Towards a Hermeneutical Modification of Jean-Luc Marion’s Givenness and the Gifted

Abstract

Whereas Marion’s earlier articulation of givenness has received a wide-spread hermeneutical critic justifiable within the framework of his two major initial texts on the issue (“Reduction and Givenness” and “Being Given”), in recent works he has reacted in diverse writings in view of repositioning hermeneutics within his phenomenology of givenness. Following Gadamer and Heidegger, this reaction culminated in the outline of an enigmatic structure of givenness where understanding is situated within the dynamic of call and response (Levinas, Chrétien). Yet, despite the reciprocity of call and response in hermeneutical understanding, Marion still seems to have reinforced his previous position in which meaning is that of the sole givenness, thereby compromising the point of view of the witness (the hermeneutic gaze). We shall defend not only this “hermeneutic gaze”—which is rooted in the symbolic ground of the witness as what s/he brings to bear on what is received in a network of relationships that transforms him,—but also demonstrate how the reciprocity between givenness and the gifted dynamically plays out in call and response (St. Paul). In addition, the hermeneutic gaze is indispensable since only it can explain an illusion that cohabits with givenness, i.e., with the phenomena. In the context of religious experience, the hermeneutical gaze is capable of modulating the way the divine word (aesthetic) is given: either as an illusion (ecstatic), which reverts him back to himself, or as meaning, which inscribes him into a faith community (symbolic).

1. Introduction

Marion’s phenomenology of givenness effectively transcends the Kantian “I think” and Husserlian transcendental consciousness by introducing a subject that no longer functions as a condition for the possibility of experience or as a constitutor of objects of experience. In Marion’s view, givenness possesses its own self (Ricard 2001, p. 93) and maintains a sovereignty (Mackinlay 2005, p. 172) over the subject, which is reduced to a state of near passivity. At times, it seems as though the self of givenness exerts influence over the self, treating it almost as an object. The subject acts like a prism through which givenness manifests (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 264).

In Marion’s earlier phenomenology of givenness since “Reduction and Givenness” and “Being Given”, a robust hermeneutics is notably absent. Marion acknowledged a form of hermeneutics that occurs only after givenness (Hart 2013, p. 4) has taken place. This hermeneutics was not understood in the sense of a co-creation or co-interpretation (from the perspective of the gifted) of the phenomenon, but rather in the sense of a correct reflection (from the gifted) of the gift (Marion 2020, p. 296). This situation raises a concern about how the gifted could manifest the given without the given making sense to him, i.e., without his relating to it. In addition, how can we ensure that the gifted is not merely reflecting his own misinterpretations of givenness? Above all, whereas Grondin’s question to Marion—“Who or what calls?… Therefore, what phenomenon are we talking about?” (Grondin 1993, p. 90)—underscores the necessity for a hermeneutic context, others have pointed out that Marion’s phenomenology of givenness did not put the dimension of the world into consideration (Mackinlay 2005, p. 179). Therein reduction did not refer to the giving of the world (Serban 2012, p. 87). Meanwhile, Marion has responded to the accusation of wordlessness in his phenomenology.

Marion has responded not only to the accusation of “wordlessness” in his phenomenology but also to the hermeneutic critique. Given the widespread hermeneutical criticism Marion has received in light of his earlier articulation of givenness, particularly in Reduction and Givenness and Being Given, it would be unfair and flawed to maintain the same critique in light of his more recent and engaging responses. Since the initial hermeneutic critique of givenness (Grondin, Greisch, Mackinlay, etc.), Marion has reacted in various writings (Marion [2001] 2002, 2010, 2012a), seeking to robustly reposition hermeneutics within his phenomenology of givenness. Drawing on Gadamer and Heidegger, this reaction culminates in the outline of an enigmatic structure of givenness. This enigmatic structure results from understanding, which involves a fusion of horizons—between givenness and the phenomenon, or between past and present horizons (Gadamer 2004, p. 305)—or from the distinction between the “primordial ‘as’ of interpretation” and the “apophantic ‘as’ of assertion” (Heidegger 1962, p. 158) within the dynamic of call and response.

With such hermeneutics embedded in the reciprocal structure of call and response, Marion appears, at first glance, to have overcome the initial critique leveled against him, particularly the charge of failing to account for the co-creation of meaning between givenness and the gifted. However, since Marion still strongly defends that meaning comes solely from givenness,1 and further advocates for anamorphosis2 (“conversion of the gaze”) toward revelation that comes from elsewhere (Marion 2024; Housset 2022), we can, as Dahl suggests, observe that Marion now claims givenness itself provides the hermeneutic (Dahl 2023, p. 6). This stance reinforces his earlier position (pure givenness), raising concerns that the gifted’s point of view might be compromised—namely, that the gifted carries his/her worldview into the act of receiving givenness.

I propose to engage with Marion’s later concept of the reciprocity of call and response to demonstrate that the gifted’s gaze not only converts to the gaze of givenness or revelation (anamorphosis), but that s/he, through a “hermeneutic gaze,” also brings his/her own point of view or worldview (the self, others, and the environment) to bear on what is received, within a network of relationships that transforms him. This point of view—the hermeneutic gaze, is indispensable, as it explains how illusion can coexist with givenness and phenomena.

To achieve this, I will first delineate givenness as Marion’s final principle of phenomenology, which effectively becomes the first philosophy. I will then examine the structure of the gifted. In the third section, I will identify two major issues in Marion’s earlier phenomenology of givenness: first, that the gifted is a pre-reflexive self in whom the phenomenon does not initially appear as meaningful; second, the trivialization or minimization of hermeneutics, which can be linked to the neglect of the world. Following this, I will demonstrate how Marion’s more recent and diverse responses nonetheless reinforce the primacy of the gaze of givenness. In the final section, I will not only defend the hermeneutic gaze but also show how the reciprocity between givenness and the gifted dynamically unfolds through the structure of call and response, using St. Paul as an example. Finally, I will explore the precarious nature of the common space of mutual encounters, such as between mother and infant, which derives from the hermeneutic gaze. In the context of religious experience, this hermeneutic gaze can modulate how the divine word (aesthetic) is received—either as an illusion (ecstatic), which reverts one back to the self, or as meaning, which inscribes one into a faith community (symbolic).

2. Marion’s Phenomenology of Givenness

2.1. Marion’s Last Principle of Phenomenology as First Philosophy: Givenness

Marion’s entire philosophical project can be located in the methodological claim on the possibility of phenomenology as the first philosophy (Marion [2001] 2002, p. 13). However, Husserl was the first to express this claim programmatically in his First Philosophy (Husserl 1959, p. 4). All sciences must therefore draw from transcendental phenomenology and find their validity there “by evidence”.

Such a first philosophy, for Marion, should overcome the metaphysical aporias (i.e., the claims to the primacy of ουσία, causa and the primacy of knowledge through the primacy of the self as the first principle in metaphysics, which, however, could not hold out in the history of philosophy). For this to be possible, one must look for a new terrain in phenomenology that resists metaphysical determinations. This leads Marion to consider three principles of phenomenology (Husserl 1960, §46, p. 133; 1950b, pp. 42–43, 52) that he, however, disqualifies. However, he arrived at the fourth principle for the first time in Reduction and Givenness: “so much reduction, so much givenness.” (Marion [1989] 1998, p. 203). Though this derived its inspiration from Husserl—where Husserl insisted that only via the phenomenological could we gain absolute givenness, which no longer offers anything of transcendence (Husserl 1950a, p. 44)—it was elevated by Michel Henry to the fourth and final principle of phenomenology (Henry 1991). Marion insists that with reduction—unlike Husserlian reduction—transcendence, i.e., intentional consciousness, is eliminated and pure givenness is thereby released.

