafter. 15 BG