<i>Mihi magna quaestio factus sum</i>: The Privilege of Unknowing

Marion, Jean‐Luc

doi:10.1086/424974

Cited by 26 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Incomprehensibility is the God image. For Jean-Luc Marion (2005) this incomprehensibility constitutes what he calls the privilege of unknowing. It guarantees the dignity of the human being, which always exceeds understanding.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A life free from care’ – The hermit and the analyst

Henderson

2016

Psychodynamic Practice

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In August 1965 Thomas Merton (1970) went to live full-time in his hermitage. On the eve of his move he gave a talk to the novices of Gethsemani. He described his aspirations for the hermit life. His aim he said was "to put away all care, to live without care, to not have to care." He opposed this to the life of the world which "is a life of care… a life of useless care… self-defeating care… a life which cannot confront the inevitable fact of death." (p. 220) It seems to me that this vocation to carelessness bears striking resonances with the vocation of the psychoanalyst. What I want to explore in this paper are some of the ways in which hermits and analysts get up to the same kind of mischief. I'll look at parallels between some of Merton's writings and writings of psychoanalysts, including Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion. Hermitages and consulting rooms share the quality of being removed from the everyday world of family, business, politics and entertainment. In Merton's (2014) words, "[The hermit] is outside all our projects, plans, assemblies, movements." (p. 80) These spaces are set apart. They are at a distance from normal life. In the case of the hermit this distance is normally ensured by physical separation. In the case of the analyst the distance is created by the cloister-like functions of the time boundaries and confidentiality. The consulting room is quiet and protected from intrusions. While we imagine hermits living in the woods or in the mountains, there are hermits in the city.

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confidence: 99%

‘A life free from care’ – The hermit and the analyst

Henderson

2016

Psychodynamic Practice

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Section: The Logic Of the Giftmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the reason underlying the gift of my subjectivity is rendered within the restrictive lens of an economy of money, power structures, genetics, or environmental contingencies, then the excess of that gift that lives in me is hidden, and I become whatever the particular economic lens can see of me. As Marion (2005b) states regarding the medicalized lens (a lens frequently borrowed by psychology), [W]hen I find myself in a medicalized situation (e.g., admittance to the hospital, removal of clothing, transfer to surgery, the reading of test results, submission to treatment), I become a medical object. Or more precisely, the hospital technology’s inevitable hold of power over me eliminates in me anything that will not reduce to a medical object .…”

Section: Philosophical Debates On the Gift: Mauss Derrida And Marionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A thought on giving: Toward an aneconomic relational subjectivity.

Becker¹,

Goodman²,

MacDonald³

2014

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology

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Authentic gift giving is a relational act that entails an uncoerced, selfless offering free from expectation of repayment. Such gifts are invaluable because what is actually given and received is beyond proper measure (e.g., friendship, love, life, time, etc.). In contrast, economic transactions entail relations instrumentally defined whereby owned commodities and services are exchanged for a price that is beneficial to both buyers and receivers. Some anthropologists and philosophers argue that authentic gifts are impossible because of an inescapable economic mentality that subtly dictates our thinking about relationships. In light of the rise of relational theories in psychology, we ask whether authentic gifts are possible and what conceptual implications such a prospect holds for a theory of relational subjectivity. We draw upon the work of contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion who shows that the logic of the economy is founded upon and supported by the Western metaphysical assumptions of causality. Marion's phenomenological method establishes possible gifts irreducible to abstract or subjective causes and, therefore, exceeding economic logic. Accordingly, thinking about gifts beyond causality requires rethinking the nature of givers and receivers in noneconomic terms. Doing so leads to the conceptual possibility for the formation of an aneconomic relational subjectivity, which Marion calls 'the gifted.'

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“…Marion 70 believes that we can address these questions through discussion of 'the privilege of unknowing', a meditation on Kantian anthropology that exhibits an Augustinian concern and a phrase that also appears in the work of Rahner. This exploration of a post-Cartesian Augustinian phenomenology should not come as any surprise to students of Heidegger; Heidegger gave a series of lectures in 1921 entitled 'Augustinus und der Neuplatonismus' -a commentary on book ten of the Confessions which in fact anticipates many of the themes of Being and Time.…”

Section: Conclusion: Towards An Augustinian Phenomenology Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A DESIRE UNTO DEATH’: THE DECONSTRUCTIVE THANATOLOGY OF JEAN‐LUC MARION^*

Wardley

2007

The Heythrop Journal

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One of the most persistent questions in modern theology has been that of how we can adequately acknowledge the stranger. Drawing upon the work of post-Heideggerian theorist of language and death, Jacques Derrida, and his own creative re-reading of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, the Catholic theologian and phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion has attempted to reconstruct what he regards as a genuinely Husserlian phenomenology. In so doing he has mapped out a phenomenology of love and a phenomenology of that divine gift as 'being given as givenness'; that is, a condition of life itself. In fact, as I will argue, this rests on the boundary between theology and thanatology (the philosophy of our encounter with that most radical stranger, death) and in his recent reflections upon 'saturated phenomena' Marion has explored the interplay between traditional theological topics such as hope and death and contemporary arguments on meaning, symbol and ritual. Christian hope resides in an act of remembrance and Marion argues for the eucharist -in its recollection of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ -as the site of human hope; only this crucial eucharistic move upwards and outwards can overcome the burden of Western metaphysics. It is a literary move which takes us some way towards elevating the language which we use in talking about and recognising the other beyond that of the narrow model offered to us by some commentators of Levinas and one which encourages us to look again at poetry, hymn and Scripture. *An earlier, shorter version of this article first appeared in eSharp, Issue 7: Faith, Belief and Community (Spring

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Mihi magna quaestio factus sum: The Privilege of Unknowing

Cited by 26 publications

References 2 publications

‘A life free from care’ – The hermit and the analyst

‘A life free from care’ – The hermit and the analyst

A thought on giving: Toward an aneconomic relational subjectivity.

‘A DESIRE UNTO DEATH’: THE DECONSTRUCTIVE THANATOLOGY OF JEAN‐LUC MARION^*

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Mihi magna quaestio factus sum: The Privilege of Unknowing

Cited by 26 publications

References 2 publications

‘A life free from care’ – The hermit and the analyst

‘A life free from care’ – The hermit and the analyst

A thought on giving: Toward an aneconomic relational subjectivity.

‘A DESIRE UNTO DEATH’: THE DECONSTRUCTIVE THANATOLOGY OF JEAN‐LUC MARION*

Contact Info

Product

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‘A DESIRE UNTO DEATH’: THE DECONSTRUCTIVE THANATOLOGY OF JEAN‐LUC MARION^*