Marion builds his entire phenomenology on this starting point, from which we want to draw these important conclusions: nothing can appear without giving itself. In this way, givenness becomes a universal, non-metaphysical principle—“first philosophy”—without being subject to the conditions of the object-constituting intentional consciousness (Husserl) or transcendental self-consciousness (Kant). For that which gives itself does so without being conditioned by the subject, because in giving itself, it imposes itself in its own way on the self, which is no longer the originator of givenness (Marion [2001] 2002). It is obvious that Marion follows Heidegger’s description of a phenomenon in §7 of Being and time very closely: what shows itself, as it shows itself from its own perspective, is seen from its own perspective (Heidegger [1927] 2006, p. 34). Now for Marion, givenness becomes the principle of phenomenality: whatever appears necessarily gives itself in its way of giving itself. Givenness accords the phenomenon its original priority (Marion [2001] 2002, pp. 30–31).

With the reversal of the “I think”, the noble member of the Académie Française wants to establish a different subject (the gifted) that no longer serves as a condition for the possibility of experience, but in whom givenness is attested in its evidence. We posit that the evidence of givenness can only be attested through the way it generates meaning for the subject, based on his or her point of view.

2.2. The Recipient or the Gifted

The recipient’s or gifted’s appearing at the end of Being Given attest to its status as the resultant effect of self-givenness of the phenomenon. This structure would not have made sense in Kant or even in Husserl, since every givenness is reduced to the transcendental structure of the self. In Marion’s methodological approach, the subject is rather constituted by what it receives to become a witness (témoin), a beneficiary (attributaire) in the case of intuition of poor phenomena3 or the common law4 phenomena; it becomes gifted (adonné) in the case of saturated phenomena5 or their radicalization in the phenomena of revelation. Accordingly, the gifted is constituted by the anonymous impact of givenness at play in the surplus intuition. The “pure givenness” is anonymous because it has no specific giver (donateur) who gives a specific object to a receiver (donataire) (Klun 2020, p. 124).

This coming-into-being can only be realized through the intervention of pure givenness, which calls it forth through convocation, surprise, interlocution, and the experience of the self as facticity. Here, the pure givenness takes over the initiative. When Marion speaks of the beneficiary or gifted as a luminous witness (témoin lumineux Marion [1997] 2002, p. 217), he does not mean to give him the precedence of initiative, but to underline the fact that he shone on a screen because the light he radiates comes to him from somewhere else, as if in an electrical impulse. The prerogative of the transcendental self and of transcendental consciousness in the constitution of phenomenality is abolished. However, this abolition neither means a destruction of the self, as in Falque’s extra-ego6, nor a death of the self, as is usually reconstructed in postmodern post-structuralist philosophy (Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, etc.). Rather, as in Henrich’s pre-reflexive consciousness—because the self is not a cause of itself, and therefore owes its existence to another ground (Henrich 1967, 1992; Manfred 2022)—the recipient suffers passivity imposed on him by the excess intuition of givenness.

Talking about the active illumination of the beneficiary or gifted by the light has obviously already given the impression that the recipient is inactive. More than a passive receptivity of light the recipient only became one at the moment the light was thrown into the dark and empty space on the wall; that is, at the moment when an impulse changed from wall to screen (Bauer 2020, p. 309). By absorbing the impulse from this luminous source, it then served as a space for the self-manifestation of the light. However, if the wall remained immobile, the givenness of the lighting would be irrelevant and no birth would take place and, a fortiori, no meaning. Consciousness must therefore be able to “respond to the movement of givenness” (Bauer 2020, p. 309) in order for the birth of the self to take place. The beneficiary or the gifted (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 268) identifies himself in the summoning of the call, albeit without knowing himself. In other words, passivity does not suffice and the beneficiary must become active, or proactive. Thus, in the generation of the beneficiary or the gifted, a phenomenological interweaving of passivity and activity arises for us, whereby Marion conceives of the gifted beyond pure passivity and activity (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 264).

The activity of the receiver requires further clarification. Since the receiver holds an indisputable phenomenological privilege, it can only experience “the flesh of the phenomenon” (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 264) by manifesting it. The receiver acts as a filter or prism (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 264) through which the visibility of the gift is produced, and in which givenness takes flesh. Without the receiver, givenness would not be fully realized. The receiver, through his receptivity (passive), accomplishes (active) givenness. However, although Marion ascribes a phenomenological mediating role to the receiver—and should we assume an implicit hermeneutics here, even if Marion had not yet expressed this in Being Given?—, it must be emphasized that he himself remains a result (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 265) of givenness.

If the first evidence of givenness lies in its transformative impact on the metaphysical self—shifting from the “I” (in the nominative) to the phenomenological “unto whom” or à qui (in the dative)—such that we no longer have the “here I am” (Levinas’ subject—me voici—in the accusative) or the “thinking of being” (Heidegger’s subject in the genitive), but rather subjectivity in the dative, we must, in a second step, determine how the phenomenality of givenness can be mediated, and whether such phenomenality would not intuitively imply a sense for the gifted, i.e., its point of view.

For as evident in the phenomenological tradition, phenomenon implies also the sense of being, of that which shows or gives itself, its modifications (Heidegger 1962, p. 35). In a way reminiscent of Heidegger, Richir himself equates that which gives itself in its manifestation (phenomenon) with sense or what he called the linguistic phenomenon. He understands the phenomenon as a rhythm in which “something” extends in the direction of the meaning to be made (Richir 1991, p. 242). Elsewhere he translates Heidegger’s facticity as a phenomenon: “every facticity is a linguistic phenomenon.”7 We also read: “The linguistic appears as a specific phenomenological field of phenomena—linguistic phenomena.”8 Finally, he writes in Le corps: “every lived-experience is above all an essence of sense and thus of the linguistic, beyond its identification in this or that language.”9 In light of this phenomenological tradition, we hypothesize that givenness, which Marion elevates as the first principle of every phenomenon, can only be attested in the way it makes sense to the subject—through his point of view, which we will later explicate as the hermeneutic gaze. Even in religious discourse, the evidence of givenness would be determined by the way it makes sense to the subject.

3. A Discussion on Marion’s Gifted

It is time to look at some questions or issues that need further clarification in Marion’s earlier phenomenological determination of the gifted, especially as articulated in Being Given.

3.1. The Gifted Is a Pre-Reflexive Self in Whom the Phenomenon Does Not Appear as Meaningful

Marion does not attribute any meaningfulness to the gifted, as his phenomenology of givenness is not oriented toward the point of view of the witness. Housset refers to the “not knowing of the witness” who “never totally masters his own speech” (Housset 2022). In contrast, a reflexive self is not only a prism for the possible appearance of the gift but also allows givenness to manifest as a meaningful event.

It is no secret that behind the pure givenness was the “transcendence of God and its reference (as revelation) to humans” (Klun 2020, p. 124). Marion, however, could not accord pure givenness any sort of intentionality, i.e., no purpose or sense, even though he described it as having a self of its own, in the sense of the “god …who appears, who presents himself in person” (Ricard 2001, p. 93). Yet, we do not understand how the givenness of the “phenomenon of revelation” or the “pure call” could be possible for a gifted (for whom there is a revelation and whose response accomplished the sense of the call) outside the evidence of meaningfulness. Is sensibleness not supposed to assure the evidence of the givenness (especially, of religious experience)? Could we not say with Heidegger that whatever that is “encountered within-the world, as such, already has an involvement which is disclosed in world-understanding, an involvement which gets laid out [durch die Auslegung herausgelegt wird] by the interpretation” (Heidegger 1962, p. 150/190f)? In order words, whatever that is given, is given, not in its abstract purity, but is already caught up within a network of relationships that interpret its sense. If no meaning is mediated in the gifted, it is precisely because there are weak hermeneutics in Marion’s phenomenology. For Claudia Serban, the latter makes “the phenomenon appear fully.” (Serban 2012, p. 87).

