laszlo tengelyibook, Janicaud published his famous pamphlet on the Theological Turn in
French Phenomenology.^5 The list of the thinkers at the fore front of this
text is quite different from that contained, twelve years earlier, in
Descombes’s book. Besides the later Merleau-Ponty, Janicaud con-
siders Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jean-
Louis Chrétien; he opposes to these thinkers mainly Paul Ricœur,
but, occasionally, also one or another philosopher of the younger
generation, above all Marc Richir.^6 Derrida is hardly taken into
account; Foucault is not mentioned. At this time, even Deleuze is
almost entirely disregarded. Of course, this is by no means a sign of
any disparaging judgment upon the great post-structuralists. They are
considered as almost classical thinkers, who, however, are not im-
mediately concerned with recent developments.
As a diagnostic description of a profound change in the intellectual
climate of France, the notion of a ‘theological turn” has a certain
convincing power. The French left, la gauche, which had dominated the
intellectual life in Paris up until the second half of the 1980s, recoiled,
to some extent, after 1989. In the 1990s, some original thinkers with
great erudition came to the fore, and they were rather resistant to any
kind of political radicalism and showed themselves committed to, or
at least attracted by, the Christian religion. Firstly, I will mention a
thinker who is not so much a phenomenologist as a historian of
philosophy and mainly a specialist in Schelling, but who, as an expert
on Husserl and Heidegger, is at least close to phenomenology as well.
I am thinking, here, of Jean-François Marquet, who is one of the most
learned and profound thinkers of our age in France.^7 The name of Jean-
Louis Chrétien must be added, as well. According to a pertinent re-
mark made by Janicaud, le rayonnement d’une spiritualité is characteristic
of Chrétien.^8 Furthermore, Jean-Luc Marion must be mentioned; he
is held by Janicaud to be the most creative among the thinkers whom,
- Dominique Janicaud, Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française, Com-
bas: Éd. de l’éclat, 1991. - Ibid., 34f.
- Cf. Jean-Francois Marquet, Singularité et événement, Grenoble: J. Millon, 1995;
Miroirs de l’identité. La littérature hantée par la philosophie, Paris: Hermann, 1996;
Restitutions. Études d’histoire de la philosopohie allemande, Paris: Vrin, 2001. - Dominique Janicaud, La phénoménologie éclatée, Combas: Éd. de l’éclat, 1997, 10.