god — love — revelationenological rather than theological thinking, even if its theological con-
sequences contain the opportunity of creating a profound dialogue
with religion.
3. Marion’s defence of phenomenology and the
phenomenality of the saturated phenomenon
According to Marion, the basic principle of Husserlian phenomenology
generates a self-contradiction. Thus, it is necessary to rethink the
structure of phenomenality in its relationship to the intuiting subject.
Together with this need, Marion introduces the question that becomes
so central to his thought. He asks whether it is possible to have a
phenomenon that is absolutely unconditioned, irreducible and auto-
nomous, a phenomenon that cannot ever be reduced to the ego, a
phenomenon the intuition of which is unconditioned. This kind of
phenomenon exists — Marion says — and it is, precisely, the saturated
phenomenon.
With the question of the existence of the saturated phenomenon
Marion realizes an operation that is much more radical than it may
seem at first. Although the saturated phenomenon presents itself as an
extraordinary phenomenon in the sense of its irreducibility,^18 Marion
lets us understand that every phenomenon is in itself somehow
“saturated.” In showing the risk associated with Husserl’s position (i.
e. the loss of the original way in which the phenomenon presents
itself) Marion’s work indicates that the mode of presentation of
the Gegebenheit must be reconsidered.^19 The act of subtracting the
- Marion formulates the principle of phenomenology in these terms: “Autant de
réduction, autant de donation”, Étant donné. Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation,
Paris: PUF, 19982, 23, which can be considered as the alternative to Husserl’s and
Heidegger’s thesis of “autant d’apparence, autant d’être.” This means that the Gege-
benheit is always proportional to the reduction, i.e. to the intuition of the subject.
However, the problem is to understand what happens when we have a phenom-
enon which cannot be reduced to our intuition, because it appears to us, but not
through the egological reduction. - In brief: the risk of Husserl’s phenomenology is to become a sort of idealism
that is very close to that of Fichte, in which das Ich posits by itself das Nicht-Ich.
The egological intuition would posit givenness by itself and so would be no long-