3.2. Hermeneutic Critique in View of Meaning and World-Forgetfulness

In his work on Ontology—The Hermeneutics of Facticity, Heidegger traces the development of the concept of “hermeneutics” from Augustine through Schleiermacher and to Dilthey and focuses on hermeneutics as a designation of the condition for the possibility of its object (Heidegger 1999, pp. 6–10; Greisch 1991, p. 47). Later hermeneutics was accorded “the task of making the Dasein … accessible to this Dasein itself …communicating Dasein to itself in this regard.” (Heidegger 1999, p. 11). In this context, one wonders whether, in his earliest articulations of givenness, Marion engaged in a hermeneutic phenomenology or merely trivialized it, and whether the point of view of the gifted is obliterated in the reception of givenness. This is so because pure givenness is an impossibility.

There is an asymmetry or disproportionality between Marion’s pure givenness (as articulated in Reduction and givenness & Being Given) and the gifted. According to the earliest reactions to Marion’s givenness, this asymmetry reduced the gifted ‘almost’ to the status of a passive recipient. This may explain why Jean Greisch presents Marion’s hermeneutic phenomenology in Reduction and Givenness as “less developed” (Greisch 1991, p. 44) compared to other aspects of the work. Jean Grondin goes so far as to claim that the “hermeneutic turn,” which Heidegger attributed to phenomenology within the self-interpretation of Dasein was absent (Grondin 1993, p. 87). This argument (with the exception that this time not a “complete”, but a “minimal” forgetting of hermeneutics can be argued), could also be made for Being Given. Since, herein, the gifted serves as a space (the prism) for the manifestation of givenness, he carries out at least a kind of hermeneutics. But since no response of the gifted—no matter how active it appears as a decision for givenness—can do justice to the pure call of the eventual10 givenness, one could claim that Marion wants to preserve its purity and from any form of initiative of the subject (Marion [1997] 2002, pp. 289, 290) (i.e., any hermeneutics).

Yet, it would be inappropriate to deny Marion (in Reduction and Givenness and Being Given) a form of hermeneutics, no matter how minimal it may be: “The hermeneutics that Marion accepts is a subsequent hermeneutics that comes after givenness and runs ahead of it with no prior understanding or anticipation [in the sense of Heidegger and Gadamer]” (Klun 2020, p. 128). A subsequent hermeneutic marks the postponement between the time of the call (as always already) and that of the answer (which comes delayed and too late). This form of hermeneutics describes an answer in the gifted that is inappropriate to the given. Even here, hermeneutics, according to Marion, should not be understood as the intelligible light of the subject that dispels or illuminates the darkness of the given (Marion 2012a, p. 41). Marion’s hermeneutics are not a co-creation or co-interpretation (from the perspective of the gifted) of the phenomenon, but rather a correct reflection (again from the gifted) of the gift:

Hermeneutic practices a givenness of meaning on the given, from an appropriate meaning to the given, in such a way that the latter, instead of returning to its anonymity and remaining in hiding, is deliberately released and freed in its manifestation. Hermeneutics does not give a meaning to the given, by securing and deciding it, but each time, it gives its meaning, that is to say the meaning that shows that given as itself, as a phenomenon which is shown in itself and by itself. The self of the phenomenon rules in the final instance all the givenness of meaning: it is not a givenness by the “I” of a meaning constituted by it into an object to this very object, but to let its own meaning come to the object, acknowledged more than known. The meaning given by hermeneutics does not come so much from the decision of the hermeneutic actor, as from that which the phenomenon itself is (so to speak) waiting for and of which the hermeneutic actor remains a mere discoverer and therefore the servant. The phenomenon is shown to the extent the hermeneutic actor gives to the given the most appropriate meaning of that given itself. Hermeneutics interprets not only the given in a phenomenon, but, to do so, it must leave the hermeneutic actor be interpreted by the given which has to be phenomenalized.

(Marion 2012a, pp. 41–43)

This is nothing other than a pure reflection of the phenomenon by the gifted. Nevertheless, here the gifted [let us call to mind the painter’s task: “The painter’s radical action consists of doing nothing, of letting the phenomenon do everything.” (Roggero 2023, p. 287)] is assigned no other task than to be faithful to the phenomenon in its way of giving itself. He does not impose any pre-existing understanding of the phenomenon. The recipient is only a vessel through which givenness can be conveyed. Yet, the question arises: how can the hermeneuticist mediate a meaning that they neither relate to nor find meaningful? More importantly, how can it be determined that the meaning they mediate is appropriate to what is given—that they are not suffering from deception? Here, we encounter the limits of the hermeneutic function of the gifted in Marion’s earlier account.

Marion accepts only minimal hermeneutics. For no hermeneutics can do justice to the indeterminacy of the phenomenon that is given: “The plurality of horizons practically forbids constituting the historical event into one object and demands substituting an endless hermeneutic in time” (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 229). In other words, it would be difficult to apply a hermeneutics that would correspond to the saturated phenomena and adequately interpret its content. Such hermeneutics, if existed, would be endless because we would try to decipher what goes beyond intentionality. Marion warns us against entering into this endless hermeneutic circle (Marion 2012a, p. 51; Marion [1997] 2002, p. 229) where we would endlessly replace one narrative with another (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 229). Although Marion gave a hermeneutical scope to his givenness in a later work (Certitudes Négatives), it nonetheless never attained the status of a hermeneutical phenomenology (Greisch 1991, pp. 44–45). In fact, this hermeneutics was even surpassed (Marion 2010, p. 313). This allows us to return to our previous concern if hermeneutics was rather trivialized—considering that Marion later conceived his saturated phenomena as events.11

Givenness and events were not articulated in terms of meaning-giving or sense-making. Nor do religious phenomena reveal meaning to the gifted. While the phenomenon of revelation, in its indeterminacy, appears both as a call or gift and as an event, the addressee of this revelation is not given any meaning of that call (or givenness). This absence of meaning explains why Marion considers the reduction to givenness, rather than hermeneutics, to be the necessary and inherent phenomenological method.

In the above quotation (Marion 2012a, pp. 41–43), Marion assigns to the gifted the function of giving givenness “its meaning” by “making the given appear…as a phenomenon that shows itself in and through itself.” The question then persists as to how the gifted can mediate a meaning that neither relates to him nor makes sense to him. Also, how could givenness or a pure call make sense outside a network of relationships, the world in its totality? As Heidegger says: “A bare subject without a world never ‘is’ proximally, nor is it ever given. And so, in the end, an isolated ‘I’ without others is just as far from being proximally given.” (Heidegger 1962, p. 116). Within a network of relationships, givenness can appear in its meaning to the gifted. Mackinlay’s analysis of hermeneutics in Being and Time also reveals this:

At least initially, in their being-ready-to-hand, entities are never encountered in isolation, but rather as part of a whole world, in which they have significance for us, and in which we are ourselves fundamentally implicated. The significance of entities is an expression of this totality of relations, which always includes their relation to Dasein as Being-in-the-world (BT§18, 120).

