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Document Details :

Title: Secular Saturation and the Re-Enchantment of the World
Subtitle: Reading Jean-Luc Marion Otherwise
Author(s): ONISHI, Bradley B.
Journal: Louvain Studies
Volume: 39    Issue: 4   Date: 2015-2016   
Pages: 392-412
DOI: 10.2143/LS.39.4.3191741

Abstract :
While debates about whether or not Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology − along with the ‘theological turn in French phenomenology’ more broadly − has illegitimately introduced theological elements into the philosophical arena, scant attention has been paid to its import for philosophical approaches to secularity. In this article I argue that Marion’s rendering of saturated phenomena has been adapted by his translator Jeffrey Kosky in order to formulate an ‘enchanted secularity’ in the face of the disenchantment of the world proclaimed by Max Weber and his heirs. While not ignoring debates about the limits and scope of phenomenology, I maintain that it is important to notice how Kosky’s secular rendering of saturation opens up new vistas for the application of Marion’s phenomenology. Recently Marion has confirmed that his third phenomenological reduction is meant to complement a robust Barthian theology of revelation. However, Kosky has appropriated Marion’s approach to saturation in order to give an account of secularity that reveals a world beset by uncertainty and unknowability. Kosky’s engagement with Marion is significant for how it decouples saturation from revelation, thereby incorporating key elements from Marion’s work without having to adopt its more controversial − and less tenable − components.

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