Phenomenological Crossings: Givenness and Event

Abstract

Contemporary phenomenology intends to explore the territories perhaps indicated but mostly ignored or abandoned by Husserl and Heidegger. However, it can be considered an heir to historical phenomenology when understood as a general path of inquiry into phenomenality. Its common goal is to study phenomena like invisible, totality, affectivity, le visage or Saturated Phenomena which escape the givenness of meaning determined by consciousness and its correlative noetic-noematic structure. This pathos of thought proceeds from a change of paradigm, the modification of the concept of phenomenon now considered as the event of meaning. The phenomenon as occurring, its transpiring as and in an event, brings together several of its features: the spontaneous formation of meaning, the nonobjective excess (ungegenständlicher Überschuss) at the heart of the phenomenon and the paradoxical character of the given. I will examine three protagonists of this new movement, Michel Henry, Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Luc Marion, in order to understand the modification of the concept of phenomenon as givenness and event.