(Mackinlay 2010, p. 38)

Only in this fertile ground of relationship with others can the gifted make givenness manifest itself, or allow the given appear as what it is in itself, as a phenomenon that shows itself in and through itself (Marion 2012a, p. 41). Only in this context can givenness open a horizon of possible meanings for the gifted. However, it is also true that if there is an already existing network of relationships, it would serve as a symbolic ground upon which new meanings can appear. Although Marion’s concept of givenness has been severely criticized for ignoring the world (Mackinlay 2005, p. 179), Marion has since addressed this accusation. In a short article, La Donation Dispense du Monde, and closely following Patočka,12 Marion discovered the givenness of the world and concluded: “The world gives us what is given.” (Marion 2012b, p. 90). We can therefore agree with Tardivel that he “has nevertheless deepened the peculiar potentialities of a phenomenology of givenness.” (Tardivel 2020, p. 342).

Marion has responded not only to the accusation of wordlessness in his phenomenology. Although his earlier articulation of givenness faced widespread hermeneutical criticism,13 which can be justified within the framework of his two major initial texts (“Reduction and Givenness” and “Being Given”), it would be both unfair and flawed to maintain this critique in light of his more recent and engaged responses. Since the initial hermeneutic critique of givenness, Marion has addressed these issues in diverse writings (Marion [2001] 2002, 2010, 2012a, 2024) with the aim of repositioning hermeneutics within his phenomenology of givenness.

Let us now briefly summarize the contents of these later formulations, focusing on two texts14 that are particularly relevant to our discussion. In “The Hermeneutic of Givenness,” Marion, drawing on Gadamer, outlines the enigmatic structure of givenness—which, far from excluding hermeneutics, necessitates it—and thus frames its interpretation (hermeneutics) as contemporaneous with understanding. Hermeneutics would be a mere formula if it were solely about finding a sense of givenness, and not the sense, or if it involved the ego imposing itself on givenness. Rather, as Marion argues, not only does givenness set the pace for hermeneutics (Marion 2020, pp. 33–34), but in a “correct hermeneutics,” “the authority of the interpretation must ultimately shift from the interpreter to the interpreted” (Marion 2020, p. 34). This enterprise, as we know, is both complex and enigmatic.

For how could the interpreted understand itself without the self? Thus, for Marion, the enigmatic structure of givenness results from the “reciprocal interpretation” between the interpreted (givenness) and the interpreter (hermeneutist) (Marion 2020, p. 35). Gadamer had previously demonstrated, in the context of the fusion of horizons (historical past and present horizons), traceable to Nietzsche, that “there is no isolated horizon of the present in itself… Rather, understanding [Verstehen] is always the fusion of these horizons supposedly existing by themselves” (Marion 2020, p. 35; Gadamer 2004, p. 305). In other words, there is a reciprocity or intertwining of givenness and the phenomenon, and of past and present horizons.

Where Gadamer understands interpretation or “the hermeneutic phenomenon” as involving “dialogue and the structure of question and answer” (Gadamer 2004, p. 363), and where interpretation implies a recourse—by the interpreter—to understanding the question posed by the text itself (Gadamer 2004, p. 363) (givenness), or understanding the answer found in the text, Marion argues that hermeneutics must follow “in my nomenclature…the structure of call and response” (Marion 2020, p. 36). Marion’s dynamic of call and response is influenced not only by Emmanuel Levinas’s Totality and Infinity but also by Jean-Louis Chrétien’s L’appel et la réponse, in which the call is attested to in the response (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 287; Levinas 1979, p. 190; Chrétien 1992, p. 42). For Marion, the hermeneuticist must place themselves in the position of givenness in order to respond to the question or call. However, it is not evident that this transposition could be successful in truly reflecting the question and, consequently, the answer that, according to Gadamer, is already present in the text. Moreover, if Marion has written that “what the Word wants to tell me and the response that it awaits from me are known only by the Spirit, not by me” (Marion 2024, p. 98), how can the subject be certain that placing themselves in the position of the Word (givenness) will not result in their own projections rather than a genuine reflection of the Word?

Marion also draws on Heidegger in the same article, claiming that every hermeneutic requires, first and foremost, understanding (Verstehen). He distinguishes between the “primordial as”15 (Ursprünglicher Als) and the “apophantic as” (Als der Vorhandenheitsbestimmung).16 Marion cautions against the temptation of predication through the latter and explains the gap between the two in terms of the reciprocity of question and answer (Gadamer) or call and response (Marion, Levinas, Chrétien). This reciprocity ensures that “between the sense of Dasein and the signification of each being,” meaning will emerge from Dasein’s gaze. As Marion notes, “Meaning is an existential of Dasein, not a property attaching to beings, lying ‘behind’ them” (Marion 2020, p. 38; Heidegger 1962, pp. 151–52).

With this hermeneutic of the reciprocal structure of call and response, Marion initially seems to have addressed the earlier criticism regarding the lack of co-creation of meaning between givenness and the gifted. However, he strongly maintains that the meaning derived is solely that of the givenness.17 He asserts that “the givenness of sense…implies (as does all givenness of any gift whatsoever) the retreat and the disappearance of the giver (in this case, the interpreter)” and that the answer or sense “does not come…from the interpreter but from the interpreted, from the text” (Marion 2020, p. 34). This perspective aligns with Gadamer’s idea of the interpreter transposing himself or putting himself in another’s shoes (Sichversetzen), which Marion supports through the notion of anamorphosis (“conversion of the gaze”) to the revelation that comes from elsewhere (Marion 2024, pp. 196–203; Housset 2022). Elsewhere, in “Christian Philosophy”l—Hermeneutic or Heuristic?, Marion has argued that a “Christian Philosophy” becomes arbitrary and one among many other possible interpretations, when understood as a hermeneutic (Marion 2008a, pp. 90, 91). For him “to reduce ‘Christian philosophy’ to a hermeneutic thus exposes it to missing the specificity of ….revelation—by locking faith in its preambula” (Marion 2008a, p. 92). Instead of hermeneutics, he proposes a heuristic understanding of Christian philosophy that takes root in revelation itself: Christ. In other words, not the view of the Christian philosopher is important but the view of revelation itself. Dahl notes that, contrary to Marion’s earlier claim where “givenness gives phenomena so as not only to require a hermeneutic,” Marion’s updated view suggests that givenness itself provides the hermeneutic (Dahl 2023, p. 6). Thus, despite the reciprocity inherent in the call and response of hermeneutical understanding, Marion appears to have reinforced18 (Marion 2008c, p. 9) his previous position. Such a view might suggest that the intervention of the gifted’s point of view is compromised, namely that he carries with him his worldview into givenness. Even in Marion’s recent response, the point of view of the givenness is emphasized in hermeneutics, while acknowledging that the point of view of the gifted remains an inadequate response to the given text, call, or question.

4. Towards a Hermeneutical Modification of Givenness and the Gifted

We shall stand on Marion’s later idea of the reciprocity of call and response to show that the gifted’s gaze does not only convert to the gaze of givenness or revelations19 (anamorphosis) but that s/he, in a “hermeneutic gaze”, also brings with him his own point of view or worldview (the I, others, and the environment) to bear on what is received in a network of relationships that transforms him. According to Marion’s appropriation of Heidegger’s dictum that “meaning is an existential of Dasein,” meaning can be understood as a modulation within Dasein’s point of view. This point of view of Dasein (the hermeneutic gaze) is indispensable since it alone can explain the illusion that cohabits with givenness, i.e., with the phenomena. Then, we explore how the mutual interaction between givenness and the gifted unfolds dynamically in the call and response exemplified by St. Paul. Additionally, we will examine the fragility of a common space of mutual encounter between mother and infant, which is shaped by the hermeneutic gaze. In this space, where both the givenness (of the mother) and the infant’s hermeneutic gaze intersect, lies the potential for either reinforcing illusion or leading to a shared world. The hermeneutic gaze can modulate the divine word (aesthetic) in two ways: as an illusion (ecstatic), which reflects back on the individual, or as meaning, which integrates the individual into a faith community (symbolic). In this context, the three modes of divinity can be identified as aesthetic, ecstatic, and symbolic.

4.1. The Symbolic Transformation of the Gifted into the Witness

There is no doubt that the primacy of giving belongs to givenness. The self-givenness of givenness, or the call of the phenomenon of the divine, must in some way be intended for a subject. This does not mean that the subject’s pre-understanding is rendered superfluous. Even within the primacy of the self-givenness of givenness, the subject (the gifted) and givenness penetrate each other and, depending on the circumstances, either complete or impoverish the gift. In this context, we propose that Jean-Luc Marion’s concept of the gifted be adapted to emphasize the hermeneutic moment on the part of the subject. Thus, the question arises: where should we begin with the adaptation of the concept of the gifted?

For Marion, the gifted functions as a filter or prism that reveals the visibility of the gift. He or she is reduced to a pure screen upon which givenness (as light) is projected. The gifted becomes a mirror, and the givenness manifests independently of how the gifted is. However, nothing can be given and received without being received in the mode of the recipient—in its own way: Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur (“Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver”). The result of illuminating light projected onto a round and bluish wall differs from the result of the same light projected onto a very reddish and rectangular wall. There is something that the subject always brings with himself or herself in order to convey givenness, which always links it to the life-world as I-world (Selbstwelt), intersubjective world (Mitwelt), and environmental world (Umwelt) (Heidegger 1993, p. 33). This life-world represents for us the symbolic or hermeneutic moment.

The reaction of a person confronted with the existential question of death or loss to givenness, a call to a love relationship, or followership will differ from that of a person whose existential consciousness is marked by uncertainty. The response of a bereaved person to the call of followership will always be marked by an awareness of death. The how of life shapes the appearance of the call. The how of death differs from the how of a person seeking security and life insurance. To the first, Jesus answered: “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60), while to the second, He answered: “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” (Luke 9:58). The same call to followership, but different modes of the subject or hermeneutic grounds, and therefore, also different appearances of the call or givenness.

There is no doubt that the subject of religious experience (or givenness) remains indebted to the event or the call. This indebtedness could be described as “creature-consciousness” or “creature-feeling” (Rudolf Otto) or a “feeling of dependence” (Schleiermacher) in the face of a religious experience (Otto 1924, pp. 9–10). However, the subject does not experience a pure event or call that is entirely independent of his or her worldview. His or her “feeling of dependence” is always modulated from the outset. Steven Katz extensively demonstrates this in the context of religious experience: “There are NO pure (i.e., unmediated) experiences. Neither mystical experience nor more ordinary forms of experience give any indication…that they are unmediated…. The notion of unmediated experience seems, if not self-contradictory, at best empty…. A proper evaluation of this fact leads to the recognition that in order to understand mysticism it is not just a question of studying the reports of the mystic after the experiential event but of acknowledging that the experience itself, as well as the form in which it is reported, is shaped by concepts which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience” (Katz 1978, p. 26).20 The religious experience of a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or any other believer is not neutral, pure, or abstract with respect to the symbolic institution to which they are exposed temporarily and spatially. According to Katz, the Hindu believer does not merely have an experience of a certain phenomenon, which they later describe using Hindu language and symbolism. Rather, the experience (givenness) is already a Hindu experience from the outset, as it is never an immediate or unmediated experience of the phenomenon. Katz describes this as a “pre-formed anticipated Hindu experience of Brahman” (Katz 1978, p. 26). Similarly, the religious experience of a Christian or a Jew is shaped from the beginning by their respective traditions. Thus, one does not merely have a religious experience and then label it as Christian, Jewish, or Hindu; rather, the experience itself is inherently religious and culturally specific. For a Christian believer, for example, the experience is inherently a Christian experience of God or Jesus Christ. If bridging the gap between what is given in religious experience and how it is perceived requires a witness, then this witness cannot simply be a passive prism through which the light of givenness is projected, nor can s/he disregard his or her own symbolic framework. Instead, the religious experience—like the feeling of indebtedness to a higher power—is modulated by the symbolic ground of the world within which it occurs. The subject and his or her world, forming the hermeneutic moment (Mackinlay 2010, p. 39), are inseparable. When these two moments—the aesthetic feeling of indebtedness or dependence and the symbolic ground of the world—are integrated, the subject becomes a witness. A witness is someone who, within his or her own symbolic framework, testifies to the givenness (aesthetic because anonymous and indeterminate) that recalibrates him or her. This concept of the witness encompasses two key aspects that require further exploration.

The first moment, namely that the witness, from within his or her world, testifies to givenness: This witness is to be distinguished from Marion’s witness, who was considered a “worker of truth” and a “luminous witness” (témoin lumineux (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 217)), stripped of all symbolic grounds: “For the witness cannot avail themselves of a viewpoint that dominates the intuition”; he or she “cannot read or interpret the intuitive excess” (Marion [1997] 2002, p. 217). In other words, Marion’s earlier conception of a witness does not correspond to a hermeneuticist. In his later works, where the gifted was never “conceived as a passive submissive before the given” (Marion 2020, p. 44), the response of the gifted consists entirely of awaiting “precisely that which gives itself to be seen” (Marion 2024, p. 21), as he would not be able to receive givenness according to his or her measure (Marion 2024, p. 19). In other words, Marion’s earlier conception of the witness does not align with the role of a hermeneuticist. In his later works, Marion clarifies that the gifted is not merely passive or submissive before the given; instead, the response of the gifted involves awaiting “precisely that which gives itself to be seen” (Marion 2024, p. 21) without being able to receive givenness according to their own measure (Marion 2024, p. 19). However, as Gadamer demonstrated, hermeneutics require an interweaving of perspectives between what is to be seen and the gazer. Katz also emphasized that experience, whether mystical or ordinary, is mediated through symbolic grounds.

In contrast, the witness remains faithful to his or her world and givenness (“that which gives itself to be seen”), understanding givenness (the aesthetic in its indeterminacy) in relation to his or her world (i.e., the symbolic). The witness serves as a midpoint (Mackinlay 2005) between the aesthetic and the symbolic, although s/he cannot entirely escape the allure of the ecstatic. Marion’s recent understanding of the witness aligns with Mackinlay’s concept of a “middle point,” where the witness is described as “a gap within himself between… what he saw, heard, or experienced of the incident and what he can himself understand or explain about the incident” (Marion 2024, p. 19). Yet, the only role Marion attributes to the witness is reflecting or responding to21 givenness and making it manifest, which involves a conversion of his or her gaze or spirit to that of givenness (Marion 2024, pp. 199–200) and a retreat from his or her life-world and symbolic ground: “The givenness of sense… implies…the retreat and the disappearance of the…interpreter” (Marion 2020, p. 34).

Before returning to the “midpoint” above, let us briefly define the above terms: First, the esthetic designates for us the feeling of divinity in the sense of Kant’s reflective judgment without concepts. It designates like Sigmund Freud’s oceanic feelings22, Rudolf Otto’s feeling of creatureliness (Otto 1924, p. 10), and Kant’s sublimity23 the category of spiritual experience without God. It has a phenomenological and theological status: The first marks the pre-intentional area of facticity, sense, i.e., of the infinity and the indetermination of meaning. This indetermination of the facticity of sense-making corresponds to the phenomenological status of the esthetic. Theologically, the aesthetic can be determined as an interior religion (in the sense of Augustine’s interior intimo meo (Aurelius 1888, III, 6, 11). It redirects every external religion into the religion of the inner space and of the heart. It therefore finds its practical expression in the mystics as it preserves religion in its symbolic form from hardening. Secondly, the symbolic designates for us the determinacy of experience. If the esthetic reverts exterior religion to a religion of the heart, the symbolic moves this indeterminate interiority towards the external world. Here, consciousness is directed outwards. Therefore, the symbolic can be understood as a tool for the institutionalization of culture. If in Psychoanalysis, the symbolic is defined as the representation of unconscious sense, in phenomenology the symbolic can be understood as a determination of indeterminate phenomena. It can represent unity in the Kantian sense towards which diversity strives (Kant 2001, B. 99–100, p. 125). In relationship to religious experience, the symbolic represents those structures that already inhabit the subject and make it possible for him to make a concrete and determinate religious experience of the sublime or the esthetic. These structures of experience arise from culture and tradition, i.e., from the world of the subject. The designation “God” is an already established symbolic structure, which is capable of translating the diversity of religious experiences and unifying them. He, as a symbolic institutor, legitimizes the moral law. Concerning the phenomenological status of the symbolic, it is that which brings religious experience out of the realm of aesthetic ineffable indeterminacy into a determinate language. The theological status of the symbolic is “revelation”, i.e., making determinate and precise that which is hidden in divinity or in esthetic. Thirdly, the ecstatic self is the self that is not only imprisoned in its own world of self-reference, self-love, and self-image, but also the self that is incapable of communion—with humans and God. This is precisely because it involves a transposition of what ordinarily would be indeterminate into self-determinacy, of non-being into self-being, of divinity into an idol of the self, etc. The phenomenological status of the ecstatic is illusion or deception, at least as a possibility of sense-giving. The theological status of the ecstatic is idolatry. Theologically the ecstatic refers to idols that translate divinity into a figure of the self. Idol-worship is a genuine religious experience, even though in the end it refers us back to an experience of the self. In this sense then the ecstatic is that subject that takes the place of God and thus makes a universal claim to being divine. He appropriates to himself as an individual what belongs to the whole. Let us conclude these terminological definitions by repeating that the witness moves in all these networks of relationships and meanings, where he could be viewed as their midpoint.

The midpoint can also be found between hearing the word and acting on it: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at their face in a mirror” (James 1:22–23). Saint James was aware of this reflection of the word, in which the self becomes a mere prism for reflecting the call or givenness. In his view, merely hearing without acting—meaning not engaging oneself in the hearing process and allowing the word to be perceived without incorporating one’s own symbolic ground—is akin to being a prism through which the word merely passes. Engaging oneself in the act of listening is therefore a symbolic and hermeneutic act. For Saint Gregory of Nyssa, witnessing through one’s own life is the perfect way to correspond to “Christ” (Gregory of Nyssa 1980, p. 204). Bringing one’s own self or life into the hearing of the word “Christ” also marks the symbolic moment. Without this symbolic act, the witness would quickly forget “what they looked like” (James 1:24). In other words, the witness will not benefit from givenness if they do not bring themselves into it. It would no longer be accessible to them.

However, hearing the word (the aesthetic) is always preceded by listening (a symbolic act). In listening, I do not simply await “precisely that which gives itself” (Marion 2024, p. 21), but rather, I bring my own questions and concerns into the process, searching for a response. Thus, listening is already infused with foresight and symbolic expectation. This is a departure from Marion who holds with Gadamer that the question and answer spring from the text.

The second moment is that givenness recalibrates the witness. This is central to Marion’s phenomenology of event and givenness, suggesting that givenness opens the space for hermeneutics. Even if we initially speak of the witness’s testimony, this should not imply that the witness’s recalibration occurs only later; rather, the two are intertwined at the midpoint. We will now illustrate how the mutuality between givenness and the gifted dynamically plays out in the call and response exemplified by St. Paul.

The Example of Saul (Paul)

To illustrate this reciprocity, we turn to a well-known passage from the Acts of the Apostles (9:1–11, 17–22), which highlights the emergence of the witness. This passage recounts the story of Saul’s conversion:

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” 7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. [….] 11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. 20 At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. 21 All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” 22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.

First, Saul is deeply rooted in the symbolic, understood as a life-world with its specific determinacies. He was born into a Jewish family in the trading city of Tarsus, a region under Roman rule, from which he inherited Roman citizenship. Saul received a Jewish education and was trained in the school of Gamaliel to become a Pharisaic rabbi, an expert in Jewish law. The Greek world was also not foreign to him, making him familiar with both the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. His zeal for promoting Jewish law and religion was intense, and he believed that his fanatical pursuit of justice, through the persecution of those who deviated from the faith of his ancestors, was a service to God. He even obtained full authority from the high priest to persecute the followers of the new sect, Christianity, with the mandate “to bind and bring to Jerusalem any followers of the (new) way, both men and women, whom he found there” (Acts 9:2).

As Saul was on his way, a light suddenly shone from heaven around him, and he heard an unknown voice—the aesthetic—calling to him. At first, neither Saul nor his companions could identify this voice; it remained anonymous for the time being. The call initiated a conversation, and Saul engaged with the unknown voice. Although the bright light of the event overwhelmed him, making it difficult to comprehend, Saul nonetheless asked questions: “I know the God of our fathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God whose commandments are laid down for us in the Torah, preached by the prophets, the God who delivered Israel from its enemies. Who are you, Master?” This question resonates with Grondin’s inquiry into Marion’s concept of givenness: “Who or what calls? … Therefore, what phenomenon are we talking about?” Here, we see the dynamic of questions seeking answers already in motion, creating an opening toward the aesthetic that is giving itself—an opening that modulates givenness. Although Saul’s question is provoked by the event, it also emerges from his own inner world, not solely from the text or the event itself.

In response to Saul’s question, the previously indeterminate voice is revealed as a concrete, symbolic person: Jesus. This encounter with Jesus is not merely an abstract or neutral experience but, in the words of Katz, a “pre-formed anticipated…experience of” (Katz 1978, p. 26) Jesus, to whom Saul was already exposed within his symbolic ground. This response illustrates that while the primacy of giving belongs to givenness itself, it does not preclude understanding or meaning as an existential aspect of Dasein within its symbolic context. Saul’s transformation into Paul is owed precisely to this aesthetic, which he did not create. In fact, Saul’s entire life was shaped in opposition to the call of the aesthetic within the Christian community. This call now presents itself to him as a direct address (“Saul, Saul… I am Jesus”). Despite the primacy of the call, the aesthetic phenomenon would have no meaning for Saul without the symbolic ground of his question, “Who are you?” and the symbolic ground of the answer, “I am Jesus.”

It is precisely this new identity—”I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting”—that reorients Saul and gives him a new identity as Paul. This recalibration of the witness is documented in Acts: “Immediately, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again” (Acts 9:18). These scales represent not only the physical blindness of his eyes but also the figurative scales of his old world. It became a new world. It is not the aesthetic but rather the witness himself (Saul), who testifies through his actions and deeds. He was baptized (Acts 9:18), received a new identity as Paul, and “immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:20). By proclaiming Jesus—rather than some anonymous feeling—a transposition of the aesthetic into the symbolic takes place. For the witness, it was no longer a question of an indeterminate, anonymous voice, but of the Messiah, Jesus.

In this way, Saul exercised a hermeneutic gaze. This gaze is similar to the first-person perspective in phenomenology, which is inherently subjective: “All first-person perspectives are already inhabited by a plurality of subjects, i.e., an intersubjective community” (Ekweariri 2023, p. 14).24 No gaze exists in isolation from an intersubjective community or the surrounding environment. In Saul’s case, the hermeneutic gaze is grounded in his symbolic context. However, it is possible for the view of others, or humanity in general, to be appropriated by a single individual, leading to a self-referential gaze characterized by self-image or self-love (ecstatic).

The hermeneutic gaze differs from the gaze resulting from transposition (in the sense of Gadamer) or anamorphosis (Marion), as these approaches involve viewing from the perspective of the other or from elsewhere. Such gazes do not only risk obscuring the symbolic ground of the self25, but also are unable to explain the origin of illusion. Instead, the plurality of other gazes within a subjective gaze (the hermeneutic gaze) is elicited by the aesthetic event or givenness. In the Pauline context, the hermeneutic gaze interpreted the gaze-eliciting aesthetic (an indeterminate and anonymous voice) as the symbolic (Jesus).

We can see, therefore, that these two moments—the aesthetic and the symbolic—can never be separated in the witness. In addition, Saul’s old world also interferes with Paul’s new world. When he appears as a witness (Paul), this testimony cannot be understood independently of his old world (Saul). Saul’s old world is the hermeneutic foundation not only for understanding the call of the aesthetic but also for understanding the witness (Paul). He already possessed a sense of the One God within a community of believers, a God who would one day return as the Messiah. In Marion’s description of the call of St. Mathew and the election of Samuel, this symbolic ground did not feature; Marion’s interest was to demonstrate how the call is attested in the response (Marion [1997] 2002, pp. 282–87).

Because the same hermeneutic gaze that interprets the aesthetic is intertwined with an excessive experience of the self (ecstatic), the witness’s testimony will always remain incomplete and imperfect on this side of existence and the experience of the divine is always accompanied by the ecstatic. Within the hermeneutic gaze of the witness, a transposition can occur either toward the symbolic or toward the ecstatic. The hermeneutic gaze is unavoidable because the witness must continually bring himself into the aesthetic, which happens or gives itself.

4.2. Transposition of the Aesthetic

4.2.1. The Witness and the Aesthetic: The Transposition of the Aesthetic into the Symbolic or the Ecstatic via the Hermeneutic Gaze

There is an imbalance or asymmetry between the event of the word or its givenness (the aesthetic) and the witness. The witness will not always remain faithful to the call Via givenness and the event. The witness will continually vacillate between faithfulness and disloyalty to the givenness, with varying degrees of fidelity. It is even possible for the witness to deviate entirely from the task of manifesting the event or the giving of the word, potentially sinking into a complete distortion of the same and thus becoming the ecstatic.

Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology can be viewed positively as a means of protecting divinity from idolatry—that is, from falling into being. Idolatry occurs when what is typically beyond being—the invisible, the indeterminate—is domesticated and perceived as a specific form (being) of existence. Heidegger envisioned God beyond being in the form of the “last God,” (Heidegger 1989, pp. 411–16; Dastur 2020)—a character marked by withdrawal. In line with this movement, a hermeneutic gaze26 can also become idolatrous if it transforms the invisible into a finite form of the self or finite being.

Through the hermeneutic gaze, the “witness” integrates himself, encompassing the plurality of perspectives, into the reception of the word. By bringing the totality of his world into this gaze, he enables a symbolic transposition that converts the indeterminacy and infinitude of the aesthetic into something more determinate. However, it is also possible that during this transposition, the infinite and indeterminate nature of the aesthetic may be subsumed by his ego-world. In this latter scenario, the invisible becomes visible as a projection of his own self-image, and what should remain indeterminate is instead molded into a specific image of this self-gaze. This results in a complete collapse into the ecstatic. The ecstatic is the self (Übermensch) that appropriates for a concrete existence what inherently belongs to the whole species. This can manifest as an excessive feeling or experience of the self, in which the self is experienced in a manner that can only be rightly attributed to the divine.

If the hermeneutic gaze is indispensable for the manifestation of the aesthetic in the “witness”, then we cannot avoid the risk of it plunging in one direction or the other. This gaze may either manifest the divine within a particular symbolic community (or world) for the Witness, or it may reveal the obsession of the self to become its own divinity. To illustrate this claim, let us now consider an experience of the aesthetic (the givenness of the mother), which can be transformed by the infant’s hermeneutic gaze either into a self-experience (ecstatic) or into an experience situated within a plurality of gazes (the symbolic).

4.2.2. An Example of the Infant: The Transitional Space as a Possibility for Illusion or for a Shared World

To articulate the excess of self-experience, we first refer to the “production” of “transitional objects and transitional phenomena” within Winnicott’s concept of transitional space in infants. The indeterminate (aesthetic) that occurs in this transitional space can either transpose into illusion (ecstatic) or into a determinate reality (the symbolic). To demonstrate this, let us first define the terms “transitional objects,” “transitional phenomena,” and “transitional space.”

The entire range of activities of a newborn revolves around the rhythmic/coherent flow between tension and relaxation, hunger and satiety, and eating and sleeping. Within these coherent rhythms, the breast phenomenon remains constant, infinite, and inexhaustible in its givenness. The consistent rhythmic coherence might give the impression that the mother’s breast is a creation or generation of the infant. Gradually, as development progresses, all activities and objects with which the infant engages begin to reflect the mother’s breast.

In the earliest stages of development, infants clench their fists, put their thumbs in their mouths, and suck their thumbs. Later, these activities expand: they begin to grasp soft or hard objects such as dolls or teddy bears, manipulate toys at will, and so forth. Donald W. Winnicott refers to these objects, which develop around the infant’s basic need for satisfaction, as transitional objects (Winnicott 2005, p. 2). These objects extend to other phenomena—such as the infant’s babbling, its intuitive and creative use of objects (like blankets, feeding bottles, wool, etc.), and its spontaneous and intuitive imitation of the language of older children—which the English psychoanalyst and pediatrician termed transitional phenomena.

Winnicott introduces the concepts of “transitional objects” and “transitional phenomena” to designate the intermediate area of experience, situated primary creative activity and the projection of what has already been introjected, and between the primary unawareness of indebtedness and the acknowledgment of indebtedness (Winnicott 2005, p. 2, 3). This “intermediate area of experiencing” describes for Winnicott “an intermediate state between a baby’s inability and his growing ability to recognize reality” (Winnicott 2005, p. 3). With the transitional objects or phenomena, the infant begins to creatively navigate a transitional space. This space introduces the infant to “a neutral area of experience” (Winnicott 2005, p. 17) that exists between subjectivity and objectivity—an area of indetermination (the aesthetic). Therefore, transitional objects arise neither from the infant’s subjective, creative work (like the phenomenon of play27) nor from the objective outside world.

If the space of play is neither purely subjective nor objective but exists between the infant and the mother (Winnicott 2005, p. 55), then what occurs within this space can be described as groundless givenness or a groundless event. The transitional space of play presupposes the presence of a mother who understands how to engage with the child. This intermediate space, or transitional phenomena, is precarious as it delineates the boundary between illusion (ecstatic) and the shared world (symbolic) (Winnicott 2005, p. 69ff).

4.2.3. How Does the Transposition to the Illusion of Ego-Centeredness or to the Common World of Culture Occur?

At this point, we might ask how illusion arises in the intermediary space. Does it emerge from the subjective side or from the maternal side? Is it the result of the infant’s own processes, or is the mother entirely responsible for it? What constitutes this illusion? Similarly, the question applies to determinate reality: When can we speak of reality? What defines it as a shared world or co-world?

The Generation of Illusion: One possible explanation is that either the infant or the mother creates the illusion. If we consider the infant’s role, one might argue that the infant somehow conjures up the mother’s breast whenever it needs to satisfy its instinctual needs, similar to an animal’s behavior.28 However, the illusion of constant availability of the breast would be impossible without the actual presence of the mother’s breast; it would not persist if the mother did not adapt to the child’s needs. Instead, the illusion arises from the overlap between the child’s fantasies (phantasies or hallucinations) and what the mother makes available. (Winnicott 2005, p. 16). Thus, the illusion emerges because there is an external reality (the mother or her breast) that corresponds to the infant’s own capacity to create.

However, the infant believes it is capable of conjuring the breast at will. Each time it desires the breast out of instinctive and compulsive need, (Praglin 2006, p. 2) it appears as if by magic. As soon as the infant is satisfied, the breast seems to disappear, only to reappear in its mouth whenever it cries or screams again, signaling hunger. This creates a sense of “omnipotence” or an “experience of omnipotence” (Winnicott 2005, p. 63) for the infant, resulting in a coherent rhythm between hunger and fullness, the desire to eat and fall asleep, and so on. This overlapping rhythm fosters the impression that the mother and infant are one and belong together (Richir 2006, p. 279). Of course, the infant does not perceive this as an illusion, but we understand that the seeming magic of an always-available breast is indeed an illusion.

In fact, the infant perceives itself as a form of givenness (the mother) that manifests and unfolds within the transitional space. Its illusion lies in the unconscious assumption that the breast or the mother is a part of itself, making the world indistinguishable from its own being. This sense of unity is also extended to transitional objects and phenomena. The illusion, therefore, is rooted in the presumptuous gaze (belief) that the infant is indistinguishable from the source of givenness—an assumption that has been recognized in both psychoanalysis (James 1890; Rochat 2018) and phenomenological philosophy, particularly in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2002; Brock 2015, p. 211; De Preester 2002, p. 217).

This illusion arises when the hermeneutic gaze, which is initially inhabited by a plurality of gazes, dissolves into a self-image. Consequently, the anonymous and inexhaustible givenness beyond being (the aesthetic) is transposed into the ego-world of a finite being. Thus, the infant’s self-experience exemplifies a lapse into the ecstatic—that is, a self that appropriates for its concrete existence (as a human Dasein) what belongs to an inexhaustible whole or species (humanity or Menschheit). In this ecstatic state, the self is experienced in a manner that can only be appropriately applied to the divine, except in this case, it manifests as an idol.

Transposition to the Intersubjective World of Culture: The transitional area is not solely a space for the creation of illusions. It also offers other possibilities, such as the potential to introduce the infant to the diverse world of culture. Through this process, the infant can gradually move beyond the ego-world of illusion and enter the shared reality of the common world. Here, the infant succeeds in being alone, (Winnicott 1958, pp. 416–18) even when the mother, her breast, or its symbolic substitute is no longer at his disposal (Richir 2006, p. 270).

The mother contributes to the illusion by her perpetual availability. Each time the child “fantasizes” (as Winnicott describes) about the mother’s breast within the coherent rhythm of waking up, feeling hungry, wanting to eat, etc., the mother, her breast, or its equivalent is already there. This crucial aspect of maternal availability also plays a role in the disillusionment process. However, this requires not just any mother, but a “sufficiently good mother” (Winnicott 1960, 1965). Such a mother is no longer fully available to meet the child’s needs. By gradually withdrawing her availability, she disrupts the coherent and rhythmic flow. She no longer completely adapts to the child’s needs: “The good enough mother, as I have stated, starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant’s needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant’s growing ability to deal with her failure” (Winnicott 2005, p. 14).

The active role of the mother may initially appear to render the infant passive. However, it is the infant who must engage in a hermeneutical gaze, actively interpreting givenness to recognize it for what it is. The infant brings forth its “phantasies” and the assumption of being omnipotent, believing it can conjure the mother’s breast at will. Yet, this expectation continuously goes unmet, leading to potential questioning—seeking answers to the question: What is it that continues to give itself beyond my power to generate it? Over time, the infant realizes that this givenness does not belong to it but is instead a manifestation of the mother’s love: “incomplete adaptation to need makes objects real, that is to say, hated as well as loved” (Winnicott 2005, p. 14). Through this realization, the infant comes to recognize the mother for who she truly is. In response to Grondin’s inquiry, “who or what calls?…Therefore, what phenomenon are we talking about?” the infant can answer: “It is love that calls me and that freely gives itself to me”. By recognizing the mother (the self-giving nature of motherly love) for what she is, the infant also recognizes itself for what it is: an “I” among others, an “I” capable of accepting the mother’s love (and the love of the world) despite its own limitations. This acceptance of love opens up an infinite array of possible worlds, transforming the infant’s reality. In this shared world, individuals assume their roles and coexist as “I” and “thou.”

In religious discourse or experience, this givenness is understood as unconditional, an indeterminate feeling of being loved that precedes and transforms the “witness”. However, this unconditional feeling of love is open to various possibilities, depending on where the hermeneutic gaze leads. For instance, it could turn into a perversion of givenness as self-love, or it could be recognized as motherly love, with other variations possible, such as Christian love, love of neighbor, etc., in their specificity. These are the possible ways in which what is given can hold meaning for the “witness”.

5. Concluding Remarks: The Danger of the Hermeneutic Gaze for Givenness of Religious Experience

The transposition from the transitional space into illusion and then into the common world of reality suggests to us a shift from the aesthetic through the hermeneutic view into the ecstatic and symbolic. The ecstatic self is a “witness” who engages in a self-referential hermeneutic gaze, drawing from the groundless, the unconditional, and the inexhaustible, and interpreting or appropriating this as its own (self-love). The symbolic self, likewise a “witness” who exercises a hermeneutic gaze embedded in a plurality of gazes, draws from the same sources but interprets them as belonging to the shared reality of “I and thou (e.g., mother’s love, love of neighbor, etc.).

What the ecstatic and symbolic selves have in common is their hermeneutic gaze, which draws from the inexhaustible. The difference between them lies in the transposition: the ecstatic self transposes the inexhaustible into the ego world, while the symbolic self transposes it into the world of shared reality. Consequently, the phenomena that give themselves within the hermeneutic gaze are always accompanied by both illusions and symbolic meanings. There is no guarantee that this gaze will lead us entirely to a symbolic world (e.g., a world governed by the principle of love between specific persons: husband and wife, mother and child, etc.) rather than to illusions (a world governed by the principle of self-love).

If I must draw on the aesthetic when speaking about the religious experience of God, then I must perform a transposition in religious discourse about the symbolic, i.e., practice a hermeneutic gaze. However, if a hermeneutic gaze remains indispensable when speaking about God (the symbolic), then I cannot avoid the illusion of the same (God as idol of the self). In other words, insofar as a hermeneutic gaze is inescapable for the witness, for whom givenness (as a religious experience of divinity) is meant to make meaning, nothing can shield the symbolic determination of God as love par excellence from the potential corruption of the same Via ecstatic illusions of self-love. This is precisely where the danger of the religious experience of God lies. It requires us to transpose from that which gives itself abundantly beyond being, and simultaneously exposes us to a hermeneutic gaze that is equally open to illusions and the possibilities of qualifying our experience based on how they make meaning to us.

If in Marion’s phenomenology of the givenness, the symbolic, and the ecstatic did not feature, it is precisely because he insisted that meaning is that of the sole givenness to whose gaze (anamorphosis) the gifted must convert. In other words, the hermeneutic gaze was missing.